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Prof. Scott Kennedy of the Research center for Chinese Politics and Business, voices concerns of experts who think that the $585 billion stimulus and the doubling of lending this year, increase in exports by a third last month, all point to an economy that is expanding too quickly. Kennedy says that no one defies economic laws, that eventually endless growth can get get you in trouble. The concern is whether the overexpansion of credit and the size of the stimulus may have led to overreaction in stimulus spending. People's Daily newspaper of China said that China's leaders are moving much faster than leaders of developed nations. But the flip side of this is that in the rush to increase spending there may be a lot of wasteful spending resulting in many bad loans a few years from now.

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The American Medical Association came out against the public option in President Obama's health care reform plan. The outpouring of comments on this article show that public opinion today seriously questions the actions of the AMA, and think that this is not in the best interests of the nation. Its the kind of outpouring of criticism that GM's old management received from readers fed up with the management of the Detroit automakers, before the GM bankruptcy. Out of the 26 most read or recommended comments on this article shown on the link to the article in the NYT, 25 were strongly critical of the AMA's position on health care, none were in favor, and one was critical of the insurance companies. The 25 that were strongly critical had a total of reader recommends of 6539 readers when they were totalled up for all 25 comments. Some of these comments were strongly critical and explained at length why. Some were from doctors who disassociated themselves from the AMA. One suggested that the American College of Physicians also represented doctors, and the AMA represented only one group of mostly older doctors who are against any change. The financial crisis and the election of a new President, the changes in the country since the last failed reform effort in 1993, the new mood of the country as it changes to its more frugal past, a new generation of doctors and a new generation of young people coming to the fore, all may mean that things are no longer the same, and actually very different. Are the people running the AMA, like the people who were running GM a short time ago, not able to see how they are perceived by the public? ...

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The cost of fixing the nation's financial system could be around $2.5 trillion with an additional $350 of the second TARP funding and the rest of the money coming from the Federal Reserve through the Fed's ability to print money and from private investors. About $1 trillion of this is to compensate for the lack of issuance of securities backed by consumer loans of $1.2 trillion between 2006 and 2008, so that credit markets can function again like they used to. Another component of the plan is to give banks more government money which they will now be expected to lend to consumers and businesses. But a key feature of the plan much awaited by markets was the bad bank or aggregator bank solution which would enable banks to transfer bad assets to this bank. And on this one Geithner said very little so it was adisappointment for financial markets. Also the plan lacked details and was more broad brush and small on specifics. Another area on which Geithner said little is how the government will tackle rising forecolosures and keep people in their homes, which in turn would help stabilize housing prices. But by building up expectations and offering little of specifics on the bad bank solution Geithner earned withering criticism from Senators Kerry, Shelby, Frank, and others. A former managing director at Morgan Stanley Frank Pallotta, now aconsultant to buyers and sellers of distressed mortgages, says the fundamental problem still is the pricing and the gap between what abank like Chase thinks its mortgage is worth of 75 cents to the dollar and aprospective buyer who thinks its worth 45 cents or 25 cents. This is a huge gap and would be expensive to fill in. A bad bank one analyst says could be very expensive and this is why Geithner acknowledges the goal of setting up a fund of some $1 trillion. ...

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Russian offers for settlement of Ukraine conflict in 2025 described as capitulation in the UK's Guardian- all of the eastern Donbass region and Crimea ceded to Russia, limits on its army and its long range weapons, leaving it too weak to defend itself. The UK, France oppose it. The new German government of CDU's Merz is increasing Germany's defense capabilities to shoulder the burden of defence in the EU in 2025-2026. Under this situation and with presure within the Republican party on DJT, it is unlikely that such a capitulation or agreement is likely to have a chance  for agreement. It is a restatement of Russian proposals in 2022.

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European Union leaders including European Council president, Herman Van Rompuy, European Commission president, Jose Manuel Barroso, ECB president Mario Draghi, and Eurogroup finance ministers head, Jean-Claude Juncker, draw up a 10 year road map for "a genuine economic and monetary union." The prime ministers of Italy, France and Spain push jointly for deposit insurance to cover European bank deposits, Europe wide banking supervision, and bailout funds to directly purchase sovereign debt of Italy and Spain without conditions. This takes place June 22-27, 2012, with the EU leaders increasing pressure on Germany for the first time in concerted fashion. Ms. Merkel and her coalition partners the Free Democrats see this as an effort at mutualizing debt. Merkel says Europe will not have total sharing of debt "as long as I live," in her talks with Free Democrats.

