LyrArc Article Gist
First time text messaging- about 1 million text messages sent in this situation- and the internet which are harder to block, has worked to reverse a decision to locate a chemical plant with hazardous substance close to a city center. The city is Xiamen. How will this impact futre projects that affect the environment. Is the environment tide turning in China. What will it cost to cleanup the rampant pollution and how much damage has been done already by some of the reckless aspects of China's growth which ignored the environmental pollution.

LyrArc Article Gist
The new 600 page book by Attorney General William Barr in the outgoing Trump Administration is titled "One Damn Thing After Another" published by Harper Collins of News Corporation. The WSJ provides early details of the book including a meeting on Dec. 1 with Mr. Trump in the Oval Office, and the words exchanged as Trump insisted there was massive vote fraud and Barr replied there wasn't anything the Justice Department could find. Trump told Barr- "Leave and don't go back to your office. You are done right now, go Home," says this WSJ report. 

Barr now urges Republicans to look at an impressive list of younger candidates for the future of the party.

LyrArc Article Gist
There is a bright spot for the airlines. Demand for shipping cargo has dropped only slightly by 15%. Also noticed by airline executives is the low prices, for jet fuel at this time, and the surging demand for shipping quickly medical supplies and related products. This combination gives airlines more hope for coming out of this ciris. There are revenues and profits from cargo shipped not only in cargo space but also inside the space that normally is used by passengers. This type of creative solution is what can take us out of this crisis.

American has done 140 flights a week, Virgin 90 flights a week, and Lufthansa a significant number of flights, shipping cargo to international destinations.

