The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Office of Defects Investigation said that it is ramping up its investigation of Toyota’s Corolla and Matrix models. The cars may be susceptible to sudden stalling – a situation that could pose a significant safety risk to drivers.

When the NHTSA opened its preliminary investigation of 2005, 2006 and 2007 Corolla and Matrix models last November, it had received 26 stalling complaints, Reuters reports. It has now received in excess of 160.

The administration is opening an engineering analysis of the stalling problem, which could affect as many as 1.2 million vehicles. Engineering analyses, automotive news site Inside Line says, are sometimes the precursors to full recalls.

Inside Line quoted an afflicted Corolla owner as saying that her engine stalled at an intersection. "It was a harrowing and terrifying experience and I feared for my safety," the unnamed driver said.

The spate of recalls that has plagued Toyota comes as somewhat ironic. The company built its reputation on bulletproof reliability and high quality – and its reputation for developing high-quality vehicles is being called into question in some corners. More than 10 million of Toyota’s vehicles have been recalled in the past year.

Nevertheless, the company posted a $2.2 billion profit in the second quarter, and it is leading the way in sales of hybrid vehicles. Toyota and Lexus, the company’s luxury brand, combined for 73.9 percent of the U.S. hybrid market in July.

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The group’s treasurer, Jim Helsel, testified before the House Committee on Financial Services Thursday and argued that a Congressional response to the problems plaguing the CRE sector was needed.

"Lack of available credit remains a significant challenge for our industry right now," he said. Banks are broadly unwilling to lend – and with CRE borrowers heavily dependent on community banks and credit unions, extending lending assistance to those institutions would help improve cash flow in the CRE market, Helsel noted.

Separate bills before consideration in Congress would help small banks boost lending. The Small Business Lending Fund Act of 2010 – which was stymied in the Senate Thursday – would provide $30 billion to community banks to encourage lending, while a resolution in the House would let credit unions lend more to businesses.

According to Mortgage Bankers Association data, CRE lenders are more willing to extend credit now than they were at the beginning of the year. CRE mortgage originations rose 35 percent between the first quarter and the second. But, MBA CRE researcher Jamie Woodwell said July 28, "Borrowing remains light as few commercial property owners are selling or refinancing their properties unless they have to."

Across the real estate sector, credit is tight – and the situation is challenging both residential and commercial borrowers. The Federal Reserve’s latest Beige Book survey showed broadly improving economic conditions, but the Fed reported that housing markets were "sluggish" and noted that "commercial and industrial real estate markets continued to struggle in all twelve districts."

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Kazakhstan’s ambassador to the U.S., Erlan Idrissov, asserts that Kazakhstan’s democracy is strong and disputes the notion that rights are being violated. In a Washington Times editorial, he argues that the court trial of a famous Kazakh human-rights activist, Yevgeni Zhovtis, was conducted in compliance with the rule of law.

Zhovtis was convicted in September of manslaughter for striking and killing a man with his car. He is now serving a four-year sentence in a labor camp – but rights groups in Kazakhstan and officials overseas are expressing concern about the efficacy of the judicial process in the Central Asian country.

They allege that Zhovtis, the director of the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law, was granted an unfair trial. The Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, a department of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe – a security organization that Kazakhstan is chairing this year – also raised doubts about the case, saying "questionable procedures may have violated Zhovtis’ rights to a fair trial."

Idrissov disputed those claims, saying "the court, independent of government involvement or interference, found Mr. Zhovtis guilty." Allegations that Zhovtis is a political prisoner, he added, are "misguided beliefs."

The Zhovtis case not only complicates Kazakhstan OSCE Chairmanship – it could also make the establishment of friendly relations with democratic Western governments more difficult. But the country appears to have found allies in Russia and Belarus: The three nations recently agreed to a union that will lower barriers to trade and could eventually speed labor and capital exchanges.

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The Council of Economic Advisors issued a quarterly report on the effects that the stimulus – officially known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 – is having on the economy. According to the CEA, Recovery Act spending has given a jolt to gross domestic product growth, pushing it higher by 2.7 to 3.2 percentage points.

More pertinent, perhaps, may be the news that the act has boosted employment by an estimated 3 million positions.

"I am absolutely confident we are moving in the right direction, absolutely confident," Vice President Joe Biden said upon introducing the CEA report with the council’s chairman, Christina Romer.

