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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. Federal Reserve's decision to extend Operation Twist beyond June to the rest of the year after the June 2012 FOMC meeting. By extending Operation Twist the Fed will buy $267 billion in long-term Treasury bonds and notes and sell short term Treasurys.

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A new study by the City University of New York of the largest retailers in New York city shows retail workers earn $9.50 an hour. Ony 40% of workers were full time, and over 50% were part-time, and the others being temporary workers. Lower work hours worsen the impact of low pay per hour, according to professor Stephanie Luce of the Murphy Institute of the City University of New York, the main author of the study. Only 3 of 10 workers receive health insurance with their jobs. The study is based on interviews of 436 nonunion employees at department stores, electronic stores, clothing stores, bookstores, and other retail stores, and includes stores ranging from Fifth Avenue to the Bronx.

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On December 29th 2007 just before the new year 2008 the year of the Beijing Olympics a predicition that sooner or later, sometime soon maybe after the Olympics the stock market in China which is running at some 65-75 time earnings in Shanghai and Shenzen is going to blow up. Its a facade of an orderly equity market which it isn't. The state control many of the stocks and how the stock market operates, good information on companies is scarce, some of the earnings and the investments of companies are in the stock market itself, and not many shares actually change hands as government held companies or other companies have large holdings. Without good accounting who knows if the earnings are not inflated. There are very few alternative investments as savings accounts yield less than inflation and Chinese laws do not permit investing abroad so all this money is flooding the stock markets and it keeps going up so there isn't the situation where stocks go up and down as in a normal market.

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Huge investments to make Saudi Arabia one of the three largest chemical producers in the world. See the groups and links to questions about this investment binge- will it generate enough jobs considering the size of the investments? Is this the most productive use of the money, what are the alternatives and so on. From the standpoint of oil prices the Saudis wouldn't be too receptive to oil price decreases and reluctant to increase oil production if they need the money to finance the investments described here, huge petrochemical complexes and whole new cities.

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David Brooks on the change in Romney as he breaks away from tea party orthdoxy to be the man Brooks believes he truly is.

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Ajami makes the point that opinions and attitudes -after the Obama efforts to improve America's standing in the Muslim world - havent changed much since the Bush days. He cites the Pew Global Attitudes Survey for 2009- In Turkey after the Obama Anakra visit favorable rating is only 14%, 69% are unreconciled. In Egypt 27% have favorable view 70% do not, in Pakistan unfavorables actally went up from 63% to 68%. He also points to the situation in Iran where the protester for the fraud in the election of Ahmadinejad did not receive much supprt from Obama, as the Obama administration decided to engage with Ahmadinejad to achieve nuclear settlement. In effect the rhetoric from Obama has not been matched with courage of convicitions , and lacks the courage to turn a new chapter by breaking from the past not just with talk but in real policy changes. And says Ajami the Arabs havve stopped listening to the rhetoric as little has been accomplished by way of change. At the same time false expectations may have been aroused because the Cairo speech was made at the University with the aging Mubarak at Obama's side, and beyond addressing these students the feeling clearly must be that the US would simply continue its policies of supporting old regimes that tolerate no dissent of any kind such as Mubarak's. ...

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The financial system for mortgages and the legal system are on a collision course say experts. The courts require due process, and one expert discounts reassurances from banks, because it does not go into how easily banks can prove ownership of the underlying mortgages. A legal expert at Georgetown University, sees a scenario in which the whole system comes to a halt, if instead of being lost, it is shown that mortgage documents were not properly transferred during each step of the securitization process. Much of the paperwork was rushed through in a mass production line during the recent wave of foreclosures, because the banks did not have the people and technology in place to deal with it- as pointed out in a Washington Post investigative report.

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New York's ban on sugary drinks over 16 ounces in street stands and fast food places.