LyrArc Article Gist
The Republican House health care bill AHCA  keeps some some of the more popular parts of the Affordable Care Act such as not taking pre-existing conditions to deny insurance, keeping children covered on parents insurance till age 26, and increase contributions to Health Savings accounts. It is different in that the expansion of Medicaid at 138% of poverty rate threshold is rolled back. Age is used for tax credits instead of income, hitting those approaching Medicare age harder. The maximum charged to older people is now set at  5 times compared to 3 times what young have to pay. In general the Republican bill is seen as targeting the elderly to keep premiums down. The elderly on low incomes are hit hardest. Fox News O'Reilly Show showed the host questioning House Republicans, citing the CBO estimates that elderly on low incomes may have to pay as much as $14,000 a year for insurance making it basically unaffordable, and 52 million Americans would be affected adversely. Large companies are no longer required to offer mandatory health insurance under the new bill. Conservatives from Freedom Caucus wanted to see the essential areas of benefits covered by the law limited to fewer than the ten areas in the Affordable Care Act. The ACHA Republican bill leaves to states to determine what are required essential benefits. At one point maternity benefits were to be dropped but this was changed to let states decide. As a result the bill is 33 votes short of the number needed for passing the house in March 2017.   Neither the Democrats Affordable Care Act or the Republican House bill of Speaker Ryan do much to tackle the real problem- the absolute amount and increases for health care dollars for treating each disease in the U.S. compared to European and other countries. As a result health care has become more of a partisan struggle between the two parties than a real effort by all to overcome the problems that have to be tackled. Republicans want to see premiums drop and keep the burden on the deficit down- but with the level of U.S. health care costs disproportionately high compared to Europe and the rest of the world the arithmetic is tough and ends up leaving out vulnerable groups such as the elderly on low incomes, thus making the whole proposition prone to fail. For the same reason the Democrats failed to keep premiums down with a wider safety net leading to calls for repeal of their version.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Elliott Abrams quotes former President George Bush from November 2003 when he asked the question: "Are the peoples of the Middle East somehow beyond the reach of liberty? Are millions of men and women and children condemned by history or culture to live in despotism? Are they alone never to know freedom and never even to have a choice in the matter?" Abrams, former deputy natonal security advisor for President Bush, says the autocratic regimes and dictators of the Middle East have offered a false choice to the US- its us or the Islamists. Roger Cohen also points this out in a recent article in the New York Times. For Tunisia he says this was never defensible. It is a largely secular nation with a literacy rate of 75% and per capita GDP of $9,500, and Ben Ali, the dictator of Tunisia, jailed moderates, human rights advocates, editors, anyone who represented hope and change. Abrams says Mubarak has done the same in Egypt. And he warns that if you make moderate politics impossible as Mubarak in Egypt and Ben Ali in Tunisia have done, then you make extremism more likely. Ruling by emergency decree for decades creates a real emergency, as has happened in Egypt. Bush made that speech at the 20th anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy, and he reminded Americans that "sixty years of Western nations excusing and accomodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe- because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty." He admits that the Bush administration did not always conduct US diplomacy in this vein, but the President took the lead and the Obama administration's abandonment of that mindset is nothing short of a tragedy. Obama's policy of "engagement" actually endangers the US position as a supporter of liberty and freedom wherever it is stifled or muffled, because it turned a blind eye to the people themselves as it engaged with the dictatorial regimes in the Arab world and other countries. When the elections in Iran were stolen the Obama administration hesitated, waffled in its committment to liberty, fearing that it would affect nuclear negotiations. Obama did not -as of late Friday night Jan 28, 2011- call for free elections or clearly demand democracy. The law school analytical processes that Obama brings to the presidency and the demands of geopolitical diplomacy are impervious to the loud voices demanding freedom in countries denied liberty. Obama has forgotten the very same voices he passionately heard when he wrote in his first book that in the words "we hold these truths to be self-evident" he could hear the spirit of Douglas and Delaney, as well as Jefferson and Lincoln, the struggles of Martin and Malcolm and unheralded marchers to bring the words to life. He could hear the words of interned Japanese families, the voices of Russian Jews in lower East side sweatshops, of dust bowl farmers during the depression, all these voices clamoring for recognition and asking the question about what is community and how it can be reconciled with freedom. This failure to recognize these voices clamoring for freedom and economic opportunity is all the more striking because it was vision and a bold sense of purpose that energized the Obama campaign and both the vision and the bold sense have eluded the administration. Abrams calls for a clear unequivocal committment by the US government in favor of freedom and peaceful efforts to achieve it in the Middle East, because he says that as the demonstrators are telling the world outside supporting freedom is the best policy of all. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Italy's prime minister, Mario Monti put it best when he said in a speech in Brussels in April 2012: "If a country becomes more productive and competitive, but there is no demand for its products domestically or around it, growth will not materialize." There is a new shift in opinion towards a balance of fiscal discipline with growth measures to get Europe back on track. The feeling in different parts of Europe is that the German view of austerity alone will not work for Europe. And the view is coming from the far right to the far left, from Marie Le Pen, far right presidential candidate in France, to the far right leader whose move to withdraw support to the government in Netherlands on the issue of austerity measures led to its collapse. Geert Wilders, leader of the Freedom Party in the Netherlands, said: "we don't want our pensioners to bleed just to meet the dictates from Brussels." The IMF has put out research that questions what is now called "the German hypothesis." The "German hypothesis," is based on the unique experience of Germany with the Hartz reforms under chancellor Schroeder which were based on wage restraint by workers, the German "kurzarbeit" program of government support for retaining workers with lower pay during cyclical downturns, improving competitiveness of German companies, and conservative budget practices. There appear to be two exceptions to this. One is that demand has to be strong outside or domestically for a country to reduce unemployment and improve productive capacity utlilization as it increases competitiveness. This was the case as Germany made the Hartz reforms under Schroeder. Wage restraint acts as a form of devaluing currency for reducing the cost of its products to improve exports. All leading parties and the unions are now in favor of wage restraint and lowering wages to preserve jobs to improve France's competitive position. Germany had the benefit of a decade to implement these reforms to reduce unemployment, because demand was not declining domestically or around it during its reforms. The situation is different in Spain where in all likelihood demand would shrink further with unemployment rising from 25% to higher levels, and higher sales taxes. This is why Francois Heisbourg, special advisor at the Paris based Foundation for Strategic Research, says about the current situation in Europe, that destroyiing Greece with strict austerity alone wasn't something the EU can look back at with the sense of having done the right thing, for Spain it appears misguided and lacking careful thought. The editors of the Wall Street Journal expressed the same sense when they described the March 2012 bailout of Greece as a tragic sideshow, because the main purpose was to buy time and insulate the other larger economies in the EU by giving the French, Spanish and German banks time to improve their financial position. The Journal called it bad for Greece leaving it with debt at 120% of GDP till 2020 and no economic growth, and bad for democracy as it was done against overwhelming Greek public opinion- The Tragic Greek Sideshow, Feb. 22, 2012. Volker Perthes, director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, a Berlin think tank, says the Germans have always viewed German leadership in Europe with discomfort, and would prefer a leadership where several states, France, Italy, Spain, and other countries in the EU coalesce around consensus positions. This is historically true for the German position since chancellor Adenauer. With the Free Democrats in decline, and the Social Democrats and the Pirate party doing well in recent German elections and favoring consensus in Europe, Merkel's Christian Democrats need to rethink their policy to give greater weight to economic growth for a consensus position in Europe. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The director of Vote Leave on Brexit referendum Dominic Cummings says Brexit could be a mistake for Britain. Asked if he thinks differently now, he says in a Twitter exchange cited in Britain's Guardian newspaper- "Lots. I said before REF was a dumb idea, other things shdve been tried 1st." Others are having second thoughts about the referendum, as shown here.

