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Corruption in the election and democratic process in India.

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A report published by Capital Economics of Toronto, based on Labor Department data, shows the U.S. is not adding the kinds of jobs with the pay, benefits and hours of the 8.75 million jobs that disappeared during the recession. Labor Department data support this analysis. The number of food preparation and serving workers are expected to grow by 394,000 by 2018, but the pay is only $16,430 for these jobs. The good well paying jobs are continuing to be lost. Large employers such as Lowe's home improvement chain is eliminating 1700 managers, and adding 10,000 weekend sales positions and new assistant store manager positions. This use of parttime workers also reduces income levels of workers. The impact of this is to limit the consumer spending. As local government is shrinking from budget cuts, better paying jobs are being lost in state and local government, and workers are earning less in the new jobs that do similiar work.

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The Aam Aadmi anti-corruption party led by Arvind Kejrival won 67 of 70 seats for the Delhi legislative assembly. The BJP won 3 seats. In the natonal parliamentary elections of 2014 the BJP led by Mr. Modi won in Delhi and the rest of the country. The Aadmi Party won the election by gaining the votes of ordinary people who were willing to give Kejrival another chance after an earlier stint at governing that lasted a few months. Kejrival's platform is for giving better access to electricity and water to the people of Delhi, and limiting corruption. In 2011-2012 Kejrival was part of the Anna Hazare anti-corruption movement in India that conducted nationwide protests against corrupt officials in the Congress Party led government. Following this effort which led to the election losses of the Congress Party in parliamentary elections, he setup a political party to contest elections on an anti-corruption platform.

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Germany's calls for closer political and fiscal union for the eurozone countries to complement and support the euro currency arrangement. German chancellor Merkel calls it "more Europe," "step by step." It all hinges on French president Hollande and how well the Socialist party does in the elections to the National Assembly on June 10 and June 17, 2012. If he does well and gets a working majority with other like minded parties he will not need the support of parties that are opposed to giving up sovereignty. Hollande's mentor is Jacques Delors, a former president of the European Commission and a strong supporter of the idea of European Union. England under the Conservatives remains Euro-skeptic. France and Germany were driven closer by the idea of European Union by necessity, because of history and three wars. The European Union had strong support after 1945 from French and German leaders, Monnet and Adenauer, who struggled with political opposition but won over skeptics, with the process continued by German chancellor Kohl, a mentor of Angela Merkel....

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A Syrian opposition group describes the mislabeling of opposition groups in Syria by the Obama administration.

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India's inflation rate declined to 4.4% in Nov. 2014 and 5% in Dec. 2014. Price pressures are moderating throughout the economy. With lower oil prices in 2015 and long term trend for lower prices the outlook has improved for controlling inflation. The central bank governor Rajan cut rates by one quarter of a percentage point in Jan. 2015 and indicated further rate cuts are ahead to boost economic growth. The financial markets reflect a 1% decline in interest rates and the stock markets were up 2% in Jan. 2015

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Estimates show the 50 million Americans enrolled in Medicare today will increase to 80 million by 2030, according to the program's actuaries. Simple demographics as the baby boom generation ages is making controlling the deficit without controlling increase in health care costs as both sides in the fiscal cliff negotiations are attempting to do can only lead to defunding critical areas such as education, R&D and infrastructure, and breaching the safety net for lower income Americans. Health care spending took up 7% of GDP in 1960, increasing to 17.9% of GDP in 2010. Federal spending on healthcare has grown to about 25% in 2012 from 10% in 1960, and is projected to increase to about 33% in ten years by the Congressional Budget Office.

