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How the efforts of former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, as head of the National Democratic Institute, and Senator John McCain, chairman of the International Republican Institute, to push for democratic processes in Egypt, failed to get the support of the Obama administration. Both wrote to Mr Mubarak in July 2010, asking that international monitors be allowed to observe the election in November 2010. The National Democratic Institute, is a US organization training Egyptians to be election monitors. After the renewal of martial law for another 2 years by Mubarak in May 2010, The Egypt Working Group, a bipartisan body of human rights activists, neoconservative policy makers and Mideast experts, was growing alarmed about the crackdown by Mubarak on anyone seeking transparency in the elections. It sent letters to Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, in April and May 2010, saying the Mubarak move to rig the elections was dangerous as the young people in Egypt were increasingly agitated. The administration acted as if it was taken by surprise by the situation in Egypt, when respected leaders like Albright were cautioning the administration about the situation in Egypt from early 2010. Before and after the protests, the Obama administration was slow to support democratic processes in Egypt, and failed to take a clear consistent stand supporting the freedom of expression of the Egyptian people....

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The Guangzhou to Wuhan train high speed line covers the 664 mile trip in 3 hours. 42 such high speed rail lines are set to open by 2012. These trains run at 215 miles per hour. Original plans were to build these lines by 2020 but the global economic crisis led to state planners moving the date up to 2012 and allocating $100 billion for this purpose. Moving passenger traffic to high speed rail lines also frees up the existing lines for more freight. Plans are to build an additional 3000 miles of track for passenger and fast freight trains at 155 miles per hour. Practically every seat on the Guangzhou- Wuhan 14 car train was full on a typical day last week, filled with migrant workers going home. What makes building these lines affordable is construction workers who earn less than $100 a month, a national savings rate of 40%, and rising tax revenues.This particular line cost $17 billion to build because of the many tunnels needed for the line. The three hour train actually makes the journey faster than the 2 hour flight to Wuhan from Guangzhou because of faster check-in times. Train stations are built in industrial districts away from the city, in the case of Guangzhou, a 40 minute bus ride from the city....

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GM is making efforts to increase sales of its Cadillac luxury car division. Cadillac marketing has not produced results. $354 million was spent on marketing in 2009 for the Cadillac division, according to industry estimates. Yet only 109,092 Cadillacs were sold. Cadillac needs a younger look and feel- currently the average age of buyers is 62. As a comparison the average age for BMW owners is an estimated 49 years. Cadillac executives see a lot of work to be done on the product side, and the marketing and customer service side. Analysts see the need for more style and zip for younger buyers. A smaller entry level Cadillac is planned for 2012. Some of the comments made about the current models suggest that the larger models and styles that may appeal to an older customer base, may not be what a younger customer base is looking for. GM is addressing the problem of customer service at dealerships by having Marriott Intenational's Ritz Carlton division give training sessions to its Cadillac dealers. A Ritz Carlton customer service expert has given 9 training sessions in New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles and other cities to more than 2100 dealers and their salespersons. But this does not address the major problems of appealing to a younger demographic, which requires a major shift in thinking, and taking some risks with the product....

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Evidence of the multicultural society that the U.S. is becoming is shown in Census Bureau information showing that 50.4% of children under the age of 1 year were Hispanic, black, Asian American or other minority groups. This is up from 49.5% in April 2010 census information. A striking change is that the white population is growing older and the Hispanic population is much younger as a whole. Today minorities are about 37% of the population in the U.S., with the District of Columbia, California, Hawaii, New Mexico and Texas, having minority population in the majority. The median age for white non-Hispanic people is 42 compared to 28 for Hispanics, and early 30's for Asians and Blacks. The baby boom of minority children is also because the number of white women in their 20's and 30's has declined over time as the White non-Hispanic population has aged. Another change that is being seen is that immigration from Mexico has declined to the point where some Hispanics are going back to Mexico. William Frey, a demographer from the Brookings Institution says immmigrants will continue coming from other parts of the world when the economy recovers. The timing for immigration say demographers is good because without the immigrants the U.S. would have an aging society like that in Japan....

