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Judge Richard Leon of the District of Columbia agrees with Senators Wyden, Udall and Heinrich that the NSA's bulk collection of phone data program in the U.S. violates the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. This is the first successfu legal challenge to the program. It was put forward by Larry Klayman, a conservative public-interest lawyer. The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a similiar lawsuit in the Southern District of New York. In his ruling Judge Leon, appointed by president Bush in 2002, said: "I cannot imagine a more indiscriminate and arbitrary invasion than this systematic and high tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying and analyzing it without prior judicial approval. Surely such a program infringes on that degree of privacy that the founders enshrined in the Fourth Amendment." Judge Leon stayed his injunction for 6 months so that the government can appeal his ruling because of the national security interests involved. The U.S. government's case was made with the argument that there are no fourth Amendment protections for collection of metadata information such as numbers called and received, date and time and duration as reflected in the 1979 case, Smith v. Maryland. Judge Leon rejected this saying that in the 34 years since that case the whole relationship of people with the phone has changed and the record collection with today's technology reveals a constantly updating picture of a person's life....

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The Trump administration's early proposal for NAFTA moves away from campaign pledges to completely renegotiate the treaty, instead taking the approach of working to improve the U.S. trade position in relation to Mexico and Canada. It includes seven objectives for tougher rules for labor and the environment favored by Democrats in Congress, and it also has support from Republicans with its effort to update NAFTA for changes in technology and in other areas since the accord was signed during the Clinton administration. The area in which U.S. and Mexican business are wary is one in which the Trump administration still seeks to keep the option of imposing protective tariffs, and a border-adjusted tax to level playing field for differences in taxes, as well as other measures to protect American jobs and interests. Because any renegotiated NAFTA also has to pass both houses of Congress this proposal took into account the different constituencies and interests for this issue. Robert Lighthizer, trade representative under president Reagan is likely to become the next U.S. Trade Representative and lead negotiator. We first profiled Lighthizer in a group in Lyrarc for pointing to the need for a level playing field in trade. As early as 2010 Lighthizer argued in op-ed articles that globalization and trade practices should ensure a level playing field for the U.S., and was covered in Lyrarc. ...

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Whats behind the surge in delayed flights in the past year. With the New York, Newark, Philadelphia area hardest hit, especially La Guardia airport. Passengers and the airlines have become so used to the advantages of smaller planes and with Congress mandating a phase out of slot requirements which were eliminated at Kennedy airport, there has been a tremendous increase in smaller planes providing direct service to smaller towns and cities, such as La Guardia to Madison, Wisconsin. The addition of a 37 seater plane for a new American service from La Guardia to Flint, Michigan shows that this has gotten out of hand, because la Guardia is one of the worst affected airports, with chronic delays even before this. For the year 2007 ending May smaller planes flights increased 85% over the previous year into Kennedy and they are more likely to be filled. 75% of the flights between Toronto and La Guardia are on planes with less than 100 seats, with 20 such flights alone competing for runway space. When all these flights from all parts of the country enter the east coast cities its like entering a 2 lane tunnel to get to places like New York, with the additioal problem that delays in New York cascading into delays alll over the country, as these delays affect other flights....

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The law in Germany says migrants seeking asylum can get jobs and benefits, training, yet if their asylum claim is rejected they have to be deported to their home country. Here a migrant from Gambia is shown having integrated with language classes, and training, yet his future is uncertain.  Germany's immigration policy under chancellor Merkel has changed first welcoming, and then to stave off challenge from the far right AfD party in elections it has set the task of deporting all those whose asylum applications are rejected. About 35% of applicants have been integrated by way of language classes, training for work. . Germany needed more people to both meet labor shortages, and to do jobs Germans did not want to do. Yet in the eastern part of Germany the mood has swung against such immigration policies and the Merkel CDU and CSU parties now see the best solution is for economic refugees to stay home and for Germany to help countries in Africa with aid and government help to stabilize the economic conditions.  ...

