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Andrew Kramer reports from the front near the city of Mariupol in eastern Ukraine with signs of a breakdown in the second Minsk accord. Following the breakdown of the Minsk agreement of September 2014 by February 2015, with fighting around the town of Debaltseve, leaders of Russia, Germany, France and the separatist eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk met again in Minsk, Belarus, on Feb 11, 2015. This led to the second Minsk Agreement and a ceasefire. This agreement called for release of prisoners, a zone to separate the soldiers on each side, constitutional reforms for decentralization in Ukraine giving autonomy to the Donetsk and Luhansk areas, and monitoring by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Minsk II agreement is under strain as the economic blockade by Kiev, and separatist violations of the ceasefire, have created a tense situation by June 2015. The second Minsk agreement was reached under pressure from the U.S. saying it would send arms to the government in Kiev if Russia continued to send troops into Ukraine, and Germany seeking to avoid a further escalation of the conflict. In the background the U.S. and the EU continued economic sanctions on Russia, and the Russian economy suffered from a decline in oil prices as a result of Saudi pricing decisions....

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The Hulme Company mail order catalog business in Minnesota may not be representative of small business, considering the errors and the scale of the debt taken on. But even if a small fraction of this debt taking tendency is representative of small business, it means that small business will not generate jobs as it did in the past. Small business will actually layoff people. And small business will not be able to provide the bounce the economy will need in years to come. The following is an an anaysis of this venture. The owners of this small business Bidwell and Ms. Guarino bought a luxury goods maker that was losing money for $600,000. Their business was to sell $500 garment bags and $1200 duffel bags. The experience of Bidwell was with Target, Tonka Toys and a cigarette distributor. Ms Guarino had a $130,000 job with a magazine publisher, running regional magazines like Minnesota Parent, which she quit. She had some experience as a handbag designer in California before that. They had never seen hard times, no, they had only seen good times. And were willing to spend heavily on the business like the $600,000 for a business, Hulme Company, that lost $150,000 on sales of $450,000 making duck hunting gear, the business they bought in 2003. All this for a tiny factory employing 3 seamstresses, and with no brand name for luxury goods like leather duffels. Their lender's experience- Kassim who founded Maple Bank in Champlin, Minnesota, considered it pretty typical of small business in those days to do everything on debt and loaned $550,000 over 5 years. So the lender was in for the ride. Another bank Stephens bank loaned on SBA approved loans which were later cut off. Guarino had no experience in this business, and simply relied on Bidwell's experience. The borrowing went on and on from friends, taking in debt with total lack of understanding of what debt means, from their daughter, the entire $50,000 savings of Bidwell's wife, and finally with banks refusing to lend after having friends put up their CD's and collateral on loans. Debt to equity ratio gets to 5 to 1. Second mortgages on the house getting Bidwell and extra $130,000. Even in the best year 2006 sales at $1.4 million, and earnings before taxes and other items at $325,000, not enough to pay the interest and other payments on loans that later totaled $2 million by year end 2007. $500,000 from friends and family including $20,000 from his daughter or two thirds of their savings. 600,000 catalogs went out in 2007. With the Hulme Company behind on payments in 2008, the catalogs mailed in 2008 dropped to 175,000. It is a very capital intensive business from the standpoint of catalog cost. $1 million in inventory at year end 2007, or two thirds of sales of $1.5 million in 2007, was a sign of how expansion preceded even getting the financing in place, and going out into the dark thinking sales wil materialize. So even in the best year 2006 the business was not viable, and would have collapsed even without the financial and credit conditions of 2008, ruining the owners in the process. By 2008 it led to the usual things in this kind of business failure, Bidwell's divorce, loss of his home as he falls behind on mortgage payments, Guarino's loss of job and friends whom she borrowed from, and both deeply in debt. Evaluation of the failure is as follows. Seamstresses and the small factory space could be obtained for a fraction of the cost in an emerging market country, even in an eastern European country, and no cost needed to be incurred for the purchase of Hulme Company or for sending out catalogs. Only travel expenses to meet high end retailers who might carry this merchandise, and go to the country where the plant was setup. Sales would come first, and expansion to meet sales very carefully done so that the plant could be downscaled if sales dropped. Even then scores of small luxury goods makers in China or other emerging market countries could put the owners out of business. The lesson if you can't watch costs, if you don't understand what debt means, then you don't pass the most basic of tests. You cannot run business on savings, home equity or credit card loans, or business loans with personal guarantees. Costs tend to just run up to the money one has artificially created. It will ruin you. If you don't have experience with the business and the product area, or can't put together a group of people with the experience to guide you on the pitfalls and what to watch for, you don't pass the next basic test. Only then does one get to the other tests about whether there is a market, the price and value of the offering and so on. This is before the current economic crisis. Now all these tests become more important than ever, or it will kill you and quickly. One has to be paranoid and very careful after 2008. Stephens Bank loaned money on SBA loans ...