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Krugman questions the Paul Ryan U.S. budget proposal on several grounds. He says the Ryan proposal depends on projections by the Heritage Foundation for its assumption that the tax cuts would generate higher revenues by creating a booming economy. The Heritage Foundation projection is for revenue increasing by $600 billon over the next 10 years as a result of tax cuts. Krugman cites a different view from the Congressional Budget Office estimate for the Ryan proposal, which shows assumed savings from spending cuts will go not to reduce the deficit but to pay for tax cuts, with bigger deficits in the next decade. He says the spending cuts excluding Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid- but including defense- go down from 12% of GDP in 2011 to 6% of GDP in 2022- meaning that cuts in public services will need to cut to the bone. The Medicare part of Ryan's proposal does not say how spending on medical care will be reduced. The voucher or premium support Ryan envisages is estimated by the Congressional Budget Office to cover only one third of the cost of insurance premiums for Medicare equivalent care by 2030. Krugman cites the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which says the Ryan proposal achieves two thirds of its $4 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade by cutting programs that primarily serve low-income Americans. ...

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President Obama ordered the surge in 2010 for 30,000 additional troops in Afghanistan. There are now 150,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan. Of these two thirds are Americans. The goal of the surge was set by President Obama as " disrupting, dismantling, and defeating al Quaeda and its extremist allies" in Afghanistan. Yet the fact remains that official estimates on the coallition side are for only about 100 or so al Quaeda militants operating in Afghanistan. The war in Afghanistan is being fought with Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan who also live in the mountainous region that comprises Pakistan and Afghanistan, and has some form of clandestine support from sections of the Pakistani military and intelligence services- the Pakistani military having played a critical role in the formation of the Taliban from its inception to act as Pakistan's proxy in that region. With the democracy protests in the Arab world in 2011, al Quaeda does not fit into the existing mood in the Middle East and the Muslim world. Considering these facts- and the mood favoring American disengagement on the part of America's allies in the Afghan government and Pakistan's military, and the American public mood favoring disengagement, the Taliban seeing their conflict as purely domestic and little to do with al Quaeda- the situation is likely to move in the direction of phased American withdrawal. ...

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Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel said the government will follow the recommendations of the government appointed Ethics Comission to close eight nuclear reactors immediately, and close most of the other reactors by 2021. Three plants may be kept online into 2022 for reserve power. About 70% of the German public by some estimates opposes nuclear power. Nuclear energy provides 23% of German energy supplies, and coal fired plants 42.4%. In 2002 a coalition government of Social Democrats and the Green party made a decision to phase out nuclear energy. Already Germany has the highest targets of any country in the world for alternative energy. German renewable energy targets are for the country to generate 80% of energy supply from sources such as wind, solar and other renewable energy by 2050. Currently Germany produces 16.9% of electricity consumption through renewable energy. And Germany has a thriving energy industry with solar energy companies SolarWorld AG, solar cellmaker Q-Cells SE and wind turbine maker Nordex. Germany sees the challenge as both reducing the risks of nuclear energy and an opportunity to become the world leader in renewable energy with growing markets overseas. Merkel vioced this by saying - "This path sets a great challenge for Germany, but we can be the first industrial country to make the transition ino an age of highly efficient and renewable energy." ...

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A Nikkei poll shows only 36% of people in Japan support a reinterpretation of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution to allow "collective self defense," and 51% disapprove. Prime minister Abe cites the need for "thorough debate," and legislative moves in this area will be held back, to gain support for reforms in the agriculture and other sectors. Abe appears to have lost some goodwill for reform measures to launch the Third Arrow. In an address to the Australian parliament in English Abe made a committment to the principle underlying Article 9 by saying- "This vow that Japan made after the war is still fully alive today." He also stated that Japan woud never let the horrors of World War II be repeated. Japan and Australia have agreed to share military equipment, and Japan has a role in developing a submarine fleet for the Australian navy of 30 billion Australian dollars (US $28.1 billion). At about this time in Beijing U.S. leaders for the foreign and finance ministries, Lew and Kerry, met for the Strategic and Economic Dialogue sixth round in Beijing's Diaoyutai State guest house. China's president Jinping, probably aware of the waves created by its own assertive stance in the region and the response of neighbors and Japan, said that the Pacific was large enough to accomodate both the U.S. and China....

