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President Obama attends a filming of a show for "The View" hosted by Whoopi Goldberg and co-host Barbara Walters at ABC studios on Sept 24, 2012. This happens just as world leaders are greeted by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as they arrive for a meeting of the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York. And just as Tim Arango reports in the NYT that the situation in the Middle East is seeing spillover affects from Syria that affect the entire region, and Middle East tensions are rising.

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The questions and responses of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton about who can be called a "progressive" in the Democratic party in 2016.

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Supreme Court of US decision Nov 10, 2025 not to review gay marriage ruling called the Obergefell ruling. 

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Turkish American MIT economist is awarded the Nobel Prize- but not for the work he needs recognition for the renewal of America and US Way Forward. Daron Acemoglu's work is important not just for a new look at countries that experienced colonialism noted by the Nobel folks in Stockholm. Much of his recent work on "Why Nations Fail," and "The Narrow Corridor," cover the United States and why it is important that US policies keep the goal of "We the People" uppermost. George Washington reminded America to be wary of the  "absurd notion that the many are made for the few," in his Draft of the Inaugural Address in 1789. In this sense the Nobel committee and much of the economics profession is far behind the times as the focus has shifted to how countries that were once known as developed have neglected rebuilding their industrial base, neglected their infrastructure modernization investments, and neglected workers and families connected with it, that are the foundations of progress and a better life. This is also an issue in 2024 for the right Way Forward for the US, and for nations in Europe, Asia and the rest of the world. ...

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Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman's view of Afghnistan differs significantly from New York Times correspondent Filkins understanding from years of reporting going back about a decade. Filkins sees the complexities of Pastun country inside Afghnistan and Pakistan and the military and ISI's involvement, and other correspondents have pointed to the narcotics trade and corruption. Kerry's simplistic view is that the Taliban do not enjoy much support, when actually Americans are seen on the ground as foreign occupiers. These correspondents in the field point to this as an everpresent danger, which would tilt support to those fighting foreigners, with nationalist and Muslim sentiment prevailing over everything else. And Kerry appears to be too willing to dismiss allegations of narcotics involvement of the Karzai administration with the "show me" comment. For critics of the Bush administration this is simply astounding, when so much is at stake. Does patient mean digging in one's heels slowly? But that is how the Vietnam intervention ran into trouble, without public sentiment in support of the plans....

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In this interview with Der Spiegel Bernie Sanders reflects on the 2016 election. He says that the Democratic Party missed the fact that many people in the midwest, south and other parts of the country, were worse off after president Obama left than when he came in in 2008. He also says Hillary Clinton relied too heavily on speechwriters and advisers upto the point of  having three speechwriters say why she was running for president. He finds the cuts proposed to healthcare, in the budget, and action on climate change, immoral. He also points out about the investigations that Mr. Mueller is someone everybody respects and that it would be wrong to offer a biased opinion, that Trump supporters would see this in the way that he is picked on when he just came in. He also believes Trump supporters are like other voters and are likely to look at the results, how better off they are under the Trump administration.

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As the Obama administration plans a large stimulus spending plan that may approach $1 trillion over several years, considering also the second phase of the $800 billion first phase stimulus, there is a concern that there may be wasteful spending and social costs of borrowing and spending by the government of such proportions. In economics jargon this hinges on whether there is amultiplier effect of spending, higher if its efficiently and well spent with less impact on private consumption and investment, and lower if the opposite were true. The assumption behind amultiplier of 1.0 for an additional bridge or road is that resources like manpower and capital that would be otherwise idle are deployed to produce something useful. An increase in one unit of government purchases increases by one unit the real gross domestic product. The government has effectively created the additional bridge or road without a cut in anybody's consumption or a businesses investment. The other contrasting approaches are to say there is a multiplier of zero, meaning there is a social cost in two ways. One the reduction of consumption and the crowding out of businesses investing in new products and technologies for example, and second in the inefficent use of resources if a government bureaucracy is put to work allocating money and the additional dangers of favoritism and corruption. To say that there is a multipier of 1.5 would mean that the government figures out a way to get private investment through conversion of plants for automotive parts say to make wind turbine blades by giving incentives, tax benefits and grants, spends on a dilapidated road and public transportation infrastructure that may provide benefits in increased growth capacity over future years. The limits of a government bureaucracy and inefficiency of government would in this case be addressed by transparency rules adopted and measures that track progress that are freely available to all citizens say on a website on the internet, and by bringing in fresh management talent from the private sector. There appears to be no generalization that can be applied for one multiplier for all projects. It may be that the multiplier will vary with the project. Some projects like the conversion of a factory making unneeded auto parts to a badly needed wind energy part, to change the dynamics of energy market pricing, to meet energy needs and cut emissions, may end up having a multiplier much above 1.0. A redundant or less needed bridge has a lower multiplier than a bridge rebuilt before it leads to breakdown. And also the complication that too large a movement in one direction say of stimulus spending, might result in a shift of the curve towards a smaller multiplier and diminishing returns, as the resources to track such a large expenditure and the talent to adminster are overextended. The social cost of private investment not making that investment in new technology, new product or improved product has to be figured into all this, both at the conceptual level as all costs and benefits may not be picked up in the analysis, and at the macro level keeping in mind that the animal spirits, as they were once described, may just not be there to absorb the huge outlays which a government can make. These do not come without an opportunity cost and borrowing costs. All this leads one to to conclude that spending has to be carefully evaluated and projects assessed on a case by case basis for costs and benefits. The spending has to be balanced to provide just as many incentives for private investment to invest in new products and technologies. One way the Obama team is attempting to address this is to include a $300 billion tax cut for businesses and individuals. The business tax cuts are aimed at helping small business with losses, and for future investments and making hires and forgoing layoffs. The other part relates to careful evaluation of spending projects and transparency so the people can see if they are effective. See the link to this....

