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The tech monopolies have operated with impunity with one overriding goal of maximizing profits for far too long. Under Theodore Roosevelt the solution was to breakup the oil monopolies of the 1890's. Fighting Tammany Hall corruption in the New York governing structure was just one of TR's achievements, he also fought for better living conditions for workers in New York, for breaking up Standard Oil's grip on the oil industry, and worked hard to rebuild the American Navy to stand up to the European Colonial Powers who impoverished India and China. America can be proud of TR,  and Joe Stilwell who fought the Japanese in China with deep understanding and concern for ordinary Chinese and their struggle against poverty, the wall of indifference of the colonial powers to their condition.

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This article in The Lancet published in February 2018 throws much light on how the ban on gain of function research on virus was lifted -research that carries with it the danger of increasing transmission of virus if something unexpected happens in the manipulation of a virus. It was lifted in 2018 in the US by officials in the US Health Ministry, NIH and HHS. The Cambridge group of scientists and experts opposed lifting the ban on such dangerous research that could make the virus more contagious through manipulation. Epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch of Harvard School of Public Health wrote at the time that the lab research to create a more lethal strain of virus could lead to "an accidental pandemic" yet he was ignored. The public in America and in the world is unaware of how this created serious risks for public health in the world through the coronavirus.  Did US health officials lift the ban on such research without consulting other countries such as India, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, and the EU on its ramifications. Were public health experts and the publics themselves in the US and around the world not drawn into the discussion of public health and the dangers that existed. Not only did officials in HHS and NIH restart the research by lifting the ban but also sent funds overseas for such research- was this a proper or thoughtful action considering the risks involved.  Is enhanced surveillance of virus- a dubious benefit from manipulation of a virus- something a few health officials can decide for the whole world in addition to the US. How are health officials in one or two countries responsible to the people in India, Brazil, Europe and the poorest populations in the world in the world in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, people who have suffered devastating consequences from transmissibility of the virus, including children and older people with health problems. India, Brazil, Italy, Spain, France, UK, and other countries worst hit by the coronavirus must ask serious questions about how they can protect their people if institutions in the US and international institutions are seen as failing to protect world public health. ...

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Gerry Adams of Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland says in the NYT that some way has to be found to respect the vote of 55% in Northern Ireland in favor of remaining in the European Union. He says Northern Ireland and Scotland should not be made to leave the EU because of a different preference expressed in England and Wales. He points to one of the most harmful effects of the Brexit i- the return to a hard  border between the EU state of Ireland and Northern Ireland. This will affect the economic, healthcare, tourism, business and cultural links of Ireland in the north and south, and reverses the gains of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. He calls it a result of factional infighting in the Tory party, the rise of far right anti immigrant groups such as UKIP, and the Gove faction which never really supported the peace deal in Ireland that has brought two decades of peace. Adams says concurrent referendums for a united Ireland is one solution to this problem. Another is an All Ireland forum of political parties and civic partners to meet, and for the Irish Government to stand behind the Good Friday Agreement, so that the Brexit does not hurt the interests of Ireland as a whole. ...

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Term Asset Backed Loan Facility of $1 trillion is aimed at bringing new life to the market for asset backed securities that effectively subsidizes loans to consumers and businesses to buy cars, pay for tution, buy farm equipment or use credit cards. Through the program an investment fund can put down $5 to $14 for every $100 it plans to spend and borrow the remaining $95 to $86 cheaply from the Fed. The investment fund agrees to buy highly rated securities issued by lenders that the Fed deems eligible collateral for the loans. About $10 billion in such loans could be made available to auto lenders, Ford Motor Credit and World Omni Financial Corporation. Modifications to the TALF program are being proposed by the banks, but are being reviewed for risk by the Fed and Treasury.