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Malkiel says both sides in the investor debate are right. Those saying the CAPE ratio in the U.S. at 25, well above long run average of 15, are right to point this out. So are the others in the debate who point to the lack of alternatives for investors when the 10 year Treasury bond is at 2.4% and short term rates essentially at zero. Stock prices reflect the discounted present value of future cash flows from dividends and capital gains. This discount rate in 2014 has to take into acount the rate on low risk securities such as 10 year U.S. Treasury bonds and and a premium for riskiness of the stock market. Add three or four percentage points to this and one gets a low discount rate for future earnings that helps support reasoning for higher stock prices, says Malkiel. On the issue of low interest rates Malkiel's view is that they will be around for a long period because the unutilized productive labor capacity and low growth are likely to persist for a long period. Here he supports Fed chairwoman Yellen's view based on the U6 labor utilization. He also sees the long run equity returns from today's prices to be much lower than the 10% long run average. By accomodating both sides Malkiel supports a broadly diversified portfolio with adequate room for emerging markets and international stocks....

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U.S. Federal Reserve chairwoman Janet Yellen's speech at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston conference on inequality was remarkable in the clear focus on the increase in inequality of the last three decades. Yellen calls it "the most sustained rise in inequality since the nineteenth century." Yellen also described the stark inequality between the lower half of households and those at the top- "The lower half of households by wealth held just 3 percent of wealth in 1989 and only 1 percent in 2013. To put that in perspective... the average net worth of the lower half of the distribution, representing 62 million households, was $11,000 in 2013. About one fourth of these families reported zero wealth or negative net worth, and a significant fraction of those said they were "underwater" on their home mortgages, owing more than the value of the home." Without saying this explicitly Yellen has accepted the Fed's own role in this situation under Greenspan and Bernanke. Under Bernanke Yellen was vicechairwoman. Yellen participated in many of the decisions of the Fed that kept interest rates low- hurting savers and those who could not take the risks of a volatile stock market. Yet Yellen has shown courage in stating the problem with all the facts she could muster, and making clear that Fed sees the long term unemployed as a critical driver for Fed policy....

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The Swiss National Bank gives up on its effort to maintain Swiss competitiveness by dropping the 2011 peg of 1.2 euros to the franc. That effort was becoming costlier as the central bank piled up hundreds of millions of euros on its balance sheet buying up euros to keep the value of the franc down. Investors have put money into francs as a safe haven since the 2008 financial crisis. By offering negative yields of 0.75% the central bank hoped to limit the damage with a surging franc. The franc went up by 15% on January 15, 2015, with the surprise announcement, and stocks of exporters declined sharply. The immediate decision was taken as the ECB planned to weaken the euro with a large quantitative easing program in its Dec. 22, 2015 meeting. The central bank said - "Recently the divergences between the monetary policies of the major currency areas have increased significantly- a trend that is likely to become even more pronounced." A December Swiss initiative was intended to force the Swiss National Bank to convert much of its foreign exchange holdings into gold, as public criticism of the large euro holdings increased with each currency market intervention. The SNB justified its peg to the euro and currency interventions saying that this gave the country's exporters time to make the transition to a stronger Swiss franc....

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Venezuela's economy declined by 2.8% in 2014, according to the government. In 2015 the GDP decline is forecast at 7% by the IMF. Venezuela is finally confronting the serious problems it faces by giving gasoline at the pump at pennies a gallon. The huge subsidy leading to waste and smuggling in the border regions with Columbia was wasteful at crude oil prices of $100 a gallon, and is now a burden on the economy at crude oil prices of $50 a gallon in Jan. 2015. In his annual address at the National Assembly president Maduro confronted this by saying- "It's a distortion, you have to admit it, you can crucify me if you want but there's a need for us to go to a balanced price." On devaluation of the currency, the Bolivar, he said a state run operation that sells U.S. dollars at the rate of 50 Bolivares per dollar would now be run by private brokers. As this is the lowest of a three tier exchange rate run by the government for all foreign exchange transactions it effectively would be a devaluation of the currency. It would help the government meet its budget deficit by bringing in more local currency, which private economists estimate at 14% of GDP. At the same time it would worsen already high inflation of about 64%....