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The Argentina 2023 elections results show Sergio Massa, the current Economy Minister has 36% of the vote, and Javier Milei with 30%, and 24% for Patricia Bulrich a former security minister. The election rules require a candidate to get 45% of the vote or result in a runoff between the two leading candidates. Massa apologized for mistakes made by his administration. Milei calls for cutting budget for social welfare in a country suffering from steep 140% inflation and for abolition of the central bank, dollarizing the economy when it has $44 billion debt and a IMF program, ideas seen as extreme and risky. It is a sign of how the nation of 46 million is reaching for extreme steps as a result of failing in the fight against inflation and runaway spending.

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A states attorney generals lawsuit filed against Google states Google operates a monopoly that harms advertisers and publishers by lowering sales of publishers and charging inflated prices to ad buyers. Cases will go on trial in 2023. The Justice Department and 35 states attorney generals have a separate antitrust lawsuit against Google's search services. Democrats and Republicans in the Senate are pushing forward a bill that would treat Google search engine like a railroad operator making it illegal for it to give an unfair advantage to Google products and charge inflated prices by distorting the markets. This report in WSJ shows the way Google ran a series of programs named Project Bernanke, Reserve Price Optimization and Dynamic Revenue Share, to distort the normal operation of markets so that Google obtained an unfair price advantage. Bernanke program was operated between 2010 and 2019. In some cases the lawsuit says publisher revenue was reduced by 40%, according to internal company communications quoted in the complaint, as shown in this WSJ report. ...

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In Brazil's 2018 elections most candidates talk about shoring up crumbling infrastructure, and law and order. Yet no one talks about the budget crisis as there is no money left for doing this.  Shocking as this may sound after years of overspending and a recession, Brazil now uses borrowed money to pay pensions and salaries, and keep schools and hospitals open. Brazil's public spending exceeds revenue by about 7% of annual economic output. Taxes are already 40% of economic output, according to CIA's World Factbook website, making it hard to raise taxes.  This WSJ analysis says you cannot overstate the problem in Brazil as about two thirds of the budget goes to paying old age pensions, payroll of public sector and public healthcare. By 2020 these liablilities will grow to the point there is nothing left for discretionary spending such as roads, infrastructure, new hospitals, police equipment. Trimming pensions and freezing wages are likely options to tackle the problem. Still this leaves Brazil with the prospect of a lost decade.   Neighboring Argentina is experiencing a contracting economy and had to turn to the IMF for assistance.  The decline in GDP comes as a new conservative administration took over promising an improvement in the economy. The peso declined by 18% in 2018 so far leaving Argentina's public and private debt of $166 billion which is 80% denominated in U.S. dollars much harder to pay off. The stronger dollar has hurt Argentina leading to a $50 billion support agreement with the IMF.  Much of Latin America is now in an economic crisis. ...

