LyrArc Article Gist
JP Morgan Chase and pre-crash investment vehicle Sigma. Chase invested $500 million from pension funds and other investors in this vehicle. Most of this money was lost in the 2008 financial crisis. According to new documents in a class-action lawsuit JP Morgan Chase collected $1.9 billion when Sigma collapsed.

LyrArc Article Gist
A study by the Pew Hispanic Center shows 46% of Hispanics 18-24 years with a high school diploma were enrolled in college in 2011, increasing from 37% in 2008. The number of Hispanics enrolled increased from 1.3 million in 2008 to 2.1 million in 2011. The high school graduation rate for Hispanics 18-24 years increased to 76%, having gone up to 70% in 2000 from 60% in the 1990's. The high school completion rate is 85% nationally and 81% for blacks. More Hispanics are likely to go to community colleges than 4 year colleges. College enrollment for whites by comparison is 51%, Asians 67%, and blacks 45%, of all Americans 18-24 years of age with high school diploma.

LyrArc Article Gist
The Supreme Court of India cancelled the 122 telecom licenses issued by the government in 2008 at below market prices and called for a new auction in 4 months. It said the permits were given in a manner "arbitrary, capricious and contrary to public interest," and declared them "illegal and quashed."

LyrArc Article Gist
Ignatius of the Washington Post presents the Egyptian protests from the lens of Obama's personal encounter with authoritarian regimes in his boyhood experiences in Indonesia and Kenya. This is covered in Obama's first book, "Dreams from My Father." Ignatius points to the movements in Indonesia and the Philippines that ousted dictators Marcos and Suharto as evidence that positive models exist for transition to democratic government after long spells of authoritarian rule. This is a view different from the pessimism expressed by Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post on the same day- February 4, 2011- as the largest pro-democracy demonstrations were underway in Egypt. Krauthammer cites the situation in Gaza and Iran. The Wall Street Journal editorial on the same day says that Gaza is a bad example, because Hamas was allowed to contest the election without the necessary groundwork being laid; as an exception by US Secretary of State Rice. The WSJ editorial stands by the liberal democratic openings to democracy established by Bush, and earlier supported by Reagan at the Berlin Wall. The situation in Iran is actually that the elections were stolen by the Ahmadinejhad government, just as they have been stolen in Belarus, so it also may not be a good example. Ignatius points to Obama's experience as post-colonial but at the same time his administration's handling of the crisis so far has been generally described in the US media as of being caught by surprise by events and not being able to take a clear stand. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Eric Holder Jr, the Attorney General of USA, told the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commisssion that the F.B.I. was investigating more than 2800 mortgage fraud cases. Of these 2800 cases, 1842 are classified as major cases, involving losses of more than $1 million. In addition federal charges are pending against 826 defendents. Lanny Breuer, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department's criminal division stated that the fraud cases included loan origination schemes, property flipping, foreclosure rescue schemes and loan modifications. Those accused of wrongdoing include real estate brokers, appraisers and bank insiders and "plain old fraudsters who gravitated to mortgage fraud." Sheila Bair in her opening remarks to the Financial Inquiry Commission, led by California state Treasurer Angelides, stated that it was necessary to find a way to breakup large banks without using the option of government support. Bair pointed out that the basic assumptions about financial supervision, credit availability and market discipline that were considered acceptable in the regulatory reform scheme for decades are now appearing seriously flawed. A whole reassessment was needed to change the existing mechanisms and methods. And she emphasized the serious distortions and imbalances in our national policies which moved away from savings to consumption, away from investment in our industrial base and public infrastructure toward housing, and away from real sectors of the economy towards the financial sector. Ms. Schapiro who heads the S.E.C. called for a stable , adequate funding to support the commission's work....

LyrArc Article Gist
David Luhnow and Jose de Cordoba interview Luis Videgaray, close economic advisor for Mexico's leading presidential candidate, Enrique Pena Nieto. Elections will be held in July, 2012. Videgaray answers question about the policy agenda if Nieto is elected, covering changes in the oil industry, education, social security, the fight against organized crime.