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Concern about stimulus spending for infrastructure. Are the best projects being funded? Are some projects that are shovel ready but not the ones we should be doing first going to get done before other essential projects. The lack of acoherent plan for rebuilding the nation's crumbling infrastrure of roads, bridges and highways. Martin Feldstein says that this recession will last longer than others, so the stimulus spending even if slow will show its impact in 2010 and 2011.

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The tough job President Obama faces as he faces opposition from politicians who have interests to protect, and healthcare businesses with interests to protect. The President has to come up with a plan that is deficit neutral, because financial markets could see a healthcare bill that further widens the deficit as a signal for higher interest rates that would deepen the recession. At the same time each of the three sources of revenue puts him at loggerheads with political leaders in Congress or groups with interests to protect. Limiting income tax deductions for high earners could raise $267 billion in 10 years. It would require taxpayers in the top tax brackets deduct their mortgage interest, state and local taxes, and charitable donations, at the 28% tax rate instead of the 33% and 35% tax rates. The opposition is with democratic leaders that it would hurt charities, universities that depend on tax deductible donations, and taxpayers in high tax cities like New York city that are the home base of Democratic leaders. Yet only 1.4% of households would be affected says the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, says charitable giving would decrease by 2%. The other opposition on this comes from the preference of Senators Baucus and Grassley, who head the Senate Finance Committee, for tax increases or cost savings to come from the health sector. Specifically they want to see the value of workers' employer provided health benefits subject to income taxes. It is a situation in which every sensible person admits the need for healthcare reform and would see the current pace of healthcare costs as unsustainable and dangerous; and after that will just go back to his group and try to preserve as much of the status quo as possible, so as not to disturb by much the benefits or compensation they have secured from the system over the years. Then there are political leaders in Congress with their own preferences, and Congressmen who are the subject of heavy lobbying by these interests. The administration and the Presidents job is to navigate this stream with a workable deficit neutral plan, without any requirement for any group to make sacrifices, and in some situations even small sacrifices for the public interest. Would charitable institutions be hurt that much, what if charitable institutions were exempted, why would other interests the try to obtain the same exemption. Its like the unions trying to keep the old unsustainable goldplated healthcare and other benefits at GM even as the ship was going down. Taxing employer provided employee health benefits as income would raise $2.5 trillion over a decade. The opposition here is from unions which are a force in the Democratic party and which count tax free health benefits as a legacy of the labor movement. Employer provided health insurance covers 160 million American employed and their dependents under the age of 65, so it has a wide impact. Yet most economists favor ending the tax break. They say it mainly goes to upper income taxpayers, and discourages cost consciousness among consumers of health care, thus encouraging excessive spending and surging health care costs. Senior Obama advisors, Peter Orszag, the budget director, and economist Jason Furman favor this approach. So do Republicans in Congress. Senators Baucus and Grassley are not asking for the complete removal of the tax break, what they want to see is capping the value of benefits that go untaxed. If the tax-free limit is $13,000, a policy worth $15,000 would pay income taxes on $2000. A third spource is to spend less on Medicare. About two thirds of the $948 billion in savings Mr Obama has proposed over 10 years comes from a number of reductions in Medicare spending. $177 billion comes from insurance companies bidding for government reimbursements for offering private plans to seniors. $106 billion comes from cutting the subsidies to hospitals serving the uninsured as universal coverage should remove this need. And $110 billion in reduced payments to hospitals and doctors because of productivity gains. A range of industries insurance companies, hospitals, doctors drugmakers, nursing homes, home health care companies and medical device makers, all stand to lose from reduced payments from Medicare and Medicaid. And these groups with interests to protect are another factor in this process of working out a healthcare plan. ...