LyrArc Article Gist
The Economist cites the Dartmouth Atlas Project which shows differences in cost across the country for health outcomes and spending involving Medicare. It cost $5000 per person in Salem, Oregon in 2006, $8000 in San Francisco, and more than $16,000 in Miami, with outcomes for health tending to be better in places where the costs were lower. This is one of the statistics that Peter Orszag of the Congressional Budget Office uses to come up with his estimate of 30% waste in health care spending in the United States. Prof. Skinner at Dartmouth and Prof. Garber at Stanford point out that of most health systems around the world the American system is "uniquely inefficient" and wasteful. The Economist cites information that the American system is twice as costly per person for healthcare than the Swedish system, and that it costs twice as much in Minnesota as in Miami. A poll done for the Economist shows 52% of the people in the UA are dissatified with the quality of care, 40% think the system needs fundamental change, and 29% think that it should be fundamentally rebuilt. The lack of uniform coverage is also causing turmoil in the system. About 49 million are uninsured, and a quarter or more are able to buy insurance and do not buy it because it is so costly, has exclusions and coverage is inadequate. But these people also end up in the emergency rooms along with the indigent costing the whole system tens of billion of dollars for costly late interventions that could have been avoided with preventive care early on. With the economic crisis and rise in joblessness, the dire condition of state and local budgets, the situation has probably drastically worsened, and the system near breakdown. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Tom Friedman explains why Applied Materials is one of the largest solar panel manufacturers in the world but makes its panels in 5 factories in Germany, four in China and one each in India, Taiwan and Italy. With no factory in the USA. And all 14 factories put up in the last 2 years, put up overseas. Applied Materials is opening its largest worldwide research facility in Xian, China, in October 2009. Applied develops the knowhow for solar energy at its research facilities for manufacturing technology. These solar panel factories says Applied CEO Splinter go for about $200 million each. Solar panels technology can vary from thin film coated onto glass with nanotechnology using crystalline silicon, to other technologies. Germany is at the forefront of the world solar energy industry. It is the second largest industry in Germany employing some 50,000 people. China is putting a new emphasis on pollution free energy. What Germany has done says Friedman after visiting Applied Materials research facilities, is to allow any business or homeowner to generate solar energy, and if they decide have the power utility to connect them to the grid as well as buy the solar power at apric and duration attractive to the homeowner or business user. Something the USA has still to do. As a result solar energy consumption in the USA lags way behind these countries. Applied Materials largest USA customer is a German owned company in Oregon says Applied CEO Splinter. Splinter points to the fact that solar energy is becoming an important industry, similiar to the way the auto industry assumed importance. For Applied Materials this means revenues of $1.3 billion in the last 12 months, according to Splinter. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Bernanke's speech at the annual Fed Jackson Hole meeting put any future policy action off for the September meeting of the Fed's Open Market Committee, which will meet for 2 days to allow lengthy discussion of issues. He repeated his focus made in earlier statements that other actions are needed to reduce the headwinds facing the U.S., actions other than the Fed's monetary policy. He called for "good, proactive housing policy," which has been a major missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle of the American economy. Specifically, "families with mortgage debt bigger than the value of their homes facing unusual financial hardship which is also hurting the banks." Martin Feldstein and other experts have repeatedly called for action to help homeowners under water since the mortgage financial crisis hit in 2008. And the government's response has been tepid at best. Most evaluations of the Home Affordable Modification program and other programs to help prevent foreclosures consider them a serious failure of the Obama administration. Higher unemployment has only increased the urgency for government action in this area and good proposals were made by Feldstein and other experts. On the deficit and debt issues Bernanke would like to see debt to GDP ratios "at least stable, or preferably, declining over time." He also cautions that this be done bearing in mind "the fragility of the current economic recovery." He says his estimate for the U.S. economy's growth rate is 0.7% annual rate for the second half, and 'looks likely to improve." His prediction is for inflation to settle at around 2%. His main concern is that the there will be "an erosion of skills and loss of attachment to the labor force" for the long term unemployed....