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Greg Ip tells India's story, piped water for hundreds of millions of Indians, massive increases in road and rail, rapid development of infrastructure, aviation, ports logistics. WSJ graph shows country growth of economies for Japan, China, India, Germany in 2000 and 2020. By 2000 Japan had grown its economy to become about half the size of the US economy with two decades of rapid growth since 1980. China repeated this process with two decades of hyper growth since 2000 to become about 75% of the US economy by 2020. The graphs also show Japanese growth tailing off so rapidly after 2000 in relation to the US economy that it is now only about 25% of the US economy. China is likely to follow the same path as growth slows and with an aging population to become about 35-40% of the US economy by 2040 from 75%. India following the process that happened in Japan and in China is likely to become close to 35-40% of the US economy by 2040 from about 18% today, with the fastest growth over the next two decades for the most populous country in the world. Greg Ip points out what has been achieved since 2014 with the Modi government. Good governance without leakages of public funds dedicated to infrastructure, ease of living, GST one India one tax so that growing pool of funds from taxes fund rapid development with no leakages to corrupt officials,  Swacch Bharat or Clean India, clean water from taps, electricity and cooking gas for the whole population of India with dates for completion. All this Ip calls removal of the shackles that existed for far too long even past 2000 and 2010 when China had vastly surpassed India from its low point in 1980 after Mao and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. India today is in as much a pace of development as China in the 1990's and Japan in the 1960's, except that it now has the benefit of grasping how development can be done in a way that does not affect climate and health in adverse ways as happened with China's hyper growth -which also led to the tragic loss of manufacturing for workers and communities in the US and Europe due to the economic theories of laissez faire of the Reagan era. Reagan theory for governments not working with industry that were applied indiscriminately during the Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump presidencies for three decades led to shipping manufacturing overseas with no regard for the risks and dangers. What Greg Ip fails to mention is the uniqueness of India that is united by Vedanta, Hinduism and Buddhism for thousands of years, and which keeps the fabric of society together when it is divided by 13 language groups. These 13 language groups are: Hindi 43% of the population, Bengali 8%, Marathi 7%, Telugu 7%, Tamil 6%, Gujarati 5%, Urdu 4%, Kannada 4%, Odia 3%, Malayalam 3%, Punjabi 3%, Assamese 1%, English 1%. It was the vision of the early leaders Vivekananda, Gokhale, Mohandas Gandhi, Nehru, Sardar Patel, that united a diverse country with many languages and cultural variation. And it is this vision of Vivekananda that is creating the Good Governance under Sab ka Vikas, Sab ka Viswas, Sab ke Saath, Sab ka Prayas of today- development for all, with the confidence of all, with the support of all, the efforts of all. Without a disciplined direction based on hard work India could not make it this far or fulfill the aspirations of its youthful population by 2040. ...

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The confusion among Tsipras supporters in Athens as the creditor terms that are stricter than the ones rejected in the July 5, 2015 referendum win 250 votes out of 300 in the Greek parliament on July 10, 2014. The centre right New Democracy and centre left Pasok parties and other parties support Tsipras, and the far left of Syriza abstains in the vote. Serious damage was done to the economy in the 6 months of Syriza negotiations ending in the referendum, increasing the size of a new bailout. The increase size of the bailout came as a shock in Germany reducing any flexibility for chancellor Merkel in the internal debate within Germany. In addition relations were damaged with the EU by the referendum and Syriza's handling of it. As a result opinion polls showed German support for concessions dropped to a low of 10%, increasing pressure on chancellor Merkel within her CDU party. Analysts say Greeece could lose another 10% drop in output if Greece leaves the eurozone, showing the risks taken by the far left Syriza party and economic mismanagement. Even if it stays within the eurozone Greece faces additional costs with lower tax revenues from the fallout in the economy of events in July 2015. Greek officials say the restrictions on ATM withdrawals to 60 euros a day for each account could stay in place for months. These developments are not taken into account by academics and young people in Greece as they refer to European solidarity. ...