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The step by step process Mr. Obama used to arrive at his decision to send 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. The use of charts showing the buildup at one of the last meetings, and how President Obama expressed frustration at the length of time the troops would be there, and then says "I want this curve pushed to the left," pointing to the bell curve showing buildup and withdrawal after some years. This says Baker may be the pivotal moment for the expansion of the war. What he meant was something like a fast buildup and rapid draw down. He asks Petraeus how fast the Iraq buildup for the surge took place, and Petraeus says 6 months. The option being discussed was Option 2A carefully prepared to get a30,000 troop addition approved by Defense Secretary Gates and presented to Mr Obama on November 11, 2009. What Obama said at that point was according to NYT reporter Baker's sources is - "What I'm looking for is a surge, this has to be a surge." Gates was the seasoned person in saying the right things at just the right time and not sooner in these negotiations. The process had seen alot of back and forth swings, leaks including the McChrystal report leak and the Ambassador Eikenberry report leak, and the President preferring to keep his thoughts to himself and using University of Chicago law school style analytical thinking to wade through the swamp of issues in this place called Afghanistan. With that Gates shows how that curve can be moved up and gets the President to allow for conditions at the time to be the factor for withdrawal conditions. In effect the President's analytical thinking an approaches good for a law class in the University of Chicago and potentially very unlikely to allow for agrasp of the muddied details and complexities of social, political and historical type in Afghanistan, were being applied to a crucial mind decision that would have a mind boggling impact. Had Gates served the country well? Had Mr Obama served the country well with these analytics, when a more intuitive decision based on understanding of all the conditions on the ground by talking to different people who had first hand experience in Afghnistan and Pakistan- see the links here to first hand reports- would have accomodated the peculiarities of the Afghan situation better than some charts and numbers? Speaker Pelosi and Congressman Obey had indicated lack of support among Democrats. The Budget Office had provided a cost estimate of 1 trillion dollars for 10 years. None of this appeared to matter in the final decision. NATO would supply the additional troops to get the number closer to 40,000. Gates had been the most seasoned player through years of negotiating with Congress, and he helped formulate Option 2A for 30,000. The President makes one final Professorial comment at the final meeting on November 29, 2009, after announcing his decision to support Option 2A, -"but if you don't agree with me say so now" and repeats saying "tell me now." Gates signals to Vice President Biden who inquires whether this is a Presidential order that it is one. Mullen and Petraeus say "fully support." America had by using charts numbers and law school analytical processes turned the complexities of Afghnistan into something else, but these analytics had still to be played out in the vast mountainous spaces of Afghanistan and in the homes and workplaces of America in 2010 and beyond. It is hard not to sense that something serious was lost that day. ...

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This leading investment bank G. Sachs Jan Hatzius forecast for the US economy is for inflation to go down further from 2.8% in December 2025 to 2.4%. The forecast is at 2.5% growth for 2025 for US economy under a DJT administration including impact of tariffs on China imports of 20%, selective tariffs on EU imports, not an additional 10% tariff across the board.

Net Immigration is forecast at 750,000. This is lower than what it was in the last 4 years with it's surges in some years. The remigration deportation plan will have some impact on growth yet the growth forecast will not be affected to a large extent. Strong real disposable income growth of 3.3% and the wealth and income effect will support spending growth in 2025, says this forecast by G. Sachs investment bank's Jan Hatzius.

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Germany's increased borrowing and tax breaks for business to increase growth- Germany's version of DJT's US Tax Cuts Bill.

Chancellor Merz and Finance Minister Klingbeil of the two main parties CDU and SPD have put forward this bill to increase growth and productivity, with increased investment from business and government. The debt brake in the German constitution was taken out for increased borrowing.

Merz told the German parliament-

“None of us is doing this lightly. We know that this will place a considerable burden on future budgets, including interest obligations in future budgets. But the alternative — doing nothing, not enabling investment, especially from the private sector in Germany — is not a better option.”

Germany like the US is taking an approach of investing for growth to chart a new future.

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Devendra Fadnavis was Mayor of Nagpur from 1997 to 2001 and represents Nagpur in the State Assembly of Maharashtra. This story in the Indian Express describes his evolution in recent years focused on development work in the state, getting a first hand look at conditions in the state how they relate to missing development, and hard work. As states and state leaders compete in India for good governance, transparency, delivery of development goals, and good management related to infrastructure projects in each state, new leadership is taking on a serious role. Single minded determination and hard work to achieve development goals is important to deliver the for too long missed development goals of one of India's largest states Maharashtra.  National Institute for Transformation of India, NITI Aayog, has 7 pillars for effective governance and Fadnavis now faces the challenge of bringing results in these 7 areas set by the federal government under PM Modi. They are: 1. Pro-People  2. Pro-Activity  3. Participation. 4. Empowering   5. Inclusion of All  6. Equality  7. Transparency   ...

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The Hindu launches the first of what has the potential of being a national campaign for reading in a nation of 1.2 billion people. The better inculcation of the habit of reading among students, to spread the joy of reading and opening up one's imagination to the world outside, is vitally important to the soft infrastructure of the country. The Movement for Global Literacy is Lyrarc's response to this demand from the American and Indian people and democracies.

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The social media site Twitter frequently loses money and took on $13 billion in debt says this report in the NYT. Musk faces financial challenges a he takes over the company, and this report says the company would be unlikely to invest and simply be paying the bills. Twitter it says, has not made a profit for 8 of its past 10 years. 

Twitter's interest expense alone would grow from $50 million to $1 billion with the new debt. Company operations generated about $630 million in cash flow to fund operations. Twitter had $6 billion in cash before the buyout and a large part of this would have gone to close the acquisition. All the financial resources of the company will now go to service the debt. About $1.2 billion in marketing expenses mostly salaries are likely to be cut. And layoffs of a significant fraction of the total employees may be a way to conserve capital to service the added debt, this report shows.