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Douthat offers insights into U.S. president Obama's thinking when he said at a National Prayer Breakfast, that Christians also had committed bad acts in the name of religion and reminded listener of the Jim Crow days when blacks were oppressed by church going Christians. The Crusades were a long battle against an advancing Islam over several centuries and many regions, says Douthat, and do not quite compare with the actions committed by an individual organization such as Islamic State in 2014-2015. The Jim Crow reference comes from personal experience during the fading days of racial discrimination. Yet says Douthat this reference to Christian culpability does little to bring the criticism back to self that the writer Niebuhr, Obama's role model, suggests, because it does not take the criticism back to self or political party to serve as useful introspection. It is almost like saying Christians are just as bad,(so why act?) without distinguishing from Christians and Muslims who respect tolerance and peaceful coexistence from those who do not. It also encourages one to remain a bystander in foreign and defense policy, leaving a younger generation with any future consequences. Ike does better by bringing self-criticism home to his own party and ideological wing by talking about the military-industrial complex and the problems it will create....

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Britain's prime minister David Cameron is having finance minister Osborne lead the negotiations with Germany and France on treaty changes for Britain to stay in the European Union, following his election promise to hold a referendum by 2017. The discussion about the prospects for changes show how difficult it will be for Britain to get the changes in the next 2 years. German chancellor Merkel supports Britain staying in the EU but only up to a point, and German public opinion does not show strong support for the kind of changes on immigration that Cameron is seeking. Support is also declining in countries like Poland because of the immigration issue. Merkel would like to see Britain in because of its open economy, free markets, and also because German contributions to the EU budget would increase significantly with the exit of Britain. Northern countries such as Sweden would also favor an effort to keep Britain inside the EU. On defence and foreign affairs EU without Britain would not carry the same weight and influence. Inside Britain Cameron faces problems with Euroskeptics inside the Conservative Party, and with the 13% popular vote that went to the UK Independence Party in the recent election. The uncertainty is not good for business and the economy of Britain, which is why Cameron is considering holding the referendum on the EU in 2016....

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Andrew Kramer reports from the front near the city of Mariupol in eastern Ukraine with signs of a breakdown in the second Minsk accord. Following the breakdown of the Minsk agreement of September 2014 by February 2015, with fighting around the town of Debaltseve, leaders of Russia, Germany, France and the separatist eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk met again in Minsk, Belarus, on Feb 11, 2015. This led to the second Minsk Agreement and a ceasefire. This agreement called for release of prisoners, a zone to separate the soldiers on each side, constitutional reforms for decentralization in Ukraine giving autonomy to the Donetsk and Luhansk areas, and monitoring by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Minsk II agreement is under strain as the economic blockade by Kiev, and separatist violations of the ceasefire, have created a tense situation by June 2015. The second Minsk agreement was reached under pressure from the U.S. saying it would send arms to the government in Kiev if Russia continued to send troops into Ukraine, and Germany seeking to avoid a further escalation of the conflict. In the background the U.S. and the EU continued economic sanctions on Russia, and the Russian economy suffered from a decline in oil prices as a result of Saudi pricing decisions....

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James Stewart of the NYT describes the remarkable turnaround at Best Buy executed by Hubert Joly, a graduate of the French Etudes de Politiques in Paris and former CEO of Swedish hotel and travel company Carlson. He did this by carefully analyzing the areas where Best Buy was falling short and not delivering for customers a winning proposition. Statistics showed Best Buy had fallen behind on price. One survey showed only 23% of respondents found Best Buy prices were lowest, compared to 71% for Wal-Mart, 56% for Amazon, and 38% for Target. That Wal-Mart and Target are able to hold their own- in the case of Target with 38% along with some other advantages of customer targeting- against showrooming and internet retailers such as Amazon, and the 56% for Amazon which showed Amazon was itself not a price leader, gave Jolly insights into the strategy to pursue. Jolly took out costs elsewhere and made Best Buy the place where the shopper would get the lowest price and much more in terms of convenience, service and advice. The strategy has worked but Jolly is not complacent saying that in this business your success is only as good as your last call. Best Buy's stock is up 240% and is one of the best three stocks of 2013....