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Philip Alston, UN expert on extreme poverty and professor at New York University School of Law, says most of the progress on poverty that the UN agencies  and elites talk about is based on one country China. In the rest of the world, in Latin America, in Africa, and in other countries in Asia the situation is not any better than it was in 1990. About half of the world's population 3.4 billion people live on less than $5.50 a day, and this is not much changed since 1990. The improvements in China could also mean that the situation has worsened in other parts of the world. The pandemic has taken the lid off the situation in Latin America with Mexico, Brazil, Colombia and other places there showing extreme weakness.  Alston studied this as UN's representative for looking at extreme poverty 2014-2020. He is clear in describing what happened. The World Bank he says set $1.90 a day for poverty line, artificially low and what will not pay for housing or food even. He calls it "scandalously unambitious as a benchmark" what would pay for "a mere miserable subsistence." By using this he says a devastating effect is being allowed to happen as more of the investment is drawn into a pro-growth narrative which pushes allocation of capital in the direction where it profits short term speculative capital and profits rather than the long term investments in health, education and public services that are vital for any country. The improvements in China have also come at the expense of communities in Europe and the U.S. as industries were being shifted with their jobs overseas since 1990, first imperceptibly and then in waves after 2000, which leaves millions exposed to poverty and social decay for the first time in history in the advanced countries. It is an unhealthy and destabilizing situation. Alston's other points are that the so called progress narrative has been used to drown out the appalling effects of policies that misallocate capital away from the vast numbers of people. And in doing this he says it has entirely upended or turned upside down the social contract with the people. From Carl Sandburg's "The People Yes" in the 1950's after the tragedies of war we have come to "The People No." Nothing could be more reprehensible than capital being allocated for dog walking apps and other speculative investments by investment funds pooling hundreds of billions of dollars when basic sanitation services, health care investments are neglected in countries like Brazil, and smaller towns and communities are being systematically uprooted for jobs and social services over three decades in advanced countries in parts of Europe and the U.S.   ...

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The Pew Global Attitudes Project shows Chinese living in ther cities are largely contented with their lives with 82% saying the economic situation is good, and 86% agreeing withthe direction the government is taking for China. In India 62% consider the economic situation to be good, Russia at 52% and Germany with 53% are close, Brazil at 41% and USA is at 20%. Surprisingly Egypt comes in at 44%.