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The New York Times reports from the comments of current and former members of the Chase Chief Investment Office (CIO), that risk officers at Chase were ignored when they raised issues about the complex trades made by trader Iksil. Iksil's trades had the support of his manager Mr. Macris, and Ms. Drew who was in charge of CIO. The comments also indicate that at one point Mr. Macris brought in a Risk Officer with whom he had worked closely for many years. Risk Officers are supposed to be independent and their concerns seriously heard, with the authority to halt trades that pose excessive risks. Which made this kind of cozy behaviour in the CIO trading offices in London cause for alarm. These reports also say Mr. Braunstein, the new CFO at JP Morgan Chase, did not strengthen controls after he assumed office in 2010. Bank officials disputed this. The New York offices did not fully grasp the complex trades being made in the CIO London offices, and upper management let the CIO operate pretty much on its own, especially with CEO Jamie Dimon's confidence in Ms. Drew's management of the CIO. This led to another gap in the process of risk management. Dimon had other priorities and distractions, from problem mortgages coming with the acquisition of Washington Mutual, pushing back aginst financial regulation after the 2008 crisis, stress tests and others. At the same time the U.S. Federal Reserve, regulators, and Treasury's coordinated effort to merge failing banks with other larger banks- because of the lack of the process of unwinding failed banks provided later under Dodd-Frank legislation- created mega financial banks. Unlike what the U.S. under Treasury Secretary Rubin pushed for in the case of S. Korea during a banking crisis in 1997, Treasury under Geithner and Fed officials did not push for unwinding of failed financial institutions such as Countrywide and Washington Mutual in 2008-2009 Chase's own portfolio of assets under the CIO, increased by an astounding amount from $76 billion in 2007 to $356 billion in 2011. Even if Ms Drew had managed CIO well before, managing a portfolio of this size is most likely to have presented a whole set of new challenges and problems for which the CIO office was not prepared. Similiar concerns were raised by other Fed officials such as Fed governors, Hoenig and Fisher, who raised the issue that such mega-banks posed unacceptable risks and were too big to manage. Pressures to increase investing profits, growing complacency, relaxing risk management controls, led to the situation where a single trader Mr. Iksil, who had only joined the bank in 2007 according to other reports, could create large losses. This follows a situation at UBSin 2011, where a novice trader made bets that resulted in large losses....

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Economists predict annualized growth of 0.9% for the second quarter U.S. GDP growth, suggesting that the U.S. economy is stalling and the U.S. Federal Reserve will continue its bond buying QE program.

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Polls show 83% of the German public support increasing the minimum wage to 8.50 euros an hour. About two thirds of the public support increasing income taxes on high wage earners. The Social Democrats talks with the CDU to form a coalition are likely to lead to CDU accepance of the condition for a minimum wage of 8.50 euros an hour, but not to the condition for raising the taxes on high income earners. The SPD sees the higher taxes as a way to pay for new infrastructure. A survey done for TV broadcaster ZDF shows 61% of Germans favoring a SPD-CDU coalition. In the 2013 elections the SPD gained 25.7% of the vote and the CDU-CSU gained 41.5%. The SPD is pushing for flexible retirement age, equal pay for men and women, a tighter financial regulation, and a growth and employment strategy in the EU.

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Experts compare the performance of two states with thriving economies California and Texas, but run by governors who are different, one passionately liberal Democrat and the other passionately conservative Republican. The Texas economy is slowing following the drop in oil prices. The Dallas Fed has lowered the forecast for growth in Texas to 0.5%-1% from the 1.5% rate projection. This compares with a growth rate of 3.4% in 2014. During the economic downturn following the financial crisis of 2008, Texas was lucky to have laws that prevented the kind of housing bubble that happened in California. It also benefitted from high oil prices. California has recovered from the worst effects of the crisis with unemployment dropping from 12% in 2011 to 6.3% in 2015, and half million jobs added in the last 12 months. Many of the jobs are in the higher paying tech sector. Critics point to the weakness in education and lower paying jobs in Texas. Texas has diversified ite economy since the 1980's, with about 13% of the state's GDP from the oil and gas industry in 2015 compared to 19% in the earler period. ...

