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Bruni on the view that Obama has squandered his advantages of oratorical transcendence, poetry, serious thoughtfulness, in the U.S. presidential election of 2012. He does not mention the lack of a serious plan to turn the economy around, high rate of joblessness and declining incomes that are a basic issue in the 2012 election, and how oratorical transcendence has little correlation with getting the right policies implemented. The Des Moines Register's support in 2008 put Obama on the road to the presidency in 2008 with a victory in the Iowa primary. In 2012 it gave its endorsement to Romney to give him a chance to correct the problems with the economy and to do this with a new effort to forge the bipartisan consensus missing in the Obama first term.

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There are gaps between this version of the differences and the version on the Wiki site which compares the government version and the civil society version. As the differences can be important because of the local conditions in India it is necessary to read the actual bill and all the details to understand clearly what is at stake. The version on the site suggests the government bill gives the anti-corruption body few powers and operates in a way that would make it ineffective if the government in power decides it is in its interest to do nothing. That situation actually exists today as the current government does not see it in its interest to pursue the corruption cases except in the slowest way possible.

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India's ruling Congres party suffered losses in the two major states of Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. In Uttar Pradesh, the socialist Samajwadi party gained an absolute majority of 224 seats in the 403 seat assembly. The Bahujan Samaj party of Kumari Mayawati lost its majority winning only 80 seats, the BJP won 47 seats and the Congress won only 28 seats. Rahul Gandhi of the Congress party campaigned heavily in the state and the results show that his campaign against Mayawati did not result in Congress gaining enough seats to form a coalition government with the Samajwadi party led by Mulayam Singh Yadav and his son Akhilesh Yadav. Yadav has held the position of chief minister three times before, and campaigned for greater rights for lower castes and for a quota in education and jobs for Muslims. His other campaign promises included increasing electricity production, and improving the business climate. In the Punjab state, the Shiromani Akali Dal party won 56 of 117 seats, with the Congress getting 46 seats. National elections will be held in 2014, and the results reflect a repudiation of the Congress party after corruption scandals, slower economic growth, and lack of clear policy direction....

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About 15% of black men of working age in the population, and 21% of black women, were employed in the U.S. public sector, according to the population survey. The Labor Department reports 500,000 jobs in the public sector were lost since 2007. This reverses an historical trend of resilience in jobs for the public sector during economic downturns. If population increase since 2007 is figured in there are even fewer jobs considering more jobs might have been added, with estimates as high as 1.8 million. This is bad for black people in the U.S. because many work in public sector jobs driving school buses, in the post office, in the police and in other public services, with black people being 30% more likely than whites to hold a public sector job, and twice that of Hispanics. Thic comes at a time when the black community has seen a devastating impact from the foreclosures and other economic damage that followed the 2008 financial crisis. The result is shown in a study of foreclosures for 2005-2009 at Cornell University showing mostly black and Latino neighborhoods were affected by foreclosures at three times the rates for white neighborhoods. According to Pew Research Center the median white family had net assets of $142,000 compared to $11,000 for the median black family. With median black household income at 60% of that of white households the gap keeps increasing especially with high unemployment in black neighborhoods....

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Interview with Dieter Zetsche, Daimler's CEO on what Mercedes is doing. Daimler is introducing the Smart car in the US in a big way. Its just 8 feet long and gets 40 miles per gallon. Demand for it from dealers was so strong that instead of 40 dealers as planned Mercedes has setup 67 dealers in 31 states in the USA. About 3500 were sold in the first 3 months, Feb to April 2008. Its Bluetec program is another way its boosting fuel efficiency. The Bluetec program is for making diesel engines as clean as gasoline engines and gasoline engines as efficient as diesel engines. Its the second generation of direct injection systems and both engines will work with self ignition. And Daimler is on the path of combining these engines with hybrids. And also develping fuel cell and all electric battery driven vehicles emission free. As Zetsche says Daimler is moving along this path very fast. In lithium ion battery in cars Daimler is taking the lead. He says the American and Japanese makers are pushing hard but Mercedes is ahead by taking the car to market that has a lithium ion battery. How does Daimler do it? It has about 24 patents. The main reason no carmaker has made it to market with lithium ion battery for cars is the cooling problem that has been seen in laptops also. Mercedes solution to this has been to integrate the cooling of the battery into the cooling system of the car with a sophisticated system, hence the many patents. Next year Dailmer will introduce the S-Class with a six cylinder gasoline engine, the S400 Hybrid with a lithium ion battery, and it will be the first in market. Dieter Zetsche is so confident that he says it will have perfect performance and absolute safety. With targets for fuel efficiency in Europe more aggressive than in the USA, and the German public pushing for higher fuel efficiency aggressive emissions targets and intolerant of excuses from German carmakers, makers like Daimler are moving very fast in this direction. Adding to pressures from the German public, they see oil prices at current levels for the foreseeable future, this adds to the urgency. Americans and Japanese makers stand the risk of falling behind. See the links to the pressure from German public opinion and the German carmakers response to this. And clearly Zetsche reflects that confidence in this interview. Daimler's Mercedes division is selling a lot of cars in China, Russia, and the Middle East. As he put it there are 400,000 millionaires in China and Mercedes are sellig very well in these markets just as the US market shrinks. And these are cars in the dollar 40,000 plus or $100,000 plus range in which Mercedes has he lead. This market will also shrink as the global economy slowsdown but the profits from this market will probably be plowed into the Bluetec and other advanced fuel efficiency programs that will give Daimler a market advantage in the longer run....

