LyrArc Article Gist
According to this report in The Times money taken from a sovereign investment fund was used for the film "Wolf on Wall Street," starring Leonard Di Caprio. Details of the 1MDB story first investigated by the Wall Street Journal read like a detective novel. Malaysia's former prime minister in his 90's returned this year to defeat his former protege Najib in an election that revolved around the 1MDB story and how the state investment fund had funds diverted away from development goals by Najib. Malaysia's Attorney General files criminal charges against Goldman Sachs bank for collusion in the loss of billions of dollars from the 1MDB Malaysia fund intended for development goals, according to this report in The Times. Two former employees are accused of misappropriating $2.7 billion. The statement by the Attorney General, Tommy Thomas about Goldman Sachs bank said: "They have fallen short of any standard... they have to be held accountable." ...

LyrArc Article Gist
This Wall Street Journal article in 1993 documents the struggles and failures experienced by Steve Jobs after he left Apple in 1985 and started the company Next.

LyrArc Article Gist
The investigation into the airstrike by the U.S. on a Pakistani border position inside Afghanistan largely upholds the Pakistani account of events according to the Wall Street Journal.

LyrArc Article Gist
This analysis in the Wall Street Journal shows North Korea gaining from the cancellation of the meeting with North Korean leader Kim by president Trump. This makes the U.S as being less keen on dialogue. North Korea responded in a subdued tone saying it is willing to continue talks, and praised Mr. Trump's initial openness.

North Korea is seen as benefiting as China may have gained some leverage in how much it will act in enforcement of strict sanctions policies that pressured North Korea. North Korea has its nuclear facilities intact and has gained positive publicity from the Olympics and the meetings with South Korean leader Mr. Moon. North Korea sees the recent moves as its effort to be recognized as a nuclear power state, and is seen as continuing to follow this policy

LyrArc Article Gist
The Wall Street Journal interviews Amr Moussa, leading candidate for the presidential elections in Egypt. He sees a change in policy towards Israel, and a parliament that has many Islamic legislators.

LyrArc Article Gist
The Daiichi Fukushima nuclear reactors are of a older 1970's design. A Wall Street Journal analysis of the safety record at the plant shows a safety record that is worse than other nuclear plants in Japan. Experts say the maintenance practices at the plant contributed to the nuclear meltdown. In the US spent fuel is retained in the nuclear reactor vessel during maintenance. At TEPCO's Fukushima plant the spent fuel is removed from the plant during maintenance and depends mainly on cooling water to keep the heat from building up. The additional protection of the reactor vessel is not present if something were to go wrong, as happened with the earthquake and tsunami.

LyrArc Article Gist
Companies in the U.S. and Europe that made internet surveillance technology available to the Gaddafi regime in Libya, according to the Wall Street Journal. This was used to suppress the democracy protests in Libya.

LyrArc Article Gist
This editorial in the Wall Street Journal says faster approvals at the Food and Drug Administration have helped bring more generic drugs to market lowering prices for the public. In 20 months the Trump administration approved 1617 generic drugs, 81 a month on average or a 17% increase over the preceding 20 months. Council of Economic Advisers in October said this was a saving of $26 billion for the public.

President Trump is looking at price controls as a way to bring down drug prices. With increasing outcry about high drug prices in the U.S. the Trump administration and Democrats in Congress are looking for new approaches to bring down prices.

LyrArc Article Gist
This view from the Editorial Board comes as Republicans in Congress geared up for a legislative victory decided to ignore the expert opinion of the Joint Committee on Taxation and polls showing a majority of Americans disapprove of the tax law. It says a "corrosive partisanship" that is affecting the nation has led to this decision. Not an informed consensus necessary to make real and lasting changes to the tax laws that increase growth without disrupting hard won gains in social cohesion after World War II.  Republicans pushed through a trillion and half dollars in tax cuts in the law that reduces the corporate tax rate to 21% from 35%, and cut taxes in 2019 by 51 times ($51,400) for the top 1% of incomes compared to ($1000) for middle class families earning less than $100,000 (Tax Policy Center). The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates it will add $1 trillion to the U.S. deficit as only $500 billion is expected in increase in government revenues over a decade from additional economic growth. This is supported by evidence from countries such as Britain that implemented this type of corporate tax cut without generating much economic growth, says Greg Ip in the Wall Street Journal. The "victory" then comes at a high cost says the Washington Post- in years to come programs to help the growing lower middle class and working class will be subject to cuts and taxes will have to rise to balance budgets.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Krugman says the failure of the Supercommittee would be a time to celebrate, better no deal than a bad deal. This is also what the Wall Street Journal said in an editorial on the same day, Nov. 18, 2011.