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The gradual end of pro-democracy protests as courts allow a taxi unions lawsuit for clearing streets and police clear barricades by Nov. 26, 2014. The government in Beijing makes no concessions to student protesters and adoped a waiting strategy till public opinion shifts away from protestors blocking streets.

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Labor Department reports U.S. created 209,000 jobs in July 2014. The unemployment rate goes up slightly to 6.2%. Wages went up only by a penny and remain only 2% higher than a year ago. Retail was up by 27,000 jobs, manufacturing by 28,000 in July. Economists say the steep drop in the unemployment rate to 6.2% does not reflect the true conditions in the labor market, as the labor force participation rate is at 62.9%. One economist called this disturbing as some of the youngest workers are dropping out of the labor force. The Alliance for American Manufacuring pointed out that the U.S. manufacturing sector has recovered only about 30% of jobs lost during the recession following the 2009 financial crisis. It said the the lack of investment in infrastructure, high trade deficits and currency manipulation by China and Japan, remain obstacles for American manufacturing's resurgence.

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The role that Cushing, Oklahoma, and its 9 square miles of storage tanks for crude oil plays in the US oil price levels. How the oil inventories kept rising and new oil tanks kept being added because of the profits in futures from the $6 difference between today's oil price and the oil price some months into the future. Now the situation is in reverse because of the credit crunch their is less borrowed money available for this kind of trading, and suddenly there is a big depletion in oil stocks as some sellers had to sell stocks at Cushing to cover losses and others found it profitable to sell as prices were oil supplied now jumped higher. So there is a big depletion in oil stocks at Cushing and this affects prices of oil futures on the Nymex. In 1983 Cushing was designated by Nymex the New York Mercantile exchange as the official delivery point for its new futures contract on light, sweet crude. This Nymex price now serves as a global benchmark. this is the background behind how Cushing stocks levels in oil tanks has a disporportionate influence on Nymex oil price for futures. So speculative opportuntities for profit in the oil trading and storage combined with changing market conditions are creating a situation the depletion of oil in storage tanks that can create a surge in oil prices to still higher levels, because of lower inventory levels at Cushing....

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Micheline Maynard gets diverse views on bankruptcy filing and bailout for General Motors and Ford. Out of hundreds of comments, (looking at the comments based on reader recommends from 70 to 15 readers recommend range), with over 90% of comments favoring no bailout money for automakers without coming to grips with problems and replacing management and the board, it is clear that readers cite in order of importance the following against the automakers. Complicity with Congress and lobbyists in keeping fuel efficiency low. This sent billions of dollars to mideast nations for oil, which in turn bloated liquidity here at home, helping fuel the cheap credit era in the US and building consumer and mortgage debt. This lack of conservation in gasoline use burdened economies around the world with high oil prices, and then hit the car companies in Detroit hard as sales of large vehicles collapsed. Its entirely the Detroit carmakers own shortsightedness they say. Second most mentioned is bad management, and bad decisions and arrogance. Third the unions bloated contracts, and bankruptcy as the only way to get rid of them. Fourth failure to make green cars. Fifth the lack of any idea what $25 or $50 billion given to GM and Chrysler would get the taxpayer, because if the market has collapsed then more money will be needed each year to pay salaries and contiinue operations in 2009, followed by 2010. The market has gone from 16 milllion to a 10 million rate in October 2008, if it drops to 8 million in 2009, it would require the companies to shrink by 50% as a rough guess, and the union contracts just negotiated would be totally inappropriate for the new market and financial conditions. Getting rid of those union contracts could only be done in a bankruptcy filing, as in bankruptcy everything would have to be done from scratch. Whereas in a bailout the unions would simply refuse to cooperate as they have done in the past. This is also what readers are saying when they say let the market economy work. A look at the reader comments on similar articles in the Washington Post and the WSJ also show an overwhelming number of readers not favoring taxpayer money for automakers without serious changes, and bringing a completely new management and board to get things off to a fresh start, with no legacy from the past. ...