LyrArc Article Gist
Ruth Marcus looks at the assumptions behind Romney's tax plan and questions whether simplifying the tax system with lower rates would help create the climate for higher economic growth and lower unemployment. Much of the differences between Republicans and Democrats revolve around this assumption, a core belief on one side and skepticism on the other. An effort to obtain a bipartisan assessment was made with the Simpson-Bowles commission recommendations, which advised closing loopholes and reducing deductions. The work done by Martin Feldstein on the Romney Tax plan builds on this approach of limiting deductions, and reducing taxes across the board. An issue for Democrats is inequality. Lower wages to improve competitiveness in manufacturing industry is a trend in Republican and Democratic administrations, because of the effort to improve U.S. competitiveness against other trading nations and has played a large part in lowering incomes in manufacturing oriented midwest and eastern states. The other cause of increasing inequality is the housing crisis and the effects on the economy through foreclosures and unemployment. The housing crisis developed under a Republican administration, and the lack of effective measures to prevent foreclosures under the last 4 years of a Democratic administration worsened the economic condition of the middle class, and especially so for minorities. During the housing and foreclosure crisis the proposals put forward by Republicans Martin Feldstein, a Harvard economist, and Sheila Bair, head of the FDIC who calls herself a "populist from Kansas," for bold government help to homeowners under water would have helped the middle class financially, and especially minorities, far more than the efforts of the Democratic Obama administration, and under Feldstein's plan even turned aound the housing market and boosted a recovery. Trends in world trade and industry have large effects outside what administrations of either party can control, and a lot depends on the temperament, wisdom and leadership provided....

LyrArc Article Gist
Changes that are ocurring in Pakistan that are different from what was seen in the past. Pakistan's elite appears to have lost touch with ordinary Pakistanis. The country is becoming more Islamic in its thinking. America is now cited as the biggest threat for Pakistan in Pew Research and Gallup surveys by close to 60% of those surveyed. India is seen as much less of a threat, less than 20% see India as a threat. Over 10% see the Pakistan Taliban as a threat. Pakistan may be looking more inward now than in the past. In the past India dominated the military's thinking. Now it is concerned about too large of an American footprint in Pakistan, and may be encouraging the perception that America is a threat to Pakistan's having nuclear weapons. Pakistan's failure to invest in education, a budget for the military that takes a disproportionate share of resources, lack of investments in infrastructure continue to affect Pakistan. Female literacy is low, at about 40%. Support for democracy is not strong because of poor governance. Democracy in Pakistan is distorted by the large landowning families dominating Parliament. And the two main parties are dominated by the Bhutto and Sharif families. Only 42% of those surveyed said democracy was the best form of government in the Pew poll. Both the military and civilian governments have failed to make wise decisions that would bring opportunities to ordinary Pakistanis. Too much of the nation's resources were wasted in costly conflicts with India, and involvement in Afghanistan, which have not done much for Pakistan. In this situation Pakistan and Pakistanis continue to struggle along with no clear direction, but somehow make things work. A pullback from conflicts in neighboring states and focus on improving the lives of ordinary Pakistanis requires some far-sighted leadership....