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The situation in Ireland for the tax paying public is similiar to the situation in the US, as Peter Coy points out. Ireland has guaranteed the debts of its banks, but in doing so it has assumed a huge burden. The costs relative to Ireland's small economy for a single bank, the Anglo Irish Bank, would amount to $3 trillion if this was done on a comparable basis in the US, says Coy. In the US 1 in 5 homeowners are under water, and the Bush and Obama plans have done little to make principal reductions; the most they have achieved say experts is reduce the interest. The Foreclosure Prevention Working Group, an organization of states' attorneys general, says the large majority of mortgage modifications raised and not reduced the amount owed by homeowners. As Carmen Reinhart points out, if the government assumes private debt, it should do so at a realistic price, and this means haircuts. So far this has not happened. In the case of AIG, the government assumed all the debts, fully insuring AIG bondholders from losses. If the government is going to take up the problem of the homeowners under water, private debt holders are going to have to take haircuts. Bad lending would be encouraged if creditors know that they will be protected in the future. Policymakers may have waited too long because its equally irresponsible to gurantee payment of debts 100% as it is to do what has happened so far, which was to say the principal reductions would encourage borrowers to borrow recklessly. ...

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Preliminary results show the SPD Social Democrats leading in Germany. The SPD had 25.7% of the vote, ahead of Merkel's CDU at 24.1%. This is the worst showing for the CDU in German elections. The environmentalist Greens Party came in at 14.8% of the vote. The pro-business FDP Free Democrats came in at 11.5%, the far right AfD at 10.3%, and the socialist Left party at 4.9%. Parties calling for big infrastructure investments in Germany with tax increases emerged as big winners reflecting the public mood in Germany after CDU led coalitions with SPD for the last eight years focused on the eurozone crisis and opened migration into Germany, while neglecting much needed investment in broken infrastructure. Both the SPD and Greens are calling for big investments and taking on additional borrowing to do so. They now have a combined 42% of the vote, and 47% when combined with the socialist Left. The Afd with 10% remains mainly a fringe party - and primarily a result of Merkel's decision to open migration from war torn Arab countries which she later reversed, and from from the CDU's failure to tackle social and economic problems of eastern Germany.    ...

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Scott Bessent, DJT's senior most economic executive says-“There’s nothing that tells me that Powell should step down right now. He’s been a good public servant." The media is making much out of DJT criticism of US central bank Fed chairman Powell. Yet Powell is one of the original appointments by DJT in 2018 and has done his job carefully and methodically, explaining to the public each step of the way. He correctly pointed out the role of supply chain in inflation during covid and was careful to calibrate his moves so that the Fed is ready to respond but does not overreact. His explanations were direct and his manner humble enough to get him respect. In fact DJT may have made one of his best appointments in Jay Powell who was nominated in the Senate by a vote 84-13 in 2018. Compared to his predecessors his style and work carefully monitoring inflation and unemployment to strike the right balance is far better than any of his predecessors going back to the 1980's, and complements the work done on trade for a level playing field by DJT.     ...

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A new West Coast Model is emerging with ballot measures in the states of Washington, California and Oregon. The model is to make up for decades of faulty income distribution which favored tech communities in west coast states leaving behind people from minority communities and the working class outside tech hubs such as San Francisco, San Jose and Seattle. During this period budgets for education and healthcare, social services and essential infrastructure suffered as budgets were squeezed for local governments. Minimum wage also lagged behind and communities struggled to keep up. Washington votes for a ballot measure that raises the minimum wage to $13.25 statewide and mandate paid sick leave for workers. In California a ballot measure makes permanent an income tax surcharge on millionaires to use these funds for education. In Oregon measure 97 places a gross receipts tax on corporations with annual sales in Oregon over $25 million, raising $3 billion a year for schools, health care and other programs. The California and Washington measures are likely to pass, Oregon uncertain, say experts. And even in Oregon supporters have learned from the experience to put forward new proposals on the ballot. The Washington measure is supported by Nick Hanauer, and Zach Silk, president of Civic Ventures in Seattle, who say it is essential to put more money in workers wages to increase growth and to bring better lives outside the tech hub areas. Most of the tech booms of the last two decades have not touched the areas outside tech hub metropolitan areas. The conservative approach adopted in Louisiana and Kansas of reducing taxes first and then when holes in state budgets developed to cut education, health and other service expenditures has not worked, and it has led to the backlash in the form of the new West Coast Model, which is expected to be brought up in other states in the east and midwest. The tech hub areas have grown with the boom in tech but this has largely ignored the rural areas, communities just outside of the tech cities, and led to uneven and distorted growth shortchanging the working class and the middle class, and hurting investment in education and healthcare across each state. Bill Whalen, a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution conservative think tank ,says that its hard to deny that the balanced growth for all communities across the state has lagged far behind as the tech booms boosted growth in the economies of California, Oregon and Washington. An article in the German online site Zeit on Silicon Valley described this vividly showing how this can happen in communities sitting side by side in the San Jose area, with minority Hispanic communities and working class communties seeing very little of the benefits of growth. ...

