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The revolving door at the U.S. financial markets regulator, the S.E.C., and lax enforcement, as S.E.C. officals take up jobs at law firms and financial institutions. Here Inspector General Kotz and Senator Grassley provide many examples of revolving door practices at the S.E.C., with officials taking up positions and bringing their expertise to private firms being regulated in the same fields and specialized areas.

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One in six dollars generated by the U.S. economy goes to pay for health care, almost twice the average for rich countries. It hurts America in many ways; by being a burden on the taxpayer when it comes to Medicare and Medicaid paying for the poor and the elderly, on companies being one reason GM went bankrupt, it eats up federal and state budgets, rising costs make any form of future coverage for all unsustainable, and it robs other priorities such as infrastructure building and other national scale investments. The Economist says that if it had to design a system from scratch, it would go for a system based mostly around publicly funded health care. For the uninsured the solution of an employer mandate is now well accepted, so this is not an issue. What is an issue is how to make the new system affordable? Here the Economist says that whether in stages or in one move, the tax deductability of employer paid health insurance, which is costing the U.S. government $250 billion ayear, has to go. It is necessary to remove this deduction, and its something all interests involved will have to swallow, as other savings are smaller and will not be adequate. The deductability of insurance makes the true cost of insurance transparent, so it supports gold plated insurance. This does not make cost control the pressing priority it needs to be. So the deducatability of employer paid health insurance hurts both ways. The other necessary action is in the area of moving out of the current culture where most doctors work on a fee-for-service basis, where the more tests they prescribe or procedures they perform the greater their incomes. This acts as a perverse incentive, and has aruinous effect in mushrooming health care costs in America. Cutting back on unnecessary tests and procedures, and prescriptions , would save 10% to 30% of health costs says the Economist. And it says this has been proven with the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and Kaiser Permanente in California showing that cutting back doesn't hurt care and outcomes., so much so that cutting back would occur along with improved outcomes. But Americans with employer paid insurance just take things for granted as its not much out of pocket expense for them. THis creates the lack of a force for controlling costs even as employers are shouldering abigger and bigger burden, and the employee who thinks he is doing fine actually is seeing more of his salary dollars going to pay for his health insurance. In a way the consumers of health care are stuck with the perception that they are not somehow paying for these mushrooming costs and too manytests, procedures and prescriptions. This perception leads them a false sense of comfort with the system they are in, and a fear of something new fanned by the medical lobbies, that any change will impact users negatively. This makes the whole discussion on health care or the process of finding solutions to become an exericize in which terms like "rationing" and "choice" play a distorting role. ...

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GM plans to bring the Chevy Volt, a plug in type of car that will run more on the battery than the Toyota Prius- which uses gasoline support as soon as it picks up speed- to market in 3 years. But it doesn't yet know how it will do it. What created the opportunity is that Toyota is having a hard time of its own trying to figure out a battery that can provide more electric power, more punch, that would raise the Prius mpg from 46 to about 80 mpg. Its lithium ion technology batteries to achieve this haven't passed the safety tests so Toyota is pushing this back to 2011. This created a opportunity for GM to come up with its own for a plug in Chevy Volt. Its looking a small companies in the US that might supply these batteries. GM has come up with 2 consortiums of suppliers, one from MIT called A123 that is based on the work of MIT Prof.Yet-Ming Chinag who works with iron phosphate technology that is less prone to fires and safety issues. The other is led by S. Korean chemical maker LG Chem. Toshiba is working on research for a lithium ion battery for cars that will be safe on the Japanese side. It is not clear how this will turn out because batteries for laptops have had fires and safety issues, but the R&D is on in earnest for a new safe electric battery for cars. And automakers know its not just about an electric car. On it rests the image and innovation leader perception that is so important in marketing that no amount of advertising can fix, as the US automakers have learned to their extreme grief. ...

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The Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Bureau of Investigation respond to inquiries by the New York Times on how adequately their agencies have responded to the financial crisis of 2008. The inquiries relate to whether these agencies have conducted the prosecutions of senior executives of financial companies that are necessary to ensure there is no recurrence of the behaviours in financial markets that led to the crisis.

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Krugman points to the low productivity improvement in the U.S. since 2005, and looks at the nature of tech changes since 2005 with products from Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and other companies targeted more at consumers than at the core industrial economy. Listening to my favorite music or using smartphones does not add to productivity in the same way that changes in an earlier period improved productivity. Low productivity improvement hurts workers in the U.S., Britain and in the eurozone, as this is holding back growth in wages. Figures actually show a further deceleration in productivity since 2010 to a mere 0.3% annual growth in the U.S., from 1.3% since 2005, and 2.9% for the period from 1995 to 2005.

