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Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama campaign together in swing states such as North Carolina. Hillary Clinton capitalizes on the surging popularity of Michelle Obama, who has a 64%  approval rating, according to Gallup, 10 points more than president Obama, and above Hillary's 43 percent. Both women show a mutual admiration and sisterhood as they campaign together with rising crowd enthusiasm. For Michelle her unprecedented effort as First Lady is a result of the dirty campaign fought by Donald Trump to turn off voters to the political process, and her effort is meant to counter this. She says about this demeaning of women, "Enough is enough." Both women are drawn together with a campaign for a woman as president. And the slogan coined by Michelle has taken off  "When they go low, we go high." It has energized the very African American and millenial voters that have played an effective role in previous Democratic campaigns.

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This WSJ editorial in September 2014 says many of president Obama's statements and decisions on Obama healthcare legislation and implementation, Syria, NSA and privacy, the Middle East, Russia, showed poor judgement. It refers to a piece by Peter Baker in NYT where it is said that Obama mocked how people see him as too professorial, diffident, in a sarcastic statement. The problem says WSJ is that president Obama has poor judgement. Being academically credentialed and quick grasp of subject matter is not the same as having the ability to discern things, instinct and grasp of the essence of the matter. George Bush senior had a long resume and was academically credentialed. By comparison Truman had a short resume and was not academically credentialed or quick with data and analysis. He had something more essential and important- a discerning mind and grasp of the larger picture, as well as listening abilities for exceptional advisors such as General Marshall and Acheson he gathered around him....

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The Economist looks at real estate markets in the U.S., Canada, Britain, Germany, Hong Kong, India and other countries in May 2013. It looks at price to disposable income and price to rent ratios and sees if these ratios are higher than historical averages to determine if prices are based on sound foundations. Canada's real estate market looks set to face problems of a bubble bursting. The U.S. recovery is seen to be based on firm foundations. Property prices are undervalued in Germany and set to rise.

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Forecasts show global oil output exceeding demand by 630,000 barrels a day for the fourth quarter of 2012. This is partly the result of extra oil supplies coming in from Saudi Arabia to counter the situation with Iran at the same time as oil demand is slowing with the economic slowdown in the U.S., Europe and China. Prices of crude declined to $85.73 a barrel on the Nymex, and $107.85 for Brent crude on the ICE Futures Exchange on Oct. 24, 2012. Goldman Sachs cut the 2013 price forecast for Brent crude to $110 a barrel from $130. Earlier the QE III monetary easing by the U.S. Federal Reserve had rallied oil prices because of a weakening of the dollar.

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John Cochrane of the University of Chicago points out that slight deflation of 1-2% may not be pernicious in 2014-2015.

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Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry tells an audience in Cedar Rapids, Iowa: Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous- or treasonous, in my opinion." He was referring to Federal Reserve chairman Bernanke when he said: "I know there's a lot of talk and what have you about if this guy prints more money between now and the election... I don't know what y'all would do to him in Iowa, but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas." Perry's spokesman said Perry feels strongly about printing money, and "got passionate" in his comments.

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The Federal Reserve Open Market Committe voted 7 to 3 to carry out "Operation Twist." This does not involve printing new money as was done for the $600 billion QE II Fed program. This time the Fed will shift its holdings to hold fewer short-term Treasury bills and notes and increase holdings of Treasury securities with longer maturities. The overall impact would be to increase the average maturity of its Treasury securities portfolo to 8 years from the current 6 years. The idea is to put pressure to reduce long tem rates. The Fed says the impact on short term rates is expected to be small because of its conditional pledge made in August 2011 to hold short term rates near zero until mid-2013. The impact of the Fed's move is likely to be modest considering the fact that the average rate on 30 year fixed rate mortgages is already low. It is at 4.09%, according to the latest Freddie Mac survey.

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Political activism and grassroots efforts- other than street protests - are increasing in eurozone countries facing high unemployment and austerity cuts. The focus is on cleaning up the political system rife with cronyism, corruption and wasteful spending. Brat and Bjork describe one such effort in the town of Torrelodones, Spain, 18 miles from Madrid. Criminal investigations in many Spanish cities have increased public awareness and participation in local government. European Social Survey based in London, reports political activity of this kind in Spain jumped from 27% in 2008 to 39% in 2010. There is an increasing sense that the political elites of the two main parties, the Partido Popular and the Socialists have failed to bring clean government and transparency to Spain. As a result progressives are joining conservatives in an effort to clean up years of wasteful spending, cronyism and corruption in government. The Union for Progress and Democracy, representing an alliance of such groups would win 13% of the vote in a national election, and the ruling conservative Partido Popular would lose half of its support and get only 22.5%, according to independent Spanish polling firm Metroscopia. The new push for transparency is one of the welcome changes at a time of austerity cuts and 27% unemployment in Spain. Many of the perks of public officials such as chaeuffer driven cars and police escorts, contracts for favored few at higher prices, are out in many cities, and accounts made public for scrutiny and change. Transparency International's transparency index shows 33 out of 110 of Spain's biggest cities scoring top grades on the 2012 index, jumping from only one. Following the example of the regional government in Navarra, the central government is drafting the first open-records law. Castilla-La Mancha, the area around Toledo, run by a clean government advocate Maria Dolores de Cospedal from the Partido Popular has taken aggressive steps to clean up the local government and wasteful spending- see the link to Castilla La Mancha. Her long term approach is to clean up government spending and accounts with the idea of preserving spending where it is most needed, in education, healthcare and vital services hit by cuts, an approach being taken in other Spanish cities. ...