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A Berlin based think tank, German Institute for Economic Research, says Germany could end its dependence on energy imports by winter of 2022. That is much sooner than mid-2024 as Economy Minister Habeck has stated.The issue has serious urgency as the war continues in April in Ukraine entering a new and more dangerous phase in the east. And every day oil and gas imports by European Union gives Russia $16 million for coal, $434 million for natural gas, and $489 million for oil, a total of close to $1 billion every day.  With new missile attacks on civilian buildings this is one way for European Union to shoulder some of the burden that it has not done so far. DIW think tank says this could be done with decreased industry and household consumption that could generate about 18-26% savings of the demand for Russian natural gas, suggesting that households turn down thermostats and use less warm water, and industry turn to alternative fuels such as coal and biomass. Another saving is from increased supplies from Norway and the Netherlands of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Increased supplies from Norway alone says DIW could cover 20% of current annual imports of gas from Russia. Instead of waiting to build new infrastructure, the new LNG terminals on the coast which face long construction times and eventually falling demand for natural gas which make them financially untenable, the best approach is to use existing infrastructure in LNG terminals in the Netherlands, Belgium and France to increase volume in EU pipelines. Such action would cover 25% of demand for Russian natural gas. Other action is get more efficient use of the European pipeline system to increase German gas imports from Algeria, Libya and other North African nations vis southern EU nations. ...

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So far 17 million people in the UK have received the Astra Zeneca vaccine.  35 cases of blood clots, 15 of pulmonary embolism and 22 of deep vein thrombosis have been reported across the UK and EU. In a normal year more than this number of cases of blood clots are seen say experts. These occur naturally in the population, including elderly population. Astra Zeneca's chief medical officer, Ann Taylor, says the number of blood clots in the 17 million people who have received the vaccine across Europe is actually lower than would be expected in the general population. The EU countries of Germany, France, Netherlands and Italy have temporarily stopped using it after 3 healthcare workers in Norway had blood clots. In Germany 7 out of 1.6 million had a rare condition of cerebral sinus thrombosis. Both EU and medical regulators say that there is no evidence that these blood clots are caused by the vaccine. The number of clots are similar to what was seen in the population before the coronavirus. Also this report in The Times says taken together there is no difference between the number of clots in the population that received the Pfizer vaccine or the Astra Zeneca vaccine.  The Daily Telegraph reports that one in 1000 people have blood clots every year, so that for 17 million people in vaccinated population with the Astra Zeneca vaccine there would be 17000 cases of blood clots over 12 months. During the clinical trials Astra Zeneca reported there were fewer people with blood clots who had been vaccinated than in the people who were not vaccinated. ...