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Friedman points to another reason for conservation- $60 barrel of oil supports Iran's nuclear ambitions. He points to the lack of U.S. leverage on this issue and the need for India, China and Russia to moderate Iran's position. He also points out that Bush's efforts to promote democracy and peaceful governments in the Middle East and Asia that are not anti-western will be undermined by $60 barrel oil. See the link to other articles that point to the need for a gasoline tax (Leonhardt, NY Times, Feb 8, 2006 on being fooled by Hybrids) or in the absence of a gasoline tax to new CAFE standards. See also a link to shift in influence on foreign policy from Cheney to Rice, to more moderate positions that accomodate Europe and Asia.

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Dagmar Breitenbach of DW.com  discusses today's youth in an interview with Albert Wunsch, author of the book "The Pampering Trap." Wunsch is a psychologist and education expert, who says today's youth lack the perseverance of their parent's generation. When confronted with difficult situations today's young people in Germany are seen as lacking maturity, persistence, and patience. Part of the problem is that parents have shielded their children from life's realities, says Wunsch. Parents want to be their kid's friends, and not act like an authority figure. In Germany authority figures still have the taint of looking bad, and parent shy away from that perception. The avoidance of conflict, including constructive conflict leaves children and youth at a disadvantage, because they go through life not having had to experience difficulties and learn from these experiences. Lacking this sensible kind of conflict in which parents have to ask themselves what is of value that they can transfer, the transfer of what one generation has learned is not being transferred to the next. Another problem is that young people prefer to hedge, not make commitments, says Wunsch. Financial literacy on how to manage money is also at a lower level. Some of these problems are mentioned for young people in America in the best selling book by Ben Sasse- "The Vanishing American Adult." Developments in Germany are also evident in other places. The dropout rate in Germany is also high. Studies cited here show this to be about 25% to 33% of college students dropping out.   ...

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The Wisconsin Republican primary turns out to be the turning point for the Cruz campaign. Following his landslide win in Utah, Cruz wins in Wisconsin by about 14 percentage points, and begins the long journey to close a signficant part of the gap with Donald Trump. Cruz's organization, and the anti-Trump groups efforts, ad spending, helped Cruz in his win. Trump was handicapped by a series of gaffes including one on abortion- saying he would penalize women having abortions- alienating women. Cruz's margin for voters making up their mind on the day of voting, excluding early voting, was higher at about 17 percentage points. Closer media scrutiny of statements by Trump and policy implications, including foreign affairs, European policy, the nuclear issues, happened in the week before the Wisconsin primary. This happens late in the campaign. The weak media vetting of the main candidates Trump and Cruz being lost in the coverage of Trump's sensational statements and twitter comments about wives, for which the media has come under criticsim. ...

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Ted Cruz wins the Wisconsin Republican primary election with 48% to Trump's 34%, with only 29% of voters who made up their mind late going to Trump compared to 46% for Cruz. About 37% of the voters in the Wisconsin primary said they would not vote at all or vote for Hillary Clinton if Trump was nominated. Showing deep discomfort with Trump exit polls showed 58% saying they were "concerned" or "scared" if Trump was elected. Cruz quoted John Kennedy and Winston Churchill, describing it as the turning point in the primaries.

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To gauge economic progress and improvement in living standards, instead of GNP alone look at number of indicators. Look at healthcare and education, cleaner skies and cleaner air, water and land. This is what areport commissioned by President Sarkozy of France, done by Siglitz and Amartya Sen, esentially emphasizes. And be careful when you see more cars and gasoline and more driving drive up GDP numbers and growth because this may actually work in the wrong direction, and have unusual negative effects as the SUV buildup and later collapse led to destroying companies and jobs in Michigan and the midwestern USA.

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The large number of part time workers reduces the pressures of wage growth on inflation for a considerable period, in the view of analysts. The upward pressure from medical care costs, housing and import prices is also expected to subside in the rest of 2014.