Republicans – who have been unanimous in their opposition to the Democratic leadership’s deficit spending – hammered the White House for adding to the country’s debt. "The fastest-growing parts of this Democrat economy aren’t jobs – they’re the crushing burden of the national debt and the size of the federal government," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said.

House Minority Leader John Boehner was no less critical. "The American people have clearly begun to tune out Washington and what Democrats are doing here in this town," he said Wednesday. "Democrats say they’re focused on jobs, but they can’t even fulfill basic responsibilities of governing."

Unfortunately for the incumbent party, job creation appears to be slowing. In each of the past several weeks, there have been more than 450,000 new unemployment claims made. And job creation disappointed in June: Just 83,000 positions were created by private companies.

As long as the employment situation remains lackluster, Democrats may face an uphill battle in November’s elections.

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John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, likened reform efforts to "killing an ant with a nuclear weapon" – implying that the bill goes too far in regulating the trading activity of big banks and establishing an office of consumer protection in the Federal Reserve.

President Barack Obama issued a harsh rebuke of Boehner Wednesday. He said in Racine, Wisconsin that Boehner, in making the ant remark, was talking about "the same financial crisis that led to the loss of nearly 8 million jobs."

"He can’t be that out of touch with the struggles of American families," the president added.

The Republican defended his position in an interview with the Washington Post, saying that Democratic lawmakers had "gone overboard" with the reform bill at a time when the American public was concerned with job creation.

His remarks were unintentionally well-timed: Payroll services firm ADP released its monthly jobs report Wednesday, and the numbers were grim. Only 13,000 private-sector jobs were created in June, tens of thousands fewer than economists had expected.

Ironically, though, it was the GOP that killed a Senate measure to extend unemployment benefits and provide funding to cash-strapped state governments. Thanks to Republican opposition, the bill failed to pass the Senate before its July 4 recess. States are now crafting their budgets without the federal money – but that means they expect to shrink payrolls and cut back on services.

Boehner remained unconvinced of the virtues of deficit spending. "I just think that all the spending that [the Democrats have] pumped out there has done virtually nothing," he said to the Post.

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The bank commissioned a survey of 440 executives from around the world. The mix of corporate managers was diverse: Thirty-four percent were from North America, 41 percent hailed from Europe and 16 percent were Asian.

The survey respondents were decidedly bearish on the euro-zone, which has come under scrutiny in recent months for member states’ vast deficits and ever-widening sovereign debt. Fully two-thirds of the executives that RBC polled said they expected euro-zone growth to be impacted by the region’s debt problems.

The U.S. – whose debt levels have faced an increasing amount of criticism – also engendered a fair amount of bearish sentiment. More than half of survey respondents said they expected emerging-market nations, more than America, to drive global growth in the future.

Debt-constrained nations’ access to credit was cited as a concern. "The competition for capital may well grow more acute as heavily indebted governments seek to raise unprecedented amounts of capital for structural outlays," RBC said. Yet, bank global research co-head Marc Harris noted, "Investor appetite for specific sovereign debt will be closely correlated with each country’s ability to bring fiscal discipline in fighting the specter of inflation."

The just-concluded Group of 20 meeting ended with industrialized nations’ resolution to cut deficits in half by 2013. Some argue that more spending is needed now to help drive economic growth, but the move to reduce deficits is a sign that governments are conscious of the market’s desire to see sovereign spending reined in.

In the long-term, even more radical moves like tax hikes may be needed to stave off national bankruptcies.

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In a New York Times op-ed piece this week, David Brooks suggested that people are looking to Obama to enact their feelings about the spill – which range from irritation to outright rage – on a public stage.

"They want him to emote and perform the proper theatrical gestures," Brooks writes. "Their reaction is a mixture of disgust, anger, longing and need."

Brooks concedes that the public’s desire to see the president as a conduit for their apoplexy is illogical. It may also be asking too much of Obama, who has built a reputation for remaining above the fray of partisan intrigue and emoting only when necessary. He stepped into the healthcare debate, for example, only after Scott Brown’s surprise victory, when all seemed lost for the Democrats’ reform bid.

Nevertheless, Obama and those in his administration appear determined to emphasize that yes, the president is angry about the spill, and yes, he plans to take charge. In an appearance on CBS News this week, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs emphasized that Obama had expressed emotion about the spill.

"I’ve seen rage from him," Gibbs said, sounding less than assertive.

