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Ajit Singh , president of Google for Work, shares insights he has gained over the years with the NYT's Adam Bryant. He says coaching with a positive attitude and offering advice in a positive way as things happen, so that it doesn't sound like mere criticism, is important. This is actually received enthusiastically if done correctly because people believe you are helping them succeed. Communicating with your team and others is also very important, to provide inspiration and meaning for work, and requires careful thought. In his work he concentrates on a few things as its not possible to everything well.

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China adopts a two child policy nationwide in October 2015, abandoning a one child policy adopted in 1980. Experts had warned for years of a policy that would lead to fewer young people, and a rapidly aging society. UN forecasts show China will have about 400 million people over the age of 60 in 2030, 25% of the population in 2030, compared to 14% today if current trends continued. Growth of elderly people would burden the pension and health care systems. The birth rate of 1.4 children per woman is lower than in the U.S. today.

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Friedman calls for a third party candidate to bring a focus on the issues facing the U.S. - winding down the war in Afghanistan, increasing fuel economy and conservation to reduce dependence on foreign oil inclusing a gasoline tax, enacting the proposals of the Simpson-Bowles Commission which eliminates or reduces tax expenditures and reduces spending, and provides any needed fiscal support for the short run. He says the two party duopoly is not working and even if the third party succeeds only in framing the debate and the issues in a constructive and useful way, it will have achieved something significant.

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Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry tells an audience in Cedar Rapids, Iowa: Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous- or treasonous, in my opinion." He was referring to Federal Reserve chairman Bernanke when he said: "I know there's a lot of talk and what have you about if this guy prints more money between now and the election... I don't know what y'all would do to him in Iowa, but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas." Perry's spokesman said Perry feels strongly about printing money, and "got passionate" in his comments.

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Yale's Robert Shiller, founder of the of the Shiller-Case survey, says that he does not see a turning point in the housing market at this time, based on the 5000 mailed questionnaires he sends out each year. He says this is not visible and hard to conclude from the responses. He also describes the bubble thinking and behaviours he sees from the responses, especially how people extrapolate into the long term the short term gains being made. Nowhere in these responses does he see the term bubble being used by respondents, as if it never existed.

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University of Texas professor James Galbraith tells Tom Keene that its a good thing that the supercommittee failed because long term cuts to Social Security and Medicare would have inflicted significant damage to the middle class in the U.S. He says if the U.S. cannot make large investments in infrastructure building, one necessary step is to make a large increase in the minimum wage. He considers the ratings agencies downgrade of the U.S. credit rating an act fit for comedy, because these are the same agencies which not only missed the subprime crisis but actually benefitted and supported it with misconceived ratings.

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Attorneys for homeowners describe the foreclosure process as a mass production line, and efforts to avoid foreclosure as a fight against a machine. In most cases a person would be needed to read what they file, but in many mortgage firms no such person existed. They describe the problem as industry wide and pervasive- and involving loan servicers, law firms, docment processing companies and others. The big mortgage companies, including government bailed out Fannies Mae and Freddie Mac, were eager to get bad loans off their books so they imposed penalties if the process was not speeded up.

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The new coalition government in Britain has cut direct state funding for teaching in universities by 40%. The current cap on tution fees of 3,290 British pounds a year will be removed The universities Minister, Mr Willetts, suggested a cap of 9000 pounds a year. Students pay after graduation and after earning more than 21,000 pounds, at a rate of 9% of income above that level. Graduates in future will pay 3% interest above retail price index of inflation, compared to zero percent before this. But the interest rate drops to zero if the graduate loses his job or enters lower paid work.

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Ways to handle difficult co-workers. Try to understand the problem- which could come from many factors ranging from ignorance, overestimation of one's capabilities, aggressive behaviour. Solutions include being firm in response to aggressive behaviour, handling some of the difficult tasks even if this means more work which should be covered in the next performance review. Handling it one-on-one to come up with a solution is much better than politicizing the situation- which happens by bringing in the human resources department- especially as it could affect the relationships with other co-workers and bring down the morale of the department.