LyrArc Article Gist
Efforts made by Texas governor Rick Perry and the board of regents to control tution costs for colleges and universities in the state of Texas. The idea that a college degree should cost about $10,000 in total pushed by governor Perry, and early efforts to achieve this.

LyrArc Article Gist
Interview with Hillary Clinton, former U.S. Secretary of State, in Atlantic magazine, August 2014. In the interview Clinton is critical of U.S. president Obama's approach to foreign policy, and the "don't do stupid stuff" comment by Obama that is the psychology behind Obama's foreign policy of avoiding involvement in overseas conflicts- even when it was badly needed to preserve the U.S. role in the world. Hillary Clinton presented the Obama outlook on foreign policy as inward looking and cautious at every step, to the point of making America look pessimistic about the world and its role. This situation she described as not conducive to making any better decisions than the Bush-Cheney era approach of aggressively and even jingoistically pushing the country into foreign conflicts.

LyrArc Article Gist
Bolton warns that the policy of negotiating with Iran has failed. He points to the dangers of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia's intention to acquire a nuclear weapon in the rivalry between Shiite Iran and the Sunni led coalition led by the Saudis.

LyrArc Article Gist
A look at the views of candidates running in the U.S. presidential election of 2016 on mass incarceration. Benie Sanders, Democratic Senator from Vermont, says the situation worsened for incarceration during the Clinton years when a policy of building prisons and increasing law enforcement was adopted. The 2.2 million persons in prison today are double that for the years before the early 1990's, said Sanders. Under president Clinton the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act was passed creating tougher penalties for drug offenders, and putting $30.2 billion for more police officers and new prisons. Hillary Clinton called for putting "an end to the era of mass incarceration." Adding in other remarks that missing African-American men means "missing husbands, missing fathers, and missing brothers."

LyrArc Article Gist
Hillary Clinton's presidential election strategy appears to be writing off core Republican states such as Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virgina, and focussing on parts of the midwest such as Ohio, Wisconsin, the East and the West. It would be different from the election strategy Hillary Clinton used in 2008 which made an appeal to white working class voters and worked to win votes nationwide, similiar to the two Bill Clinton campaigns which appealed to centrist voters. This may also be because Hillary Clinton is perceived in 2015 as a polarizing candidate by many voters in southern states, with little prospect of winning in these states, making the new strategy a safe fallback option based on Democratic strategies in 2008 and 2012. Jeb Bush's strategy as a candidate with positions that would attract some Hispanic voters, and working class voters, could pose risks to this Clinton election strategy.

LyrArc Article Gist
After a general debacle the Congress party gains ony 44 seats in India's parliament, the lowest since independence in 1947. The BJP party under Modi gains 282 seats and sweeps the north, centre and west of the country, and parts of the south and east. Younger voters in overwhelming numbers voted against inept governance and corruption under the Congress led government of Manmohan Singh and party leader Sonia Gandhi.

LyrArc Article Gist
The current number of American soldiers in Afghanistan of 32,000 in May 2014 will be reduced to about 9,800 after 2014, which would be cut to about 5000 in 2015, an leave only a small force of specially trained forces to protect the embassy and for additional security. Residual forces will include trainers and Special Operations forces to keep a check on Quaeda loyalists in remote parts of Afghanistan and in the mountains. The drones have accomplished much of the work done in earlier phases of the war by ground troops. The Afghan war has also been all about Pakistan. The completion of a full term in office of a democratically elected government for the first time, and the election of the Sharif government, including the participation of tribal and other Muslim extremists in elections, have been the hidden face of the war changing its face in other ways. The beginning of a focus on development in Pakistan and India, and the election of a new government in Aghanistan, the peace talks with the Taliban, are other parts of the shift to winding down America's presence coming from changes in the region itself- by changing the very nature of the conflict itself and isolating the most extremist elements....