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The new J.D. Powers Quality Survey put out in Feb 2013 showed the Lexus, Toyota, Mercedes, Buick, Chevrolet, Lincoln and Dodge Ram brands performing at the top level in number of problems reported by owners of 3 year old vehicles. Land Rover, Jeep and VW brands did poorly. Most of the Chrysler Dodge cars performed poorly. The redesign of vehicles initiated by Fiat Chrysler CEO Marchionne does not show up in this study. The redesigned Jeep and other vehicles will show in next years study. The study also showed buyers of economy vehicles were likely to switch easily when buying another car. New models are showing fewer problems and are more dependable compared to previous years, with the average number of problems declining from 170 per 100 vehicles in 2009, to 132 in 2011, and 126 in 2012.

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Wall Street Journal analysis shows top earners at 38 U.S. banks and securities firms will get $145 billion in 2009, an 18% increase over 2008. This even after increasing public anger about exceedingly high levels of executive compensation with no relation to performance, and at a time of high unemployment.

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Since 2004 consumer spending's share of the economy in China has fallen from 40% to 35%.

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A big change for the presidential election in 2012 is the lopsided way in which white voters who are struggling with job losses or seeing economic difficulties are alienated from President Obama. By 58% to 32% these voters favor Romney over Obama in a May 2012 Wahington Post-ABC News poll, a 26% margin. Of those struggling financially about 7 in 10 lack a college degree. This is happening even though 31% of these voters in this poll say they are Republicans and 27% Democrats. It is true that Obama could still win in 2008 losing this group 58% to 40%, an 18% losing margin, similiar to Kerry in 2004, and Al Gore in 2000. A wider margin of 26% poses more risks if the unemployment situation and the economy looks weaker by November 2012.

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The comparison of the British economy and the American economy with Japan, where debt constantly eats away at the economy, a long period of stagnation, is one possible outcome, says Buttonwood in the Economist. Central banks in both countries are allowing the banks to earn more money to replenish their capital, by letting them borrow short term at very low rates and invest the proceeds in higher yielding longer dated government bonds. Its acozy relationship where the banks are rescued by the government and they in turn finance the government by buying government bonds, but in the long run this means diverting lending from productive private sector projects and productive investment.

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Only by learning the lessons of "normal" trade with China, and accepting a feeling of "buyers remorse," says Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, will a better bilateral trade relationship with China evolve. He points out that every $1 billion of the trade deficit with China, has destroyed 13,000 net jobs, making the $226 billon deficit a tale of shuttered factories and devastated communities. He says China uses illegal subsidies and currency manipulation, and punitive steps are needed, not the moral suasion that the Obama administration keeps doing with no result. He says price manipulation keeps Chinese products 40% cheaper than comparable American made products. He wants the Senate to give tariff authority to the President, to impose tariffs on countries that manipulate their currency, when it convenes next month. Brown is the author of the book- Myths of Free Trade.

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No indication that Gulf money is that much better spent this time, as another flood of petrodollars hits the Emirates and Saudi Arabia, with no idea for how long. The huge reserves of dollars built up by the large exporting nations of manufactured products and commodities may have created a huge surge in liquidity that indirectly caused the spending boom that fueled realestate and domestic retail markets in the USA from which the US will take a long time to recover. So these large surpluses of petrodollars cannot be looked at without some concern as they create distortions in the allocation of resources and in spending habits in different nations in the world economy and in different ways. A too low price of oil simply let fuel economy fade as a concern and let fuel economy standards become stagnant for over two decades and a splurge in light trucks and large fuel guzzling vehicles. The freespending buying habits sustained development in China but the low prices of lowend manufacturing goods also led to too much concentration on that kind of manufacturing in China leading to an environmental breakdown. And corrective action comes a llittle late when a lot of the damage has been done and only after this is the alarm raised and the corective action taken. Meantime while these excesses are taking place its seen as a strength as some industrial sectors grow richer and as soon as the excesses become a problem these very industrial sectors become a weakness. Take a look at the auto industry in the USA and the small manufacturers in Guangdong province in China....

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Krugman says the kind of spending on helping the US economy never happened. That is relative to the size of the US economy, not much happened uder the Obama administration. As evidence, he cites the figures that total government payrolls have declined by 350,000 since January 2009. And he says government purchases of goods and services increased only by 3% in the last 2 years.

