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By a vote of 3-2, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission voted to pass the "proxy access rule." This makes it mandatory for companies to include the names of all board nominees, even if they are not backed by the company, directly on the standard corporate ballots. These ballots are distributed before company meetings. At this time shareholders have to mail separate ballots for their nominees, and have to have a campaign to get shareholder support. This made boards less responsive to shareholders without the means to take on a long costly campaign. The new rule goes into effect with the 2011 annual shareholder meetings.

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Critics say China's currency is undervalued by 20%. China is only willing to increase the value of the yuan by 3% this year, fearing that a signifcant revaluation will lead to the closure of textile and other factories in the coastal areas that operate on a small profit. Facing high unemployment the US is not willing to let this happen gradually. US businesses that manufacture in the US and export to China would benefit if the yuan appreciates significantly. Retailers such as Wal-Mart and textile producers with offshore manufacturing at contract sites in China are on the other side as they benefit from the lower value of the Chinese currency.

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New legislation in the Italian parliament introduced by prime minister Renzi would give the party winning 40% of the popular vote extra seats to reach a majority of 340 in the 630 seat Chamber of Deputies, lower house of the Italian parliament. If no group gets the 40%, a run off is to be held between the 2 largest parties to determine who gets the absolute majority. The new law also turns the upper house, the Senate into an assembly of local representatives, and makes the lower house, the Chamber of Deputies the one that runs the country. The new law would go into effect in July 2016.

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A former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors during 2010-2011 offers his reflections on the quantitative easing policies of Fed chairman Bernanke. He points out that the Fed was simply offsetting the effects of tight credit channels when it employed QE to prevent this from damaging the economy at a sensitive time. Inflation would have increased as critics say, only if the Fed did not reverse its policy with tapering as it is doing now. Bernanke offers a similiar assessment and says Fed critics refuse to look at todays inflation numbers which are below 2% for 2013- and also below 2% for 2012.

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According to the Center for American Progress enrollment in the food stamp program would drop by 9.2% if the minimum wage is raised to $10.10 per hour. The savings- $4.6 billion a year. This CAP report is by UC Berkeley researchers Rachel West and Michael Reich. Earlier research done at UC Berkeley and University of Illinois showed raising the minimum wage would save taxpayers $7 billion a year. Food stamps known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program supports one in seven Americans at a cost of $78 billion in 2011, with eligibility set at 130% of poverty threshold or $19,530 for 3 member family.

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See the piece by Paul Pillar because it says something at the heart of the problem- one of the biggest paradoxes in the rationale for the counterinsurgency. And it is this: the Pakistan government you are trying to help is assisting the forces that threaten it. At the heart of this paradox is the fact that the Pakistan government, military and intelligence services are not all acting together and there are clandestine and some open elements in each of these institutions that support the Taliban. And the official elelments also are hedging their bets and are willing to make adeal with the Taliban if necessary.

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A Brookings study points out that in the USA we seem to have forgotten how important a part infrastructure built in the last hundred years has played in our development. Felix Rohatyn points out in his book "Bold Endeavours," that the national infrastructure is falling apart. and Bob Herbert of the NYT casts a look at all the dilapidated infrastructure in the USA from the 70 year old Sann Francisco -Oakland Bay Bridge to bridges over the Mississipi river, and other infrastructure that is coming apart, and asks people to imagine a different world where we are fixing and building things around us. Imagine he says if things looked different.

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Martin Peers of WSJ says he thinks the $250 million infusion from Carlos Slim may buy too little time for New York Times company, if it does not do more aggressive cost cutting and asset sales. The asset sales are going to be difficult for media business in this environment with declining ad spending. In the first 9 months of 2008 revenue fell 6.5% to $2.18 billion but production, selling general and administrative expenses fell only 1.9% to $1.99 billion, says Peers so its cost base is not shrinking fast enough. And the 14% interest for the Slim investment raises interest costs from $50 million to $74 million a year.