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PFC Energy has estimated the price of oil that would be required by OPEC countries to support higher public spending after the political unrest in these countries. The estimate is based on the minimum Brent crude price an OPEC country needs to balance its current account. This price supports the higher social spending needed. For Saudi Arabia that price was about $28 in 2005, $64 in 2010, and could reach $75 in 2012. PFC Energy says OPEC will cut output if prices fall below $90, because of higher social spending needs after the democracy movements in Arab countries.

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Nancy Koehn reviews Marc Freedman's "The Big Shift: Navigating the New Stage Beyond Midlife." Freedman says baby boomers need a new "map of life " to approach the extended years of life that modern medicine and longevity provides. Some way to redefine their lives with purposefulness and commitment. He calls this the encore stage of life, and sees this as a new opportunity if handled in the right way. Accumulated experience and struggles through prior years can be helpful evolving in new ways to find one's passion, for purposeful activity that contributes to the life of future generations.

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South Korea's Posco received environmental clearance in January 2011 for a steel plant with a capacity of 4 million metric tons a year. Posco has now been given permission to clear forest land for the $12 billion plant and infrastructure. The plant capacity will later be increased to 12 million tons a year. Indian law does not allow forest land to be cleared if villages have claims to the land. Projects by Arcelor Mittal and Posco have been held up for five years because of hurdles in getting environmental clearance and permission to clear forest land.

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Lenovo's acquisition of Motorola Mobility for $2.91 billion. After Google acquired Motorola Mobility, Lenovo's Mr Yang invited Mr. Schmidt of Google to dinner and told him Lenovo would be interested in acquiring the smartphone maker if Google decided it did not want to be in the hardware business. Google sees Lenovo as the company which can make smartphones at lower prices to reach a larger number of users. It also offsets the price rigidities in the market with Samsung controlling a large market share and reaping a larger share of the profits compared to other firms.

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The U.S. annual productivity growth rate has averaged about 1.1% since 2011, says Nobel prize winner Prescott, about half the 2.5% rate since 1948. If productivity growth remains low his estimate is that U.S. living standards will increase by only about 12% by 2024, instead of 28% at the historical rate of productivity growth. A similiar situation happened in Japan after its financial crisis in the 1990's, with low productivity growth not deflation being the primary cause. The rate of new business startups is important to improve productivity growth as this has fallen behind since 2011.

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This WSJ editorial says the U.S. should use what little influence it has to prevent Egypt from descending into civil war after the violent crackdown on protester camps in Cairo on August 14, 2013 by the Egyptian military. It says that continuing military aid will not be politically possible if the violence continues. A separate comment by Marc Lynch of the George Washington University Institute for Middle East Studies in online Foreign Policy magazine, says the Gulf States will make up for U.S. aid and the important thing is for the U.S. to be credible in the region in the long run.

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Investors have bought $268 billion of corporate bonds in Europe so far this year 2009. The bond market has rebounded strongly as investors see bonds as cheap according to one portfolio manager. THey range from highly raterd bonds like EDF, to bonds with junk ratings like brewer Carlsberg and building materials maker Lafarge SA. Companies are issuing bonds to bolster their finances and as aprecaution if the credit markets tighten up again. European companies get about 70% of their funding from banks compared to 30% in the USA. This is bringing to life large stretches of Europe's markets and helping businesses finance operations.

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About $106 million comes to the Taliban from individuals in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan and oter Arab countries. A Taliban fighter receives $200 a month and the cost of financing the war for the Taliban is somethig it can do indefinitely from local souces, as it is not costing much. Opium is one source but even if this is cutoff the Taliban can continue fighting indefinitely using other sources, according to experts. The drug trad provides in the range of $70 million to $400 million ayear. And efforts to cut the flow of financing have not been successful.

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Atul Gawande in the New Yorker shows how doctors in McAllen, Texas prescribe half the tests that doctors in other comunities in Texas do. Frank cites the effectiveness of the salaried model used by the Mayo Clinic. This battle has been postponed for another day the current halth care reform bill. But crucially the failure to tackle this program and have the country shoulder another deficit burden for healthcare leaves the country with a serious liability of overspending, with guns and butter if the Afghnistan war adds up another big bill to the Iraq war bill.