LyrArc Article Gist
Failure of U.S. regulatory agencies to implement an important provision of the Dodd-Frank legislation- instructing regulators to find all references to ratings agencies in their rules, and then replace them with better standards for judging credit risk. Treasury's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, is one of the agencies trying to gut this reform, says this Wall Steet Journal editorial. The S.E.C. voted unanimously in March and April to propose rules eliminating credit agencies in their regulations on money funds and stock brokerages. As the comment periods have ended, the Journal calls for the rules to be immediately made final. Officials from FDIC and OCC are dragging their feet on this. One problem they face is their assumption that the Dodd-Frank law requires them to come up with the perfect rule for measuring credit risk. This is not what the change is intended to do. It is enough says the Journal to return the responsibility for the right metrics and the hard work of analyzing a security back to where it belongs- to people who manage these assets and institutional managers. Even if they made some mistakes it would be far less than the systemic risk posed by having all major institutions making the same mistake at the same time and the entire system following flawed ratings by the big three credit ratings agencies. This happened in the 2008 mortgage securities financial crisis. S&P has stated that it does not support the old system. And new alternatives are appearing for ratings- CreditSights, Rapid Ratings, Kroll Bond Ratings which got S.E.C.' support, and other alternatives still to come....

LyrArc Article Gist
Robert Thomson as top Editor at the Wall Street Journal.

LyrArc Article Gist
Like Harry Truman Tim Walz can understand what free school lunches are about- Walz worked as a high school teacher, so did his wife Gwen. See the story on school lunches on this page.  He knows what cost of living is about with prices of groceries and gas and auto repairs rising. We want to say to America not since Harry Truman have finances of two vice presidents looked so similar- and their dedication to workers and families is genuine and of the kind that is needed for these times when working families and working men, rural families,  have deserted a Democratic party distracted by Tech millionaires and billionaires in its ranks. Tim Walz is America's Everyman in this sense of the word  with net worth excluding pensions of under $300,000, and shares the pain of meeting cost of living and other concerns that are spared from other vice presidents or presidents from wealthy backgrounds. The Minnesota Governor has modest income and wealth compared to recent presidential tickets. The former  high school teacher and congressman’s assets are mostly limited to pensions, whole life insurance and college savings. Tim Walz and his wife, Gwen Walz, have net worth between $112,003 to $330,000, as of his 2019 financial disclosure, according to WSJ. The value of  federal pension benefit about roughly $800,000 to add to their net worth, based on The Wall Street Journal’s analysis. The couple did not report any dividend or capital gains income on their 2022 tax return, the most recent return available. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Liz Rappaport of the Wall Street Journal interviews Neil Barofsky, inspector general of the U.S. Troubled Asset Relief Program. Barofsky is asked what is his biggest failure. He says the biggest failure is the failure of TARP to preserve home ownership. He goes on to say that the biggest nonfinancial cost of TARP is "too big to fail." And he warns that the there will be another bubble because of all the money that is going into the housing, commodities and other markets. The next blow he says could be much more signifcant for the U.S. economy. Is Fed chairman Bernanke listening?

LyrArc Article Gist
Siobhan Gorman of the Wall Street Journal interviews Michael Morrell of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Mr Morrell has been at the CIA for 31 years and is a senior advisor to General Petraeus, new head of the CIA. Here he describes the efforts of the CIA and his advice to Gen. Petraeus.

LyrArc Article Gist
The foreign policy establishment and the Obama administration is caught completely by surprise by the protests in Egypt against the 30 year rule of Mubarak. Secretary of State Clinton makes shifting statements on the protests. The WSJ editorial reminds the state department that support for democratic government worked in the Philippines and S. Korea. The Journal points to the state department realists who opposed President Bush's efforts to reach out to civil society groups inside Egypt. And refers to US Ambassador Frank Ricciardone's admiration for President Mubarak and his downplaying of US support to democracy for Egypt. The Wall Street Journal in this editorial concludes by saying it can't see how the US can walk away from supporting those who favor more pluralism in politics.

LyrArc Article Gist
Wall Street Journal NBC polls taken in January that show only 34% of Americans think the country is headed in the right direction compared with 54% who think its on the wrong track. A similiar survey taken by WSJ/NBC in December showed two thirds of Americans say the don't feel confident about the prospects for their children's generation.

LyrArc Article Gist
  Newly elected US president says he wants to end the Ukraine war and save lives- 300,000 dead, twice that number wounded. The Wall Street Journal conducts this important interview with Retired Brigadier General Kimmett on Ukraine. He says- the Ukrainian goal of restoring sovereignty over eastern Ukraine is unrealistic. Did European Union and American leaders making a principle of sovereignty of borders, and then applying it over the Donetsk Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine which share Russian culture and language, make an error.  About 4/5th of Ukraine is away from the battlefield frontlines and not involved in the war. Ukrainians in younger ages 18-29 are needed to rebuild Ukraine and same to rebuild Russia after the war with serious losses on all sides. Europe does not have the excess capacity, the industrial capacity and capabilities to supply arms and other materials to Ukraine. The newly elected US president says he wants to end the war and his goal is to save lives- about 300,000 dead and twice that number wounded. He also wants to save US strained resources with DJT saying every visit of Ukraine leader costs US $60 billion. Ukraine can hold intact its positions through 2025. But the point of prolonging the war is the issue when the goal of restoring sovereignty over eastern Ukraine and Crimea is unrealistic, and won't happen. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Mikhail Gorbachev on the Georgian and South Ossetian situation in response to American reaction. See the piece in the Wall Street Journal by the Russian Foreign Minister, which also presents the Russian view. Gorbachev is more direct in expressing the Russian feelings about what has happened since the fall of the Soviet Union and about his feelings about Europe and Russia as part of Europe. Note also British Foreign Minister Milliband's support for the European position of dialogue with Russia different from the confrontation evident in the American position.