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A congressional oversight panel reported in October 2009 that fewer than 2000 of 500,000 loan modification applications in progressunder the Making Homes Affordable program of the Obama adminsitration had become permanent. When Treasury reports on the program in December 2009 its expected to report that the number of permanentloan modifications are in the tens of thousands out of 650,000 borrowers in the program. Mortgage companies are collecting lucrative fees on long term delinquencies so there is not enough incentive to make permanent loan modifications according to lawers defending homeowners.

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During the campaign and in the crucial Iowa primary Obama used newspapers, small and large, to get his ideas across. At one point he gave six interviews to one columnist for the Daily Times Herald of Carroll, Iowa, (circulation: 6,000). He chatted with reporters from papers like the Mason City Globe Gazette, Fort Dodge Messenger, and met with editorial boards of papers throughout Iowa. Some of these media may just be curious to hear a new kind of message, and Obama could use the communication skills developed in years of writing to express his ideas and his vision all in a casual setting, seeing faces, expressions, feeling the way the way people responded, and all the time listening to what they had to say. Now the same approach is to take world newspapers as another outlet through the Tribune Media Services which enables him to run an oped column in 30 papers around the globe. Here is the list: Arab papers are Al Wataan (Gulf States) Asharq Al Aswat (regional paper in Arabic), Gulf News (Gulf States), Saudi Gazette. European papers are: Corriere della Sera of Italy, Die Welt of Germany, International Herald Tribune of Paris, Eleftyropiea (Greece), Kristeligt Dagblad of Denmark, Le Monde of France, Lidove Noviny of Czechoslovakia, NRC Handelsblad of Netherlands, Svenska Dagbladet of Sweden, WPRost of Poland. South American papers: El Mercurio of Chile, Estado Sao Paulo of Brazil, Clarin of Argentina. South Asian and Asian papers: Hindusthan Times/ The Hindu of India, The News of Pakistan, South China Morning Post of HongKong, Straits Times of Singapore, Yomiuri Shimbun of Japan, Bangkok Post of Thailand. In South Africa the Sunday TImes, in Australia the Sydney Morning Herald, and The Australian, and in the USA, the Tribune papers which are Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sun. These are all distributed through the connection and means of the Tribune Media Services. The key point inthis communication effort is to signal something that may not have sunk in, in many parts of the world. A deep and all pervasive truth that is emerging from this crisis. We are all in this together in ways you can't imagine, as were in one boat and we float or sink in it together. Leave language, culture, borders aside, its aprofoundly new world in which the Obama story itself of multiculturalism may just be scratching the surface of really deep pervasive changes that are happening. Obama may actually not have hit this point hard enough. "Once and for all, we have learned that the success of the American economy is inextricably linked to the global economy.There is no line between action that restores growth within our borders and action that supports it beyond. If people in other countries cannot spend, markets dry up- already we have seen the biggest drop in American exports in nearly four decades, which has led directly to American job losses." This is dramatically proven by the latest Commerzbank estimates that show the 2 largest export based economies, Germany and Japan will see a contraction of GDP of 7%, USA 4% contraction and China, Eastern Europe and other parts of Asia and Latin America will also be impacted severely by the same phenomenon of markets drying up around the globe. And Obama offers the simple message that the United States is ready to lead, and asks its partners in the G20 to join with a sense of urgency and common purpose. Obama goes on to say that " we need not choose between a chaotic and unforgiving capitalism and an oppressive government-run economy. That is a false choice that will not serve our people or any people." ...