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900 million eligible voters in India means this is the largest election ever. The election will take place in 7 phases in April and May from April 11 to May 19. Votes will be counted on May 23. The election is for 543 seats in parliament, the Lok Sabha. Turnouts are high with 66% turning out in the last election that brought Mr. Modi and the BJP to power.  Unlike elections in Britain a lot is spent in each election, about $5 billion in the last election and double that this time. The U.S. elections in 2016 had spending of $6.5 billion as a comparison. Women vote at about the same rate as men and more women than men are expected to vote this time. Prime minister Modi won the last election with promises of development and infrastructure. He is delivering on infrastructure but building manufacturing and generating jobs in the formal sector remains a tougher task for any administration in 4 years. During the first term Mr. Modi made needed changes including introducing the GST tax to integrate India's fragmented market and get rid of a patchwork of regional state taxes. He introduced a whole range of projects and yojanas which are setting the stage for widening the middle class, and improving living conditions. Some of the problems such as the bad loans in the banking system date back to previous administrations and the government has taken steps to clean up this problem by refinancing banks and introducing a bankruptcy law. This has slowed GDP growth to about 7%. However this would have happened under any administration.  The brief war with Pakistan in February 2019 has added another dimension to this election with questions about whether this may help Mr. Modi because of his strong stand against terrorism camps in Pakistan.  In the end it all comes down to whether the public still believes the BJP party under Modi is best qualified to develop the infrastructure to modernize the country and improve services, and whether it can create enough of the manufacturing capabilities to generate jobs needed. It may not be that the BJP under Modi has  not made mistakes in the process of learning how best to tackle development, but whether a patchwork of regional parties led by the opposition Congress party is in a position to provide the strong decisive direction to make quick decisions on development. Getting the agreement of a number of regional parties such as the party in West Bengal state or the Uttar Pradesh state when it was under a previous administration of Mrs Mayawati means an even slower rate of decision making as it leads to lack of speedy decision making. Whether voters have short memories and forget the slow rate of infrastructure development under previous administrations or have a willingness to give the BJP a chance to show what it can do under Modi for development can eventually decide this election. An example of what this means is in how the Mumbai Metro is being pushed through to timely delivery- Metro Rail's head Mrs. Ashwini Bhide simply says she feels for the people of Mumbai who have suffered from delays in development of needed infrastructure for so long, with millions doing appalling rides in a creaky old rail system. In her view it should have been done yesterday. It is this attitude that can make or break the current administration, and whether it can get this message through to voters one more time. Most who have this attitude are aware that China is now laying enough concrete every two years than America did in the whole 20th century, as reported in the Guardian newspaper, and are equally passionate about delivery of services and rapid development of badly needed infrastructure.         ...

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The authors of the book Red Capitalism, two bankers, Walter and Howie, describe the evolution of China's banking system from the early days of 1974 to the present day. The account shows a sophisticated system of markets and companies, but behind the facade, is a more primitive system with its good side and problem areas. Risk is hard to define or capture in this system as the system is for the most part closed, trading entirely with itself. State controlled banks deal with stae entities in ways that are not so transparent. This distorts external perception of China's solvency. state debt for example is low, about 20% of GDP by one measure, but when all government obligations are added together, the authors say it is 76%. The whole business of providing, receiving and regulating money involves different state entities. As the system trades with itself, critical information about liabilities and pricing is concealed or difficult to figure out. The lack of outside entities setting prices disrupts efficient capital allocation and lets excesses grow within the system, making for concern about the future of this system.This is especially true considering that with the Asian crisis of 1997, then the US banking crisis of 2008, and the current crisis in the Euro-zone countries banking systems, excesses eventually take root....

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Fears of nervous investors is now touching the bond markets. AIG's insurance subsidiaries traded their bonds at prices ranging from 38 cents on the dollar to around 81 cents, from more than 50 cents on the dollar a month ago, according to MarketAxess. Investors are worried that future restructurings will cause cash generated by AIG's units to go to the government before its bondholders, as the government has already chalked up a huge bill of $177 billion for AIG. Long term bonds of triple rated General Electric Company, which with GE Capital is the largest US corporate debt issuer, dropped last week to 63 cents on the dollar. Again investors are worried that they may not get all their money back. And again GE's CFO Sherin had to reassure investors that GE's capital position was strong. The bonds of Citigroup are trading at 70 cents on the dollar. Sales of blocks of securities called "bid lists" are not a good sign, as big groups of sales are an indication investors are desperate to unload investments quickly. Bonds issued by Goldman Sachs and General Electric without the government's backing have dropped to 96 cents on the dollar and 73 cents on the dollar, respectively in the last few days. Their government backed debt trades at close to full value or 100 cents on the dollar. ...

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General Motors reports a huge second quarter 2008 loss of $15.5 billion , of which $ 2billion loss is from leasing vehicles, $3.3 billion for former part division Delphi Corp, and $3.3 billion for a buyout offer that reduced payrolls by 19000 last quarter. It also includes a surprising $65 million loss for Asian operations with added costs of hedging against drop in currencies. And Europe made just $99 million. So other than Brazil the situation is disappointing overseas also. Lower truck sales caused a $9.9 billion decline in N. American revenues to $19.8 billion from $29.7 billion. And GM said US vehicle sales dropped 26% in July, 2008. The course of GM's decline is now taking on breathtaking proortions-From 2005 to 2007 GM lost $50 billion and in the 1st and second quarters of 2008 losses of $18 billion, leaving only $20.5 billion of readily available cash and assets for future downturns. GM's market share close to 30% in 1998 is now a liitle over 20% in 2008. With all this havoc on GM's bottom line and market share GM continues to hobble along without any new blood and fresh thinking and new leadership that combines experience in other difficult business settings with vision and execution. Fiat went through this a few years before with fresh thinking and leadership and Ford is trying to get some fresh thinking under Mulally....

