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Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer says Britain plans to introduce laws by 2015 to separate investment banking from retail banking. As proposed by the Independent Commission on Banking, led by John Vickers, the investment banking and retail banking would be separate legal entities and would be financed separately.

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Republicans coordinate efforts of economists, public official, and past economic policy makers, in their opposition to the Federal Reserve's decision for $600 billion of quantitative easing. This is perceived as an effort to print money and reduce the value of the dollar, without really addressing the problems in the economy. This includes Michael Boskin, John Taylor, Kevin Hassett, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, David Malpass, and members of a conservative think tank named e21. Liberal economists Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz are also not convinced about the effectiveness of the Fed's move in the absence of other action. Failure to agree on policy restricts other policy options.

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Patterns of decline or increase of foreign born population in the USA by country in 2008 vs. 2007 to gauge how immigration patterns are affected by the global financial crisis. There were over 325,000 fewer people from Mexico and 120,000 more people from India. There are about 38 million foreign born people in the US with 1.6 million from India, and 11 million from Mexico.

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The US Senate voted 71-26 to ratify the new START treaty with Russia limiting nuclear weapons on both sides. It is a key part of rebuilding relations with Russia. In one of the last acts of the lame duck Congress, 13 Republicans including Senator Dick Lugar, a senior Republican who has been an influential voice for arms reduction, voted in favor of the treaty.

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Statistics show small investors are shifting away from stocks. The charts also show less buying on dips in the market. US mutual funds that invest in stocks saw net inflows in January, but net withdrawals in May, resuming a trend that is in place for several years. There is a growing loss of confidence in the market among small investors and a cautious approach is taking hold.

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On December 10, 2009, after insisting for months that they would go ahead with the bonuses at Goldman Sachs, and with public opinion increasingly turning against Goldman, Blankfein decides to hold back the bonuses. This was after the British government had announced a decision to tax 2009 bank bonuses at 50% and pressure was building for the US to also to tax bonuses and limit executive pay.

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The US Airways and America West merger has not lived up to expectations. Both airlines operate together but are run practically separately and the employees feel that way, considering themselves on the east side or the west side. Not much of a merger, and President Dave Parker has failed to win labor confidence, not having signed labor contracts with his employees and operating under transitional arrangements.

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US National Intelligence report due after the November elections confirms much of the British Ambassador's cable to the French from Afghanistan. Its a situation in a downward spiral the draft report says and the deterioration is accelerated by rampant corruption and the heroin trade which is now about half of Afghanistan's economy. The government "has lost all trust" according to the British Ambassador Cowper-Coles report.

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The period of disorder after the collapse of Communism led the rise of oligarchs in the Yeltsin period of 1990. Mr. Putin replaced Yeltsin and established himself by expelling most of the oligarchs of that period. Expelling these corrupt oligarchs gave credibility to Mr. Putin during his decades in power. Only to see the rise of new industrial magnates who promoted national brands, efficency, and concentration of capital in key areas of steel, oil and gas and other sectors. These businessmen are also called oligarchs though they are of a different kind similar to that of the Carnegies and Mellons and Rockefellers at a time of industrialization in the US in the late 19th century. Some of them support Mr. Putin and a version of Russian nationalism that prevailed under Czarist rule till the Bolshevik takeover in 1917 that ended by 1990.  The policies for supremacy in Europe pursued since 1500 to 1990 are now the policies pursued by Mr. Putin and shown by Cambridge historian Brendan Simms in his new book "Europe 1500 to the Present."    ...

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Kerala and Tamilnadu states with declining fertility, migration and ageing society are outliers in India with about half its population under the age of 25. About 600 million people in India are in the 18-35 age group- a clear case of rising aspirations society is happening in India at the very time that the US and European Union are looking at India for the future with shared values of representative democracy, open societies, and building a new supply chain in Asia. This BBC report looks at the state of Kerala where migration is leaving parts of the state only with elderly people. About 10% of the $100 billion in remittances each year from Indians overseas come to the state of Kerala. Life span is about 75 years in Kerala exceeding the national life span of 69 years. However this is looking at it backwards as India remains a vibrantly young country even with the advances in longevity where much of India is close to age 70 years in longevity and advances in medical care and health are taking place at a rapid pace. The problems of Kerala are an outlier for India. ...

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This piece in the Hindusthan Times reminds us that it is not failure or success that determine our future and the quality of our life, but the way we respond. It takes the lines from Rudyard Kipling about both being impostors- "if you can meet triumph and disaster,  and treat both impostors just the same..." Experts say the important thing in both success and failure is to understand what one did wrong, and take corrective action. Some go as far as to say failure is an event, and it ended yesterday. This is the way athletes and other people who overcome challenges that we read about have approached a failure or disaster. Some overcome physical handicaps with such grit that we find our failure to be tiny by comparison. Take for instance an athlete with burns on his feet from a fire, who is told he can never walk again, and he comes back to win an Olympics gold medal in running. This is a true story from the 1936 Olympics of Glenn Cunningham who won the 1500 metres gold medal. ...

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Bowles and Simpson call for deficit savings along the lines they suggested as co-chairmen of the President's Deficit Commission- reducing the cost increases in Medicare, changes to Social Security, and cutting tax expenditures.