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Section 230 is a law passed in 1996 that makes the Social Media Companies and Media companies such as Meta and Google and others to have no liability for content posted on their sites. This has allowed these companies to grow and develop monopolies on the internet. Here CSPAN covers the hearings in the US Senate today December 9  with the following US Senators speaking at a Senate hearing on Online Safety for Children. Senator Whitehouse of Rhode Island describes the biggest problem as being the Section 230 which needs to be removed. The following mothers who are Senators and mothers or grand mothers of children were very vocal on this point- Katie Britt-Alabama, Martha Blackburn-Tennessee, Ashley Woody-Florida (former Attorney General of Florida).  Senators who are fathers or grandfathers of children speaking are-Josh Hawley-Missouri,      Whitehouse-Rhode Island, Bluementhal-Connecticut, Corbyn-Texas, Chuck Grassley-Iowa. Senator Whitehouse says-  "I understand Senator Graham was with respect to getting rid Of Section 230 Um, I strongly believe that Section 230 has long outlived its use, and it is now a real vessel for evil. That needs to come to an end. Um, the laws that Section 230 protects these big platforms from are very often laws that go back to the common law of England. that we inherited when this country was initially founded. I mean, these are long lasting, well tested. Important Legal constraints that have They've met the test of time, not by the year, by the decade, but by the century. And yet because of this crazy Section 230, these Ancient and highly respected doctrines just don't reach these people. And it really makes no sense that if you're a Internet platform you get treated one way. You do the exact same thing. And you're a publisher, you get treated a completely different way. And so I think that the time has come. I think it's pretty widely known that there were a core 4 of us. Ready to proceed with a bipartisan bill 2 and 2. And a A lot of work, important work, good work, valuable work has gone into making sure that other members of the committee and other members of the Senate have a chance to look at that and decide whether they want to join or not. And I'm at the stage right now where I think we just need to go." The Online Safety Act passed overwhelmingly in the US Senate recently still languishes in the House of Representatives. Ostensibly because of free speech but really because of monopolies and campaign contributions, and beyond this because of the idea that rapid internet growth gives the US economic and business leadership in the world. That is not how it has turned out instead by weakening the education of the children of the Nation this has created the idea in China and other nations that the US's period of world leadership has passed. In the overall scheme of things social media has weakened education in America as children of the Nation spend countless hours away from classroom education on their smartphones. Australia and other countries including China regulate the use of the smartphones and internet social media for children under the age of 14. This regulation strengthens education in these countries at the same time that the absence of limits weakens education competitiveness in America, and creates the idea that America's days of leadership in education have passed.The loss of this leadership means the loss of American leadership in the world in a decisive way. ...

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Chinese companies are heavily invesing in the stock markets and many companies get a large part of their earnings from the stock markets. The myth is that the real economy will simply go on like before if the stock market takes a nosedive. This is not true because large and small companies are both playing the stock market and IPO's in a big way. They are using corporate funds to invest in IPO's and stocks to boost their earnings. Morgan Stanley estimates that more than one third of corporate earnings in China come from putting money in stocks. The figures are much higher for some industries. In the health sector this number is 54% including real etate earnings also and in consumer goods sector 65% according to Morgan Stanley. If the markets take a steep downturn then these companies will have to show the losses on their income statements, depressing earnings and pushing their stock prices down even further and more steeply. Japan experienced something similiar in the the eighties. And in one respect the situation is more dismal than in Japan. The financial statements may be even less transparent than the ones in Japan's boom period. And investors lack the expertise to figure out whats behind the financial statements. There is no effort to think deeply about what can happen when a nosedive in stocks hits corporate earnings and these losses create a vicious cycle that sends stocks into a further fall turning into a freefall. A Professor of Accounting at a Business School in Shanghai, head of China research at Morgan Stanley and a governance expert in HongKong all point to the dangers in the situation as it evolves. Most of these bubbles like the housing bubble in the US have a situation which George Soros described recently as it burst after he had kept predicting for years that its going to collapse and finally he got tired of saying that because it continued going up. Its possibly the nature of bubbles that a sharp observer can tell whats going on but the phenomena will continue for quite awhile even when its obvious that something is wrong. Its something to do with human nature and the dynamics of human situations where knowing the danger the person will continue to act the opposite way just because everybody else is playing in a certain way. This is the situation in China in 2007. ...

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The US Justice Department has its case against Google- US et al v. Google. 

Ms. Wood said in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

“Google is not here because they are big, they are here because they used that size to crush competition.”

US says Google rigged the rules to profit immensely from the arrangements it made after acquisition of Double Click in 2008, so that it controls every link in the chain for the software that sells adspace online, Ms. Wood for the US told Judge Leonie Brinkema on September 9, 2024.

Tech monopolies have acted in ways that have hurt the interests of the American people, in a way that Big Pharma, Big Oil, and other industries have acted to focus on profit at the expense of The People of America.