Washington Post, Dec.28,09 page A1,A10,A11

A Cruel lesson in college economics: Lending dries up as strapped schools raise tuition: -US State institutions at $20,000 a year and private one for $40,000 plus other expenses. China's graduates need to be properly placed to avoid waste of human capital in economics.

The macro question is: Will we have to sacrifice the quality of education, or the access based on talent rather than the ability to pay? said Marx, the Amherst president. "Either of those make America less competitive for the next generation."

For an alternative way to learn a marketable skill under the Apprenticeship sponsored by the US Department of Labor with good pay. Such para-professional skills are needed in USA and in China from my observations in the last decade to the present. "Keys for Economic Understanding" is addressed to such problems. www.ask.com and www.Borders.com and click on Used Books for information.

Page A11: University of Oregon economist Mark Thomas argues in a post titled "Conducting Monetarey Policy when interst rates are near zero: Will it work? that fiscal policy- i.e. taxation and goverment spending -should lead monetary policy in the economic recovery. Such traditional macro economic policies are known.

I do remember that vigorous debates occurred in 1970s and I compared notes with Arthur Burns,the distinguished economist as Chairman at the FED and Professor of Economics at Columbia University. He agreed that "Humanpower policy should be stressed because Monetary and Fiscal Policies could not operate in a vacuum." In other words, labor should be trained with skills to supply the demand of a changing economy especially during the time of slowdown under financial crisis. Cf."Work and Study Cycle Theory" listed at the Library of Congress www.loc.gov for reference.

Francis Shieh aka Xie Shihao, an everlasting student to observe economic events in USA and in China to share my comments in my blogs. Monday,Dec.28,09 at 10.30 a.m.