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Michael Getler describes the missed opportunity under President Obama for using one of America's most talented diplomats to engineer a peace agreement between the warring factions in Afghanistan- the U.S., the Pakistan army, the ISI and its support in the army, the Taliban, and the other parties such as the Haqqani faction and the Afghan government of Karzai. Holbrooke had used his experience for another President, with the same force of his larger than life personality, when he helped bring about the Dayton Accords in a similiar area of stubborn ethnic strife. Could Obama have tapped Holbrooke's skills and set aside the distractions of his personality as coming from an American with unique gifts, talent and achievement, is the question Getler asks. And is this a comment on the nature of the Obama Presidency and America's poorly invested hopes.

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Mexico's president Enrique Pena Nieto describes his plans for increasing economic growth in an interview with Lally Weymouth. He looks back at the changes made through the Pacto de Mexico in energy, education and telecommunications, and in other areas. Changes made will allow political parties to form coalitions after 2018 following a presidential election, to form a majority in the legislature so that new legislation can be passed. A new criminal code for the entire country will override a patchwork of laws in different states. Economic growth is a high priority after disappointing 2.6% growth in the last 3 years, with infrastructure projects planned- new airport for Mexico City, doubling port capacity, new rail lines and high speed rail line Mexico City to Queretaro.

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ECB president Draghi tells a Brookings Institution audience on Oct. 9, 2014 "for governments that have fiscal space, then of course it makes sense to use it," referring to Germany. IMF's Christine Lagarde is also calling on Germany to increase spending. The German statistics office says exports declined 5.8% in August from prior month. Mr. Draghi also emphasized that the survival of European governments depended on getting economic changes right- "if they don't do the right things, they will disappear forever because they will not be re-elected." Germany's respected economic institutes said in a joint statement that GDP growth in 2014 will be down from earlier forecast of 1.9% to 1.3%. In 2015 growth is forecast at 1.2%. For the 3rd quarter 2014 growth is zero and for the 4th quarter 2014 it is estimated at 0.1%. Economic contraction is not ruled out.

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Drew Western, a professor of psychology at Emory University, asks the question about Obama that is on many people's minds- who is this man who wrote the book "Dreams of My Father." And what happened to him? It is as if he is asking did they conjure up something that didn't exist, was there really too little about the man in a book written when the young Obama was still in law school- about his experience growing up between two races, except a remarkable effort to grapple with that experience. It would say little about the man himself, the choices he would make, the decisions he would face as he entered his thirties, and forties, a period that provides the crucible and the formative experiences in the development of character. It is as if readers had appended their own chapter at the end of the book and conjured up many things that really did not exist. And which would serve as a kind of Rorschach test experience where readers were free to read into the picture whatever they wished to see- and something Obama could use to be all things to all people. Drew Western draws from his knowledge of psychology and his direct or virtual conversations with about 50,000 people to reflect and make some hypotheses about what has happened to Obama, or what Obama was always about. He starts by pointing out what was missing in the inauguration speech and has been missing ever since- a clear sense of narrative and a vision, a story about what had happened and how it could be made different in the midst of the global financial crisis of 2008-2009. Western provides several hypotheses for what has happened. Obama simply lacks the experience to handle the presidency -having been merely a community activist and not run a city, a state or a business, and had accomplished little before becoming president, and had an unremarkable career as a law professor having published nothing during his 12 years at the University of Chicago except an autobiography. And remarkably says Western voted 130 times in the Senate as "present" instead of "yea" or "nay," suggesting a tendency not to take a stand on difficult issues. The auto fuel efficiency standards issue may be the singular exception. The challenges of a presidency are much larger, and the challenges in 2009 were even greater. Obama could not measure upto the task. A related hypothesis is that given the lack of experience and the inability to make the narrative because of an unresolved identity, Obama is willing to do whatever it takes to dial for dollars and get re-elected. ...

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The U.S. government sold its last remaining shares in auto company GM booking a loss of $10.5 billion- a recovery of $39 billion dollars of the $49.5 billon dollars given to GM. The Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich., points out that the cost of bailing out GM and Chrysler was about $13.7 billion. The benefits were 1.2 million jobs protected in 2009 during the depths of the financial crisis. It also preserved $39.4 billion in personal and social insurance tax collections in 2009 and 2010. The Treasury Department estimate of the cost is about $15 billon, including money invested in GM's former finance arm Ally Financial Inc. President Obama says the effort helped create 372,000 new jobs in five years. Treasury Secretary Lew summed it up by saying "it helped stabilize the auto industry and prevent another Great Depression." Other intangible but larger benefits in the long run were building up the companies anew with new pay structures the auto companies could support in a globalized economy, bringing in new management and discarding of old mindsets and culture, new relationships with unions and customers, committment to achieving fuel efficiency targets with new technologies in cooperation with the U.S. government guidelines, and renewed confidence of millions of employees in the U.S. auto sector. It is also the one area in which the Obama administration scores a clear win, and in which president Obama took the greatest interest as senator. That the public did not fully appreciate the significance of the step is more a reflecion of public frustration with how the companies were run by the old management, and a continual reminder of the importance of good management for the U.S. industry and economy....

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Gretchen Morgenson describes the issues of regulatory capture for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner during the 2008 financial crisis and the first term of the Obama administration, which affected how Geithner treated homeowners and banks. Morgenson describes close ties to Citicorp.

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Porter of the NYT points out that the figures released from census information that the U.S. median household income increased by 5.2% in 2015 to $56,500 is good news for Americans including minority and working class families at the lower tiers. However more needs to happen compared to previous recoveries in the mid-90's, and for people who suffered during the recession to finally put that experience behind them, says Porter.