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This editorial in the WSJ on John Kasich, points to Ohio Governor Kasich's strong record of growth in Ohio and low unemployment, surpassing all other midwestern states, as a reason for voters to consider Kasich for president. It points to Kasich's re-election win by 31 points in 2014, carrying 86 of 88 Ohio counties as another reason to consider Kasich, as Ohio is the key swing state in a U.S. presidential election. Kasich also has the unique combination of having worked in Congress helping develop a balanced budget in the Clinton presidency, and in balancing the budget in Ohio leaving a $2 billion surplus after he found only 89 cents in the rainy day fund when he became governor. Jeb Bush and Walker lack experience in Congress.

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Romney received the vote of 6 out of 10 seniors, and a majority of the over 40 age group. He did poorly with the 18-29 age group. He received only 8% of the black vote, 29% of the Hispanic vote and 25% of the Asian American vote. Republicans did well in the 2010 elections for the House of Representatives showing that a decent support from minorities and a sense of caring for ordinary voters including younger women is part of the winning mix for Republicans. The sharp positions on immigraton taken by Romney hurt him with Hispanics. His work at Bain Capital and perceptions about caring may have hurt him further with minorities and young people, creating a skewed picture in the national contest compared to contests for the House, Senate, and for Governors.

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LinkedIn's IPO is offered at a price of $45. This is up from estimates of $10 a week before the IPO. The career networking site opened at $83 and in a few hours zoomed to $122, before closing at $94.

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Russian president Putin talks to journalists at his year end news conference in Dec. 2015. He has sharp words for Turkey, saying Russia's advanced air defence system S-400 is now in place to prevent any attacks on Russian war planes over Syria. And says the costs of the bombing campaign in Syria comes out of the Defense Ministry's training budget. Putin calls Donald trump "a very bright and talented man." He tells Russians that the Russian economy was coming back after a sharp recession. He points to Russian life expectancy at 71 as one achievement of this period, as the government considers raising the retirement age to conserve resources.

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Reminders of the 6th of May, 2010, when sentiment swung the other way and the Dow Jones averages dropped by 900 points.

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 Mayor Reiter of Munich, Christian Kern, head of Austrian railway OBB, say here that the actions of Viktor Orban of Hungary gave the German government very little time, only a few hours, to act. The first motivation was to act in a humanitarian way, which is what happened. The German government had asked Orban to register and handle immigrants in an orderly way. In the end with the failure of Orban to do this, the immigrants who would have come north anyway, streamed into Germany and Austria in buses and trains. Clearly Hungary and Germany could have handled this better. The German public provided support with a large number of volunteers helping. One German minister is cited here as saying that if Orban wanted to build a fence he should have done it in a quiet way, as there are fences between Bulgaria and Turkey, and Turkey and Greece and it has not bothered anyone.

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Indonesia's president Widodo has chosen a city in Borneo, in central Kalimantan, the part of Borneo that belongs to Indonesia, as the new capital for the country. The city is Palangkaraya. Jakarta is too overcrowded, sitting on land that is sinking from overuse of water from the ground, with high traffic congestion. President Widodo has supported infrastructure development during his first term with a credible record. This move also is part of the new effort to support development evenly across the whole country, to include islands outside of Java. President Sukarno considered this location in Borneo at one time after independence from Dutch in 1945 because of its central location in the middle of the country. Jakarta was shown in a 2016 survey to have the worst congestion in the world in 2016. This move is also intended to dencentralize the government and give greater power and resources to municipalities across the country. Brazil moved the capital to Brasilia, and Australia to Canberra in similar moves, that were cited by Indonesian advisers to Mr. Widodo. ...

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This editorial in the WSJ points out that president Trump's and the Iranian government's response in the firing of missiles at a U.S. airbase in Iraq were intended to quiet things down so that there was no escalation. Both sides were in effect standing down which president Trump called a good thing. 

Beyond deterrence the U.S. effort is also to work with its European allies to open a path to renegotiating the 2015 Iran nuclear deal so that a long term settlement can be reached for the region. 

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The WSJ cites economic studies that show 60% of China's overseas loans are troubled in 2022 compared to 10% in 2010. China has scaled down the Belt and Road Initiative and is reorganizing the effort to introduce risk controls and reduce lending. China's preferred approach in an increasing interest rate environment is to extend the maturity of loans. Yet the climate change disasters and rising rates have put many countries into a highly indebted position. China no longer touts the Belt and Road as a way for developing countries to advance their economies and infrastructure development.