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Just about half of Africa's population is within 25 kilometres of a fiber network for mobile telephone connections. In Nigeria this is much lower at 14%. Instead of having to lay costly fiber optic networks for high speed broadband connections Africa can benefit from new 5G network technologies that enable Africa to leapfrog to better high speed internet connections. The telecom company MTN has started testing 5G mobile internet in Nigeria with live demonstrations in Abuja and Calabar, and in other Nigerian cities during a 3 month trial period. Nigeria is one of the few African countries that is pushing 5G with rollout in 2020. 5G uses radio waves to transmit and receive data between an antenna and one's mobile phone. It operates at high radio wave frequencies which cannot travel as far as other frequencies, so a denser network of base stations or masts is needed. This makes it highly suitable for large urban areas. A report by GMSA shows that South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya and four other African countries will have 5G by 2025 and this will be about 3% of mobile data compared to 16% worldwide. Problems with use of 4G in Nigeria show the issues facing Africa. Cost of using 4G is high for the average user, so that only 4% of users of mobile internet in Nigeria are 4G even though Nigeria has an extensive 4G network. Instead 40% of Nigerian users use 3G networks. 5G faster internet could help Africa in areas such as health with telemedicine, and in remote education, say experts. They also say 5G rollout in Africa will benefit from drop in costs as the technology becomes widely used in Europe, China and America. ...

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The riots in Dublin, Ireland, covered in depth in The Times, started with a stranger approaching an Irish language primary school in Parnell Square East, and attacking children there with a knife. A deliveroo driver on a motorcycle moves to the scene and using his helmet hits the attacker felling him to the ground where he is disarmed. Minutes later the scene is replayed over social media channels TwitterX, Whats App, and far right figure puts it in a Twitter account that a "foreign man entered the school and stabbed five people," setting off marauding youth to riot on the streets A tram and several police cars, shops in the centre of Dublin, a hostel for asylum seekers, are damaged or set on fire.  In September 2023 200 people protested high immigration outside the Irish parliament. As in Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Utrecht area  housing in Dublin is unaffordable to the locals. Immigration has surged particularly from Ukraine all over Europe in 2022. It is an issue in UK, Netherlands and Ireland. With the cost of living crisis, the aftermath of the pandemic with people suspicious of the state, overcrowding in socially deprived inner city areas Parnell Square being one of them,  and record homelessness; immigration has become a scapegoat. The suspect in this situation was a naturalized Irish citizen who has lived in Ireland for 20 years and is of French-Algerian origin. The Deliveroo driver who came to the rescue is a 43 year old Brazilian Caio Benicio. It took three hours after nightfall 6.00 pm for police to restore order. ...

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Prof. Barry Naughton at the University of California, San Diego, looks at how China has approached tech regulation in a way that has not yet happened in the US and Europe. It says tech regulation expands the role of the government, yet is one that has "a reasonable regulatory rationale," and can be easily supported on an individual basis. It says the US and Europe have recognized the issues that need to be tackled as tech companies were left with no checks or regulation after growing in insidious ways in the last ten years, but have so far failed to act on this knowledge. Some of the goals pursued in China made sense for China it says- technology self-reliance after delinking with the US, data security, de-risking the housing market, getting on a path to carbon neutrality. Other goals such as de-licensing tutoring companies and reregistering as non profit companies-  this was because of president Xi's concern that excessive costs and stress were discouraging Chinese families from having more children as China's population ages rapidly. This means the government plays a bigger role yet Naughton says when it coms to the goal of reducing inequality China has still to come up with ways to use tax policy and other ways to mitigate an extremely unequal distribution of wealth in China. Today this is limited to donations and giving by companies. In the US and Europe social democratic governments from Biden, Scholz and others are taking serious steps and have plans to address these problems of common prosperity with plans to help families and workers. ...