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Friedman calls for the President to make the tough decisions whether it is the nationalizing of banks or enlarging the stimulus. He calls for the President not to be afraid of risking his Presidency and his credibility on some tough issues, as this is what may be required by the tough issues of the banks, the toxic assets, decisions on nationalization or the stimulus expansion, and also by the task of winniing the trust of ordinary people suffering from this crisis. Even if this means howls of protest from some quarters as long as the people are basically behind the actions and the strategy.

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After carbon dioxide at 40%, black carbon at 18% is the No 2 cause of global warming on the planet earth. This black carbon is generated from thousands of villages in the develooping world and from countries like India, where village women cook food over stoves that burn twigs and dung, not having stoves to cook on. If they are provided with stoves that use fuel these black carbon emissions can easily and quickly be cut. This is also cuasing dense smoke to fill their homes and black grime to stick to the thatched huts and thatched roofs, and it puts ablack cloud over stretches of landscape in these villages.

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Mishkin a Columbia University Prof. who is a Fed Governor close to Ben Bernanke presented a paper at the Jackson Hole conference saying that the best strategy was for the Fed to act quickly as house prices fall and cut rates. Under this strategy the Fed would hit bottom in rate cuts a little over 2 years compared to about 4 years if the Fed waited to see what happens to the housing market and the housing market was in steep decline by the time the Fed acted decisively. This would mean less lost economic output. This makes sense as the housing market is going to see a serious impact.

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Ford Motor Company will be a much smaller company and this looks like a structural change not a cyclical one as more automobiles are made in the developing world and fewer automobiles and smaller automobiles are made in the mature US market and like Germany and Japan the market here may have peaked. This would be seen in the employee numbers also. Ford had 34500, salaried workers in 2005, now its down to 23,700, with another cut in salaried workforce cuts by 15% by August 1, 2008, recently announced and even more cuts in 2009 if the market numbers fall further, the salaried workforce may be below 20,000.

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There is considerable opposition among analysts, Congressmen, and experts to continuing with the current management at GM if help is provided to automakers. And GM's management is insisting on staying on which may complicate things. There is a strong perception throughout the country that management has failed the company, and now the economy of the midwest and the country. And some are arguing that bankruptcy or government receivership will be necessary to effect a complete restructuring of the industry after years of failure both by management and unions, the credit crisis having come as the last blow after a long series of mistakes and inability to get things right.

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Moody's Investor's Service downgrades China's credit rating to A1 from Aa3. Moody's predicts a slowdown in growth for China. GDP growth for 1st quarter 2017 was 6.9%. Total debt has grown from 149% of gross domestic product in 2008, to 213% in 2013, and is now 253%, according to JP Morgan. The problem is that ever higher levels of credit have supported growth and more of this is coming from the shadow banking sector. Higher levels of debt in future years from the already high levels will weigh heavily on growth, leading to an eventual slowdown in the economy's growth rate.

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Maggie Smith was known by people who knew her as a person of great wit and humor. This is how she described herself-

"My career is chequered. I think I got pigeonholed in humour … If you do comedy, you kind of don’t count. Comedy is never considered the real thing.” 

There was much humor, laughter, and yet there was the way this also brought out in her performances the anguish of the human condition as in "The Prime of Jean Brodie," about an Edinburgh teacher with a misguided admiration for Mussolini and the event that led to realizing her moral blindness when she says "Mary McGregor", hearing that one of her impressionable girl students had died in the Spanish Civil War of the 1930's.

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"If you could have dinner with someone you never met who would that be?"

For Ms. Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs wife, who owns 38.5 million shares of Apple stock, in addition to a 7% stake in Disney Company, the answer is Nelson Mandela. 

For Nvidia founder Jensen Huang the answer is MC Hammer.

This was at an event called Demo Day in the Bay area.

Ms. Powell Jobs said on Demo Day about climate change investment that it will continue-

“I don’t know that it’s going to be that difficult. I think there are always ways to find common ground and to find things that we agree on, and in many ways, people will just continue the work.”

