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Governor Walker of Wisconsin defends steps he is taking to cut the budget deficit.

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Losses on aTishman/BlackRock property in New York , the 11,000apartment, 56 building, Bedford Stuyvesant property built by MetLife for veterans of World War II, is in danger of default. Losses would approach $500 million for Calpers, $575 million for Singapore's GIC, $250 million for Florida State Board, and $70 million ofr the Church of England. The property was purchased in the hope of using easing rent control laws to increase rents but tenants successfully blocked the rent increases in court.

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The British Embassy in Tehran is stormed on Nov. 29, 2011, by protesters from the student wing of the Basij militia, a volunteer militia organized by the Islamic government to protect the governing party loyal to Ayatollah Khamanei. This comes after Britain joined the U.S. and Canada in sanctions against the Iran for nuclear weapons development. The sanctions will keep Iran's banking sector out of the U.K. financial system.

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How will posterity view Angela Merkel. As she ends a fourth term this BBC News report says it will remain a contested legacy. Much of what went right has already been written. A woman, a pragmatic scientist who hewed to the center not just as a scientist but with a knack for politics. Much of her early period in office was one in which she had to tackle the eurozone crisis. The euro's weakness had its roots in the way Mr Kohl allowed eurozone membership for countries such as Greece without adequate entry requirements. Some of the other problems were also left behind by an overzealous mentor Helmut Kohl who pushed for German reunification that never really happened in terms of bringing all east Germans into the idea of the Federal Republic. These problems in a neglected eastern part of Germany around Dresden were never tackled by Merkel. They were social issues that Merkel's pragmatic thinking failed to grasp. Letting in migrants from Arab and African countries was a move that Merkel made without realizing the full implications. This policy was reversed but led to the emergence of extreme right wing sentiment in parts of the country. It is left to a future German leader to tackle the social and economic disparities that affect Germany today. As time passes people reflect and a more careful view prevails. Dr Rudiger Schmitt-Beck reflects this when he says that the Merkel years were about  a bizarre mix of modernization and backwardness. Merkel rejected nuclear energy after the events at Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan. As a scientist she was able to tackle such issues. Yet on the major social issues of the day Prof. Schmitt-Beck of the University of Mannheim, says she left Germany "grotesquely behind"- on child care, climate policy, digitization, infrastructure building, on demographic change. These are the issues that the Social Democrats and the Greens are standing up for today. Ironically Merkel may be remembered more for something that is not even mentioned in this BBC report. This is the European solidarity shown by action to financially support all EU countries including Italy with EU funding during the coronavirus pandemic.  This may be her biggest achievement because it will be lasting. Without it Europe would not be the better place it is today, resilient in the face of the pandemic.  Seen from outside Merkel will be seen as a German leader who failed to see the potential for India and other Asian countries with almost twice the population of China. Fascinated with 13 visits to China she studied Chinese history, politics and economics, says the WSJ. And did too little to balance Germany's close business and trade ties with China, with efforts in India and other countries. Seen from America as pointed out in the WSJ front page on September 23, Merkel made no effort to rebuild US relations with the Biden administration after the tumultuous period under presidents Obama with spying on her phone and with Mr. Trump over the EU's participation in NATO defense. She seemed resigned to a view that America had seen her best years, a belief that today does not exist anywhere in America. US president Biden's first phone call to Merkel was put off for a few days says the WSJ, and Merkel continued to build close ties with China, ignoring the fact that this was a new administration closer to that of presidents FDR and Harry Truman who did so much for Germany. And a president very different than any of Biden's five predecessors. ...

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Indifference on the Republican side, and a sense that not much is going to get done on the Democratic side, as President Obama pitches a $447 billion second stimulus plan in a speech to both houses of the U.S. Congress on September 8, 2011. Dana Milbank documents the attitudes and skepticism with which members of Congress received the proposals- a general sense that President Obama was too weak and ineffective to get things done and has lost credibility. John Taylor, senior economic advisor on the Republican side pointed out in a Wall Street Journal column a few days before the speech, that the jobs proposals Obama and economic advisor Alan Krueger were presenting were similiar to old plans that have not produced results. Taylor viewed them as placing too much reliance on government and not enough on the private sector to generate economic growth and jobs.

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Krugman points out that in American history even presidents who did not read much and were not very qualified were able to perform well in office because of very qualified people in the cabinet positions. Reagan was not a avid reader yet he had Shultz at State and James Baker at Treasury. Mnuchin is not anywhere near being qualified as James Baker. Tillerson may be qualified as a CEO of a large energy company, but lacks the experience of Shultz. During the last years of his presidency Reagan may have felt the effects of early Alzheimers. Checks and balances also helped to make the system work under presidents so that they did not overreach their powers.  Krugman is skeptical of the way checks and balances would work under president Trump and sees some second rate appointments in the administration. He points to the departure of Mike Flynn and the controversies surrounding the Russian meddling as very different from the situations faced by other presidents with weak qualifications.     ...

