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Harrisburg's local authorites decide to default on a bond payment, rather than cut services to the community by laying off police officers, or making other cuts in services.

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President Obama on his plan to increase exports to Asian countries, and to double exports in 5 years.

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The 2016 presidential election campaign is expected to lead to $10 billion in campaign spending. The Federal Election Commission is unable to take any action against campaign abuses with the commission deadlocked 3-3, with 3 Democratic members and 3 Republican members voting strictly along party lines and seeing any move by the other side as partisan. The members are not even on talking terms. Republican members see the issue in terms of First Amendment rights to free speech. The Supreme Court's decision in the 2010 Citizens United case affirmed First Amendment rights of free speech and unlimited fund raising to conduct election campaigns. The Supreme Court ruling considered corporations as associations of individuals and therefore entitled to First Amendment rights of free speech. The Court suspended the "electioneering communication" ban imposed by the Bipartisan Reform Act of 2002, allowing corporations and unions to engage in free speech electioneering during election campaigns.

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Appeals Court Judge Sotomayor's important decisions in cases about discrimination in education, the enviuronment, ferderal contractors, international law and so on.

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New York Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor, is President Obama's pick for the Supreme Court. Saying that Stomayor had arigorous intellect and a mastery of the law, President Obama went on to say at an announcement ceremony, that the judge's inspiring story was crucial in his decision. One that was made with deep reflection and careful deliberation. Obama quoted Justice Oliver Wendell Homes- "the life of the law has not beenlogic, it has been experience." And added his own words to those of Holmes- its vital that ajustice know "how the world works, and how ordinary people live." Sotomayor is from the Bronx part of New York City. Her parents immigrated from Puerto Rico and lived in a poor neighborhood. Her mother worked six day weeks to earn enough money to send her and a brother to Catholic school. From there she got into Princeton University, where she once felt like "a vistor landing in an alien country," but graduated summa cum laude. She went on to Yale law school, where she was editor of the Yale Law Journal, workwed for Robert Morgenthau in the district attorney's office in New York and later went into private practice. She was nominated by the first President Bush in 1991 to the federal appeals court on the advice of Senator Patrick Moynihan, and then by Bill Clinton to the appeals court in 1997. Judge Sotomayor takes pride in her ethnicity, gender and growing up in the poor part of the Bronx, and said in a2002 lecture- " I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who has'nt lived that life."...

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Stephen Carter at Yale Law School, and Sonia Sotomayor on the Appeals Court of New York, share the idea that a judges's experiences will have an impact on what and how he or she see things, and there is virtue in that impact. And those individual experiences are unique to that person, what makes her who she is , and are to some extent idiosyncratic or special to that person. This adds to the law rather than than detracts from it, by adding to the richness of experience. If the life of the law is experience and it is informed by it, then the richness of experiences on the bench only add to the richness of insight brought to bear in making the decision. Sotomayor explains this in the light of her own experiences, but others could have done so also. And no two women are the same. Justice O'Connor's experiences growing up in the frontier on an Arizona ranch and taking part in ranch activities are just unique, there is just no one like her in the supreme court past and present. The same is true of this Newyorkican (puertorican form the Bronx). These individual experiences temper the sense of shared perception of womanhood, and criss cross over cultural lines in so may ways, that there is no typical black, no typical white and no typical Hispanic, especially in today's heterogenous mix of communities in America. Try a Puerto Rican who can't speak Spanish and doesn't know what tacos are like....

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The Washington Post editorial says there is much to admire in Sotomayor's life and achievements in the law. She would make awelcome fresh perspective to the bench says the WPOst, considering the variety and diversity of experience she brings that does not exist on the Supreme Court. But says the WPOst Senators should ask her questions relating to impartiality and making policy while on the bench.

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The 45 million Latinos in the USA react with pride, and some parents talk to their daughters to see her as a role model. From Salvadoran immigrants, and Cuban immigrants to Mexican immigrants, to people in the Bronz and Puerto Rico. Demographic research by the Pew Hispanic Center shows that Hispanics are from many countries and have a diversity of opinions and attitudes. Two thirds voted for Obama, one third for McCain, 60% are native-born and 40% foreign born, 64% are of Mexican AMerican heritage, and the other 36% are from Cuba, Puerto Rico, Central America, and other places. They make up 15% of the USA population, and account for half of the country's population growth in the last decade.