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Like Japan China is looking to wean its exporters away from dependence in the export markets- one of the steps agreed on at G-2- in Pittsburgh- and increase spending by Chinese consumers to buy more of the same products at home. Bicycle manufacturer Tandem has lost 40% of the American sales, now it is looking to the Chinese market as incomes are rising in China. As Tandem's general manager puts it in the US the shift is now to buying cheap things. Chinese exports after rising 20% each year for years, recorded a drop in August 2009 of 23% down over August 2008. In China urban household spending was up 9.2%. THe savings by American households jumped to an annualized $566 billion in the second quarter of 2009, quadruple the rate at the start of 2008. Batson gives this account from Shunde in Chinawhere Tandem has it head offices. He talks with managers at Tandem and sees the struggle within the company to some up with anew mindset, and organization, to sell bicycles in the domestic market where other bicycle manufaturers like Giant Manufacturing Company of Taiwan already have a large share in the high end market. Mr Tseng had to convince his fellow managers and the board that it was a good idea, as the domestic market is tough to pentetrate, kickoffs are common, and competition is intense. Tseng says Tandem will approach first the children's market where competitors haven't focussed, and treat as atoy for kids. Tandem will bring higher quality better built bikes into this market. And this is similiar to what it sells to American kids with lots of colors and funny names. Tandem managers aren't sure Chinese distributors or retailers will pay enough attention to their bicycles so they decided to open astore in Shunde and start small and scale up. Tseng says that Tandem will have to pay its tution first and learn about the market. This means it will still continue selling to America and Europe. Chinea's government is now encouraging these efforts to target the domestic market with tax breaks and coupons. But as China and Japn also become more inward looking economies and trade inside Asia increases, the domestic demand is not enough to make up for the loss in the American and European markets. The US and Europe each put in $9.5 trillion into the global economy, even at their current recession diminished pace, compared to the $1.5 trillion spent by Chinese households. Per capita incomes tell the story. In the US $35,486 and in China $2,270. T...

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New York city Mayor Bloomberg, says President Obama and Republicans should stop promising a free lunch, or something for nothing. He points to Obama's reelection strategy of higher taxes for the rich- by taxing those earning over $1 million at minimum of 30% in federal income taxes- as generating $1.1 billion, according to Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation. This would make little difference on a federal government with $1.2 trillion gap in spending and revenue. And he says Republicans who say making the Bush tax cuts permanent while at the same time cutting the deficit are promising a free lunch, with no connection to reality. The answer says Bloomberg should be to eliminate the Bush tax cuts for all groups, for shared sacrifice, and for Congress to pass the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan with $4 trillion in savings on an up or down vote.

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The Economist cites a think tank that says about 600,000 young educated Kashmiri adults are jobless. Kashmiri religious and political leaders worry that their youngest followers might take up radical positions. The violent insurgency has so far subsided but is now replaced with stone pelting and hartals (strikes). The fear is that the influence of moderate leaders such as Mr Geelani, who is in his eighties, will be replaced with leaders who would reignite tensions and an insurgency. Dr Mushtaq Margoob, of the psychiatric hospital in Srinagar, talks about the throngs of patients with stress and anxiety, with the youngest the most damaged. He sees "a collective anger, a traumatized generation." A three man team, comprising 2 academics and a journalist, was sent by the central government to Kashmir to prepare a series of reports by talking to all sides in the conflict The team has proved ineffective as the members do not carry political weight to influence decisions. A Wahhabi organization, al Hadith is using Saudi funds to establish itself as a strong welfare, religious, and cultural force. The non-muslim minority in Kashmir sees al Hadith as bringing Saudi Islamization to a region long known for its Muslim's religious tolerance, building community centres, mosques, schools and clinics. Are there creative better ways to bring peace to Kashmir and redirect the resources India has to commit to the region, Pakistan has to commit to its border with India, and the U.S. has to commit to its ground war in Afghanistan. For now India is locked into a silence about Kashmir in international discussions, Pakistan is playing out its own "security objectives" in Afghanistan, and the U.S. is locked into its anti-terrorism objectives in Afghanistan. Only by connecting all these dots can peace and redirection of resources be achieved. The U.S., Pakistan and India, would come up with a creative solution only if each side finds itself pushed to the point where continued commitment of resources is no longer tenable because of economic crises, or the US and the Western alliance see the need to pull South Asia together to act as a balancing element in Asia in relation to China and Japan; and push for negotiations with an offer of stronger economic ties. ...

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Kuroda's first steps as he begins changing monetary policy of the Bank of Japan.