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Peters and Wessel provide profiles of middle aged American men in 2014- as tech workers out of jobs as technology shifts and worker skills fall behind, younger men with masters degrees in fields such as public administration where it is hard to find jobs and workers lack retraining, and other men who lost jobs from globalization or the 2009 economic crisis. About one in 6 working age American men 25-54 are without jobs- about 10.4 million. Of this group two thirds are not looking for work either because they cannot find decent paying jobs or are too discouraged looking for work, and are not counted in the unemployment rate calculated by the Labor Department. About three quarters of the working age men not working have only a high school education compared to 55% with jobs. Wages for highschool dropouts have declined by 25% since the 1970's, and 15% for those without a college degree but having a high school diploma- some of these men are going back to school, others lacking retraining are too discouraged to look for work and depending on a spouse or government benefits. It is these people U.S. Fed chairpersons Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen have in mind as they shape Fed policies since 2009 to not leave them behind....

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German born Joerg Reinhardt, the new chairman of Novartis, is overseeing the plan to revitalize and strengthen its R&D operations. Reinhardt who has a doctorate in pharmaceutical sciences, spent 30 years working for Novartis and its predecessor company Sandoz, before leaving for Bayer in 2010 and returning to Novartis. He is leading the effort by setting up a board subcommittee setup to oversee the research and development effort. The new subcommittee's task is to review the R&D strategy and organization. The subcommittee will advise the board on scientific trends and activities critical to R&D success. Novartis has increased R&D budget to 5.6% in 2013, which will remain at that level in 2014. The pharmaceutical industry by contrast decreased spending by 2.2% in 2013 compared to the high point in 2011, according to PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Research activities will be concentrated in 4 cities- Shanghai, Basel, Boston and La Jolla, California, to take advantage of infrastructure already in place in these places. A review of Novartis's portfolio of business begun in 2013 will be completed in 2014. Reinhardt says acquisitions of upto $5 billion could be made to build scale for promising smaller units. The review also includes Novartis's one third stake in Roche built up since 2001, and conversations Reinhardt is having with Roche's new chairman Christopher Franz....

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Jeff Bezos's letter to employees of The Washington Post shows why Graham family members, Donald Graham and Katherine Weymouth, who own and run the newspaper, see Bezos as the right person to continue the family's legacy from 80 years of stewardship. Apart from saying he has known Donald Graham for over 10 years and knows no finer person, Bezos also said about the critical role journalism plays in a free society: "I would highlight two kinds of courage the Grahams have shown as owners that I hope to channel. The first is the courage to say wait, be sure, slow down, get another source. Real people and their reputations, livelihoods and families are at stake. The second is the courage to say follow the story, no matter the cost." Bezos also pointed out the major changes in the journalism field from the arrival of the internet. Changes he will now address as owner of the newspaper and one of the business pioneers in the field of internet retailing, starting with books and following this up with the Kindle reader. Bezos sees the changes coming from three sources: "shorter news cycles, eroding long-reliable revenue sources, and enabling new kinds of competition, some of which bear little or no news-gathering costs." His response will be to invent and experiment in new ways....

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President Enrique Pena Nieto proposes changes to the constitution in August 2013 to modernize Mexico's Pemex and open it up to working with foreign oil companies. Recognizing that a majority of public opinion is opposed to changes, Nieto gets the support of the PAN opposition party for a two thirds majority in parliament. He also navigates the difficult waters of Mexican history and the nationalization under President Cardenas in 1938, by saying: "Pemex will not be sold, nor privatized...The spirit of this reform recovers the best of our past to conquer the future." Previous reform effort in 2008 failed because of protests on the streets of Mexico City. A stalling Mexican economy and lower oil production has created new momentum for the effort to modernize Pemex and introduce better management for oil resources and new technologies. A consensus between the ruling PRD party and the PAN opposition party gives Nieto the two thirds majority needed, and sufficient support from the right and centre political parties to carry this through. The example of Brazil's Petrobras, which has discovered oil in the deep waters of the Atlantic and developed its own technological capabilities by working with foreign oil companies, also gives Mexico an example to follow. Under President Cardozo Brazil opened up its oil industry to work with foreign oil companies in the 1980's....

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Bill Keller describes the diversity of news sources available today from the BBC and Guardian websites to Al Jazeera and websites of other foreign news organizations. Radio stations are another source. Yet this diversity exists with one troubling factor- the decline in foreign news bureaus and experienced journalists covering events in distant locations. As a result many of the important foreign events are now covered by free lance journalists who take many risks and are still underpaid. Without experienced journalists it becomes more difficult to sort out the good information from the bad or poorly researched, and the average reader facing a glut of information or misinformation is faced with the prospect of being as uninformed as before or worse misinformed. Keller gives the example of NYT's journalist C. J. Chivers who carefully researched information from a UN report- compass bearings for two chemical rockets- to show that the chemical weapons attack in Syria originated with the Assad military forces in Damascus. This was after much of the media went with the stories spread by different sources that there were doubts about who was responsible. Unusual and cause for concern is that many governments around the world may have found the ambiguity useful by taking off some of the moral pressure for action, of having to intervene so soon after the Bush invasion of Iraq....

