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Pew Research 2026 shows Americans more optimistic about use of AI for medicine, healthcare, and for data analysis, and worry about loss of creative thinking and meaningful relationships. Nowhere does Pew ask the real question to the public- "Do you support the diversion of trillions of dollars that would rebuild America's broken infrastructure built in the 1930's and 1960's, and the reindustrialization of America that creates millions of jobs, do you support the diversion of these trillions of dollars that creates these jobs and a better quality of life for Americans, divert it to hyperscale investments of trillions in AI technologies?" Already the majority of Americans simply asked the question about AI in general are opposed. When this question is put about the waste of trillions of dollars desperately needed for quality of life and standards of living, an overwhelming majority of Americans regardless of politics, class and gender are likely to say NO. ...

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Among the things that make the U.S. different from Britain, that Roberts does not mention, is the character of the U.S. as a nation of immigrants. As true today as it was for millions who came to these shores from Ellis Island at the turn of the century. This makes for a much more adaptable society with different strains of thinking. Another point that makes the U.S. different is that it has striven to be an anticolonial power in its policies- working to ease the transition to independence of countries in the former French and British empires. The U.S. business and economic system has worked to bring development and economic progress in all parts of the world, as a partner in contrast to a colonial power. In this sense the U.S. has a very different character and a different capability for renewal than the empires of an earlier period- and new basis for belief in itself renewable from period to period.

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Meltzer says the northern European countries France, Germany, Netherlands, and others should form a new currency union, and leave the euro currency to Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Spain, and Greece (the PIIGS countries). This way Greece can devalue its currency to bridge the gap of 20% between wages in Greece and the productivity of workers in Greece. The new currency union would follow fiscally binding rules. After the adjustments in currency were made by Greece, Portugal, Italy and Spain, these countries could be admitted to the new currency union of the northern countries. This would be conditional on acceptance of financial discipline and enforceable sanctions by these countries. Meltzer says clever agreements designed to protect the bankers are not the solution, as they only shift the responsibility and the burden for wasteful and reckless behaviour to taxpayers. Bondholders would take losses in a devaluation, and banks that are at risk should be either allowed to fail or given loans on strict repayment conditions. ...

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All sides joined the President at the White House, as part of his consensus building efforts, and to get aseat at the table in restructuring health care. The insurers and health care providers, including technology providers, all committed to cutting the cost of health care. New social insurance programs to cover 45 million uninsured Americans, and to make health care affordable for businesses and individuals, will be unworkable at currently projected rate of increase in health care costs of 6.2% a year for the next decade. The industry promised to reduce that by 1.5% through voluntary efforts, even though there is skepticism about whether they will deliver. The insurers are against a government sponsored health plan fearing it will drive them out of business. Insurers and health care providers are lobbying against the cuts in their Medicare payments, and insurers are fighting Obama's cuts to their private Medicare Advantage plans by a total of $176 billion over 10 years. Doctors are fighting a 21% cut in their Medicare fees scheduled to take place in January 2010. Pharmacuetical companies and makers of medical devices are concerned that new products will have to pass a cost-benefit test before being approved for coverage under Medicare. Its just that they all see the continued rise in costs as somehow unsustainable, especially in the current economic crisis, and share the feeling with business and the rest of the country that the system is broken. At the same time like the banks and bank executives, health care companies and their executives go on lobbying aggressively and doing things the old way, which raises questions about how well these systems that are broken can be put on the right path....

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Nagourney and Dougherty of the NYT give this report on the housing crisis in California by 2017 with the median cost of a home skyrocketing to twice the figure for the U.S. This price is now $500,000. The result is longer commutes even for people with incomes over $150,000 a year, stretching to as much as 2 hours one way. It means people lacking housing stay in vans with improvised kitchens and other sleeping arrangements. Not enough homes are being built because of strict zoning and planning regulations that are kept in place by neighborhood groups, effectively excluding outsiders. Now its not just the coastal areas that are affected but the whole state. Governor Brown of California tried to pass a measure in 2016 that would push communities to build more affordable housing, and ran into opposition from local officials and environmentalists. Now the opinion in the state is changing with younger people denied a chance at decent housing at the forefront and some elected officials such as the Mayor of Los Angeles, Mr. Eric Garcetti. A new bill in the state legislature would make it harder for cities that are falling behind in building housing to lose the right for City Council to hold back on approval of new construction, effectively bypassing it. California's law capping property taxes after Proposition 13 was passed in 1978 has also held back construction. Other factors are the building of new offices for  companies in the tech boom around San Francisco without a corresponding effort to build new homes for these new office workers. California was slow to respond to housing needs for young people, with only 311,000 housing units built since 2006. ...