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A leading consulting company reaches a legal settlement with 47 American states to pay $573 million for its role in the catastrophic opioid crisis. The opioid crisis led to the deaths of almost half a million Americans between 1999 and 2018, from overdoses of prescription pain killers and illegal opioids, according to the US CDC.

McKinsey worked with Purdue Pharma to boost sales of opioid painkiller Oxycontin, says this report in DW.com. 

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Putin takes the first step for Russia to join in discussions for a lasting peace. More than a ceasefire is needed, as many ceasefires have come and gone and the war is now over 15 years old, pausing for a while and then starting again many times. Russia calls for addressing the underlying issues behind the war.  It started with Russian support for Yakunovich 2010-2014 which ended with the Maidan protests in Kviv and Lviv. Russian and Putin strategy at that time was that as long as  a pro-Russian or a person leaning towards Russia with good relations to the West -as existed in some of the former states in Eastern Europe during the 1980's during the Soviet Union such as Poland and GDR- this would be acceptable. The Maidan protest led upheaval thus had a contrary effect which Germany under Merkel and France under Sarkozy and Hollande failed to grasp. Obama judged Russia by its GDP, ignoring its history and relations among European states as one of the major powers in Europe, a technological state with nuclear power. As China shifted away making the integration of Hong Kong and now Taiwan a priority under president Xi, and asserting the virtue of its state run capitalist system over free market capitalism, the fissures began to develop in the system that prevailed after World War II and which survived the fall of the Berlin Wall. These are some of the origins of the war and are also in some of its aspects geopolitical and relate to world peace,, and peace inside nations in general outside the Ukraine war. And here relate to Venezuela Mexico and US inaction in tackling borders and cartels, the US border with Mexico, Syrian war and Syrian refugees entering Germany/Europe, the anti refugee movements in Germany and the EU, refugee crime in US and Europe, all connected in some way to the unsettled borders of the Russian state with US and Western European + Eastern European states in NATO and the EU nearby. And the limiting or removal of Russian influence in Ukraine seen by Russia as unacceptable in regions nearest to Russia that speak Russian. Britain has the virtues of its parliamentary democracy, yet it is far from Russia's borders and it just like the Russian Empire had an Empire in India and a near thing to an Empire in China, as recently as 1950, over history of western colonial empires of 500 years not too long ago. Which means it is good to be starry eyed but the reality in European history since 1400 is of dominant states and colliding or co-existing spheres of influence, mostly co-existing in some balance of different states in the interests of peace and welfare of the people.     ...

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US president Biden's $2 trillion Families and Workers plan, for early childhood education, paid leave, healthcare and climate change investment, is coming up for a vote in Congress. Paid leave that also includes maternity leave and leave that would help women return to the workforce, has been added back to the bill. Community college aid was earlier removed from the package with resistance from private colleges that expect to lose tuition paying students, even though male students are falling dangerously behind in attending college without government support. The Biden administration is facing resistance from just a couple of Democratic Congressmen- about five led by a Congressman from New Jersey, and 2 Senators from Arizona and West Virginia- on community college government aid that helps young American men and women from the working class and on paid leave that helps women. Many Republicans have supported taking this action for renewal of America on serious issues that face the country, making it likely that these issues will only become more pressing in the next three years. Sometimes as is happening today some isolated or eccentric situations can block major legislation for the good of the country such as the makeup of a Congressional seat in New Jersey with large pockets of conservative Republicans who oppose spending, and conservative instincts of two Democratic senators from Arizona and West Virginia. This WSJ report looks at Biden's position that deterrence when filing tax returns will generate close to $400 billion and not $150 billion that the Congressional Budget Office says is its estimate. To accomplish this Biden plans to spend $80 billon in large investments to increase the resources of America's tax collecting agency. Much of this was never done and policies geared to where large corporations never paid their fair share of taxes. The first step was to prevent outshoring of headquarters to reduce taxes- and this was achieved in the first year of the Biden Administration with over 100 countries agreeing on a corporate minimium tax. In the same way president Biden now seeks to correct other flaws in the tax system so that much needed investments can be made by generating new revenue not just in infrastructure, but for renewal of America through renewal of support for women, children, and America's working classes. Much of that was badly neglected by different  administrations over the last three decades.     ...