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Applebaum describes how Obama as president took action on the stimulus after the 2008 financial crisis, but did not take the necessary action to stem foreclosures and aid a recovery in housing. This now appears to be one of the critical failures of his presidency.

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The discussion on whether it is feasible to achieve any significant cost savings as long as middle class consumers are not cost conscious about their employer provided health insurance. This would be so as long as their health insurance benefits are not taxed as income. America suffers from a particularly strong case of not minding the price increases imposed by the health care industry as long as its not out of pocket cost. But Obama seems stuck on his insistence that the middle class not take on any burden, that there be no middle class tax in the form of this tax on health care benefits. Critics say even FDR did this by having the middle class pay with payroll contributions for Medicare and Social Security. And even if the 5% of Americans who make more than $280,000 are taxed it will not generate by itself the money to pay for the $1 trillion cost of the plan, as the prospects of cost reduction are uncertain- especially when the basic nature of America's health care system are not changed, like the lack of cost consciousness of consumers of health care when its perceived to be free and employer provided....

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Average land prices in China in October 2011 are down 40% from the peak in Sept. 2009, when real estate companies purchased large amounts of land. This means large losses for companies that bought when prices peaked. When this happened in 2008 companies were rescued by the large Stimulus by the Chinese government. It is uncertain what will happen this time as a similiar Stimulus effort is not expected. Prices nationwide for residential land were down 8% in October from the prior year, and transaction volumes were down 37%, according to property firm Soufun. In October and November 2011, land auctions at a number of major cities in China failed, with either no bidders or low bids. According to CLSA property analysts, China Overseas Land & Investment Ltd. and Longfor Group have reduced prices of homes by 20% -25% for projects in Shanghai.

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Krugman points to the economic muddle that China is getting itself into. He says one way of looking at what is happening now with high inflation is that inflation is the market's way of undoing the currency manipulation that China has engaged in. By following aweak currency policy to protect export interests China has created an artificially high trade surplus. But this is now turning into a lose-lose proposition for both China and the US as market forces push wages and prices up, whittling away at any competitive advantage of China's weak currency policy. He says some estimates he has seen show that Chinese undervaluation could be gone in two or three years. Chinese consumers are asked to accept interest on savings limited to 2.75% and below inflation, with the spread designed to help banks earn their way out of bad loans made during the stimulus lending binge of 2009-2010. What is happening is a massive allocation of capital away from consumers to lending for state owned companies that have created overcapacity in many industries, and use part of this capital to engage in real estate speculation. Krugman says China may be on its way to some kind of crisis with collateral damage to the rest of the world as it is a major importer of commodities from Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, and a major importer of high tech goods from Germany and the USA....

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France with about 6 million Muslims and a history of colonial rule in North African Arab countries (Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, and other countries) faces a challenge of integrating Muslims into French society. Germany with a large population of Turkish origin also faces a similiar challenge. The attack on the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo for poking fun at Islam, in a manner similiar to its satirical work on Catholicism, leads to the death of 12 journalists, a policeman and a policewoman. Erlanger and Bennhold describe the reaction of people in France. Peter Neumann, director of the International Center for the Study of Radicalization at King's College , London, says about anti-immigrant sentiment increasing in Europe to the point where it is uncoupling working class families from the elites in Europe and reaching into the mainstream of society.

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U.S. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell tells the Washington Post in an exclusive interview that the dynamics surrounding the Trans Pacific Agreement pushed by president Obama have changed. He sees little prospect of it passing Congress before president Obama leaves office, and says it will be up to the next president to take it up after Obama leaves office in Jan. 2017. McConnell said that there is a lot of pushback all over the place. The Republican frontrunners Trump and Cruz both oppose the TPP, and all Democratic candidates including Hillary Clinton oppose it. In addition tobacco interests in McConnell's home state of Kentucky and pharmaceutical interests backing Senator Orrin Hatch, the Republican Finance chairman also oppose aspects of the negotiated deal. Labor unions, the automobile industry, environmental groups, and public interest groups, have strongly opposed provisions of the TPP that hurt workers and the public interest from the beginning, making it a risky proposition for Congressmen coming up for reelection in 2016. The divergence between the Republican establishment and the presidential front runners Trump and Cruz also have diluted support in Congress on the Republican side, making it a no win proposition....

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The joint statement after the G-8 summit stated that "our imperative is to promote growth and jobs." It stated the budget deficits need to be addressed but said "spending cuts must "take into account countries' evolving economic conditions and underpin confidence and economy recovery." Germany's Merkel in her remarks said growth and deficit reduction supported each other, that "we have to work on both paths, and the participants have made clear, and I think this is great progress." Opposition Social Democrats in Germany say Ms. Merkel is adept at changing as the situation changes, and it appears Merkel is making the transition away from strict austerity policies she had championed earlier. Especially now with fresh elections in France, Netherlands and Greece, and the election of Francois Hollande on a pro-growth platform, the German position of strict austerity is being increasingly questioned on all sides. French president Hollande met U.S. president Obama at a pre-arranged meeting prior to the summit. Obama and Hollande see the need to reduce high unemployment in the U.S. and Europe by encouraging growth, creating a common interest....