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Helen Gao provides this exceptional story of how 544,000 Chinese students studying abroad far from being success stories are facing stress, anxiety, depression to an unusual degree. About 329,000 of them are in the U.S. where the $50,000 to $60,000 college tuition cost is ten times the disposable income of a Chinese family. For working class families study abroad means using up savings. Researchers at Yale in a 2013 survey found 45 percent of Chinese students on campus had symptoms of depression, 29% had anxiety. This is similar to other universities in the U.S., Australia and Britain with large Chinese student populations. Language barriers and cultural barriers pose a problem particularly in student interactions with advisers and professors. Liberal arts studies emphasize critical thinking and other skills that are not found in a results oriented, memorization from note cards oriented system in China, creating academic stress. Worse what awaits students who return is not enough recognition for years spent studying in a different environment- about 80% of Chinese students from abroad earn a mere $1500 a month, according to a Beijing think tank Center for China and Globalization report done with a recruitment agency Zhilian Zhaopin. As she talks about the experience of other students from China, Gao describes her own anxiety attacks during 8 years of study in the U.S. Her father sent pictures after his first visit to the U.S. in 1995 says Gao, with words about how he wanted his daughter to see the U.S. with her own eyes, the beauty of the country and its spirit. Years later Helen Gao of Beijing sees a different America as she walks from one Harvard campus building to another in 2015 during her last year of graduate study, one that brings anxiety, financial insecurity, and uncertainty about the future.   ...

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This editorial in the WSJ commends Congress for the $2 trillion U.S. aid package for households, small business and large corporations to keep workers on payroll, and aid to hospitals. It also commends the Federal Reserve for swift action to maintain liquidity in all corners of money markets. It was important to prevent a run on money market funds and municipal bond funds. The U.S. Senate bill adds $454 billion for Treasury that can support further Fed action if needed. This has also resulted in a recovery in the stock markets. The editors of WSJ caution Treasury from intervening too far up the risk curve to help companies that had overleveraged themselves with risk before coronavirus hit. It makes clear that the U.S. central bank the Fed should only offer liquidity against good collateral to companies that were healthy before the shock. As president  Trump never tires of telling listeners to his daily briefings from the Brady room in the White House- Boeing and the airlines were healthy before coronavirus hit. It was not their fault that coronavirus hit so suddenly. These companies deserve government help, says the president. By making the distinction between otherwise healthy companies and companies that overleveraged themselves on their own, the Fed, Treasury, and the U.S. government can get more bang for the buck. The WSJ editorial also says there is a bit of good news in the behaviour of politicians, media and the public in the way they are ignoring the trivial politics and self-centred behaviours, including indiscriminately being critical of the president, and focusing on the important matters that affect all our lives.  ...

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This WSJ report by Collins, Belkin, Parti and Whyte takes an indepth look at the issues surrounding anti-semitism on US campuses, in particular UC Berkeley, U Penn, Harvard, Columbia universities. It looks at what happened in the first term and how with the Gaza war the issues of antisemitism on US campuses increased and the DJT administration, Education Secretary McMahon, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon, and domestic advisers in the Trump administration, decided it was time to rein in the antisemitism seen at top ranked universities.  On the campus of UC Berkeley in Feb 2019, Hayden Williams was a young conservative activist who set up a table to recruit students to Turning Point USA. He was punched in the face in an argument which attracted media attention. DJT said at the time that "we got to do something about this." In meetings with Hayden Trump discussed actions such as cutting off federal funding to universities with free speech violations. This is the genesis of the current action says WSJ where Harvard faces cut offs of funding for lack of action to control antisemitism on campus and the president asking Harvard to stop enrollment of international students. Some international students have been involved in the activism tending towards antisemitism.  There is also the sense that some universities are admitting far too many, as many as 40% of the enrolment, from overseas students- a form of neglect of local American students, who now have less access to the resources that the federal government is giving to these universities which they should be entitled to as Americans. U Chicago, Harvard and Penn are in the 30%+ range for overseas students and Columbia around 40%. ...

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On Monday August 8, 2010, the Dow Jones Industrial Averages went down by 634 points and closed below 11,000 points. This is not far from the 10,165 level of the DJIA on August 27, 2010. It was on August 27, 2010 that Fed chairman Ben Bernanke made the speech at the Kansas City Fed's Jackson Hole conference about the strategy for a QE II. Its about the time for this years Jackson Hole conference and the gains in the stock market are melting away. The DJIA closed at 12810 by April 29, 2011, then went below 11,000 by August 8, 2011. With higher inflation the Fed's options are limited.