LyrArc Article Gist
The Fed's own files, data from 21,000 Fed transactions over 2007-2010, are revealed in a kind of Wikileaks release. The data is available because of a transparency provision in the Dodd-Frank bill introduced by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. This editorial in the Wall Street Journal shows that banks on Wall Street received much more help than advertised. Goldman Sachs is shown to have used the Primary Dealer Credit Facility 212 times for an amount of nearly $600 billion. Morgan Stanley is shown to have used the overnight Fed lending program 212 times from March 2008 to March 2009. The Wall Street Journal editorial concludes that this makes it impossible for someone to argue that either bank would have survived the financial storm without the Fed's help. The same is true for General Electric. GE tapped the Fed's Commercial Paper Funding Facility 12 times for more than $15 billion And with the help of the FDIC's debt guarantee program GE sold $60 billion of government guaranteed debt. GE and Citicorp are shown to be the heaviest users of that program from November 2008 to Juy 2009. The overwhelming lesson, says this editorial, is to ensure that there is no repeat of this kind of situation. And the new Congress needs to tighten the too-big-to-fail criteria....

LyrArc Article Gist
An analysis by the Wall Street Journal shows that on July 9, 2015, with the market plunge only 3.2% of companies traded normally. The rest of the shares for the Shanghai and the Shenzhen Stock Exchanges were suspended or hit a daily limit for declines. 51% of companies took themselves off the market, and 46% halted trading because of limit rules.

LyrArc Article Gist
Israel's defense minister Ehud Barak, tells the Wall Street Journal in an interview, that the protests throughout the Arab world are a movement in the right direction, and moving Arab societies toward modernity. His view is that Israel should not fear changes in the region and should offer bold concessions in setting up the conditions for a permanent peace with Palestinians.

LyrArc Article Gist
This objective look at the situation of Black Americans comes from a American -Jamaican. Educated in the West Indies and in Britain, Patterson is able to bring another perspective to look what has happened and what is the way forward. Here he is interviewed by the Harvard Gazette. Patterson is a professor of sociology at Harvard. A separate Saturday Essay by Orlando Patterson appears in the Wall Street Journal on June 6, 2020. Patterson points out that the big problem is de-ghettoization is not happening. Progress is not about integration first, it is about successful de-ghettoization taking place first, says Patterson.  And here he faults white liberals for not putting their money where their mouth is. For this to happen black families have to be able to move into suburbs. Strict zoning laws and limits to building moderately priced housing in some of the most liberal parts of the country keep out families wanting to move to the suburbs.  It is the social contact even side by side in suburbs with a leap in quality of housing and neighborhoods, schools, that can change people's own perceptions of themselves and their interactions with the communities around them. A lot of whites Patterson says have liberal views but when it comes down to making the concessions needed to make black lives better they are not willing to do that.   Patterson offers his own experience in Britain walking down a street in Cambridge. He lived on Trowbridge Street. He enjoyed walking through the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. And while walking he observed the easy interaction of black kids and white kids, and realized how different this was from the 1960's and 1970's. Having this sort of interaction comes from a more integrated setting, so that people grow up not having that awkwardness or lacking social contact.      ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Last month the Nevada probate commissioner said Rupert Murdoch could amend his irrevocable trust if he is acting in good faith and in the interests of his 4 children. A trial to determine if this is in good faith begins in September 2024. The current trust for Murdoch and his news properties is an irrevocable trust set up 24 years back in Reno, Nevada. It gives one vote each to Lachlan, James, Elisabeth and Prudence after Rupert Murdoch's death. He is 93 years. Lachlan and Rupert Murdoch have views that have led to Fox News and Wall Street Journal news coverage that is seen as extreme. James ran the News operations with Lachlan till he could no longer support the shift, a shift consistent with his father's views. William Barr, an Attorney General for Bush and Trump is a legal adviser to Rupert Murdoch in the effort to give voting rights to Lachlan, so he has a majority. James says he is uncomfortable with the shift at the networks and that it would hurt them in the long run that the gains in ratings are short term and have led to releasing insidious forces in the US. James's wife Kathryn is a climate change activist. The siblings say the original trust had "an equal governance provision" and want a voice. They also say the move to give Lachlan majority voting rights disenfrachises them. The courts in Nevada will take up this case with the siblings working together in opposition to Rupert Murdoch and Lachlan. ...