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This report in WSJ looks at the impact of the 2018 Trump tariffs retained by president Biden as the US seeks to reduce its overdependence on Chinese imports and bring back American manufacturing. This followed misguided policies of previous administrations since Clinton that weakened American manufacturing strengths. Have the US tariffs on Chinese goods worked? The WSJ graph with information from US Census Bureau shows that imports from China in 2022 going down to the levels in 2007 of about 16-17% as a share of US imports, down from a high of 21% before the Trump tariffs halted a rapidly rising curve. Imports from Germany, South Korea and Japan in 2022 were down slightly hovering around 4.5%. Imports increased from Canada and Mexico, the US's traditional partners in North America, around 13.5% as a share of US imports for each country. Also increasing were imports from Vietnam. Some of the imports from Vietnam are Chinese products shipped through Vietnam to evade tariffs, and it is not clear whether the figures from Vietnam have been adjusted for this. President Biden is looking at different scenarios in an effort to tackle inflation. One supported by Janet Yellen, an economist at US Treasury is for the US to relax some of the China tariffs. Most economists in previous administrations including Yellen failed to understand what surrendering American manufacturing to China on the scale and speed that happened would do to communities across America that depended on factory jobs. The devastation of these communities has led to increased divisions in America, weakened American manufacturing, and led to outflow of technologies vital for national security and national well being.  Republican senators, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan are opposed to any relaxation of tariffs. Studies show the removal of the tariffs would have only a small impact on the consumer price inflation index reducing inflation by 0.26%. Lifting some tariffs on school supplies and summer bicycles as proposed by the US Chamber of Commerce would have little or no impact on the consumer price index for inflation. This is because the inflation is triggered by oil and gas price increases stemming from the Russian policies and invasion of Ukraine. This has also aggravated food and grocery costs  through blocking of agricultural imports from Ukraine. An additional factor was the increased demand after the pandemic easing in 2022, but that demand is already easing in July with glut in inventories at Walmart and Target, and excess warehouse capacity at Amazon. It would also send the wrong signal to China that the tariffs imposed by president Trump after a Section 301 trade investigation and based on improper loss of technologies to China are not being taken seriously by the US, says Republican Senator Hagerty of Tennessee. The Labor advisory committee to the US Trade Representative Katherine Tai also opposes any such move after the serious damage done to US workers and to US national well being and security. This happened under the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations with failed trade policies that ceded manufacturing to China. ...

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This WSJ report shows how the debt ceiling negotiation were conducted and the process that made it possible to reach an agreement since the State of the Union address by president Biden on February 7, 2023. It started with Biden getting unanimity right on the floor of Congress during his speech about protecting Medicare and Social Security. The Republican strategy was to pass the legislation on spending that did not specify where cuts were to be made yet used 2022 spending levels with a 1% increase. The deal was to be for three years and passed the spending bill with an increase inthe debt ceiling. Till that time the Democrats decided to not enter negotiations.  Biden and McCarthy then had to choose who would represent their side in the long negotiation process that lay ahead till June 5. Progressive Democrats called for invoking the 14th Amendment that allows the government to continue functioning and pay its bills. Biden chose not to take that route. Respect for the other side, a prepared script are an important point in negotiations. To get results something even more important is essential flexibility and a plan, Plan B. Trust began to develop between McCarthy and Biden. Biden and McCarthy did not any time engage in acrimonious description of the other side. At one point when Biden was in Hiroshima for the G7 meetings Ricchetti on the Biden side and Graves on the Republican side began to feel the frustration. Biden decided to fly home early from Hiroshima. He was constantly in touch with his negotiators Steve Ricchetti, a trusted aide, and a cabinet official the Budget Director Shalanda Young. Graves a long time trusted adviser of McCarthy headed the negotiations for McCarthy.  Shalanda Young and Garrett Graves are both from Louisiana and Graves says he used to work out with Young's dad in the same area. This had a positive effect. It also reduced the tensions in the negotiations so that it could be said this was the calmest negotiation from either side that has been seen in the US  for a long time and bodes well for America's future and for its people, far beyond any concessions made by either party.  Biden made clear at the outset what he could accept without leaving it hidden- he would agree to some work requirements, he would not agree to work requirements for Medicaid. Others in the Democratic party conveyed how distraught they were with efforts to impose stringent requirements for federal food aid during a cost of living crisis when the Republican positions ruled out any new taxes on the wealthiest Americans. In the end Republicans agreed to keep spending limits for 2023 for two more years into 2025 when they would be increased by 1%. Democrats offered to cut (Income Tax) Internal Revenue Service (IRS) spending to increase IRS staffing from $80 billion to $70 billion. Biden said "nobody got everything they wanted." It would have to be passed in Congress with the support of moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans, with members holding extreme positions among Republicans and Democrats opposing. The two parties coming together after a long time to meet the real challenges ahead for the American people. ...