LyrArc Article Gist
A new survey of senior lending officers of 45 emerging market banks by the Institute of International Finance is similiar to surveys done by central banks in U.S., Europe and Japan. The IIF is an asssociation of large global banks. The IIF's chief economist says the survey shows strong demand for loans in these countries. Emerging market banks are becoming cautious, but its difficult considering the strong demand for loans. In China and Brazil, banking authorites are trying to cool the huge increase in loans as asset bubbles are developing. The IIF's first survey shows strong demand for loans aross the board, especially in Brazil. Similiar information from Turkey shows strong loan demand. An index of loan demand for consumer loans in emerging markets- with a score of 50 indicating expansion of loan demand and below 50 contracting loan demand- is at 64.1. Similiar indexes for the U.S. are at 50.1, for Europe 49.8, Japan 48.5, according to the recent surveys by central banks. While 56% of emerging market banks say corporate loan demand has grown in the 1st quarter 2011- the similiar number for the U.S. is 35% in the Fed survey, and 28% for Europe in the ECB survey. The IIF survey looked at the bank's lending practices and found banks in emerging Asia were tightening standards while banks in Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East were lowering the standards. 25% of emerging market banks tightened corporate lending standards, 16% relaxed standards, and the remainder left things as they were. A similiar Fed survey for the U.S. showed no banks tightening corporate lending standards, and 16% relaxing standards. And an ECB survey shows more banks tightening standards than relaxing them....

LyrArc Article Gist
Martin Feldstein on the U.S. economy in 2014 and the risks of the U.S. Federal Reserve tackling the economy on its own with monetary policy, without Congress taking on the task of policies to promote economic growth. Feldstein points out the 3.6% GDP growth estimate for the third quarter 2013 does not look that good considering that half of this is from buildup of inventory. GDP growth is about 2% as net result. With paralysis of Congress and the Executive branch the Fed's policy of huge buildup of long term bonds to reduce short term interest rates to zero and stimulate stock and home prices, he describes as the only game in town. The problem is that the size of the effect of increase in consumer spending from this increase in household wealth is small and not enough to contribute to significant GDP growth. The risks of this approach are that it contributes to destabilizing the economy as investors buy risky securities and bid up prices. He suggests a five year $1 trillion infrastructure development program, including defense, as a stimulus Congress should consider. Not the kind of stimulus that happened after the 2008 crisis. If not enough investment ready projects are available as in 2008 that will contribute to future growth, Congress should take another one year to prepare for this before moving forward. Debt reduction is key, and debt as a percentage of GDP should be reduced and set on a path to go where it was before 2008 to about 40%, deficits to below 2% of GDP. This should be done by slowing growth of Social Security and Medicare, and increasing revenues by limiting subsidies in the tax code that Feldstein as pushed for since 2010....

LyrArc Article Gist
In a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll taken December 11-14, the results show how fast things have changed in one year for the Obama administration. Today less than half of the people approve of the job Obama has done as President. And among core constituencies which helped Obama win the election he is losing support. A third of voters 34 and under feel negative toward the Democratic party. When asked about their sentiment Mike Ashmore, a23 year old from Lansdale, Pa., an independent who supported Obama what bothered him most was the lack of action on jobs. With Hispanics those who are positive about Democrats has dropped steeply from 60% to 38%. And Mr. obama's personal popularity has dropped, now only 50% feel positive about him down from 68% in January. Overal 35% feel positive about the Democratic party in Dec 2009, compared to 49% in February 2009. Something serious is happening here. Because this does not translate into gains fro the Republicans who are where they were earleir in the year. Only 28% of voters expressed positive feelings for the Republican which is what it has been all through the summer and fall of 2009. On Afghanistan only 44% feel its the right approach to do atroop buildup, 41% oppose. So the President support especially in his own party is not much here. If 28% of voters feel positive about Republicans, and only a litle more 34% feel positive about Democrats, then how will voters make achoice between candidiates in elections? Would they go by the merit of the candidate regardless of party. Something else that Americans are beginning to sense is that the country's prospects look grim with the economy, jobs, and the national debt and deficits, as well as a sense of lacking much needed renewal. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The loss of some 4 million jobs is expected by experts in 2009, and Obama economic advisor Christina Romer has presented information at a meeting that shows the current downturn will be more severe than anything we experienced in the last 50 years. At that meeting on December 16, 2008, Obama met with Romer and other economic and policy advisors for 4 hours. It was decided that the target for jobs should be 3 million jobs created in 2009 and 2010. This still means a lot of the 4 million job loss will still occur in 2009, even if the infrastructure jobs estimated at $136 billion by the nation's governors get off to a fast start as they are supposedly ready to go. Money to states and local governments will reduce job losses and loss of services, and money in the form of lower payroll taxes would probably be saved to reduce debt by the public. Money to the poor to support medicaid and health care services and expanding healthcare coverage for those who lose coverage will be safety net reinforcement and support. So finding places to spend where jobs can be created quickly will be a challenge going forward and some of the $1 trillion stimulus will not go directly to job creation but as support. For the December 16 meeting Romer consulted with Martin Feldstein the senior Republican economist who said that " without action the economy will continue to decline rapidly." For a long time Martin Feldstein has been advocating strong action especially to reduce foreclosures and help stabilize housing prices. As the economy has weakened he has revised upwards what needs to be done, and his estimates are close to the lower end of the $800 billion to 1.3 trillion that is being estimated for 2 years. Lawrence Lindsay and other economists are supporting upto $1 trillion stimulus. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Instead of "ring fencing" bad loans one bank at a time, which is what is being done for Bank of America and Citigroup by the government , Bair, Bernanke and others favor something like the Resolution Trust Corporation, which would contain all bad assets of banks. Bair in an interview said she would like to see them priced at what they would get in today's market, meaning that the steep discounts issue would be faced squarely. What this will need is a lot of government money to restore confidence so that investors are willing to put their private money in the banks. And Senator Schumer says he is hearing the number of $1 trillion or more. This would let banks take these bad assets off their balance sheets, like they did with the Brady bonds for bad Latin American assets and with the Resolution Trust Corporation for bad assets in the savings and loan crisis. It was the original intent of TARP but two things happened, first the pricing of these assets was in limbo, with nobody willing to say how steep the discount should be. The auction process proposed was a vague and shaky one. Second, things deteriorated so quickly that it became urgent to instead do bank recapitalizations for $250 billion. Now the same issue has to be addressed directly by another administration with control of Congress, so that the big bucks funding of $1 trillion can be possible to do. Something like a separate institution that holds all bad bank assets. And the government taking on a big part of the burden, and with it some ownership of the banks that hopefully could payback some of this $ 1 trillion....

