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Greg Ip provides useful insights into the nature of the economic recovery in Britain compared to the U.S. by 2015. The recovery in Britain has done better than in the U.S. in job creation, but has lagged behind in productivity gains. The labor force participation rate is 72% in Britain compared to 68% in the U.S., going back up to 2007 levels in Britain, whereas in the U.S. it has steadily declined with some older working class Americans too discouraged to look for work and left behind. Stagnant wage growth is a major issue in Britain, more so than in the U.S. where wage growth is slow. Economic austerity is not the main cause of the economic difficulties as the coalition government of prime minister Cameron relaxed earlier goals for austerity by 2012 with tax revenues and growth below forecasts. The structural budget deficit has been reduced by 6.6% of GDP since the peak, and the Office of Budget Responsibility estimates the UK economy was 1.5%-2% smaller by 2013 because of the austerity policies. Britain was also affected by the eurozone crisis to a larger degree than the U.S. Productivity remains a long term challenge- with needed investments in housing, education and infrastructure, improved lending for new business, and higher tech improvement exports....

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Prospects of a continuation of the eurozone crisis into 2012 with a deterioration of conditions in Greece, friction over funding of the EFSF bailout financing mechanism, economic contractions in some countries, a lowering of credit ratings of France and Italy, and a change of government after April elections in France adding to the uncertainty.

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Meredith Whitney and her comments on the municipal bond market and potential defaults worth hundreds of billion of dollars. She said in a "60 Minutes" interview that she expected a series of municipal bond defaults. "You could see 50 sizable defaults, 50 to 100 sizable defaults, more. This will amount to hundreds of billions of dollars worth of defaults," said Whitney. Other analysts have questioned her dire forecast. Most of the problems in municipal bonds are fairly well know say analysts, however these comments have only accelerated the trend, and more than $14 billion came out between Dec 22 and Feb 2. In other words her comments drove a rush to the exits, which is seen as irresponsible by some analysts.

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Wal-Mart is expected to announce the sixth quarter of declining same store sales in the U.S. By raising prices on some items and reducing prices on others Wal-Mart moved away from Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton's pledge to provide the best prices. Walton built Wal-Mart by promising to transfer much of the benefits of Wal-Mart's sourcing of lower priced goods to customers. The "high-low" technique in pricing is just the opposite of the everyday best price of Sam Walton. In recent years Wal-Mart has lost its touch with its core customer base by trying to attract upscale customers with trendy products and organic foods. The core customers have always been the U.S. households making less than $70,000 a year. This made up 68% of its business. Now this business is under assault by discounting chains and dollar stores. To reduce clutter in its stores, Wal-mart reduced the amount of goods carried from different suppliers, alienating some suppliers. Ironically the new pricing strategies and store design to reduce sprawl came from John Fleming, a former Target executive who became Wal-Mart's chief merchandising officer. Management changes led to Mr Fleming's departure....