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Joe Nocera talks to experts like Simon Johnson at MIT. Johnson says that when he talks to other experts, after a two minute discussion, they say we should just nationalize the banks. Here Christopher Whalen, a veteran bank analyst, of Institutional Risk Analyst, and Joshua Rosner of research firm Graham-Fisher, say the same thing, with the phrases, lets get on with it or just do it. Says Simon Johnson, thats what we told emerging market countries, Thailand in 1997, or Russia in 1998, when he worked at the IMF. He says we told them to close down some of the banks, and take over the others, and inject government capital. He adds its the best practices, and its straightforward. So asks Nocera, is Geithner talking about the stress test banks will be subjected to, as first step preceding nationalization, more of a calculated approach to gradually introduce the idea of nationalization. But he isnt sure, as Geithner also told David Brooks of the NYT, that governments were not so good at managing banks. No one knows for sure. But says Nocera thats exactly what the government did to solve the S&L crisis. And the man who was former chairman of the FDIC, and helped run the program for the Resolution Trust Corporation, says the government did a pretty good job of it, taking over banks, replacing top managers and directors, and stripping out the bad assets and selling off the now healthy banks to private buyers. So can it be done again and will it be that hard? Yes, its been done before, and its not that hard say these experts. Every month that the administration and Geithner procrastinate puts the banks in a deeper hole, and will mean more layoffs and a worse crisis, even years taken to recover. What he has'nt mentioned is that even if after some procrastination the government gets around to doing it to clean up the mess, there is one added complication this time that is different than what happened with the S&L crisis or with the Swedish cleanup, or the Japanese cleanup after 2003, this time the global economy is caught up in the crisis which makes recovery that much tougher....

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Just the idea that Starbucks was planning to open 1600 stores this year tells you that something was going to give at this breakneck rate of expansion. There's just no way training of employees let alone finding enthusiastic employees interested in giving first time and repeat customers a real warm friendly and exciting experience of the Italian expresso cafes that Schultz visited in the eighties, the sense of community and place to gather setting and the atmosphere. This is an awfully difficult thing to replicate. Starbucks has over 10,000 locations in the USA and at that point existing stores could take sales from other Starbucks stores and the experience deteriorate in some Starbucks to the point that Dunkin Donuts became a competitor of Starbucks suggesting that Starbucks was quickly losing its upscale appeal and cache, the special effect of its logo and its brand name. See the link to this article on McDonalds expansion into Starbucks type coffee and baristas concept. This may be the biggest dilution of a brand name in a long time. Reading his autobiography one senses a passion that brought a Brooklyn kid counting himself fortunate to get a college education, a kid who quickly grasped the opportunity in the way Italians drank their cafesitas and coffee in community setting cafes, and at the same time the feeling that could this New Yorker somehow Americanize or massmarket this concept to the point of making it like fastfood, or so afficionados passionate about coffee appeared to fear in his early encounters with them. Well now its happened, and Starbucks is being talked about in relation to McDonalds and Dunkin Donuts. Schultz makes an honest assessment though in saying that he was part of the team that made the decisions and let this happen, and let the bureaucracy that he is now trying to cut grow around him, and made the decisions that cheapened the Starbucks experience over time like drive throughs and so on. The Howard Schultz story of a Brooklyn American kid making good is reminiscent of the story of Dhirubhai Ambani, of a Saurashtan Indian making good in the polyester manufacturing business but making errors in the breakneck expansion....