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The structure of the deal that is coming up for a vote in Congress on August 1st, a day before the August 2 deadline. A deal put together mainly by Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell and Vice President Biden after other deals failed. It gives the government $400 billion immediately and another $500 billion in the fall for raising the debt ceiling. Another 1.2 trillion will be added in 2012. The entire burden for raising it falls on Obama. Obama will be able to get the debt ceiling raised without another long struggle before 2012 elections. On spending cuts- agency spending will be cut by $900 billion over the next 10 years. A new legislative committe will be set up to come up with $1.2 trillion in additional savings by the end of 2012. The mechanism that would force the committe to act or make sure spending cuts were taken if the committee failed, was set up as one in which the trigger is to force automatic across the board cuts. The automatic across the board cuts would be for $1.2 trillion to agency budgets for the next 10 years, and split this half and half between domestic programs and defence. Programs aiding the poor including Medicaid and Social Security would be exempted, but Medicare payments to providers could be touched. No new taxes are part of this deal....

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The U.S. Congress passed free-trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama, in October 2011. The deals are expected to increase U.S. exports by $13 billion, including $11 billion to S. Korea.

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The private sector ignores health insurance. And state coverage in China is inadequate. More than two thirds of China's 1.3 billion people have no health insurance at all. If you have insurance you still pay up front in cash, if you do not have the cash up front you cannot get a surgery, treatment of any kind or any drugs, even if the insurance will later reimburse you. The Chinese health care system is dysfunctional and in a crisis because of the way it is structured, and the faulty policy incentives. It caps prices for basic drugs and procedures at below market rates, yet it lets hospitals profit from everything else from advanced drugs to sophisticated diagnostic tests. So hospitals invest heavily in technology and expensive testing. and drug sales account for 45% of revenues. And enforcement is lax. Doctors in Shanghai make monthly incomes of about $400, about what a taxi driver makes, so they supplement their income with bonuses earned by prescribing more expensive tests and drugs. There is no utilization review so the state reimburses for whatever the hospitals charge regardless of whether the test was needed or not. So the system is dysfunctional and lurching towards a crisis. In fact heavily burdening the middle class. The private outlays and burden of total health care spending has increased from 20% to 60% of total health care spending from 1978 to 2003, as the the health care system got the same dose of unfetterred capitalism as the rest of the system. The Government's share of total health care spending has dropped sharply. In addition there are design flaws that push expensive care and build in incentives for expensive care at the expense of good medical care. The government recognizes this problem and sees it as athreat to social stability. It has committed to increase spending on healthcare. ...

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The IMF's Martin Cerisola, who headed a delegation to Iran on Jan. 25- Feb 8, 2014, has put out a report on the country's economy saying serious risks lie ahead. The inflation rate fell from 45% annualized rate in July 2013 to about 30% in Dec 2013, offering a short respite with a slight easing of the sanctions regime, but Cerisola says Iran remains in serious danger of "external shocks," that could affect Iran's currency, the rial. Cerisola says in his report that the reduced subsidies for fuel and food, poorly funded social programs, and the "marked deterioration in the external environment stemming from the intensification of trade and financial sanctions, have weakened the economy."

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Chris Cillizza of CNN shows here that back home in Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins hears from people saying again and again that they support her stand against the Republican health care bill. The rural and elderly are hurt most by this bill and Cillizza says Maine has a lot of these people.  He also cites the opposition of Republican Senator Rand Paul who doesn't like the other costly things tagged onto this bill, and wants a clean bill free of "billion dollar ornaments."

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Ben Inker of Grantham Mayo sees profitability at U.S. companies at a high because of savings in labor costs while consumption has not declined because of government transfer payments and fiscal policy. He sees profits of U.S. companies declining in 2012-2013. This makes the U.S. stocks less likely to perform well in the future, especially the stocks outside of the blue chips which he sees as highly overvalued. A better choice in his view is in Europe and Japan which are undervalued. His funds have 39% in U.S. stocks and most of it in blue chip stocks. His view is that interest rate policy will not have a large effect as the changes will be very gradual, and going from zero percent interest rates to one percent interest rates will not lead to much change in economic activity. From his point of view the largest risk is in shrinking of profits at U.S. companies as the deficit comes down, because today workers are able to maintain consumption because of fiscal policy and companies are able to cut costs. In Europe the austerity cuts are being taken seriously and this will impact profits, so the U.S. will look better in 2012. But value will prevail in the long run as European and Japanese stocks are undervalued and the U.S runup leaves stocks overvalued in terms of future stream of profits....

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Taylor goes over details of the Romney Plan and why it is better for economic recovery in the U.S.

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Polls show 83% of the German public support increasing the minimum wage to 8.50 euros an hour. About two thirds of the public support increasing income taxes on high wage earners. The Social Democrats talks with the CDU to form a coalition are likely to lead to CDU accepance of the condition for a minimum wage of 8.50 euros an hour, but not to the condition for raising the taxes on high income earners. The SPD sees the higher taxes as a way to pay for new infrastructure. A survey done for TV broadcaster ZDF shows 61% of Germans favoring a SPD-CDU coalition. In the 2013 elections the SPD gained 25.7% of the vote and the CDU-CSU gained 41.5%. The SPD is pushing for flexible retirement age, equal pay for men and women, a tighter financial regulation, and a growth and employment strategy in the EU.

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Declining manufacturing wages in the U.S. and the return of manufacturing jobs. Indiana's experience with new manufacturing plants.

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This Times editorial questions whether Mayor Bloomberg did the right thing in the manner in which he ousted protestors from Zucotti park in the financial district of New York city. Now that the protestors have been forcibly removed from the park, it is the responsibility of the Mayor to keep his promise to let the demonstrators continue their protest against income inequality, says the editorial. The concern is that the end of the protests at Zucotti park could end up quashing the entire protest movement, which serves to draw attention to serious issues in a democracy.