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A look at gangsterism under the Koumintang government and the gangsterism prevalent at local government levels in China today. And the way in which the central government is trying to accomodate petitioners and complaints of corruption and misuse of power. There is aperception that only if the central government knows about the abuses that these would be corrected. However the central government has not been able to control corrupt local officials working in collusion with gangster elements and the police. As long as economic growth is high the central government can risk ignoring the problem and send petitioners back home.

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In response to the claim that pay caps will mean losing talent, some experts from the banking industry and some veterans say that in addition to there not being many alternative jobs, and the need to lower their sights like everyone else for bankers, it will result in losing those who are in banking for the money and keeping those who love the work. The other thing veterans in the banking industry pont out is that if the industry loses some of the older people there will be younger people who will be eager to take on the responsibilities.

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Controversy about the American Heart Association's support for Vytorin use, saying the Enhance study was too limited and patients not discontinue use of Vytorin. House Commerce committee to investigate lack of disclosure of ties of AHA to Vytorin makers. AHA receives $2 million from Merck and the joint venture that makes Vytorin. In the absence of Vytorin patients, can get Zocor in generic form for $6 for 30 days supply. Is Vytorin, if its not any better, a clever way of marketing a combination of Zocor and Zetia and touting its effectiveness over Zocor alone with a much higher price?

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Private equity firms like Apollo and Blackstone and others may find themselves in trouble further down the road in the leveraged loan market where these private equity firms took on leveraged funding to purchase loans from banks at 85 cents on the dollar when they are down now to 65 cents on the dollar. This funding was obtained for 18 months so no immediate margin calls but if there is a long recession then further down the road both the private equity firms and the banks who thought they had unloaded these loans may have trouble with this.

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The breakup fee of $750 million ICE owes NYSE Euronext if the merger does not go through as planned.

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Tory MP's rebels in the southern part of England are opposed to prime minister Boris Johnson's second lockdown for the whole of England. This report in The Times of London looks at how Johnson's conservative government might have to get Labor party support to pass the lockdown measures in parliament. Or Labor may decide to abstain from the vote. Mr. Gove says the NHS risks being overwhelmed if the lockdown does not take place. Responding to the statements that southern England does not have high or has falling rates of coronavirus Mr. Johnson says it has been shown that a low rate catches up in one area when it is next to a high rate area for coronavirus so that the result is the spread of the virus to the point where the NHS cannot cope.  The NHS like the French health system and other health systems in the European Union, U.S.  India, and other countries are strained to the limit. Most healt care workers in hospitals have felt severe strain on themselves and their families during the first wave. Most are exhausted and are in a situation of fatigue with the added factor of some healthcare workers on leave from the virus illness. This puts additional burdens on the system. Without the action taken the health system may be overwhelmed in many countries leading to disaster.   ...

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The experience of Pintung county in Taiwan with a coronvirus outbreak is shown in The Guardian. Home quarantining of a couple from Peru leads to an outbreak. Community cooperation, a speedy response from local health authorities, testing and quarantining help to limit and control the outbreak. When it started this county on the coast, one of the poorest in the country, had limited health resources and no one was vaccinated. Most of the control response was through testing and quarantine, with vaccination assistance from the Taiwan government. Local people say strict quarantine is essential as the source of infections was from a couple who visited Peru and were allowed to home isolate. Taiwan government is now enforcing quarantine at hotels for all persons returning from overseas. WHO Emergencies program head, Dr Michael Ryan, says it is important to act quickly. He says "Be fast, have no regrets. You must be the first mover. The virus will always get you if you don't move quickly."  This happened in this Taiwan county as the local health authorites setup a soft lockdown of the two affected villages within 3 days of detecting the first case of Delta variant. This was announced over loudspeaker and food plus daily necessities were delivered to each household. A command centre was setup to take and coordinate the action daily. Taiwan authorites have enforced repeat testing and extended testing. ...