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Chase Banks' Jamie Dimon says he worries about China as a competitor and an adversary, but his real worry is that we in the United States can "get our act together."

“If we are not the pre-eminent military and the pre-eminent economy in 40 years, we will not be the reserve currency. People tell me we are enormously resilient. I agree with that. I think this time is different. This time we have to get our act together and do it very quickly.” 

“What I really worry about is us,” he said. “Can we get our own act together—our own values, our own capabilities, our own management?”

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After suffering a deep depression Greece's economy is in 2019 24% smaller than in 2007. It may not be till 2033 that Greece recovers to its precrisis level GDP, says Oxford Economics, a consulting firm. With the creditors of Greece maintaining a tight control and requiring high taxes and high budget surpluses of 3.5% of GDP excluding interest payments, there is very little financial leeway to reduce taxes as the newly elected government of Mr. Mitsotakis of the New Democracy party has stated. Greece spent 8 years till 2018 under an austerity regime set by the European Union overseen by the IMF with eurozone authorites in return for a financial bailout loan package. Spending cuts and tax increases of 40% of GDP led to drop in GDP of 25%. Greece had misrepresented its official spending numbers to eurozone authorites in the years leading upto the crisis, leading to a lack of sympathy from ordinary German taxpayers for the country's situation. Unlike Portugal which was able to increase exports and find ways to reduce the austerity regime with sympathy from Germany, Greece lags behind in foreign investment and is 72nd in the ease of doing business ranking of the World Bank.  Unemployment is falling very slowly and is at 18%. Greece has returned to bond markets with 10 year bond yields of 10%. Growth is stuck at 2%. Pension spending takes up most of the budget, with little left for investment, education and other needs. No parties talk about cutting pensions anymore as a grandparents pension supports many families. The high taxes have hurt the private sector with the most productive people emigrating to other countries in northern Europe and to other parts of the world. About 500,000 left from 2010 to 2017, most are college graduates, and 64% have postgraduate degrees, a survey shows. Most of them will never return as it  is difficult to live and plan a life on a Greek salary. During the financial crises affecting Latin American countries such as Mexico, Brazil and Argentina for decades, the expression lost decade became common. Some like Argentina had repeat situations of lost decade before recovering. Even the U.S. suffered badly suffering close to a lost decade with faulty mortgages causing a crisis in 2009. Only Greece has proved that this can happen for nearly three decades. Greece's experience also sullied the euro currency's image, that was further damaged by the austerity policies across the eurozone's financially weaker countries. Lack of transparency and insider groups unable to take up the national interest and pursuing narrow interests left Greece in a bad position with little sympathy from stronger northern European countries such as Netherlands, Sweden, Germany. Today's political crisis for the centre right and centre left parties in Germany and other Northern European countries such as Scandinavia, Netherlands, also stems from this flawed entry of countries such as Greece into the eurozone with poorly managed finances. A combination of Tech creating low wage jobs, erosion of working class, failure of centrist parties free market policies to protect the working class, shift of jobs to low wage countries such as China, had already eroded the situation. The humanitarian response to what was both a economic and war related migration from North Africa  to Europe only worsened the image of these parties with working class people alienating them further. The eurozone countries and the European Union are only gradually recovering from these errors.     ...