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Privileged minorities ethnic or white among large native populations. Amy Chua argues that free markets that empower the white minority giving it special privileged status, and democracy that empowers the native peoples, leads to conflict and exacerbates tensions. She talks about the Venezuelan experience with Chavez. Before Chavez Venezuela had free markets and elections in which two parties alternately controlled the government. Even before Reagan era and post Reagan era promotion of free markets and democracy this existed. However people were fed up with corruption and the native peoples did not see their lives improve. They tried a populist politician in Chavez who redistributes petroleum wealth to the poorer classes. Some of this tension is inevitable, but if all sides use good sense and understanding, and manage this tension constructively there still exists a better situation than there was before- when looking at overall public welfare and considering the welfare of the people and the educated professional classes. When there is a failure to work together it shows the shortsightedness of both sides, the poor understanding and lack of joint effort for mutual benefits, and not the shortsightedness of free markets and democracy. And one is not talking of free markets as American type, but free markets as crafted for each individual country based on its own history, culture, time and place, as free markets are not the same in America, Britain, Germany, France, Japan and South Korea, China and India in the post war period. China is not even a democracy and has practiced one of the wildest kind of free market economy based on its own unique situation, calculated consensus to use exports, foreign investment, and domestic investment in infrastructure as engines of development- its own peculiar use of free market ideas for its own situation. If it works, for as long as it works its good. Now as the situation changes with loss of export markets expected in 2009, China is changing to another kind of use of free market ideas tailored to its idea of free markets for development of the Chinese economy and distribution of benefits to urban and rural areas. ...

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How the shorter workweek is being tried at places such as Microsoft Japan, Toyota Gothenburg, Australian software company Icelab, and South Korean e-commerce company Woowa Brothers, with good results. Results include better collaboration, setting priorities effectively, and mutual respect for time. Workers get time to think, gain new perspectives, gather new ideas, and recover from weekly pressures. This WSJ reporter looked at over one hundred companies and found that if  done right it can improve company profitability and productivity. In a 4 week trial Microsoft Japan improved productivity by 40%. Alex Pang shows how this is being done in a new book - "Shorter: Work Better, Smarter and Less- Here's How." One way the shorter workweek works is by making everyone think what was not working during hectic work weeks without desired results, more work just adding to pressure and not producing results. For instance meetings had to be shorter and confined to certain hours only. Distractions had to be cut down effectively. Even soft music could help people concentrate. Building a new culture also helps bring people closer and find ways to work more effectively than in the past. The reinvigoration and ability to recover from pressures works wonders say experts and brings a new level of concentration, motivation and effectiveness. It is interesting to note that some of the pioneering effort in this area is coming from Japan and South Korea where long hours were tried and people began to realize that this approach to better results had serious drawbacks, and there had to be better ways.    ...

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The Fabian Society suggests extending the freeze on income thresholds to generate 12 billion pounds. The reasoning is that it would be fair to most of the middle and lower income households- only the top 20% would pay higher. “The chancellor  (Reeves) recently she wanted to ensure that those with the ‘broadest shoulders pay their fair share of tax’. Our modelling suggests that half (49%) of the revenue raised would come from the highest-earning fifth of households. Conversely, the poorest fifth of households would bear just 4% of the cost,” he writes. “With our public services in dire need of investment, and our public finances under great pressure, there are few good options. Continuing the freeze in income tax thresholds for a further two years is surely one of the better ones." Reeves has been a poor choice for chancellor throughout this Labor administration as she lacked the ideas to go with the grassroots and the people all across Britain struggling to live beyond paycheck to paycheck including the middle class, and follow Labour's own instincts about what was right for Britain at this time in 2025. In this case 49% of the revenue would come from the highest earning fifth of the households and only 4% from the poorest fifth of households. Such choices have inevitably to be made and a lot is needed for the infrastructure and services that benefit all segments of the population and most the four fifths of the population. ...