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Alexis Tsipras, leader of Syriza, Greece's second largest party, is interviewed by WSJ's Bret Stephens. Tsipras describes the problems inside Greece. He describes the bribery in healthcare, tax evasion, burden of taxes on the middle class and honest citizens, a large and inefficient bureaucracy. In its current state Greece would build up debt and deficits all over again if the debts were forgiven tomorrow, says Tsipras. He is for Greece remaining in the eurozone. Tsipras understands the problems Germans have with putting money into Greece with the current state of economic management and lack of conscience of its elite, and why they see this as not fair. He suggests as a model for solving the Greece debt crisis, the London Conference of 1953 forgiving half of Germany's debts and putting the rest on a 30 year scheduled repayment. This would have to come with results in cutting bureaucracy, reducing corruption, and efficient tax collection for Greece democracy to work.

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This editorial in the Journal provides reflections on U.S. foreign policy in the Obama years and advice for U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney before the third presidential debate on foreign policy on Oct. 22, 2012. It says the U.S. has always done better from a position of economic strength and defense preparedness in addressing foreign policy issues. It also points to the failure of president Obama to support the freedom struggle of the peoples of the Middle East, and a withdrawal from Iraq without securing an agreement that failed to consolidate the gains of the long conflict and resources spent in that region.

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Doctors face a 21% cut in the amount of Medicare payments for treating seniors having Medicare, though this cut will be delayed till 2011 under legislation in Congress. This issue goes back to 1997, when a budget law set spending targets, and stated that if they were exceeded formulas to reduce doctors payments would go into effect. The formulas seriously cut into doctor payments by Medicare in 2002, so the formula was put off. The result of this is that the cuts based on the formula now amount to 21%. The cuts are not expected to go through, but at the same time Congress has an headache on its hands with the growing deficit. In the Senate there is opposition to a $120 billion bill to extend long term unemployment benefits which lapsed in June 2010, for tax breaks, and other expenses. Senators want to pare down the bill's price tag, as $80 billon of this is unfunded and will be added to the budget deficit. For a primary care doctor in Washington state, Medicare pays about $95 compared to private insurers payment of $129, and a plan for state workers that pays $140....

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Core consumer price index was up 1.3% in December 2013 from the prior year, according to government information. For 2013 the index was up 0.4%, the first increase in 5 years. The Bank of Japan's target is 2% inflation. The ratio of available jobs to applicants increased to 1.03 showing 103 jobs for every 100 job seekers- the first surplus of available jobs since 2007. The jobless rate declined to 3.7% in Dec. 2013, down from 4% in Nov. 2013. A planned sales tax increase to 8% from 5% to tackle the high government debt level goes into effect in April 2014, which is expected to reduce consumer spending.

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The effects on Greece of a pullback in global financial markets in October 2014. Assurances that the Greek financial system and banking will be supported by the government and the EU. The pullback complicates the Samaras government's plan to exit the bailout program with the IMF early. There is also the prospect of new elections in early 2014 leading to a left of centre Syriza party government. Syriza's Tsipras says he would renegotiate the terms of the debt agreement to reduce debt owed to Germany and other countries in the EU.

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Fountain Set, a Hong Kong based textiles company that sent toxic waste product from its Fuan factory in China directly into the river using underground pipes to save on water treatment facilities. Toxic materials from China's textile industry are destroying China's rivers through rampant pollution without heed to China's environmental laws.

