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Samulelson points to the problems of pushing college-for-all. He compares it to the misguided housing policy that sought to promote housing access to all Americans including those who could not afford it by lowering requirements on credit and downpayments. Problems include student debt without job prospects, inadequate vocational training, and lowering educational standards at all levels including high school and college. Compared to Germany and other European countries the U.S. does poorly in providing vocational training and relating education in college to jobs through apprenticeship and other training in companies. Combining classroom and on-the-job training is more advanced in Europe. As sociologist Rehman of Northwestern University points out its important to set different pathways to rewarding careers. In 2008 the U.S. had only 480,000 workers or 0.3% of the labor force who were apprentices, according to Robert Lerman of American University. Useful to note is also that only 69% of U.S. jobs in 2010, required a post-high school degree, according to the Labor Department. Putting everybody on the college track, belittles those who do not finish college, ignores the need for vocational skills and technical skills in jobs, and puts the diploma above skills and knowledge gained.. Taking the approach to an extreme hurts young people in the job market and reduces America's competitiveness. This is similiar to what happened in housing policies that sounded good but actually devastated the financial condition of minorities that it was supposedly intended to help, as seen in high foreclosure rates....

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Libyans in the Benghazi region in the east and in the rest of the country went to vote for the first time in Libya's history. A historic moment even as the eastern region, which has 60 of 200 seats, is calling for higher representation. Under the present arrangement 100 seats go to the west, 60 to the east, and 40 to the south. The transitional government announced a change that a new election will take place for a smaller constituent assembly to write the constitution, with half the seats going to the east. This is an effort to get the support of people in the Benghazi region, which led the fight against the Gaddafi regime.

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Montes and Cordoba of the WSJ provide this exceptional account of corruption at the state level in Mexico. Ironically the very effort to reduce the power of centralized administration with PRI winning repeated elections and having a monopoly in power for many years, led to the decentralization and passing on power and money to the state governments in Mexico after the 1990's. But this was done without putting in the checks and balances required. Instead too much power was now concentrated in the hands of the state governments which appointed even the judges and officials at all levels including election bodies. Federal transfers of tax money to states increased 20 fold to $88 billion in 2016, according to this report.  The result 41 state governors faced corruption charges between 2000 and 2013, according to the Mexican Competitiveness Institute. This includes the state of Veracruz where state coffers are almost empty and there is no money to pay municipal bodies. The PRI governor of Veracruz Mr. Duarte supported president Pena Nieto, and was at 43 years age cited as the new face of the young PRI. This report  says he is nowhere to be found now that $2.5 billion in state funds cannot be verified. Other states are Tamaulipas, Quintana Roo, Coahuila, Sonora, where corruption charges remain. The Veracruz scandal is among the worst and is the focus of attention for the public in Mexico. At this point president Pena Nieto of PRI has about 12% popularity rating, lowest of any modern Mexican president.   ...

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David Stockman, Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Reagan tells Tom Keene that the first step to deficit reduction is to means test the 2 milllion to 5 million or 10 million people who are very affluent, and have the benefits of some part of this population eliminated entirely. The next step he suggests is for spending much less on defense. A defense budget at $800 billion he says does not make sense today, because it is 35% larger in real terms than the budget when Reagan was President and the U.S. faced the Soviet Union. The U.S. does not need to be the world's policeman.

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The inflated costs for spinal surgeries at some hospitals in California. How surgeons, doctors, consultants, distributors and hospitals operated in a flawed system to make revenue gains through overbilling, and focus on increasing the number of surgeries performed.