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Studies by Mexico's Interior Ministry show that 62% of the $23 billion in remittances to Mexico by Mexicans living in the U.S. go to the lower middle class. As migration to the U.S. diminishes to zero Mexicans who are illegal aliens in the U.S. are returning to Mexico as small entrepreneurs using earnigs made in the U.S.. This offers them a chance for upward mobility and a return to families that they never had in the U.S., and is aiding the growth of a Mexican middle class. About 12 million Mexicans, or 15% of Mexico's labor force lives legally or illegally in the U.S., according to the Pew Hispanic Center. Experts say that in the first 3-5 years remittances go to help their families, after 7 years the money goes into savings and investment fueling growth of small towns such as Santa Maria in Mexico. About half of Mexico's 112 million people have family living in the U.S., which is having an influence on atttitudes and ways of thinking of the lower middle class that emigrated to the U.S.and is now returning to the country. Other factors are reinforcing the trends such as the lower price of consumer goods with the entry of retailers such as Wal-Mart and Costco into Mexico. Nestle, P&G, and Unilever, all sell at low price points in Mexico. The government's effort to setup a basic safety net subsidizing schooling, health care and food has also helped in this direction. Rapid change in demographics in all of Latin America, including Mexico with a shift to smaller families is creating new opportunities to invest in children for better educational opportunities and working lives....

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The failure of the Supercommitte in the U.S. Congress by the Thanksgiving deadline will not have any immediate consequences. This is because automatic spending cuts that are supposed to go into effect if the Supercommitte fails, do not go into effect till Jan 2013. This gives Congress another year in which to come up with necessary deficit savings. This is a major reason the two sides divided on major issues from the extension of Bush tax cuts and tax increases, and facing pressure from their party's interest groups and voter support groups, have no special incentive to reach a compromise. Such a compromise also means politicians taking the political risk of not being reelected. Another dynamic that is in play in November 2011 is that interest groups in the Republican and Democratic parties both now see the "sequester," as the automatic cuts are described, as a better alternative than any bipartisan agreement that cuts health and retirement programs. For anti-tax groups, the automatic cuts are better than a deal than includes tax increases. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) says: "We promised tax cuts. And I think we need to have cuts." For liberal groups, the trigger or sequester for the 2013 automatic cuts is better than a deal that cuts health and retirement programs. The trigger for automatic cuts will cut agency budgets, but spending for the poor and the elderly -including food stamps, Medicaid, Medicare- is exempted. Eric Kinson, co-director of the Strengthen Social Security Campaign, says no deal is better than one that is flawed, the extra time gives the country time to pause and think about the alternatives....

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News on several fronts in June 2009. On housing, a month to month improvement but still stuggling compared to a year ago levels. The Commerce Department said that an increase in multifamily units led to housing starts jumping 17% in May from April to a 532,000 annual rate. Compared to ayear ago level housing starts was down 45% from May 2008. There were 10 times more homes for sale in April as sold that month, with the typical ratio at 6. With layoff, tight credit and rising mortgage rates laying aheavy hand on these markets, even as developers cut prices deeply to clear unsold homes. On Manufacturing. Industrial production fell 1.1% in May from April, according to the Federal Reserve. Capacity utilization fell to 68.3%. See the graph for the steep drop for auto and auto parts manufacturing. On inflation. The producer price index showed its largest decline in 60 years, according to a Labor Department report. The PPI was down 5% from one year ago, the biggest decline since 1949. It went up from April to May by 0.2%. Part of this was rising oil prices. The core PPI which excludes food and energy dropped 0.1% in May from April. Rising oil prices, a falling US dollar and stabilization in the economy are reducing defaltion risk. At the same time the sign that inflation is not taking root are clearly evident in the slack that is building up with the drop in the capacity utilization rate to 68%, and further declines expected as the auto industry shrinks in 2009, with the huge overcapacity worldwide in that industry. ...