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Mario Draghi faces his first test as head of the European Central Bank as Italian bond yields approach 8%. Draghi has limited purchases of bonds of troubled EU countries to 5-10 billion euros each week. This has been sufficient to keep Italian bond yields from going out of control, but high enough to keep pressure on governments in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece to make necessary changes. France, Germany and other countries in the EU are working on new rules for making strict budget discipline legally binding, with enforcement sanctions by a EU budgetary authority. Germany is pushing for the new rules. France's Sarkozy with a legacy of Gaullist reluctance to surrender sovereignty in such matters had resisted such calls in the past, but is moving in the direction of convergence of fiscal policies as the only way to preserve the euro currency and the EU idea alive. Draghi is taking a flexible stance on inflation and lowering rates compared to his predecessor, Trichet. He sees signs of slowing manufacturing activity and credit tightening in Europe as signs that inflation will come down from above 3% to something closer to the 3% target set by the ECB. Economists expect him to lower interest rates for the eurozone to 1% from 1.25%, when the ECB meets in a week. The manufacturing purchasing manager's index went down to 46.4 in November, below the breakeven point of 50, which signals a contraction. Output and orders were down across all of Europe, including Germany. Economists say Draghi has left open the possibility of larger bond purchases if the new rules are made legally binding on eurozone members....

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The pressure on the ruble as it reaches 40 to the dollar by Oct. 2014. The increase in inflation with higher import costs affects the Russian economy.

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Simon Nixon of the Econmist on the report's findings for the future of the world economy. He points to the heavy debt overhang for individuals and banks that will take years to overcome resulting in entrenched unemployment and sluggish growth, somewhat reminiscent of Japan's years of stagnation after its bubble. The entrenched unemployment he argues will permanently lower the economic potential of developed countries of US and Europe. Public debt will rise so that private debt can fall. Bank lending that is cautious will only slow any recovery for a long time. And the grim facts he presents are that about 25 million jobs will be lost in the 30 rich countries of the OECD before all this is over during the coming decade, and several million jobs probably will never come back. Auto manufacturing and manufacturing in general is an example where some jobs lost may never be regained. There is no room for complacency here.

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This editorial in the NYT on May 23, 2015, says the country has lost something in the process unfolding at the Justice Department of large settlements during the second term of the Obama administration, a continuation of a singular feature since the first term- a noticeable and serious lack of individual accountability for serious wrongdoing. This lets bank officers move on calling the situation of pleading guilty to criminal charges for currency manipulation nothing more than "an embarrassment," says this NYT editorial.

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Education policy reform and serious action expected from the government. Obama has agood grasp of what is needed and what actions to take to improve the quality of education in our schools, and the support from parents.

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In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Mark Carney, the head of Canada's central bank and the head of the Financial Stability Board, says China is falling behind in its earlier committments made at G-20 meetings to move towards rebalancing the world economy. He pointed to the fact that consumption in China has moved from about half of China's GDP to about a third, in the last ten years. China's investment has also declined from half of GDP to about one third. Carney also raised concerns about the strength of the Canadian dollar for Canada's competitiveness. The report "China: 2030" by the World Bank and China's Development Reform Commission also calls for changes in the way China's economy has increased its dependence on state run companies.

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Easwar Prasad, Cornell University economist, and a former head of the IMF's China division, says the new report by the World Bank and the Development Reform Commission (DRC), is part of an effort by government officials in China to push the agenda for change forward during the transition to a new leadership. This includes Premier Wen. There is pushback from large state enterprises. The DRC and the World Bank had called for a change from the current situation to allow more private sector involvement in the economy, which means restricting the growth of the large state owned companies and letting the private sector operate in more parts of the economy. The alternative is to see growth slowing quickly and -some economists- say suddenly without warning. The role of Zhu Rongji, a former prime minister during the period Jiang Zemin was president, in pushing for changes appropriate to the period, is also cited. The last decade under prime minister Wen Biao is seen as one in which China relentlessly pursued its currrent export led model of development with large state run companies and state run banks dominating the economy. This has made change even harder to achieve because of the pushback to preserve the status quo....