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The Dow Jones Average in the US went up by 11.3% since August 26, 2010, in anticipation of the Fed's quantitative easing, and the Republican win in the House and a filibuster capable 41 seats in the Senate. But on the eve of the midterm election in the first week of November 2010, the mood is changing. There is considerable concern that the Dow Jones average may have gone too far. Experts question the advantages of gridlock in Washington, especially when strong government action may be necessary in a crisis. And there are questions on how effective the Fed can be this time when the interest rates are already near zero.

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Jens Weidmann becomes the new president of the German central bank, taking over from Axel Weber. Weber was critical of the ECB's bond buying program for Greece and other countries facing a deficit crisis, to which he alluded when he said at the handover ceremony- "at times we struggled with one another in light of difficult and far reaching decisions- not over the common goal, but how to reach it." Weidmann was an advisor to Chancellor Merkel. He is a student of Weber and the youngest President of the Bundesbank. He brings a measure of flexibility and trust for Merkel, as he was part of her inner circle of advisors.

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This editorial in the NYT calls for the IMF and the EU to rip up their I.O.U.'s after five years of debt negotiations with Greece and a contracting Greek economy. German public opinion looks at it differently having shifted to favoring Greece's exit from the euro. Chancellor Merkel says "if the Euro fails, Europe fails," what she means by this is that the economic responsibility of countries in the eurozone is a condition for the Euro to succeed. The two sides are far apart as Greece faces a "yes" or "no" vote to remain in the eurozone in the July 5, 2015 referendum.

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Harvard professor, Benjamin Friedman, reviews journalist Timothy Noah's book "The Great Divergences: America's Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do About It." Friedman says, Karl Marx got it wrong when he predicted greater inequality based on the situation he saw in Europe and the U.S. in the late nineteenth century. Inequality actually decreased in the U.S. and Europe with industrialization, technological progress, higher educational and income levels by the early part of the twentieth century. Similiarly Simon Kuznets, Nobel Laureate, also got it wrong when he extrapolated from what he saw in the early postwar period, assuming greater equality and better opportunities in future decades. The approach Noah and Friedman advise is to look at individual factors that promote or discourage less divergence in income levels, opportunities and upward mobility. And based on this shape policy and action agenda for better outcomes. A whole range of issues fall in this range- promoting manufacturing and higher wage jobs, immigration policy, investments in education to upgrade skills, better educational opportunities, vocational training, upgrading education to keep up with new technology, and investments in research and new technologies for new industries that would create better opportunities. Because inequality is increasing worldwide, and countries are focussing on improving competitiveness as well as preserving the social fabric in a global economy, this is an issue facing all countries that seek a better future....

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India's new bankruptcy law is a big step forward in letting credit markets function normally and drawing in new capital. The new law says the bankruptcy should be completed in 180 days after a default. Indian banks hold about $105 billion in non-performing or bad loans, according to the Reserve Bank of India. It is essential that India cope with the bad debt to attract new capital investment and increase growth. Asset reconstruction company being formed by Ambit and J.C. Flowers & Company was approved in late 2016 by the Reserve Bank of India, India's central bank. So far Indian banks have showed unwillingness to take a loss on the loans and take a big discount. Only $3 billion in asset reconstruction has taken place in 2016 through selling bad loans, according to Credit Suisse. Indian industry has relied heavily on bank loans and sale of stock for capital investment as the corporate bond market is undeveloped. This is about to change to finance growth, with the bankruptcy law and transparency as a first step. Larger foreign firms are teaming up with local partners to tackle distressed debt and bad loans, with locals knowledge of risks making it easier to profit from capital invested. ICICI bank won the first ruling of the new bankruptcy law by the National Company Law Tribunal against Innoventive to recover assets, providing the first test of the law. In the past such action would drag on for years, showing India is now serious about getting rid of bad loans in the banking system, and to revitalize credit markets to finance new growth. ...