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The 2019 election recorded the lowest turnout in Nigeria's history. Voting was especially low in the south where opposition candidate Abubakar was ahead, and much higher in the north and northeast which has consistently supported president Buhari. This BBC report says voter apathy seems to have set in. In the north Buhari is seen as a principled man of the people helping him get a lead of 4 million votes. Even though security concerns have affected about 2 million people in the north from Boko Haram militants the INEC made provision for 400,000 displaced people to vote. 

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Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party is tied in the 2019 elections with Benny Gantz's Blue and White Party with 35 seats each in parliament. Netanyahu's right wing party bloc controls 65 seats giving it a majority in the 120 member parliament.

Gantz says "we founded a true alternative rule to Netanyahu." Extreme right wing parties did not get elected to the Knesset. Labour Party and left parties also lost votes in the contest between Gantz and Netanyahu, leaving Gantz without enough seats from his left bloc in parliament.

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Kurzabeit is a big part of the social safety net in Germany. It means short time work. When companies face a loss of orders or production or some crisis workers still get paid 60 to 67% of their wages. This avoids layoffs and benefits both employees and the company, as the company can quickly ramp up its production to full capacity with employees working full time. Workers make up for the work lost once the crisis has passed. 

This has enabled Germany to keep the unemployment rate low as in the 2008-2009 financial crisis.

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Carney calls Canadian elections on April 28 2025. He was head of the Bank of England and comes from the financial sector. The opposition leader from the Conservatives cannot be ruled out as he enjoyed increase in popularity after Trudeau's popularity declined after being in power since 2015. Carney has never contested an election and the example of Sunak is recent. Sunak called an early election only to lose badly to Labour in 2024 after serious missteps by the Liberals and a split in the party. That split has not been fixed by Carney in any way. 

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A look at the views of candidates running in the U.S. presidential election of 2016 on mass incarceration. Benie Sanders, Democratic Senator from Vermont, says the situation worsened for incarceration during the Clinton years when a policy of building prisons and increasing law enforcement was adopted. The 2.2 million persons in prison today are double that for the years before the early 1990's, said Sanders. Under president Clinton the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act was passed creating tougher penalties for drug offenders, and putting $30.2 billion for more police officers and new prisons. Hillary Clinton called for putting "an end to the era of mass incarceration." Adding in other remarks that missing African-American men means "missing husbands, missing fathers, and missing brothers."

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This Washington Post editorial says the Obama administration is complicit in the military attack on Morsi protester camps and civilians in Cairo on August 14, 2013, because of its failure to follow through on its warning that U.S. aid would be cut of in the event of the military taking a leading role in the overthrow of an elected government. U.S. legislation requires this action. By failing to call it a military takeover and by the administration's failure to strongly condemn the massive violation of human rights in the military attack on protesters and civilians, the Post says the Obama administration becomes complicit in the action. It sees this as self-defeating for the U.S., and unconscionable.

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Malone describes the future of Silicon Valley and a return to its roots in a world of new devices closer to where Dave Packard and Noyce (followed by Jobs) started the first tech developments in California. He sees a larger Silicon Valley spread out over a much larger region by 2050.

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U.S. president Obama called Libya and the policy of not following up on helping establish a stable democratic government in Libya his biggest mistake. Kristof of the NYT says people looking back would say Syria and not establishing safe zones is Obama's biggest mistake. He describes the 470,000 deaths in Syria as a huge tragedy that could have been avoided to a large extent by setting up safe zones. In addition the UN estimates that millions of refugees on a scale similar to the partition of India in 1947 were created.There is bipartisan opinion on this. Kristof cites General Cartwright's opinion in a conversation he had with Cartwright that this should have been done. Others who agree are Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton's Secretary of State, who spoke at the Democratic Convention about how America helped change her life as a young refugee after Russia's invasion of Czechoslovakia following Prague Spring. Albright says force should be used carefully so as not to aggravate the situation but action taken where needed, something that was done successfully under Bill Clinton in the Bosnian conflict following Serbia's ethnic cleansing policy under Milosevic. Not only that, with the diplomacy of ambassador Holbrooke Clinton was able to negotiate the peace accords that hold till today- a huge achievement.  Kori Schake, director of defense strategy in the George W. Bush White House also agrees. This would have improved U.S. relations with Turkey as this was a key Turkish request. And it would have reduced the dimensions of the refugee crisis in Europe, which has hurt the European Union. The Brexit "No" vote many in Britain have attributed to ads showing refugees in endless numbers streaming across Europe's borders. Similar ads were used in Austria's elections. Kristof points out that Secretary of State Kerry's job of negotiating a peace is difficult in these conditions. Another issue raised by Kristof is the lack of Obama's leadership in helping the refugees in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, as he points out only 41% of this is funded. David Miliband former British Foreign Secretary, who heads the International Rescue Committee , says 200,000 Syrian kids are growing up in Lebanon without an education. George Washington counseled against getting involved in the wars on the European continent for a young nation, this advice was not followed in the Reagan and other administrations without showing the carefulness needed before action is taken. As Hillary Clinton has once pointed out the situation has resembled a pendulum swinging in the other direction under president Obama, and former Defense Secretary, Panetta, has expressed similar views. Hillary Clinton and Leon Panetta, Gates, Gen. Jones, served in the first term of the Obama administration, many of these mistakes were made in the second term by president Obama and his White House advisors Dennis McDonough, Valerie Jarrett who clearly lacked the deep foreign policy experience of Hillary Clinton, Leon Panetta (who served under Bill Clinton), and Gates who served under many presidents). ...