LyrArc Article Gist
Joseph Stiglitz describes policies and programs of the Obama administration that favor banks and avoid a government takeover of over leveraged and badly managed banks in the U.S. President Obama's policy transfers financial assets to banks on highly favorable terms even though some of the banks made bad decisions and highly overleveraged assets creating the 2008 global financial crisis. The policies avoid a government takeover of banks, policies which the U.S. aggressively pushed for in other countries such as S. Korea during the 1997 financial crisis with Rubin, Summers and Geithner at Treasury. These policies would come under strong criticism because it rewarded risk taking and kept in place an incentive system that led to such behaviours- creating "heads I win, tails you lose" psychology. It also delinks the performance-reward relationship that is the basis of free enterprise in western economies. A problem that would be left from the crisis and the Obama administration's response to it is "Too-Big-To-Fail," with banks larger than before. The FDIC and U.S. Fed's plans for banks to have living wills for an orderly windup under Dodd-Frank legislation only goes a part of the way in tackling this problem. In the U.S., and in Britain, France, Germany, Switzerland, the related problem of high bonuses continues into 2014, with RBS bank in Britain one of the egregious examples and highly unpopular with the British public. The lack of similiar government help to homeowners, advocated by Reagan economic advisor Martin Feldstein and FDIC chairwoman Sheila Bair from the beginnings of the crisis stands in sharp contrast to the response of the Obama administration. See the links for Barr, Feldstein and Hoenig. In an ultimate irony from the crisis handling much of the damage from foreclosures was done to minorities which supported the administration. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Mr Tata in an interview said that the new small car from Tata will be able to meet current and future European emissions standards. There has been some speculation about emissions but this confirms that the technology for the new car has been kept to the forefront so that this car will keep emissions low. Lower Mr. Tata says than many small cars on the road today. Why is this important? Imagine in a counntry where urban areas already have a high level of pollution, cities like Kolkata and Ahmedabad, imagine putting in millions of these cars on the road, it would have been a serious error for Ratan Tata to have a vision of a great vision of a small car for the Indian people without having though about the environmental consequence of this. It appears that the vision includes staying upto date with future European emissions standards also. The other aspect is safety, arapid increase in the car fatality rate also would set this car back, and here Mr. Tata says the car hasn't compromise by using plastic, as a car its like any other passenger car, its made of sheet metal. Profits and margins on this car Mr. Tata says will depend a lot on the input costs. One of the inputs is steel whose prices have been rising. It helps that Tata is a big manufacturer of steel and would be able to better manage this input cost. A lot of sourcing is done on the internet auctions to get the best price and Tata has a long term relationship it appears with Bosch for the engine as Bosch is investing heavily in India. See the links to Tata's $2500 car and to Bosch....

