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The president of Ohio Christian University, Mark Smith, says there are six different faith groups out there in Ohio supporting Romney, and there remains a high level of intensity driven by a desire to protect religious liberty from an enroaching expansion of the state. He says the public fight of the Obama administration with Catholic hospitals and charities was seen as a threat by evangelical Christians. The evangelical vote makes up 30% of the vote in Ohio, 31% in Iowa, and 26% in Wisconsin.

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Dionne,Jr., says the failure of the "supercommittee" to reach a deal would not be a failure at all if it leads to a flawed deal that does not generate enough revenues, such as the $300 billion in tax increases proposed by Jeb Hensarling. If the deal also makes 90% of the Bush tax cuts permanent this would make deficit reduction harder. Under such terms not reaching a deal, and having automatic reductions triggered by that outcome may be the preferred outcome, says Dionne,Jr.

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John Taylor challenges Ben Bernanke's defence of why he and Greenspan at the Fed kept interests rates too low for too long thus helping create the housing bubble. Bernanke ignored the Taylor rule which at the time would have called for increasing interest rates, using forecasted inflation which turned out to be too low rather than actual inflation as the Taylor rule would call for, and which had been used says John Taylor in the previous 20 years for proper central bank interest rate policy actions.

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At the time of Jeff Bezos's purchase of The Washington Post, three Post journalists write about his patient nurturing of business enterprises with long term investments. Jeff Bezos sees the future of journalism in reader access through internet based devices like the tablets now in use, with each family having multiple tablets. Bezos reads newspapers only on a tablet, and sees the current period as one of transition from the print medium to the internet, so that in 20 years the transition from print will be completed.

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Obama says in his second inaugural address: "We cannot mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate. We must act, knowing that our work will be imperfect...that today's victories will be only partial. And that it will be up to those who stand here in four years- and 40 years, and 400 years hence- to advance the timeless spirit once conferred to us in a spare Philadelphia hall." With that Obama articulates a liberal vision of America.

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Calpers, California's pension fund is setting down the conditions under which it will work with hedge funds, including separately managing its money, reduce hedge fund fees so that they cover operating expenses and are not a windfall for hedge fund managers. Calpers has only made 3.5% annual returns since 2002 far from the big returns promised by hedge fund managers. In 2005 just 13% of all public pension funds invested inhedge funds. By 2008, 40% invested in hedge funds, with acombined $78 billion invested in hedge funds.

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Citigroup is continuing its reduction of risky assets following the financial crisis of 2008. Citi sold a $1.7 billion portfolio of private equity assets to AXA Private Equity. This is part of the close to $600 billion in assets that include troubled loan and securities portfolios, which Citi has planned to sell after the financial crisis.These assets are held in Citi Holdings unit of Citigroup. At the end of the first quarter 2011, Citi Holdings had $337 billion in assets, including retail banking and card portfolios in Western Europe, and CitiFinancial consumer lending unit. This is down from $582 billion held at the end of the second quarter of 2009.

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Oil prices are up and staying there longer in December 2011. The 12 month rolling average for oil prices for Brent crude oil is at $109, compared to $106 a barrel in September 2008, according to consultants JBC Energy. The situation is worse for eurozone countries because of the declining value of the euro estimated at between $1.16-$1.30 in 2012 depending on how the eurozone crisis is handled. The 12 month rolling average was 70 euros when Brent crude prices were at their high in 2008, compared to 78 euros today. France and Italy are seeing their current account surplus disappear with reduced exports and higher import bill for oil.

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A shocking statistic. Of the 12 metropolitan areas in the US with over 15% unemployment, 10 are in California, and this is because the construction industry has taken a severe hit. It lost 74,000 jobs in the 12 months ending in June 2010. From June 2006 to June 2010, this industry in California lost 43% or about 402,000 jobs. And the construction industry is still shrinking there. One reason why the unemployment rate in California is 12.3%. The overbuilding during the boom makes it that much harder to rebuild. The construction industry has been hard hit in Los Angeles and Riverside metro areas and in Napa and Solano counties.