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Republican Jeb Bush's address to the 2013 CPAC conference focusses on the decline of social and educational mobility in the U.S. to its lowest point since 1945. In this address he points out that " the central mission of conservatives is to reignite social mobility in this country- restoring the right to rise." His focus on restoring the right to rise is on doing everything to increase opportunities for "quality education," an issue on which he focussed as governor of Florida. He sees technolgy and relative youthful population compared to China and other countries in Europe, as giving America a unique advantage. On this and individual efforts he pins the broad hopes of the middle class revival he sees. He puts the problems of America's middle class and working class as wages declined and the economy suffered from misallocation of resources in stark terms- "Today, the sad reality is that if you're born poor, if your parents did'nt go to college, if you don't know your father, if English isn't spoken at home- then the odds are stacked against you. You are more likely to stay poor today than at any other time since World War II." And he sees Conservatives having a response to this situation, and restoring the idea of America as a land of opportunity for all....

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A detailed account of how the American airstrikes in Farah province look from the ground. CIvilians who may not have much to do with the Taliban get caught in these strikes, and burned bodies of women, girls, children are to be found along with destroyed homes. It only creates new volunteers among the young for the Taliban and legitimizes anti-American feelings after bombings of this kind. Its also exactly as the Taliban intended it, as they hid among the civilians with this in mind. US soldiers outnumbered in difficult terrain and vast spaces call in airstrikes after ambushes and difficult fights. The US has to do some serious problem solving on this one, or risk losing the support of ordinary Afghans , and with it the war. These are some of the tough choices in this war, with what kind of air support to fight this war. One that is pinpoint and based on accurate intelligence and in skirmishes in the open, but avoiding the kind that gets close to civilian areas. And finding other ways to tackle the problems. Having popular support is critical, and providing security is critical, which calls for more feet on the ground, more aid workers on the ground, and more to show for these efforts in reduced casualties and better lives of the people in each area. ...

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To see the changes in East Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall one has to go beyond the larger cities like Dresden, Leipzig, and Berlin. One has to go to the smaller towns, which are rapidly losing population as young people leave for jobs in the western part of Germany. The government says the gap is closing between the western and eastern parts of Germany. It says $60 billion was spent on infrastructure and to support businesses in 2006-2008. ANd economic activity per person is now up to 71% of western part of Germany from 67% in this last decade. But look at the smaller towns in the east and you see young people leaving, the average of the people going way up, the population dropping, and with this unneeded or abandoned apartment buildings have to be bulldozed. Unemployment is double that in the west. In some areas the number of women between 20and 30 has dropped 30%. About 1.7 million people or 12% of the population has left East Germany since the fall of the Berlin Wall. About 2000 schools have closed because of ascarcity of children. The demographics were such in the early years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, that for a number of years East Germans stopped having children, says the Director of the Berlin Institute for Population and Development....

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Alan Meltzer would like to see the Fed reverse its quantitative easing, and lower excess reserves gradually starting now. By this he hopes to see the Fed avoid the mistake of making a big shift from excessive ease to severe contraction further down the road. He also warns agains excessive deficit spending. He says a weak economy is not the time to cut spending or raise taxes, and he is not talking of draconian immediate steps. He would like to see a multiyear program to increase fiscal probity and reduce deficits size and frequency. As it stands now he takes both parties to task for lack of fiscal discipline and honest accounting. About $1 trillion in deficits each year on average for next 10 years is in the works, and is an underestimate because the savings of $200-$300 billion in medicare spending have still to be realized, and states do not have funds for increased Medicaid spending, and payments to doctors have still to go down by 25%. Chinese government purchases of half our debt will postpone the day of reckoning says Meltzer, but far better for us to strike at the problem now, before we blow a hole in the dollar and start a downturn. See the separate report on the shrinking UK economy....