LyrArc Article Gist
Capital Economics, a consultancy, estimates that housing prices will fall by 15% in 2008 in Britain and by 12% in 2009. The mortgage market figures according to the Nationwide Building Society show that only 42,000 loans had been approved to buy homes in May under half th number from 2007 May and below even the trough reached in the early 1990's. An economist at Morgan Stanley estimates that with 15% fall in prices 1.2 million households will be under water or have negative equity in their homes, and with a 20% decline in housing prices this number could reach 2 million , as bad as it was in the worst days of early 1990's. A member of the Bank of England's monetary policy committee thinks the decline in housing starts would be on a much bigger scale than in the early 1990's. The loss of housing investment will lead to a loss of about one percentage point in GDP economic growth in 2008 and in 2009 according to Goldman Sachs. Thre would be a loss of 30-40% of the demand for equipment to setup new homes leading to a loss of 0.2-0.3% of GDP growth. Economic growth will be affected as declining consumer wealth leads to lower consumer spending. A one percetage point loss in consumer spending is expected and this will lower economic growth by half a percentage point of GDP over the next year according to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. All this comes on top of inflation, rising prices of food and energy, loss of purchasing power. And the central bank cannot lower interest rates if it keeps its eye on inflation as the ECB has done....

LyrArc Article Gist
There is a difference between the two candidiates. Most of Obama's tax policies are vague or not clear. This risks having higher taxes costing more than $648 billion over 10 years according to the Tax Policy Center. Taxpayers would shrink from 62% to 50% of households and there would be a hodge podge of tax credits. On energy McCain is pushing for nuclear energy and Obama is not giving this option enough importance. Obama would probably give more importance to higher taxes and redistribution of income and building infrastructure but sweeping changes in taxes increasing taxes for the middle class and having many tax credits is something that needs careful thought not to reverse the positive benefits of lower taxes and simpler tax code improvements of recent years. With Obama fuzzy on how much the tax system would be changed and its impact on the middle class and working class it will be a question on voter's minds. Because some way has to be found to pay for increased spending on infrastructure and healthcare. And though its largely accepted that something effective has to be done for health care for middle and working classes in the country its important that it be well thought out and free of special interests on one hand and free of political bias so that creative and useful solutions can be be made to take advantage of the unique situation the United States is in. Its not clear that the junior Senator has the experience and the understanding of this vast subject that would be needed to come up with the right system of health care for this country as any hastily put together solutions would not be likely to be the best ones....

LyrArc Article Gist
The two men, the couple one a Professor and the other a hard charging investment banker who kind of fit in together, their background, personalities, and preparation for this crisis. Throughout this crisis both had little sleep paulson some 4 hour and Bernanke leaving at midnight to catch some sleep and how the crisis kept going on and on, with one fire put out another remaining to be put out and finally after day after day on Diet coke or diet Dr. Pepper and little sleep Paulson agreed with Bernanke's opinion that "we've got to go to Congress." In fact based on his studies and research on the Great Depression and of the crisis in Japan in the nineties in the banking system there, Bernanke had given his conclusion early on about a year earlier that if there were significant decline in housing prices the government would have to step in with a large intervention. But in the end it happened all so suddenly with Paulson agreeing and both Paulson and Bernanke going upto the President and the President saying lets do it. So the meeting with Congressmen was arranged a few hours later after the inital meeting in Speaker Pelosi's office. Any reluctance to meet Congressmen who had considered any steps in this session unlikely having disappeared, and the stark nature of the crisis in the words of Senator Dodd, Chairman of the Banking Committee, became clear in the opening remarks of Paulson and Bernanke. Dodd told a news reporter that for a long time there was complete silence in the room and he does not recall a moment like this in 25 years in Congress and it being a scary story. By now it had become overwhelmingly obvious that something needed to be done in hours and days....