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How melamine a substance that causes kideney damage but also mimics protein powder was added to milk to pass inspection tests for milk for quality. And suppliers of this product did not disclose to dairy farmers what they had inside the packet of so called protein powder. With the relative newness of dairy cows to China many farmers do not know how to feed and care for dairy cows in China so that the quality of milk is low, and thus the need for substances that would help the milk go through tests for companies that tested for milk quality. These farmers were unaware and did not care as long as the milk was not returned, for what they added to the milk. And the big dairies in China like Mengniu Dairy and Nestle did not draw enough attention to this issue so that action could be taken. As for so many things in China today regulators were not on the job and failed to take any action even when suspicions were aroused. In fact for a long time dairy farmers and people in these farming communities were aware of the fact that strange substances were being added to the milk. And factories where melamine scrap was being generated such as the plastics factories in which melamine is used, were aware of increasing interest and demand for this scrap. All this was ignored till about 2300 Chinese children got hospitalized for melamine related kidney problems, at least 3 children died and tens of thousands of others were sickened. The result is that national faith in the safety of the food in China has been badly shaken....

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The Consumer Price Index CPI rose by 8.3% in August, US Labor Department reports from same month a year ago. This is down 8.5% in July and 9.1% in June, even though oil prices are coming down. The average household is spending $460 a month more to pay for the same basket of goods and services than last year according to Moody's. Core CPI excluding volatile food and energy prices was higher in August at 6.3% compared to 5.9% in July and June 2022. The US price of gasoline was average of $3.71 at the pump in August down 26% from its high in June, according to OPIS/DowJones.

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The effects on exports and particularly the U.S. auto industry of the eurozone financial crisis.

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How logistics are helping the designer and luxury good stores in a downturn.

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Matina Stevis provides this exceptional account of 3 Greek leaders who fought hard for reforms to put Greece in the right direction for euro currency membership responsibilities, and lost. They tell Stevis they were savagely attacked in the media, by labor unions, and in their own party, so that the fight came at a high personal cost. The 3 politicians now mentioned inside Greece as having done the most to ensure euro currency responsibilities were taken seriously are- Alekos Papadopoulos, who as finance minister fought with Pasok party premier Simitis in 2002 about the dangers of cheap credit coming with the euro currency, Tassos Giannitsis who as labor minister was driven out of Pasok for proposing pension reforms in 2001, and Stefanos Manos who was driven out of New Democracy Party in 1998 after warning of risks in the economy from wasteful spending, including mismanagement of railways, and proposing changes. As Greece commits to a new program under the Syriza left government as a matter of "national responsibility," with reforms to pensions, fixing tax evasion to ensure the tax burden is evenly distributed, reduced military spending, and changes in other areas, the questions in the EU about Greece are about the degree of commitment to changes. In an intervew with WSJ's Bret Stephens Tsipras is candid about the situation when he says the country on its current course would build up the debt all over again, if the debt were to be written off. Problems Tsipras cited in that interview- bribery in health care, tax evasion, burden of taxes on the middle class and honest citizens, large inefficient bureaucracy. Yet 2 years after that intervew in the WSJ, Jan. 28, 2013, Tsipras headed a Syriza government that had no proposals on tackling tax evasion, aggravating the problem of moral hazard seen by the Europeans and the IMF under Lagarde. Stefanos Manos writes in the foreword to his book that its incomprehensible how the public good is ignored by so many people who seek only individual gain. ...

