Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and U.S. President Barack Obama.

President Barack Obama's three-day visit to India came on the heels of an economic recession and a losing war in Afghanistan. Just before his visit, Obama felt the full lash of frustration from the American people in the midterm elections on account of a stagnant economy and increasing unemployment. Thus creation of jobs in the United States is his prime objective.
American businesses desperately need markets to sell their products. They are looking towards the developing world with great optimism. India, being the second-fastest growing economy after China, is a major consumer of everything from bikes to aircrafts, nuclear power to defense equipment. In order to take advantage of the burgeoning demand from India, on the very first day of Obama's visit, 20 business deals worth a total of $10 billion were signed between the two countries.
The deals included sales of Boeing passenger aircrafts, Boeing C-17 Globemasters to Indian armed forces, GE 107 F414 jet engines to the Indian Air Force, GE power turbines, and the setting up of a Harley Davidson assembly plant, among others. Obama declared that these deals will create around 54,000 jobs in the United States. All this was said and done despite the restriction on outsourcing from India.

Washington (CNN) -- In a post-midterm elections interview, President Obama said "we're gonna have to ... tackle some big issues like entitlements that, you know, when you listen to the Tea Party or you listen to Republican candidates they promise we're not gonna touch."
Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colorado, points out that there is no way to reduce the deficit significantly without such a move, given that entitlements amount to 65 percent of the federal budget. In 2010, total Medicare spending was estimated to be about $500 billion. And it is this program that is said to be likely to go bust -- before Social Security -- perhaps as early as 2029.
Hence, the just-issued draft report of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform calls for putting a cap on what the nation can spend on Medicare while others call for delaying the age at which one can qualify for care.
As I see it, reducing the deficit by cutting Medicare services and coverage is highly immoral. The main reason is that one can greatly reduce the cost of Medicare without cutting benefits. Let me start with an almost trivial but easy-to-see illustration before moving on to talk about real money.
Studies show that if we standardized the forms used by various insurance companies instead of continuing to rely on the myriad forms that are currently used, we could save $7 billion in overall health costs every year. (In all the calculations that follow, note that Medicare reimburses health care expenses. Hence if these are lower, so are Medicare outlays).