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McGurn of the WSJ looks at the Gallup study on Trump supporters showing that they are older and white, but not more likely to come from communities adversely affected by trade competition. The study shows intergenerational mobility, health prospects, and relative racial isolation, more likely blue collar workers, as being key features, yet more likely to be employed or self-employed. Of this cultural angst, and lack of intergenerational mobility, poor health prospects, are critical findings. McGurn sees them as the people who feel left behind, and says the nation needs to look at them not as "losers" but to address the problems of intergenerational mobility in the U.S. following the election. Theresa May, the new prime minister of Britain has described the "burning injustice" in her first speech when taking office, in a reference to people who suffered under the 7 years of austerity programs in the Cameron years, people from similar groups who face a situation where their children's prospects are no better or worse than their own. ...

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Former U.S. Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, says the attacks on Charlie Hebdo weekly in France were the result of an intelligence failure. The 2 brothers who conducted the attacks were already on a U.S. no-fly list. The U.S. has already alerted European authorites to about 3000 European citizens, about 1000 from France, who went to Syria to fight with Islamic State. Panettta says there is much room for improvement when it comes to tracking of individuals returning from conflicts in the Middle East, and making certain that the U.S. and Europeans are at the top of their game when it comes to security. Operationally the U.S. and Europeans need to be working together and being aggressive about individuals who have a history in these places in the Middle East.

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A Yale scholar's view of the Obama presidency based on what he sees as a presidency struggling for compromise and consensus.

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Jason Zweig of the WSJ points out that Obama is using the behavioural aspects of regulation that were ignored uptil now, in his proposal for a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency. These aspects were researched by Professors Thaler and Sunstein agencyof the University of Chicago in their book "Nudge". Sunstein is to head the WHite House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. He is friend of thePresident as they both taught at the University of Chicago Law School. Thaler is an economist at the University of Chicago. THe idea is to offer information in a simple manner that consumers can understand and to have in the menu several products that are simple and unmistakably clear and these anchor all other products. Products that act weirdly, conceal information or are against consumer's interest can then be identified by the consumer and regulators.

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The first of a series of quarterly reports put out by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, on the subject of household debt and credit. It shows that the process of unwinding consumer debt in the US is a slow and painful one. The figures tell the story, which touch every aspect of the US economy and business, with ripple effects through the world economy. Total consumer debt is $11.7 trillion as of June 30, 2010, which is down 6.5% from the crest reached in the third quarter 2008. Credit card accounts are down 23% from the high reached in second quarter 2008, and mortgage obligations down 6.4% from 2008. By mid 2010 11.4% of consumer debt was delinquent, and this was up from 11.2% in 2009. $1.3 trillion of consumer debt is delinquent, and $986 billion is seriously delinquent- that is 90 days late. Serious delinquencies are up by 3.1%. Other figures fromt he Fed report: Half million people in the USA had a foreclosure added to the credit reports for the period March 31, 2010 to June 30, 2010. This was up 8.7% above the figure for first quarter of 2010. New bankruptcies showed up in credit reports for 624,000 people during that quarter, an increase of 34%. Another major problem stacked on top of this for consumer spending- the Fed's interest rate policy according to Todd Petzel, chief investment officer of Offit Capital Advisors, burdens consumers with a tax of $350 billion in income lost from low to zero interest rates. This creates two problems of its own. Not only does it depress consumer spending. It also makes consumers reach out for riskier investments. This figure was calculated by taking $14 trillion in debt issued by Treasury, federal agencies and municipalities. Rates are near zero on short term Treasuries compared to 3% average over the years. Taking 2.5% on $14 trillion, the figure of $350 billion was arrived at. Or 2% of gross domestic product. Analysts say that it would be better not to save a few zombie banks at the expense of consumers and pension funds. It lowers the cost of the deficits through the lower interest rates the government pays on its debt, but lower consumer spending and a limping economy hurt tax revenues and increases the deficit....

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Father Hesburgh became president of Notre Dame in 1952, at the age of 35, when Notre Dame was a small university known for football and theological studies. He greatly increased the size of the university, hiring new faculty, increasing the endowment fund from $9 million to $350 million, and changed polcies so that women were admitted in 1972. The endowment fund is now $9 billion. Father Hesburgh played a prominent role in the U.S. and was close to presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Reagan, Carter and Clinton. By the time he retired in 1986 after 35 years as president of Notre Dame, he was considered the most effective university president in the country, and the most influential priest in the U.S. He fought for civil rights, for peaceful protest on campus, and brought lay control through a secular board to run Notre Dame. In all these issues he stood up for his progressive views when faced by opposition from the Vatican and the U.S. government. Following the Second Vatican Council of the mid 1960's, Father Hesburgh initiated greater involvement of lay Catholics in the Mass and practices of the Church. At a meeting in Land O'Lakes, Wisconsin, 1967, a group of Catholic educators led by Hesburgh put forward the position that the pursuit of truth should be the ultimate aim of Catholic higher education in the U.S., not religious indoctrination. In this way Father Hesburgh created a new level of credibility and respect for Catholic based education in the U.S. Ironically Father Hesburgh was not a big football fan and refused to pose for a picture of him with a football, insisting that collegiate sports not influence higher education. His passion from his early years was to be a chaplain in the U.S. Navy. In fact he had to be dissuaded from going to the Navy as a chaplain in 1943, to stay on campus at Notre Dame to train naval officers during the war. Hesburgh was born in Syracuse in 1917 to an executive at Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company, and studied at the seminary on Notre Dame campus and in Rome for advanced degrees in philosophy and theology. He died in 2015 at the age of 97, having placed a large imprint on the shape of American higher education in the twentieth century. ...