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Court blocks deportation of a group of Venezuelans on the basis of Alien Enemies Act of 1798, says other remedies can be tried. This is one of 4 laws passed under John Adams in 1798 to remove citizens or subjects of a hostile nation during times of war or invasion. The case now goes to the US Supreme Court. The Court of Appeals of the Fifth Circuit is based in New Orleans with 3 Judges making the decision. Bush appointee Southwick joined Biden appointee Ramirez against Trump appointee Oldham in a 2-1 decision. Oldham in a 131 page dissent says-“Today the majority holds that President Trump is just an ordinary civil litigant. His declaration of a predatory incursion is not conclusive. Far from it. Rather, President Trump must plead sufficient facts — as if he were some run-of-the-mill plaintiff in a breach-of-contract case — to convince a federal judge that he is entitled to relief.” Southwick does not appear to see this as an invasion ignoring the deaths from fentanyl and drug trafficking in the US, the strain on public resources and cities of uncontrolled flow of migrants in recent years, saying- “A country’s encouraging its residents and citizens to enter this country illegally is not the modern-day equivalent of sending an armed, organized force to occupy, to disrupt or to otherwise harm the United States.” Yet even an armed organized force was pushed back in the War of 1812, and has little chance where the current problems have led to the deaths of more young Americans from drug trafficking than three times the deaths in the Vietnam and Korean Wars combined, three times the deaths in World War I and about 75% of the deaths in World War II, something that needs reflection and action. With the changing public sentiment in the UK and Europe and in the US on law and order and on migrants the Supreme Court is faced with coming up with a decision in the best interests of the Nation and its People. ...

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This article in the Economist describes the different perspectives on the Greece crisis in July 2015 as seen inside Germany. It cites a poll showing German 51% to 41% favoring a Greek exit from the eurozone. About 85% reject further concessions in a July 1, 2015 poll, including 68% of the supporters of The Left, a post-Communist party. Social Democrats leader Sigmar Gabriel, said of the Greece timeout from the euro proposal by finance minister Schauble- that it was the appropriate thing to consider all options. And 78% polled see Greeks not keeping their side of the deal. Some experts see stronger sentiment about Greece after the events in July 2015, and the raising of the issue of the debt haircut given to Germany in 1953, because Germans see themselves as having gone to great lengths to build a strong Europe after their own troubled history in the 20th century. If the goal was to win German support in 2015, this has come across as poor tactics and poor strategy, considering how it has changed German opinion across the spectrum of political opinion....

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It took a long time for the banks to understand what is in their best interests is in the best interests of the country's economy and homeowners, something Sheila Bair has been saying since the beginning of this year and implementing at IndyMac. Its just too costly for banks to use the foreclosure process to recover their money and it makes much better financial sense on the bottomline of banks and for the economy to make home payments affordable. Because the worse home prices get the worse the economy and banks do and nothing drives home prices down like foreclosures. The Bank of America settlement for Countrywide with state attorney generals to modify loans for 400,000 homeowners because of predatory lending practices also set the direction. Chase Bank is now using the Bair template to get the monthly payments down to an affordable level which is about 40% of the current payment by reducing interest rates and using a smaller loan balance and keep homeowners in their homes. Chase's plan will help 400,000 homeowners and will also help homeowners who are having difficulty making payments. It will put a 90 day hold on foreclosures till the program is put in place. Yet there is one problem. Only $350 billion of the 1.5 trillion in home mortgage it services are owned by Chase, the rest are owned by investors in the form of mortgage securities. It can do little for homeowners covered by these securites that are owned by hedge funds and other funds as a few of these funds oblivious of the overall interest including their own have threated to sue if loans are modified, and it would take some time to figure out who owns each security and what the terms are for modifying loans for that security. Its this part of mortgage securitiization that has slowed down a rational process of unwinding this problem throughout housing by making homeowners monthly payments affordable. And Fed's Bernanke did not come to grips with this point in his talk about mortgage securitization to UC Berkeley on October 31,2008, that mortgage securitization done in a way that make loan modification difficult is dangerous as it is today, and makes a crisis bigger than it otherwise would be, and turn a USA crisis into a global crisis through ricotcheting effects and a series of bad decisons....

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A local government vehicle in China, Sixth Division of XPCC fails to make a bond payment in August 2018. This is the first such instance of failure to make a bond payment for a local government vehicle in 2018. Economists estimate China's total debt at 242% of GDP in 2017, and government efforts to tighten liquidity and reduce support for overextended local government investment vehicles.

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The Journal points to the lack of changes to "too-big-to-fail" financial institutions after the global financial crisis of 2008, as the same large banks are likely to be put on the Federal Reserve's list of banks that are considered to be "systemically important" four years later in 2012.

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Economists predict sluggish economic growth in 2013.