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France's CFDT trade union says both Sarkozy and Hollande have shown agreement with a plan for workers to show flexibility in wages and benefits in return for preserving jobs. This comes at a time when France's trade deficit is widening. It was 69.6 billon euros in 2011. Hourly labor costs in France are 34.20 euros, 14% higher than in Germany, where similiar wage restraint was shown by the unions during the last decade to reduce high unemployment. It is 20% higher than the euro-zone average, according to Eurostat. Now France is looking to adopt some aspects of the German model to improve competitiveness and reduce unemployment.

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After carbon dioxide at 40%, black carbon at 18% is the No 2 cause of global warming on the planet earth. This black carbon is generated from thousands of villages in the develooping world and from countries like India, where village women cook food over stoves that burn twigs and dung, not having stoves to cook on. If they are provided with stoves that use fuel these black carbon emissions can easily and quickly be cut. This is also cuasing dense smoke to fill their homes and black grime to stick to the thatched huts and thatched roofs, and it puts ablack cloud over stretches of landscape in these villages.

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Gabriele Steinhauser's interview July 16, 2015 with the chief of eurozone finance ministers, Dutch finance minister Dijsselbloem. He tells Steinhauser the lowest moment in the crisis came on the night of July 5 when the referendum results were announced. He expected a "no" vote as he knows this is the way this sort of referendum turns out. He was present in all the critical moments of the crisis. And this moment gave him a sad feeling because of his conviction that it would take tough measures to sort out something like Greece, and the Greek people had been given the idea that this vote could change things. He says Tsipras heard a lot from European leaders on July 7 about lack of trust. Following an ultimatum to Greece about Grexit or acceptance of the measures to be taken, and Greece's acceptance on July 9, more hurdles emerged on July 11, 2015. One came from the IMF with an estimate of 86 billion euros as the cost of new loans to Greece, and possible writedowns on 180 billion euros already loaned. He says Greece's new finance minister, Euclid Tsakalotos, a Oxford educated economist, who was Alternate Minister for International Economic Affairs in the Syriza government from Jan to July 5, 2015, showed a remarkable ability to absorb the criticism as a lot of the bad news surfaced. A Wikipedia note on Tsakalotos shows a similiar background 10 years apart for George Osborne, Britain's chancellor of the Exchequer, and Tsakalotos- both educated at St. Paul's school and Oxford, and Tsakalotos's wife Heather Gibson also from Britain. Tsakalotos was seen as being at ease with the EU ministers, who thanked him for his attitude, of grace under a lot of pressure, and the way he handled the matter. Another piece of difficult news, says Dijsselbloem, was the insistence of German finance minister Schauble on a default scenario of Greece opting out of the euro for a number of years being included in a eurozone statement. After 17 hours of drafting, the final statement left this scenario out. It included a 50 billion euro privatization fund with half to be setup to help capitalize Greek banks, quarter to pay down debt, and a quarter to generate economic growth. Compared to the day following the referendum, Dijsselbloem says he feels it will be a difficult road with many problems, but he feels now that it can be sorted out. Stangely he does not make any mention of the role of the French under premier Valls and president Hollande between July 6 and July 9, including sending advisors to Greece to help draft proposals, in turning the situation around. Only saying he is relieved- possibly of not having some of the burden of the failure to resolve the crisis falling on the Dutch finance minister....