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Efforts to save the VW brand in North America as it faces disappointing sales. It lost $1 billion in North America for each of the last 3 years. VW faces perception issues among customers in the USA who read JD Powers surveys. The surveys show VW in the bottom 20% for reliability, quality and service. Its younger customer base does online shopping and compares models and this led to sales declining from 338,00 to 235,000 in 2006. Now Jacoby, an accountant by training, who headed VW global sales and marketing and boosted market share from 18.1% to 20.3% in European car sales, has been given charge of the American operation to get VW to breakeven n North America by 2009. Previous ad campaigns showing VW safety in car crashes and Helg a German dominatrix failed to stir up much interest in Jetta and Passat models.

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To reduce its reliance on China for nickel supplies and secure the supply chain LG Energy Solution has signed a $9 billion deal in Indonesia that sources nickel supplies in Indonesia and produces the EV batteries in Indonesia. The deal was signed with Indonesia's mining company Antam and Indonesia Battery Corporation. Indonesia is the largest producer of nickel with 21 million tonnes of reserves according to US Geological Survey data. The entire process will now be done in Indonesia- smelting and refining nickel, manufacturing precursors, cathode materials and cells, and assembling finished products. LG Energy Solutions is also working with Hyundai Group to build a $1.1 billion battery manufacturing plant 65 kilometres southeast of Jakarta. At this time most of the materials for EV batteries are processed in China and about 11% of the world's production of Nickel comes from Russia.  China's Amperex the world's top battery maker also has signed up with Indonesia's Antam mining company for a similar $6 billion project. For LG Energy Solutions the second largest battery maker the stable supply of raw materials and reduced dependence on China and Russia is becoming important with the situation in Ukraine.     ...

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Fuel efficiency for the entire US vehicle fleet increased by 1.4 miles per gallon to 22.4 miles per gallon for 2009, an increase of 7% over 2008. A shift from pickups to cars, and to smaller vehicles. Toyota at 25.4 mpg, Nissan at 23.6 mpg, GM at 20.6 mpg, Ford at 20.3 mpg, Daimler at 19.5, and Chrysler at 19.2 mpg.

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Mr. Trump gained much confidence in his success playing the star role in Mark Burnett produced show "The Apprentice." He did this from 2004 to 2015. In 2011 he gained more experience on a political show on Fox news by doing a segment on "Fox and Friends." Much of his ability to talk to large crowds comes from this period. His earnings amounted to $427 million, about half a billion dollars. His real estate business was not one of his strengths as he took too  many risks and operating in a volatile market environment in luxury hotels produced large losses. Yet he gained a keen sense of what was popular in the public imagination and how successive administrations of Democrats and Republicans from Clinton to Obama and Bush had missed the devastated American manufacturing from imports and shift of manufacturing to China. This had affected small towns and communities across the American landscape and the success on television gave Mr. Trump the confidence to champion their cause. By 2016 this had gone so far as to enable Mr. Trump to rewrite the focus of the Republican party to take up this cause shifting the party from deficit cutting to spending on infrastructure to rebuild America.  ...

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Agatha Sangma, at 28, is the youngest member of Parliament in India. Se was reelected from the Tura constituency in Meghalaya,, in India's northeast. She is minister of state for rural development in the newly elected Congress coalition government. Her father PA Sangma was a speaker in the Lok Sabha, India's Parliament. In India's system the cabinet minister has the biggest chunk of work and under him comes the minister of state. But considering how big the rural economy is in India, at over 40% of GDP and growing fast from a low base, its aposition of great responsibility for ayoung woman. Here she talks to Jyoti Malhotra of the WSJ. She is responsible for drinking water and sanitation. Access to drinking water, contamination of water, and water supplies for agriculture are a huge challenge for India. Agatha has studied environmental management in the UK, so she can bring knowledge of modern methods for managing water to her job. She likes to be responsible for implementing work in the rural areas, and has the youth and energy to travel and see things first hand for implementation. She says accountability is important for implementation and out in the field she can observe and ask questions. One of the problems she shees in implementation is properly using the funds allocated. This fund alone is 62,000 crores. And seeing that these funds are properly allocated and spent to generate the best use of the resources is critical for improving lives and meeting the needs for rural development. She sees room for experimenting, for innovation and bringing fresh ideas to this job. She seems to handle the interview questions quite well....

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Unemployment rate up from 8.1% to 8.5% , with 663,000 jobs lost in March, 2009, according to the Labor Department. The number of unemployed hits 13.2 million. Labor Dept data shows that between 423,000 to 9 million people were forced to work parttime for "economic reasons."