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India's new bankruptcy law is a big step forward in letting credit markets function normally and drawing in new capital. The new law says the bankruptcy should be completed in 180 days after a default. Indian banks hold about $105 billion in non-performing or bad loans, according to the Reserve Bank of India. It is essential that India cope with the bad debt to attract new capital investment and increase growth. Asset reconstruction company being formed by Ambit and J.C. Flowers & Company was approved in late 2016 by the Reserve Bank of India, India's central bank. So far Indian banks have showed unwillingness to take a loss on the loans and take a big discount. Only $3 billion in asset reconstruction has taken place in 2016 through selling bad loans, according to Credit Suisse. Indian industry has relied heavily on bank loans and sale of stock for capital investment as the corporate bond market is undeveloped. This is about to change to finance growth, with the bankruptcy law and transparency as a first step. Larger foreign firms are teaming up with local partners to tackle distressed debt and bad loans, with locals knowledge of risks making it easier to profit from capital invested. ICICI bank won the first ruling of the new bankruptcy law by the National Company Law Tribunal against Innoventive to recover assets, providing the first test of the law. In the past such action would drag on for years, showing India is now serious about getting rid of bad loans in the banking system, and to revitalize credit markets to finance new growth. ...

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Peugeot-Citroen Europe's largest car maker after VW is seeingdeclining profitability as sales increases it expected in 2002 did not happen and its running plants well below capacity. Now the company is planning to increase sales by going into developing country markets- Russia, China, India, so on and will design and build small cars for these markets. It sell about 1.7 million cars outside Europe about half its sales of 3.37 million vehicles. Its hoping to add another 400,000 in vehicle sales by 2010. Its also planning to shorten the life of its models to 3 years i 2010 from 4 1/2 in 2006, and introduce 29 new models in the next 3 years to 2010, hoping to generate 300,000 additional car sales by 2010. About 53 ne models or variants of existing model are to be launched in the next 3 years worldwide to 2010. This plus cost reductions in purchasing, logistics, fixed and development costs, capacity utilization improvements, and headcount are planned to improve operating margins to 5.5% from 2.7% in first half 2007. In the emissions area Peugeot-Citroen wants to be a world leader in environmentally friendly vehicles. It will reduce CO2 emissions by having stop-start systems on all cars, and launch vehicles with hybrid diesel engines. ...

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Ashraf Khalil describes the history of relations between the Muslim Brotherhood leadership and the leaders of secular parties with prescient remarks on how this creates problems in Egypt's transition to democratic government. The mistake made by the Muslim Brotherhood leaders, says Khalil, is to insist on a quick move to elections in November 2011, with the Brotherhood hoping to gain advantage in seats with its organization already in place compared to the secular parties which need more time to stage an organized effort. If this results in a lopsided result with the Muslim Brotherhood gaining more seats than its real strength, and the secular parties feeling left out in a revolution to set up democratic government that they led, Egypt's transition to democracy will remain flawed. This is now the stuation as the military which sets the rules and the Muslim Brotherhood have agreed on immediate elections. The Muslim Brotherhood's leaders have spent years being suppressed by the Mubarak regime, and lack the experience needed for such a difficult transition as Egypt faces, even with the best of intentions. Compressing the transition into a short time frame makes it even more difficult. Errors of judgement by Muslim Brotherhood leaders in not developing a consensus, and the uncertain role of the post-Mubarak military and police, compound the difficulties and risks....