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Deborah Liljegren, a 49 year old accountant working for an advertising firm, was laid off during the coronavirus first wave. She now works as a warehouse worker in 12 hour shifts at a warehouse near Lake Geneva in Illinois. She gets up at 4.50 am for a 30 mile drive to the Kenosha, Wisconsin, located warehouse, a 1 million square feet Amazon warehouse facility. She is by herself most of the day in a 10 foot long area where she takes hundreds of items an hour from containers and puts them in tall shelves on a robotic run container production line. During the lunch break she eats a 30 minute lunch of a sandwich and cup of Cheetos inside her Focus car in the parking lot. This is the only time she gets to herself. At 12.00 pm she starts a new shift till 6 pm. At 2.45 she gets a 15 minute break.  Liljegren says it is a totally different experience going from a white collar to a blue collar job. On a typical day she may sort 2000 items. The pay is $15 an hour. She decided to take the job  because it looked like it would take a long time for another job to be available. Liljegren is one of the millions of workers whose lives have changed after the coronavirus. While a small section of society of professionals continue to work from home and do not feel the economic effects of the pandemic, much larger parts of the people of each country are vulnerable to the impact of the first and second waves of the coronavirus. With the second wave comes more economic uncertainty, loss of jobs as some businesses close, and others layoff employees.  Government budgets are strained in November 2020 to provide the kind of stimulus provided in March 2020, leaving businesses of all sizes vulnerable.   ...

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Public sentiment shifts sharply against free trade in the March 2016 Michigan primary for the U.S. presidential election, with candidates saying trade agreements do not take into account the interests of American manufacturing workers making large gains. Between 1999 and 2010 public sentiment shifted against trade agreements for all age, education and income groups. A study by Autor, Hanson and Dorn showed loss of 5.6 million jobs in the last decade and large trade deficits, and demonstrated the effect by counties in the U.S. most hurt by trade policies.

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Apple sold 35.1 million iPhones in the first quarter of 2012, an increase of 88% from the prior year. Apple sold 11.8 million iPads in the first quarter 2012, double the volume in the prior year. Profits reported by Apple for the first quarter 2012 were $11.62 billion, an increase from $5.98 billion the prior year, almost doubling profits.

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All the extreme rhetoric on how Project 2025 is going to be adopted under a DJT administration has led to unease that there will be deterioration in the government and society.  Yet it simply may not work that way.   A second objective look at Project 2025 and how it's value to Republicans will be carefully evaluated piece by piece by DJT is needed. Keeping in mind 2026 House and Senate elections, winning broad support for the traditional Republican conservative line of thinking, and maintaining the support of all Republicans in the business, government, media and other sectors.  1. Replacing federal employees with party loyalists. This happens at the top of every agency of the government for every government in the US and Europe after an election for the last century. At today's unemployment level of 4 percent, adult males actually 3.9% and adult females 3.6%, and considering the higher salaries paid in the private sector, the tenuous nature of joining as a party loyalist as the national mood can shift at any time and things change again in 2027; where was the federal government going to find employees to be replaced at mid and lower levels? There is also the situation seen in 1928 when a Republican Hoover victory made Democrat NY Governor Al Smith compel a reluctant Franklin Roosevelt, who was just recovering from polio, to run for NY Governor. By 1931 over 3 years Franklin Roosevelt and Columbia University's Frances Perkins tested programs to stabilize employment in the US, introduce unemployment insurance as a new concept, and a 40 hour week also new, in the entire northeastern + midwestern states, all governors working together. By 1931 in just 3 years Franklin Roosevelt was on the clear path to sweeping victory in 1932 with a tested program to stabilize employment. 2.  The No. 1 goal is to restore the traditional family. It is clear in 2024 that the vast majority of Americans, whites, women as well as men, of all age groups, whites as well as Latinos and Asians, blacks, see that things like transgender "have somehow gone too far." 3. Cultural Literacy is needed for any nation to long survive. This is not even on any platform. Yet knowledge about America's history of settlement of the continent -correcting for treatment of American Indians, blacks, Chinese, Japanese without pointless race controversies- is being rapidly lost, and with it an understanding of America's civic institutions and Constitution, its founders and presidents, and evolution of the nation over the 20th century with the Industrial Revolution. The very terminology that has defined public knowledge about these United States is fast disappearing. It is a cause for unease in the minds of people in rural and urban, conservative and other parts of the political spectrum alike of what will happen to America as this is lost. 4. On immigration  a consensus was reached by president Biden that migrant flow was mishandled and the Lankford legislation offered by Republican leaders accepted by both parties to stop the flow. During his first term president Eisenhower conducted a program of returning illegal migrants to their home countries, Germany is doing this now and the UK's Labor party has made it No. 1 priority to stop migrant smuggling. 5. An effort to increase oil and gas production. This will help bring down the cost of living by reducing energy costs in the US and also helping Europe to do the same. Biden had already accepted the idea of the temporary need to do this to ease cost of living burden on the people of this Nation. The economic cost of wind and solar, are ultimate drivers for expanding renewable energy as major form of climate change action. In the first term of DJT 2016-2020 the lower cost of natural gas made it economical to switch from oil to gas. In the Biden term 2020-2024 all the effort to increase EV's on the road ran into the problem of lack of charging stations. It is possible that spread of charging stations could reverse this in the second term of DJT. It is the private sector and also the local governments that play a big part, climate change action will continue, and new R&D breakthroughs will happen to jump start it again.    ...