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After a severe financial crisis that could have snowballed into a Depression type situation and the credit rating agencies playing their critic-for-hire role in causing the crisis, there has been very little done to reform or correct the basic way in which credit ratings are made. Other than small patches to the system that failed the country badly by 2008, it has been left alone by Congress, the Obama administration, and regulatory agencies. The Attorney General of Ohio, Richard Cordray, says the "rating agencies total disregard for the life's work of ordinary Ohioans caused the collapse of our housing and credit markets and is at he heart of what's wrong with Wall Street today." Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut's Attorney General says he plans to join the suit against the credit rating agencies, Fitch, Standard and Poors and Moody's. Cordrays suit was filed Nov. 20, on behalf of Ohio's pension funds. It seeks billions of dollars in damages from these ratings agencies and accuses the agencies of negligence and fraud. About the failure of Congress to make even the basic change to the system of ratings, Joseph Grundfest, a professor of securities law at Stanford says ; "What you see in these bills are Botox shots, for a little while everyone is going to be frozen into a grin, and then the shots are going to wear off.'' A deputy dean at Yale Law School, Jonathan Macey, was a member of a bipartisan task force on credit ratings reform and met with lawmakers in Congress on this issue. He says its mortifying to see that this problem which is different from other complicated issues like water shortages around the world has been left unsolved, as it could be easily solved if there was even a basic degree of political will to do so. Congress looked at the option of creating an independent fee financed credit rating agency along the lines of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, established after the Enron, but did nothing with this idea. Rep. Kanjorski and Senator Reed have led the efforts to look at the credit ratings agencies in Congress and have basically decided this to leave the system very much the same as before the crisis, with the conflict of interest problem and incentives to improve profitability at the expense of the integrity of the ratings process still intact. Bills in Congress give more oversight powers to the S.E.C. and require companies to strengthen their compliance teams. In the period leading to the 2008 crisis the internal compliance teams did not get top management support at the credit rating agencies and there is skepticism about the effectiveness of compliance teams. S.E.C. regulatory efforts face push-back from the credit ratings agencies and the effectiveness of S.E.C. regulatory supervision is uncertain given the critical role that is given to credit ratings in bond and securties issuance....

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Thomas Friedman sees the WikiLeaks information showing America paying the Pakistan army and intelligence services to be two-faced, to both fight with the Americans and at the same time support the insurgents fighting the Americans. He sees America being made the sucker in this game. And without the resources to change the region and transform it, America needs a better approach that does not waste its resources and energies.

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Prince Salman's efforts to launch an IPO of Saudi Arabian National Oil Company faces resistance from Saudi bureaucrats. Prince Salman wants to reduce the country's dependence on oil revenue, and hoped to use the IPO generated $100 billion to make investments in other industries. Saudi technocrats see risks in the plan- as costing consumers billions of dollars in higher gasoline prices, legal risks and public scrutiny. The IPO has been pushed back to 2021. Large new investments such as solar generation hub also face passive resistance in the bureaucracy. New investments policies have led to a Saudi recession in 2017, and reduced investment and consumer spending. Prince Salman sees it differently, once telling Theresa May of Britain that even if he got 50 of the 100 things he wanted done, that would be 50 not done otherwise. Salman has a disdain for the bureaucracy and has tight control over the country. He has led popular social changes such as letting women drive and taking away the power of religious police to make arrests. The Economy Minister has slowed down a plan to sell state assets such as government owned hospitals,airports, because conditions are not ideal. A plan to invest $7 billion in Uber was shelved. Aramco chairman Mr. Falih has reduced the size of investmetns including for the solar energy generation project. A plan to have ARAMCO listed on the New York Stock Exchange preferred by Prince Salman has been changed with advisers suggesting the London Stock Exchange as a place with lower risks of law suits under U.S. tort laws. Saudi executives at ARAMCO also pointed out that to reach the $2 trillion valuation that the Prince has in mind for ARAMCO the company would have to sell gasoline to Saudis at market rates, tripling oil prices in the kingdom -costing consumers $98 billion. The advisers believe it is more prudent financially to raise debt. Under that plan ARAMCO could raise debt to buy the Public Investment Fund's (PIF) 70% stake in state owned chemicals company Saudi Basic Industries Corp. which would infuse PIF with $70 billion, almost as much as generated by a IPO for ARAMCO. On solar energy Mr. Falih lowered the plan from 1500 gigawatts to 200 at a cost of $200 billion. Under a new plan this is at 60 gigawatts from solar and wind with 70% produced by the Public Investment Fund, the state's investment fund.   ...