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Greek tax evasion is estimated by three economists who studied data from Greek banks at about $11 billion based on a 40% tax rate, a third of the country's annual deficit for 2009. Unreported income is estimated at $28 billion. Doctors, dentists, lawyers, architects, engineers are the biggest groups underreporting income. Greece's parliament took up a bill in 2010 but the bill failed because of oposition from these groups. It remains to be seen if the Samaras government with support of the IMF-EC can take action similiar to that taken by the Monti government in Italy to go after tax evaders. By cutting the minimum wage and incomes of lower income groups disproportionately compared to cracking down on tax evasion and protecting incomes of higher income groups the economic plan for Greece proposed by the IMF-EC and the Greek government becomes unworkable and threatens the social fabric. By not raising this issue Germany's media and government have appeared callous in their pursuit of austerity measures as working class Greeks protested in Athens in 2011-2012, even though some of the issues raised by the Germans are legitimate. France and Italy are imposing a wealth tax to cut the deficit but this is not taking place in Greece. Global financial media has also not reported adequately on these aspects of the problem in Greece and Italy....

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JP Morgan Chase Bank faces six separate investigations by the U.S. Justice Department in 2013. Cases from the housing crisis are still being worked out. The Justice Department has concluded that securities laws were broken in JP Morgan's selling of mortgage backed securities in 2005-2007. A new investigation is taking place into anti-bribery law violations in hiring of children of Chinese officials. The legal settlement losses could place JP Morgan Chase ahead of Bank of America in the extent of losses. One estimate is for $6.8 billion in losses above that set aside in reserves, an amount larger than that of any other U.S. bank, according to Barclays Research.

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The baffling situation where no executive from Lehman faced charges for accounting manipulation after a long S.E.C. investigation under S.E.C. chief Schapiro. The report by Lehman bankruptcy account examiner Valukos cited accounting manipulation. This NYT report says Mr. Canellos, the co-head of the enforcement unit, was supported by Robert Khuzami in the decision not to move ahead with charges, and S.E.C. Schapiro continued the investigation but did not make the decision to support moving ahead.

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Shinzo Abe is determined to avoid the mistakes made during his last term as prime minister 2006-2007, which lasted only 10 months and ended with defeat in the upper house elections. The LDP is aware that it won by a landslide because of the splintered opposition. The LDP won only 40% of the vote in the electoral districts in Japan. His focus will be on the economy, on tackling deflation, on central bank policy and efforts to support exporters with a weaker yen, and this time he will be cautious about sounding too nationalistic. Abe told a news conference: "I once fell to rock bottom and was hit with a storm of criticism. Now, I want to prove it's possible to start over again." During 2006-2007 Abe followed a popular LDP leader, Junichiro Koizumi, and hope that he represented a new post war generation of leaders. One approach he might take is to stay close to the U.S. on policies. The early stumble in this respect hurt DPJ's prime minister Yuko Hatoyama after differences with the U.S. shortened his term in office....

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A bill in the U.S. Senate in October 2011, which has bipartisan support, would push for China to correct an unfair trade advantage from keeping the value of the yuan low. The bill requires retaliatory tariffs for countries that have "misaligned" currency. This makes it possible for the U.S. Treasury Department to take action even if it finds no currency manipulation by China. This is a new approach as the U.S. Congress struggles to restore a level playing field in international trade.

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The Journal editorial title suggests that Greece chose economic decline. It puts the responsibility for this choice on one political party that lied about its fiscal position, and another party that failed to take strong action. The government unions were uncooperative and resisted making changes. Making matters worse was policy from the EU that misread the Greece situation as a liquidity problem, and not as a solvency problem considering the huge debt Greece has piled up. And austerity measures pushed by the EU are doing little for growth- leading to an acceleration in the economic decline in recent months.

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The US House of Representatives voted 245-189 in favor of repealing the health care law. Only 3 Democrats joined the entire Republican caucus in voting for repeal, compared to 34 Democrats who voted in March 2010 against the health care law. This is a largely symbolic move as the Democrat controlled Senate will not consider the repeal, and even if it did the President would veto it. Republicans favor some aspects of the health care law which allow children to be on the parent's insurance till age 26, and a ban on insurers denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions. Opinion polls show 46% of respondents opposed repealing and eliminating the law, and 45% favored repealing it. The health care issue ranks third among the economic issues important to respondents, behind unemployment and reducing the federal budget deficit.