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Nouriel Roubini on the housing losses expected in 2011. Roubini says he is particularly concerned because of a recent study by Laurie Goodman of Amherst Securities, which shows 11 million borrowers are in danger of losing their homes, which is one of every five borrowers. He says this number is scary because previous estimates had shown the number to be 3-4 million for the next four years. Roubini says he has talked to experts in the housing industry who tell him the 11 million number is realistic. His overall sense is that the housing problems in the U.S. are "underappreciated," with banks facing about $1 trillion in housing related losses.

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Bernanke defended the Fed's QE II decision to buy $600 billion in Treasury bonds, at a central bank conference in Frankfurt. He said "the US risks millions of people being unemployed or underemployed for years and as a society, we should find such an outcome unacceptable." Rebutting the Germ, Chinese and Brazilian criticism, he said the policy would maintain a strong dollar over the long run. Senator Shelby told reporters, Bernanke estimates creating 700,000 to 1 million jobs over the next 2 years. Philadelphia Fed President Charles Posner said that he was very concerned about unemployment, but was "worried that monetary policy isn't the right set of tools at this juncture."

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Samuelson points to the risks to the American economic growth from excessive health care costs. This is hurting take home pay and shows up in consumer spending. It is hurting government spending in other areas such as needed infrastructure spending and efforts to reduce the deficit. This hurts private capital investment to create jobs because of lower demand from constricted consumer spending. The U.S. budget has as its largest single expense 27% on health care compared to 20% on defense the next largest expense, with growth in health care spending taking this to one third of the budget in coming years. Without addressing health care, says Samuelson, the Supercommitte in Congress even if successful at deficit reduction will basically have failed to do its job, and it did not have the time, resources or conviction to do this. According to a new study from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), U.S. healthcare spending per person is $7,960 per person in 2009. This compares with Norway $5,352, Britain $3,487, France $3, 978, an OECD average of $3,233. Life expectancy in the U.S. is 78.2 years, compared to Japan 83 years, OECD average of 79.5 years. Chile and the Czech Republic have life expectancy equal to the U.S. Except for cancer care where the five year survival rate is 89.3% in the U.S. and the OECD average is 83.5%, the U.S. lags far behind in much needed critical areas such as diabetes and asthma. Rates of emergency hospitalization for asthma are 3 times that in France and 6 times that in Germany and Italy. The U.S. has fewer doctors per thousand population and higher cost per medical procedure- with more frequent use of the costliest procedures- creating a supply shortage that induces higher prices, and less preventive and early action care through physician visits. The number of practicing U.S. doctors is 2.4 per thousand population in the U.S. compared to 3.1 per thousand for the OECD average; and number of annual doctor consultations 3.9 per capita in the U.S. versus 6.5 for the OECD average. Appendectomy cost $7,962 in the U.S., $5,004 in Canada and $2,943 in Germany. Coronary angioplasty cost $14,378 in the U.S., compared to $9,296 in Sweden, and $7,027 in France. Knee replacement cost $14,946 in the U.S., $12,424 in France, and $9,910 in Canada. Knee replacements, angioplasties and MRI exams are twice as common in the U.S. compared to the OECD countries. ...

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Zhu Changhong plays a key role in investing China's $3.5 trillion dollars in foreign reserves. He is part of the management at China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange or SAFE, a division of the central bank. He maintains a low profile, yet he has played a critical role in shifting investment into Japanese and U.S. equities and bonds issued by the European Financial Stability Fund, reducing the risk exposure to U.S. Treasury's as the U.S. Federal Reserve changes monetary policy. From 45% of China's foreign reserves invested in U.S. government bonds, or $1.11 trillion, in June 2010, SAFE under Zhu's guidance reduced the allocation to 35%, or $1.14 trillon, in June 2012, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. He has an interesting background. Coming from Anhui province, he studied physics at the University of Chicago, then shifted to life as a trader in financial markets at Allianz's PIMCO investment firm. After spending 20 years in the U.S., Zhu returned in 2009 as chief investment officer of SAFE. He was drawn back to China by another expatriate Yi Gang, a SAFE director who was an economics professor at Indiana University- Purdue University, Indianapolis....