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Samuelson points to the risks to the American economic growth from excessive health care costs. This is hurting take home pay and shows up in consumer spending. It is hurting government spending in other areas such as needed infrastructure spending and efforts to reduce the deficit. This hurts private capital investment to create jobs because of lower demand from constricted consumer spending. The U.S. budget has as its largest single expense 27% on health care compared to 20% on defense the next largest expense, with growth in health care spending taking this to one third of the budget in coming years. Without addressing health care, says Samuelson, the Supercommitte in Congress even if successful at deficit reduction will basically have failed to do its job, and it did not have the time, resources or conviction to do this. According to a new study from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), U.S. healthcare spending per person is $7,960 per person in 2009. This compares with Norway $5,352, Britain $3,487, France $3, 978, an OECD average of $3,233. Life expectancy in the U.S. is 78.2 years, compared to Japan 83 years, OECD average of 79.5 years. Chile and the Czech Republic have life expectancy equal to the U.S. Except for cancer care where the five year survival rate is 89.3% in the U.S. and the OECD average is 83.5%, the U.S. lags far behind in much needed critical areas such as diabetes and asthma. Rates of emergency hospitalization for asthma are 3 times that in France and 6 times that in Germany and Italy. The U.S. has fewer doctors per thousand population and higher cost per medical procedure- with more frequent use of the costliest procedures- creating a supply shortage that induces higher prices, and less preventive and early action care through physician visits. The number of practicing U.S. doctors is 2.4 per thousand population in the U.S. compared to 3.1 per thousand for the OECD average; and number of annual doctor consultations 3.9 per capita in the U.S. versus 6.5 for the OECD average. Appendectomy cost $7,962 in the U.S., $5,004 in Canada and $2,943 in Germany. Coronary angioplasty cost $14,378 in the U.S., compared to $9,296 in Sweden, and $7,027 in France. Knee replacement cost $14,946 in the U.S., $12,424 in France, and $9,910 in Canada. Knee replacements, angioplasties and MRI exams are twice as common in the U.S. compared to the OECD countries. ...

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The shooting of former deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov, a leader of the opposition in Russia, in Red Square, Moscow, on Feb. 28, 2015.

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Jeremy Stein tells Eisinger that it is important for the Fed to recognize when a bubble is taking place and take action including jawboning and regulatory action to limit bubble behaviour in capital markets. Fed chairman Yellen did this for social media stocks and bio tech sector stocks in 2014 by pointing out that that the rise in stock prices were excessive, resulting in a pullback.

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Krugman reflects on the discontent in Europe reflected in anti-EU opinion at the time of the elections to the European parliament in 2014.

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Krugman points to the low productivity improvement in the U.S. since 2005, and looks at the nature of tech changes since 2005 with products from Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and other companies targeted more at consumers than at the core industrial economy. Listening to my favorite music or using smartphones does not add to productivity in the same way that changes in an earlier period improved productivity. Low productivity improvement hurts workers in the U.S., Britain and in the eurozone, as this is holding back growth in wages. Figures actually show a further deceleration in productivity since 2010 to a mere 0.3% annual growth in the U.S., from 1.3% since 2005, and 2.9% for the period from 1995 to 2005.

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Krugman comments on Governor Jindal's remarks at a post election Republican gathering. Jindal told Republican leaders: "We must not be the party that simply protects the well off so they can keep their toys. We have to be the party that shows all Americans how they can thrive." Jindal's policies do not match this rhetoric, says Krugman. He cites Jindal's push to eliminate the state income tax in Louisiana and make up lost revenue by increasing sales taxes, which fall more heavily on the middle class and poor.

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November 2012 light vehicle sales of cars and light trucks shows sales up significantly for Honda at 39%, Toyota 17%, and sales at Ford up 3%, GM 6%. GM decides to reduce production and not reduce prices with incentives that match competitors. VW sales increased 29%, Audi 24%, Daimler 13%, and BMW up 45%. Experts expect the better conditions in the U.S. auto market to continue especially as many cars that reach a life of 11 years need to be replaced. Light vehicle sales reach 1.14 million in Nov. 2012, up 15% over the prior year, and seasonally adjusted auto sales of 15.5 million are the highest since Jan 2008, according to Autodata Corp.