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The new Australian budget is designed to generate a slight surplus from the A$44 billion deficit for the fiscal year ending June 30. This prepares the Australian government of Julia Gillard for elections in 2013. The budget depends on the mining boom to generate the tax revenues for planned economic growth of over 3% in 2012-2013. This is based on the large number of projects planned for investments in oil, gas and other energy projects, valued at US$456 billion. GE as supplier of turbines and other products to the Chevron-Total gas project and other projects in Australia, has sales in Australia match its sales level in China in 2012-2013. This gives an idea of the extent of the boom in the mining and energy sector. Even the widening trade deficit to A$1.59 in March 2012 reflects large imports for the mining sector. The weakness of this approach is that too much is dependent on the mining and offshore gas boom. Retail spending is weak and Australia is increasingly looking like a two tier economy, subject to the boom and bust cycles that its mining companies have experienced in the past. A bubble in Australia's housing markets and uncertainties in the global economy pose other risks....

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Stevenson and Caselli describe the mood in Buenos Aires as negotiations with hedge fund holdout bondholders fail in July 2014.

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Japan's economy grows at an annualized pace of 3.5% in the first quarter of 2013 after aggressive monetary easing by the Bank of Japan under Haruhiko Kuroda.

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Defense spending under the new Obama 2012-2013 budget for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1, 2012, is $525 billion, and an additional $88 billion for Afghanistan. This is $6 billon below the $531 billion budget for the 2011-2012 budget of $531 billion approved by Congress, $22 billion less than the Obama administration's proposed budget. An additional $115.1 billion was for Afghanistan. In a move to bring financial discipline to additional appropriations for foreign conflicts, the Obama administration is proposing in the 2012-2013 budget proposal a limit to "overseas contingency operations" appropriations. The total proposed is $450 billion for fiscal 2013 to 2021.

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Questions about the true cost of the Obama health care legislation and the assumption that the legislation cuts the deficit by billions of dollars. This WSJ editorial says one has to look at this closely, and not merely look at CBO projections, which may be based in a certain context and not reflect the true costs, especially because many accounting gimmicks and use of numbers to present a particular picture is taking place. The information this editorial cites is that: it uses 10 years of taxes to fund six years of subsidies, Social Security and Medicare revenues are double-counted to the tune of $398 billion, a new program funding long-tem care frontloads taxes but backloads spending, and the assumption of an automatic 25% cut to physician payments that Congress is unwilling to authorize. Rep. Rand Paul has tried to present an alternative view which needs to be studied just as closely, because of the enormous impact of a jump in spending at a time when the public finances are fragile. WSJ also cites the work of Richard Foster, the chief Medicare actuary, as an alternate perspective of how things could turn out, Doug Holtz-Eakin, and Eugene Steuerle. It calls for common sense in evaluating programs, entitlements, defense or other government spending. They not only cost money, but costs escalate over time as history has shown over decades, till they eventually are discovered to be not affordable unless the middle class is willing to dig deeper into its finances to pay for them. Alternate perspectives from a range of informed opinion, Howard Dean, Martin Feldstein, and the head of Harvard's Medical School show that the issue needs to be looked at closely and carefully and cannot be something in which CBO numbers can be trusted to tell the whole story. Especially when common sense, history, and informed opinion across a spectrum of thought advises caution, and fragile public finances also suggest caution. Howard Dean, former Governor of Vermont, says the health care bill is not real reform, and may do more harm than good. He says in a Washington Post article, December 17, 2009, the Obama health care bill does not insert competition into insurance markets, does not significantly reduce costs, and does not improve the delivery and use of health services. It was he says done with a political calculus and crafted for votes not real reform. Jeffrey S. Flier, Dean of the Harvard Medical School, gave the Obama health reform bill an "F" grade, saying in a Nov 18, 2009, WSJ article, that it was disingenuous to call this reform, Congress and the White House were simply deceiving the public. He said the bill will accelerate US health care spending, postpone most of the major health care problems, expecially the ones that drive cost, including the "fee for service" system and delivery of health care. He says in his discussions with economists and other health care leaders the opinion was unanimous that the bill will accelerate health care spending. He cites Massachusetts as an example, where access to care was expanded under the same dysfunctional system, and spending went up, and it doesn't work. Feldstein, who in early 2008 suggested proactive solutions to the mortgage debt crisis which were never adopted, says that the Obama health care law means higher taxes in the long run to pay for the $1 trillion cost of health care for the uninsured group over 10 years. Feldstein says that the Obama plan is to cut Medicare to cut spending, and will reduce the amount of medical services, as reduced spending comes from fewer services, not reducing payments to providers. And he asks if the cost reductions are weighted too heavily towards reduced services and not reduced payments to providers ,would this result in large cuts to services to affect the quality of healthcare for the 85% of the American people who are accustomed to a different pattern of healthcare. ...