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Portugal's constitutional court rules against a government action to reduce public sector worker's traditional extra 2 months salary for each year in 2013-2014. Portugal is required to meet a deficit target of 3% in 2013. The EC and the IMF provided 78 billion euros in loans to Portugal and have indicated flexibility in adjusting the economic program.

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The UN badge and logo for sustainable development goals is becoming highly popular in Japan. It has 17 colors for the 17 Sustainable Development goals set by the UN- ending poverty, reducing inequality, improving education, other aspirations of the people of the world. It is something India, the US, Canada, Britain ,Germany, France and other nations should adopt in the way Japan has done. India has taken up specific goals, clean India, clean water, electrification, and made it available to all 1.2 billion people, in its own version of SDG. Introduced into Japan by 2016, this badge is now so popular that there it is everywhere says this report in NYT. In children's playgrounds, in comic books, on NHK broadcaster's video with about 1 million views, on Buddhist temple websites, and used by businesses. In 2016 it was made official national policy by Mr Abe's government and a task force established on them by the government. In 2017 it was adopted to its charter by Keidanren, the business federation.  In the US very few know about S.D.G.'s but in community oriented Japan it has been taken up with zeal. It is part of the conversation and one survey shows 40% of Japanese business were working towards the goals in 2021. It has been adopted by Education Canada Network and it is a good way to bring this idea in education to schools and colleges in North America, Britain, EU, India and China, as well as Africa and Latin America, other parts of Asia. In India some of the SDG's are already the focus of campaigns by the Modi government Goal 0  Clean Nation one that has not been coined yet one that is called Clean India or Swacch Bharat Goal 1 Zero Hunger was taken up during the vaccination for covid campaign to get free foodgrains and vegetables to all 1.2 billion people. Goal 2  Clean Water and Sanitation or Har Ghar Jal getting clean tap water to all rural homes by 2024. Goal 3 Infrastructure, Industry, Exports Goal 4 Renewable Energy The sequence is different from the UN SDG's. The difference is it is a goal set for universal meaning everyone and delivery meaning by a specific date, and the priorities are set in the numbering. The Indian SDG campaigns under the Modi government and at federal and state levels are unprecedented in history for a population of this size, and now present a model for all nations in Asia, Africa, Latin America on how to go about doing the SDG's in practice. ...

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The Economist continues to advocate nationalization of American banks as the only meaningful and effective solution.

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Japnese exports dropped 45.7% in January from ayear earlier, resulting in 1$9.9 billion trade deficit. Exports to the USA dropped 52.9% in january from ayear earlier, exports to China dropped 45.1% and exports to Asia dropped 46.7% in January, over ayear earlier.