LyrArc Article Gist
John Steele Gordon has done a good job of covering the history of banking in the United States since the days of Alexander Hamilton. One of his books is "Hamilton's Blessing", describing the first effort to set up a central bank in the US, the Bank f the United States, modeled on the Bank of England. Here he describes the resistance by Jeffersonians and their successors like Andrew Jackson who did not understand the purpose served by a good central bank and did everything to either dissolve it or to not give it the powers and the authority and the staffing that it needed. It was not till after the crisis of 1907 in which JP Morgan acted as the central bank in loaning his own money to prevent a bank and financial panic and collapse, that the first central bank the Federal Reserve was set up in 1913. Even then it was not given the authority and powers and staffing needed to command the economy in panic or financial collapse which happened in 1931. Part of the reason the crises were less frequent after 1931 is because of a better understanding of economics and also because of the Federal Reserve's ability to step in during a crisis. What went wrong in the 1990's with the S&L crisis and in 2008? Gordon points to a system of undue political influence as one big problem. And the lack of a unified, coherent regulatory system free of undue polticial influence. Both in the 1990's and in 2008 Congress and the regulatory authorites failed to keep undue political influence from distorting and damaging the financial system. In the 2008 crisis ideology simply componded the problem as deregulation and dependence on free markets without any checks simply compounded the problem into its huge dimensions. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The Nobel prize in economics was created in 1968 by the Swedish central bank and was not one of the original Nobels. The latest recipient is Paul Krugman of Princeton University, who also writes a column in the New York Times op-ed pages since 1999 and has been a critic of President Bush's policies. He is a student of Jagdish Bhagwati who is wellknown for his work on international trade. Krugman won for his work on international trade theory where he came up with more realistic models of what goes on in international trade compared to the traditional comparitive advantage model where each country produced what it was good at. Krugmanexplained why worldwide trade was dominated by a few countries that were similiar to each other, and why a country may import the same kind of goods that it exported. He also explained under what conditions trade would lead to centralization or decentralization of populations. He has done work in international monetary policy and theory for his dissertation as well as some of his more recent academic research and teaches a course on this subject and the international liquidity crises at Princeton. Krugman compared his wnning of the Nobel to Joseph Stiglitz winning in 2001 after which Stiglitz did not get an easy time from critics of his economic ideas, especially when he was critical of the handling of the Asian and Latin American liquidity crises by Clinton's Treasury Secretary Rubin and Treasury Secretary Sommers. At the time Kenneth Rogoff at the IMF was very critical of Stiglitz. Jagdish Bhagwati at Columbia University described Prugman's winning as the next best thing to his winning the prize. Both Bhagwati and Krugma have worked tirelessly Bhagwati for international trade and Krugman for traditional bread and butter issues for the working class espoused by the Democratic party....

LyrArc Article Gist
India needs more dams to collect, store and channel water to where it is needed. The rainy season is becoming shorter, with alot of the rain as much as 50% falling in about 15 days. This means some areas are flood prone and the water if not collected in dams would be lost. THe other problem is that a lot of water is wasted without proper maintenance of the existing dams and storage areas. Much of the state governments investment in this is ineffective so water is lost for lack of maintenance. The state irrigation departments are underfunded, overmanned and corrupt and are not upto the task of maintaining the existing irrigation systems. This presents ahuge problem because India is estimated to lose the equivalent of two thirds of the new storage it builds to siltation. Between 1992-2004 India built 200 medium size irrigation projects but the area irrigated by these projects actually shrank by 3.2 million hectares. New dams are not coming on fast enough and India has 200 cubic metres of water per person, compared with 1000 cubic metres in China. Groundwater -with the governments providing free electricity to farmers for pumps- is used widely but this is becoming unsustainable. The WOrld Bank estimates that 15% of India's food production comes from "mining" which is the use of unrenewable groundwater supplies. Many of these wells are drying out. Also free electricity is causing electricity boards to have insufficient funds for expanding supply causing chronic shortages. One quarter of India's electricity is given free or cut rate to farmers. And politicians trying to reform this system are often booted out of office. All this as 400 million Indians have no electricity. The answer is not merely to raise prices in places like Haryana state- where according to aWorld Bank study farmers with electricity spend 25% of their incomes for it and to repair engine pumps- but also for the utilities to improve supply. Farmers also need to learn to use water more efficiently. ...