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Willingham of the NYT points to the crisis in the U.S.as many adults with high school education lack even the most basic skills to understand or check facts. National Assessment of Education Progress tests show little progress over 30 years. He cites the tests from the National Assessment of Adult Literacy for 2003 showing 95% of the people could not compare two editorial opinions and check a table for the facts.  Willingham says the problems are the lack of vocabulary, the lack of knowledge of usable facts that writers assume the reader knows.   Building and providing knowledge intensive education early on in earlier grades is needed. Standardized tests need to check for this knowledge so that it builds up. Don't ask about random topics, if a child is taught knowledge on New Zealand, he should be tested with questions on New Zealand. The Common Core Standards neglect this importance of content intensive, content rich information in curriculums. Massachusetts improved education by emphasizing knowledge. High information texts should be used in early grades so that children pickup knowledge early on and build on this grade after grade. The important thing is no to see reading comprehension as a skill but something that is intertwined with knowledge, the more knowledge exposure one has early on the better so that reading comprehension grows quickly and advances. Willingham brings up the idea that technology is not the culprit, it is not the answer either. What is important is to correctly grasp the need for vocabulary and knowledge and push this in the early grades to get good reading comprehension that advances grade after grade. Also important is getting children excited about reading, to get their imagination to work with knowledge gained, so that they pursue reading inside and outside the classroom and become regular readers.  ...

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Bob Dylan is the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature since Toni Morrison in 1992.  This is the first time it is awarded to a musician. The award was given for "new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition." Born as Albert Zimmerman in Minnesota in 1941, Dylan took the name of the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas for his musical career. In announcing the prize Sara Danius of the Nobel Prize Academy said Dylan wrote "poetry for the eyes," citing his album "Blonde on Blonde." Best known are his songs "Blowin' in the Wind" ans "The Times They Are A-Changin," songs that in the sixties reflected the mood of America towards civil rights for black people and against the war in Vietnam. This article by DW.com is exceptional in the way it gives an account of past Nobel Prize winners in literature and what they brought to readers in the way of resurrecting humanity in their own way and from their own experiences in different cultures and periods- 2015 Svetlana Calling of Belarus  and Herta Muller of German-Romanian background on the situation in their countries in the Soviet period, Clezio in 2008 of French Mauritius background on the cultures beneath "the reigning civilization or indigenous cultures of Africa and Latin America, and Orhan Pamuk on his native city in Turkey and the clash of cultures modern and old, in 2010, Vargas Llosa on cultures of Latin America of power and individual resistance, and 2012 Yan Moye of telling stories of today's China through folk tales. The common theme is the struggle between the individual trying to find hope, humanity, in the midst of political and cultural forces that he finds himself caught up in. ...

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Quentin Letts writes this exceptional and humorous account in the Daily Mail of the events that unfolded in the weeks after the Darling-Salmond debate on the Scottish referendum for independence, and after the first polls showed Alex Salmond's Scotland Independence Party ahead in the vote. Here he describes in good humored as well as insightful detail -the moves, maneouvring and efforts of London politicians, the media, and the elites, during the days leading to the referendum as alarm grows about a breakup of Britain. Cameron, Clegg, Miliband, 100 Labor MPs rushing to Edinburgh to plead with the Scots, and the clever Alex Salmond who had a flair for old style political haranguing, all figure in what Letts says was a worthwhile topic for a Shakespearean tragedy, showing Britons in uncharacteristic passionate terms. Lets does not mince words about the motivations of the actors- Labor Party seeing damage to its own prospects in the next elections by losing its Scottish base will do everything to avoid the prospect of dissolution. Cameron of the Conservatives looking to energize the English vote with a promise of devolution for all including Englishmen to improve his own prospects, when the UK Independence Party and Nigel Farage were threatening the Conservatives from the right. One actor Letts does not mention is Britain's former Labor prime minister Gordon Brown, who is from Scotland. Brown may have saved the day by his passionate plea to fellow Scottish voters to stay with Britain, the only truly credible voice from London in Edinburgh and the countryside. As it turned out Glasgow went to the Independence Party, but Edinburgh went to the "Stay Together" alliance with over 60% of the vote, and prevented any last minute surge for the independence vote. Brown pointed out in an oped in the WSJ that Scotland had gained on almost equal terms with England and the rest of Britain in terms of average incomes as a result of efforts in recent decades, truly important bedrock considerations....