On Wednesday, Obama himself said to Larry King that he was" furious at [the] entire situation" in the gulf. And he lashed out at BP on Friday, saying in Louisiana that he wanted the company "to be very clear they’ve got moral and legal obligations here."

Is Obama pandering? Perhaps – but only if pandering is defined as telling people what they want to hear, reason be shot.

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The bailout, engineered by Bush administration officials in late 2008, was broadly unpopular among the American public, who saw the provision of billions of dollars of Treasury funds to big banks as a gift to fat-cat bankers from taxpayers’ wallets.

Indeed, a term that was bandied about in the wake of the bailout was the "privatization of profit and the socialization of loss" – the idea that bankers reap the profits of their activities, but cede responsibility of their failures to the public.

Despite the obvious unpopularity of the bailout measures, the Treasury Department had little choice but to extend aid to some of the most embattled financial institutions. Their failure would not only trigger hundreds of billions of dollars of losses for stakeholders, it was feared: Financial-firm collapses could also result in costly bank runs and freeze up the world’s credit markets.

So the Treasury’s purchase of a stake in Citigroup – it owned 27 percent of the bank until Friday – was a lifeline – one that the pro-deregulation, laissez-faire Bush administration was no doubt unhappy to extend.

But the government’s purchase of a chunk of Citi appears prescient. The Treasury will book a $1.32 billion profit on the stake it is selling this week, which represents about 20 percent of its total investment.

As MarketWatch reports Friday, Citi shares slumped after the sale announcement – a common occurrence after big stock sales. The Treasury indicated that it plans to sell off its remaining stake in the company – it still owns 22 percent of Citi – in "an orderly fashion" in the coming months.

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In a case decided in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit last month, it was determined that the FCC did not have the authority to tell internet provider Comcast to stop slowing web traffic to a file-sharing site. The FCC can regulate telephone carriers, but only because phone service is classified as a "telecommunications service." Internet, on the other hand, is an "information service" – and the FCC lacks regulatory purview over internet providers.

But, in an acknowledgment of the growing importance of internet service, the FCC crafted a legal workaround to give itself regulatory power over internet companies. That proposal, called the "Third Way," will be decided on by the five FCC commissioners after a period of public comment.

One House Republican is forcing the commission to prove the worth of the Third Way plan, though. According to PC World magazine, U.S. Representative Cliff Stearns is calling on the FCC to furnish a cost-benefit analysis for the plan. It would also have to justify the expansion of its regulatory authority by proving that "market failure" took place in the broadband industry.

"I think this is a partisan move by [FCC chairman Julius Genachowski] to regulate the Internet," Stearns said at a Tuesday press conference.

What’s really at stake in the debate, though, is a principle called net neutrality. Proponents – Genachowski among them – argue that internet providers should not be allowed to charge more for access to certain content or throttle broadband speeds. Opponents say net neutrality rules would stymie broadband companies’ innovation and increase costs for consumers. It’s an ongoing debate – but the FCC’s Third Way plan is something of a referendum on the issue.

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To wit, China has expressed annoyance at American companies’ sales of military equipment to Taiwan. Rather than turn to diplomatic channels to make its displeasure known, though, the country used economic ones: As the BBC reported in February, China threatened to impose sanctions on firms involved in Taiwan deals.

Boeing could be affected by such a move; its stake in the world’s fastest-growing aviation market would be put at risk.

China and the U.S. have also exchanged tariffs. One may argue that the spat began last fall when the U.S. placed tariffs on Chinese-made tires, but China struck first, in a way: Its decision to peg the yuan to the dollar in the summer of 2008 has irked Western governments, who argue that the yuan’s artificial devaluation is helping Chinese exporters at the expense of foreign companies.

Last week, the tariff wars escalated when the U.S. Commerce Department announced duties of as much as 99 percent on Chinese oilfield pipes. The Washington Post quoted Leo W. Girard, president of the Steelworkers union, as saying that "China’s government and exporters are being told we are fed up with their cheating on our fair trade laws."

In response, though, China imposed both antidumping and anti-subsidy tariffs on U.S. steel; Russian steel is also included in the duty. Tariffs on U.S. electrical steel aren’t as steep as those the Commerce Department imposed on Chinese steel, but they’re still substantial, Bloomberg says.

According to an official interviewed by Xinhua, the Ministry of Commerce "found that U.S. producers had received subsidies by the U.S. government, and their unfair competition hurt Chinese producers."

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