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The U.S. Federal Reserve's actions in 2013 to counter the growing size and complexity of large banks. JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo assets have grown by 75% and 275% betwen 4th quarter of 2006 and 4th quarter 2012.

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The Bank of Japan's plans to buy 100 trillion yen of Japanese government debt in 2 years to fight deflation is having a positive effect on the eurozone economies. Japanese investors are buying eurozone sovereign debt. J.P. Morgan estimates the increase in investments for overseas bonds by Japanese investors in 2013 at 45 billion euros. This is lowering the yields on the sovereign bonds of France, Netherlands and Austria to record lows and lowering the yields of sovereign bonds of Italy and Spain. The 10 year yields on Italy's government bonds declined to 4.326%. Yields on 10 year Japanese government bonds was 0.514% on April 8, 2013.

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Mark Landler of NYT provides the background of the relationship with China and Taiwan during the Reagan administration. Reagan criticized the decision to abrogate recognition of Taiwan as a candidate and in 1982 pushed for Six Assurances, one of which was the assertion that the U.S. did not formally recognize Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan. Mr. Trump told a news channel that he doesn't see why the U.S. is bound by a One China policy, and that this would have to be part of a deal that included trade, and solving problems related to North Korea, and the South China Sea island fortifications. 

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Experts close to the central bank, PBOC, say it plans to limit depreciation to a modest amount, and to let the currency oscillate. Central bank policy is to make it expensive for traders to try to make gains on the yuan. The central bank plans to intervene the other way to make it harder for traders to make gains.

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Robert Putnam a 79 year old Professor of Public Policy at Harvard answers the question what is happening now- when everything seems to be stalling and solutions offered by parties of centre, right and left are all failing to deliver for improving lives of poor white people, black people, middle class white people. Failing to deliver on health care for all, on access to medicines, access to infrastructure, on access to public services. He sees this as a result of the over focus on "I' and on the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few people in the financial world or in Silicon Valley without concern for the needs of the country or the people.  Putnam compares this to the period of the 1870's onwards in America. when for several decades the emphasis was on selfish pursuit of money and wealth with everyone focussed on individual gain. It was only after this period brought America as a nation and the people of America into hard times people was the whole culture of "I" and overfocus on individual gain questioned and repudiated. The period of "we" began with Theodore Roosevelt breaking up the monopolies and Franklin Roosevelt fighting for a New Deal for American workers and the people of the United States. Putnam sees this happening again and America at a crucial juncture of repudiating the existing culture and values in the same way as it did in the past. The change in culture in America is part of a wider trend that includes all English speaking countries Britain, Canada, Australia and India. In all these countries the shift is towards rebuilding the culture that brings opportunities and hope to the working class and middle class, to rural areas, through a new vision for infrastructure, public services, healthcare and education. Putnam brings long experience studying the development of America starting with the book "Bowling Alone" published in 2000 which described the trend to rampant and unrestricted individualism in public and business life. In 2015 Putnam's "Our Kids" covered the issue of declining upward mobility and  failing to give opportunity for young people to make improvement in their social and economic aspects of their lives. The three books have extensive research and look at a lot of data making them academic of nature but they also serve a useful purpose. Any intuitive grasp of the situation also leads one to think in the same direction that the past carries lessons for the future, that there is a better way out, and that this situation cannot go on for much longer without damaging the nation and the people, not just America, but other English speaking nations Britain, Canada, Australia and India that share the same problems of lack of development, lack of infrastructure and services, and neglect of the common man, of everyman.   ...

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Krugman points out the gains on three fronts evident from the Census Bureau report of 5.2% gain in median income of households in the U.S. He says the first is the growth in incomes of ordinary working class and middle class families, second the large decline in the poverty rate, and third the further rise in insurance coverage in 2015 for people without health insurance. He points to the steady efforts of the Obama administration to improve lives of ordinary families as working based on the Census report though results have taken time, and could have been better. The Stimulus, says Krugman could have been larger following the blow of the 2009 financial crisis and increased unemployment at the time. Janet Yellen at the inequality conference of the Boston Fed in 2014 pointed out the problems of 62 million households having net worth of about $10,000, and why this was running against the American idea of a better life for all Americans. In that sense the Census report is a movement in the right direction but a lot remains to be done.   ...