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German perceptions of Mikhail Gorbachev are shown here in DW.com. He is revered in Germany because of Gorbachev's efforts to end Soviet rule in East German state called the GDR, leading to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Gorbachev supported German reunification but did not do this is in a way that ensured that ordinary Russians and citizens of the GDR could make the transition to democratic processes in a smooth way. He also failed to grasp that economic transition could be difficult and would require extensive aid and grants from the west, and that safeguards and protections for retired pensioners and vulnerable sections of society needed to be in place. The following is a reflection of the background in political government and economy of the events in Europe leading to the war in Ukraine.  As a result Gorbachev's instincts were right by first 1956 as a student, and then 1979 as government official about the need for democratic processes to realize the real potential of Russia, just as has happened in many countries that lacked these processes for change in government- Japan, Germany, South Korea, India, Brazil and many countries in Asia and Latin America. But not realizing that these countries made the transition with considerable American and British assistance. Even where there was no direct assistance indirectly the British setup the first limited Swaraj or free rule in India, with elections and elected assemblies in Indian states in the 1930's, following the pattern in Dominion states Australia and Canada. Mohandas Gandhi negotiated within these processes for rights of South African Indians and Colored people, gaining experience, including study of British law.  A son of poor farmers in the agricultural region of North Caucasus, in Stavropol, it is relevant today that his maternal grand parents were from Chernihiv in Ukraine. He came to power in 1980 after entering the Politburo that year. These were the waning years of Leonid Brezhnev, president of the Soviet Union who followed Nikita Khrushchev (1953- 1964). Khrushchev was from eastern Ukrainian region near Donetsk. Leonid Brezhnev was a protege of Krushchev since 1931, from Kamianske, Ukraine.   Gorbachev was influenced by Khrushchev's speech that denounced Stalin in 1956 in favor of a freer and more open society. Khrushchev, became first secretary of the Communist party in 1953 after the death of Stalin and set the pace of post war Soviet society from 1950 to 1964. He removed the fear of the dictatorship of the proleteriat working class, increasingly dictatorial under Lenin, and blatantly arbitrary under his successor to make Soviet Union a freer society.  Yet his tendency to make decisions on his own without consulting others, and the failure of agriculture in the Soviet Union including food shortages led to his replacement by his protege Brezhnev. Brezhnev's whole career was built under Krushchev in Ukraine, in the army in Ukraine, and as a political leader in the Soviet 18th Army that entered Prague in 1945 defeating the Nazis. Why is this relevant? Gorbachev was educated at Moscow State University when the Soviet Union was in the Sputnik era, and felt at the time that it could reach the 1950's standard of living in the US- very different from the earlier leaders. Yet he may have been too much of an optimist and not hands on in understanding the working of a modern economy as large as Russia and the interests of different groups of society that had to be be balanced and protected. His understanding of the US and of how the US and British economies had evolved was limited or nonexistent. The isolation of the Soviet period may have compounded this. The Russian state in the Soviet Union could not simply unwind the power of the state and its intervention and everything would come out right of its own accord.   Leonid Brezhnev, the Ukrainian Russian who succeeded Krushchev from 1964 to 1979 let the system of Soviet rule remain as it was, in the Great Stagnation, leading to lethargy, lack of innovation, and a weak economy with military expansion. Gorbachev tried to regenerate the system by opening it up, but failed to see that there was a risk that it could come apart quickly as it did in just 4 years after he became president in 1985. Only the centralized power of the state had kept the Russian state together from the Tsarist period through the Communist period. The risks of this Gorbachev failed to grasp. What if it happened too quickly without a safety net for the people who could not make the transition. What lawlessness and failure of the rule of law could happen. The US and Britain had evolved their democracies over centuries. Wars were fought in the US and Britain over rights and responsibilities of kings and parliaments. In the US Lincoln fought the civil war not just for emancipation but to ensure safeguards for free white men on the farms so that Labor did not get disabilities placed on them by Capital (entrenched forces of Capital of which the southern plantation economy was only one aspect.)  Japan and Germany were set up as democratic states through American power and constitutional frameworks with Marshall Plans or agreement to take in unlimited imports from Japan. This bad scenario happened in Russia because Gorbachev failed to set the conditions first and work patiently to achieve them including introducing limited  elections and parliamentary processes first in Russia.  Leaders such as Yeltsin who succeeded Gorbachev in 1989, winning the elections that followed, failed to provide a safety net for the vulnerable in the 1980's. Unemployment increased rapidly, life expectancy dropped in Russia, and the economy failed in the early years after 1980. A Marshall Plan like that offered to Germany could have helped but Gorbachev's failure may have been his failure to provide this transition by arranging for West Germany and the US to support a planned transition, a kind of Marshall Plan of Aid, and maintaining a gradual move to democracy as the country was given time to learn institutions of American and British parliamentary democracy. No such Marshall Plan was negotiated for a smooth transition over inevitable obstacles, no safeguards were put in place for illegal efforts to control the state by rogue elements and to seize assets of state companies, no efforts to first introduce limited elections and parliamentary processes for learning democratic process in Russia, and the people of Russia were left with a memory of the this period as a bad lawless period from 1989 to 2005.  Leading to the situation today under Putin of aspiring to the Soviet period as a kind of period that had offered Russia the world recognition it had lost. And this had happened even though the Russian economy had recovered and the standard of living had risen under Putin. Putin's career spanned the period as a Russian official in Dresden, Germany Democratic Republic or Soviet period East Germany to working in the St Petersburg City Council under Yeltsin. He personally witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the German Democratic Republic from Dresden and Gorbachev's refusal to build a transition period for the changes so that it would not be traumatic for the GDR. Even after reunification these traumas remain in some segments of the older population in East Germany that saw themselves as neglected and support extreme right wing parties in eastern German states by 2020- considering the Soviet period as one in which their lives were less neglected.  After three terms as president Putin with his own traumas from that period in Dresden, and with a mother lost in the period after the Nazi invasion of Russia, a father who survived the Battle of Stalingrad, saw the period of lawless behaviour in the collapse of the Soviet Union as the"greatest geopolitical disaster of the century."  Putin and people around him made missteps and miscalculations launching a war in Ukraine, leading to the situation today- jeopardizing hard won gains for the Russian economy. By 2022 Russian standards of living had risen and the economy was in the best shape it had been in the modern period since the Industrial Revolution. Yet largely exposed because of the dependence on oil and gas during a period of climate change and focus on building future economies free of fossil fuels.  Putin in his own peculiar logic may have seen this as the only opportunity in 2022 before deliinking from fossil fuel reduced the importance of the Russian fuel dependent economy to make some territorial readjusments in Ukraine with a quick war taking Kviv. That turned into a massive miscalculation with the emergence of nationalist fervor in western Ukraine spreading to the whole country of 40 million people. In the future to 2030 with phasing out of the fossil fuel economy, Russia without the connections to the US and European Union's technology and resources it had during Putin's three terms, and facing strict sanctions from US and EU, faces a difficult future. This has cautionary lessons for all countries- the US that read too much into the fall of the Berlin wall and indulged in a losing proposition with free markets that damaged its infrastructure and manufacturing with shifts to China, China understanding of how it to was dependent on the world economy for its future development, India that had to navigate a difficult period and what lessons to draw for building a bigger economy, the EU realizing the failure of its policies of depending on Russia for energy and China for manufacturing with fragile supply chains,  and Russia that there were twists and turns and the need for safeguards and experience building democratic processes before these processes would work for the economy, its people and for Russia as a nation. ...