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Fuel efficiency rules require average fuel efficiency in the U.S. of 35 mpg by 2016. The debate is now on what to do for 2017 to 2025. New technology such as the P2 systems for hybrids already used in VW, Nissan and Hyundai vehicles makes a 20% increase in fuel efficiency possible. Large investments are being made to bring new technology to bear on increasing fuel efficiency significantly. Government agencies are looking at different scenarios by which the new fuel economy standards beyond 2017-2025 could be set between 47 mpg and 62 mpg. An additional factor is the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions- at 47 mpg the reduction would be 3%, at 62 mpg the reduction would be 6%. Another factor is how much the impact is on the cost of vehicles and reduced cost on gasoline. Here there is a wide range in the numbers for average mpg rules at 62 mpg- with EPA estimates at $2800-$3500 increase in vehicle cost and $5000 savings in fuel cost, Centre for Automotive Research estimates at $9790 increase in vehicle cost. The 62 mpg translates into "real world" actual efficiency of 45 mpg. In April 2011, 17 senators put out a letter of support for the 62 mpg proposal. There is a public value involved in this that is also significant- the reduced dependence on foreign oil means savings in defense expenditures in parts of the Middle East, and an economy that is less impacted by volatility in the price of oil. As this aspect of public value or benefits cannot be quantified easily even though they are significant, this may tend to be lost in the debate and the politics of fuel efficiency. For automakers there is significant marketing value in having a visible and strong presence in fuel efficient vehicles because of perception as forward looking- something that hurt Detroit carmakers in the last decade. During periods of gasoline prices at $5 a gallon this provides carmakers with an extra cushion of safety in securing car sales. Carmakers in one country such as the U.S. also have to worry about what carmakers in other countries such as Japan and Germany are doing- if the standards in the U.S. develop a gap compared to other countries developing advanced fuel efficiency technologies this poses significant risks because of the global nature of the automobile marketplace. See the group "Asleep at the Spigot" for more details on this. Many of these less quantifiable factors do not get the attention they deserve because they are significant from experience but not easily quantified. Throw into this the large unknown of what new technologies not yet developed lie ahead with a burst of effort by one country or another, which bring cost reductions at the same time - and the debate requires as much a good sense of what is the path offering the greatest advantages in years ahead than a pure exercize in numbers. ...

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The ECB's annual report for 2012 and the role the ECB under Mario Draghi played in the eurozone crisis in 2011-2012. The gains made in eurozone financial architecture, especially the agreement for the ECB as financial supervisor for European banks. The ECB sees itself as the supervisor for all European banks- the French position in the discussions in Brussels. The agreement of Dec. 12, 2012 only says banks with assets over 30 billion euros, or 20% of GDP of countries, or operations in two or more countries will come under supervision by the ECB.

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Drew Western, a professor of psychology at Emory University, asks the question about Obama that is on many people's minds- who is this man who wrote the book "Dreams of My Father." And what happened to him? It is as if he is asking did they conjure up something that didn't exist, was there really too little about the man in a book written when the young Obama was still in law school- about his experience growing up between two races, except a remarkable effort to grapple with that experience. It would say little about the man himself, the choices he would make, the decisions he would face as he entered his thirties, and forties, a period that provides the crucible and the formative experiences in the development of character. It is as if readers had appended their own chapter at the end of the book and conjured up many things that really did not exist. And which would serve as a kind of Rorschach test experience where readers were free to read into the picture whatever they wished to see- and something Obama could use to be all things to all people. Drew Western draws from his knowledge of psychology and his direct or virtual conversations with about 50,000 people to reflect and make some hypotheses about what has happened to Obama, or what Obama was always about. He starts by pointing out what was missing in the inauguration speech and has been missing ever since- a clear sense of narrative and a vision, a story about what had happened and how it could be made different in the midst of the global financial crisis of 2008-2009. Western provides several hypotheses for what has happened. Obama simply lacks the experience to handle the presidency -having been merely a community activist and not run a city, a state or a business, and had accomplished little before becoming president, and had an unremarkable career as a law professor having published nothing during his 12 years at the University of Chicago except an autobiography. And remarkably says Western voted 130 times in the Senate as "present" instead of "yea" or "nay," suggesting a tendency not to take a stand on difficult issues. The auto fuel efficiency standards issue may be the singular exception. The challenges of a presidency are much larger, and the challenges in 2009 were even greater. Obama could not measure upto the task. A related hypothesis is that given the lack of experience and the inability to make the narrative because of an unresolved identity, Obama is willing to do whatever it takes to dial for dollars and get re-elected. ...

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Landon Thomas Jr. looks at the situation in Spain and finds it hard not to conclude that austerity policies are not working in the absence of economic growth, and increasing unemployment. Unemployment in Spain is at 24% and growing. Deficit reduction is likely to take longer with the deteriorating economic outlook. Spain's economy minister, Luis de Guindos has announced Spain plans to increase consumer taxes in 2013, including the VAT, which is currently at 18%. This would further depress consumer spending. Bondholders sense dangers from lack of economic growth and competitiveness, as much as they sense dangers from uncontrolled regional spending. As a result investors are leaving Spain. According to analysts at Credit Agricole Cheuvreux in Madrid, 100 billion euros (132 billion) have left Spain, including distress sales- coming from insurance companies, pension and sovereign wealth funds reducing holdings of Spanish bonds.

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Michelle Obama and the "Let Girls Learn" Initiative in 2015 for the 62 million girls not in school.