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"Empathy" was a word not used by Obama but was an idea that was persistent in his selection. From the East Room Obama told the American public- "experience being tested by obstacles and barriers, by hardhip and misfortune; experience insisting, perisisting and ultimately overcoming those barriers; is necessary ingredient in the kind of justice we need on the Supreme Court." Sotomayor responded- "This wealth of experiences, personal and professional, have helped meappreciate the variety of perspectivs that present themselves in every case that I hear." While empathy and astory line similar to the President's is clear in this case; for a Latina whose mother struggled like Obama's to get her through school, and who did well at Princeton and Yale Law School; there is also the same degree of excellence in rigorous study of the law and sharp intellect, and good judgement. This was Obama's first criteria before empathy. And even though Justice Roberts is quoted here as saying in his confirmation hearings that he saw the role of a judge as an umpire, calling balls and strikes, Roberts is still going to see the balls and the strikes through his own set of experiences. Which in this case he generalizes without knowing it or consciously realizing it, as the set of experiences common to all. His is an aspiration to impartiality no more than Sotomayor's, except that Sotomayor is conscious of her experiences, because she has as she says spent a large part of her life looking over her shoulder as an outsider Newyorkican does; and Roberts the insider isn't. ...

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India is an attractive place for foreign investors with the country moving up 23 places in the ease of doing business rankings of the World Bank. Growth is faster than China since 2015, and GDP is expected to double to $5 trillion by 2030, according to government think tank NITI Aayog. Corporate deal making from foreign investors exceeds that in China. Mergers and acquisitions targeting Indian companies reaching a total of $93.7 billion in 2018, up 52% from last year, according to Dealogic. Overseas purchases were $39.5 billion for India in 2018 compared to $32.8 billion for China. In comparison to China where trade tensions are increasing, India under the Modi government has improved the ease of doing business- implementing a new bankruptcy code, easing foreign direct investment rules, introduced a nationwide goods and services tax to replace a hodge podge of taxes in different states. In the consumer sector Unilever NV made purchase of a malted drink brand Horlicks from GlaxoSmithKline PLC as part of a $3.75 billion deal. Softbank led a $1 billion investment in OYO Hotels. In infrastructure Tata Steel made a $8.3 billion acquisition of steelmaker Bhushan Steel. Reliance Jio's aggressive push in mobile with low prices is leaving the telecom industry ripe for mergers and consolidation- Bharti Infratel acquired Indus Towers for $6.5 billion. Closely held family companies are also selling out their controlling stakes. ...

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Samuelson discusses the differences between the Bureau of Labor Statistics figures for June 2014 using the Payroll Survey and the Household Survey, each telling a different story. According to the Payroll Survey 288,000 jobs were added. The Payroll Survey is a monthly survey of 554,000 business locations, with firms asked to give the number of people on payrolls, pay and occupations. The Household Survey of the BLS asks households in monthly interviews with 60,000 Americans whether they have a job, is it part time or full time, are they looking for full time work, or jobless and for how long. The Household Survey showed June 2014 job increase at 407,000, using an estimate of 1,115,000 increase in part-time jobs and a loss of 708,000 full time jobs. Of the two the payroll survey is larger and considered by economists to be more representative. Other statistics show the parttime workers at about 3 million higher than 2007 before the 2008 financial crisis, suggesting the shift to part time jobs has been one negative result of the crisis....

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Pamela Druckerman is the author of "Bringing Up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting," which describes her experiences in France and with French ways of child raising. Unlike Ms. Druckerman's book title, the title of this article is about why French parenting is superior, which is not really the point. The point being how Americans can learn from other ways of doing parenting that would make it easier, more effective and less stressful. Brigid Schulte in an article in the Washington Post reviewing Druckerman's observations, says an important reason why French parenting is more relaxed is the comprehensive system of child care in France. This is financed by the government and has wholehearted French support. By contrast the American system is chaotic in comparison with constant worry about finding good child care, leaving mothers with the difficult choice between careers and being stay at home mothers.

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The Washington Post's Fred Hiatt interviews Seiji Maehara, Japan's Foreign Minister. Hiatt says Maehara is committed to easing immigration and increasing tourism and student exchanges. A new program of child allowances is designed to reverse population decline. Prime Minister Kan has proposed closing the deficit by raising the consumption tax. What struck Hiatt most from the interview was the emphasis on the US-Japan partnership and shared values of democracy and open trade, and the sense of a shared disillusionment with China.

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Regulatory capture and systemic risk- the situation at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in the period leading to the foreclosure crisis and financial crisis of 2008 and the situation today.