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Ajami cites his own memories of Egypt's Gamal Abdul Nasser, who had a way with crowds and rhetoric in the Arab world, as giving him an insight into the way Barack Obama found his way into the American imagination as a popular leader in 2008. He points out that the coalition of black people who put their faith in him as one of their own, of white educated professionals who liked his cool image, of Hispanics who had hope for better immigration policies, and working class Americans who set aside reservations of elitism to give their support, was put together on the basis of hope and charisma and the uncanny ability of Obama to let himself be seen as all things to all people. Because of the way it was put together it was bound to come apart, particularly for a candidate without enough experience, says Ajami. The aloofness of the president, reliance on Congressional leaders Reid and Pelosi, and relying on a very small circle of advisors whose eyes were focussed on reelection, made this more so. He cites as one example, the controversial decision on Syria's chemical weapons made on a walk with chief of staff Dennis McDonough. Ajami gives a picture of how Obama may be seen from the outside, especially in the Arab and Muslim world- from Turkey and Egypt to Saudi Arabia- a sense of illusions. A European and particularly a German perspective also may have similiar sense of illusions about having gone for the ride and believing the image put out by image handlers. The lack of sensitivity to German sentiments about the tapping of chancellor Merkel's mobile phone- herself a former East German resident of the Soviet backed GDR- bringing this out. A similiar sense seems to have taken hold in Brazil, after Brazilian president Rousseff cancelled a trip because of lack of sensitivity to the tapping of her phone, as she is a survivor of brutal dictatorships in Brazil. This is ironically a full circle, as happens in these situations of euphoria encouraged by politicians inevitably followed by disillusionment, because Turkey, Germany and Brazil were some of the countries where enthusiasm for the new president was highest. More so because president Lula of Brazil, Merkel of Germany,and Erdogan of Turkey were leaders Obama seemed to relate to the most. This acts as a cautionary note for the future....

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Some startling statistics on U.S. wages and incomes and the increase of part-time workers, by the publisher of U.S. News and World Report, Mortimer Zuckerman. He cites the Pew Research Center reports that show one third of Americans identifying themeselves as lower class or lower middle class compared to one quarter before 2008. This affects social mobility with the increasing gaps in incomes, education and social behaviour acting to reinforce each other and leading to even lower future mobility. Industries that are showing growth are in low wage occupations. The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows growth in future in industries noted for low wage part time work- health care, social assistance and retail, with some jobs lacking minimum wage and overtime protections. Revealing in this respect is that in the last 2 years fully 43% of net employment growth is in the 1.7 million jobs added in low wage work in food service, retail and employment services industries. The number of Americans working full time declined by 5.9 million since Sept 2007, part time workers increased by 2.6 million. The effects of higher part time workers and job recovery predominantly in lower wage industries is likely to affect consumer spending and slow growth....