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Romney emphasizes that he supports some of the popular parts of the Obama Healthcare Law such as coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. He tells voters he got everybody in his state insured. He also says there will not be a huge cut in taxes that would worsen the deficit. He would close loopholes and deductions to offset any deductions as shown by his advisor Harvard economist Martin Feldstein. The idea is to get a message across that will resonate with women, minorities, the middle class, workers, and business- the 100%, something he is able to do with some credibility having come from Massachusetts, a liberal state in the eastern United States.

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The Editorial Board of the Washington Post on the challenges facing Mario Monti, the new prime minister, and the Italian people in 2012-2015.

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Over the last ten years average growth in real per capita income has averaged 1.6%, with declines only in two years of the last twenty years, 2008 with the global financial crisis, and in 1991 a year before President George H.W. Bush lost the election to Clinton. A forecast by Mark Zandl of Moody's Economy.com shows real disposable income per capita is expected to increase by 0.4% by the end of the third quarter of 2010 from a year earlier. This will show up in consumer spending and will weaken the recovery. It is also likely to be reflected in elections in the latter part of 2010.

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AT&T had 4.3 million iPhone activations in the first quarter of 2012, down 43% from the prior quarter. Of the most valuable subscribers who signed up for 2 years AT&T showed 187,000 additions. All but 7000 of these were in tablets. . This indicates that the smartphone market in the U.S. is being saturated. AT&T used the iPhone introduction in 2007 as a way to take subscribers from Verizon and Sprint. That advantage is now fading.

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The exit of Greece from the eurozone would cost Germany $127 billion or 3% of GDP, according to economists at a German bank. Francois Baroin, departing finance minister of France, estimated the cost for France to be $50 billion, or 3% of GDP. The costs in terms of disorderly exit in how it impacts Spain and Italy in financial markets is less certain.

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The Post's Lally Weymouth interviews Enrique Pena Nieto, leading presidential candidate in Mexico. Nieto discusses the war on drug cartels. He says his government is commited to continuing the fight, but says Calderon's strategy has not worked, and the need now is for reducing the rising level of crime. Nieto's priorities are to open up the economy to competition by reducing the power of the monopolies and oligarchs, reduce poverty by providing social security to all Mexicans, increasing private investment in Pemex, and increasing the taxpayer base to finance new investment and programs.

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Forsythe describes the process by which the Chief Executive is elected in Hong Kong from a group of 1200 individuals mostly pro-business and loyal to Beijing. This was done under the Basic Law drafted in 1990, a mini-constitution that was the basis of transfer from Britain to China in 1997. In 2007 China's People's Congress promised Hong Kong a "one man, one vote" election for 2017. On August 31, 2014 changes were made to this planned election process to limit candidates to persons approved by Beijing, that was considered unacceptable by the protestors from civil society and the universities.

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Entous, Malas and Abushakra of the WSJ give a detailed account of the series of smaller chemical attacks that ended with this large attack in the suburbs of Damascus in August 2013, the actions of key participants, and the responses of the global community.

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A good sign that the Obama adminstration sees the importance of cutting civilan deaths from American airpower, is the effort by the American Ambassador to personally meet with the civilans affected and their families to express his pain at the tragedy. Without civilan support the Afghan war against the Taliban may well be lost in the vast mountainous country, a country and a people, like most countries and people, with an aversion for foreign troops.

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Greg Mortenson runs 78 schools in remote poor areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan on a budget of $2.8 millioon he raises through small donations to his foundation, the Central Asia Institute. The Pentagon is listening to Mortenson and he has met privately with Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. THe military has specially sought him out. And General Petraeus has read his book Three Cups of Tea and passed it on to his staff for reading. He also has been asked to speak with senior officers of the Special Operations Command. Greg Mortenson believes getting amoderate education for these children is the best way to prevent the spread of Islamic extremism. In addition to the 78 schools he also runs 48 other schools in refugee camps in the region and 28,000 children in the 2 countries attend Mortenson's schools. In atalk to the Pentagon uniformed officers in 2002 he told them that the $840,000 spent on each of the Tomahawk cruise missiles fired into Afghanistan could have been used to build dozens of schools. He asked them which would you think will make us more secure? ...

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The trial of Tian Wenhua, of a large dairy company in China, for failing to monitor the safety of baby milk powder, and covering up knowledge that dairy products contained impermissible amounts of melamine. The problem of milk powder tainted by addition of melamine chemical to watered down product to falsely raise protein count has been found to be widespread in China. About 300,000 children were sickened by the formula leading to 6 deaths. Tian and three other Sanlu executives are on trial. Tian says she knew about the contaminated milk powder in May 2008 but did not alert officials till August. By that time Sanlu had made 900 tons of the contaminated powder. Executives at Fonterra Group of New Zealand, which owns a large stake in Sanlu, came to know of the problem and insisted Sanlu make a recall. China's effort to bring western companies like Smithfield Foods to enter China's pork industry is part of the effort to build safety and credibility into food products sold in China.

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Proof that this is not an ordinary deep recession like those in the post war period comes in the way foreign trade is reacting in this downturn. Already evidence of this has been seen in the way Germany has been affected because of slowing exports from China to the US. German exports to China have declined as the Chinese export model comes under severe stress. A similiar situation is playing out for Japan. Now new proof of the drop in foreign trade is emerging in Commerce Department figures. Combined exports and imports of the USA dropped 18% in 4 months July to November, to $326 billion from $398 billion. Two thirds of this drop was in imports. So China and Japan's exports to the USA are severely affected. Japan showed a 27% decline in exports in November, according to the Japanese Ministry of Finance, and imports dived 14%. According to calculations by the WSJ, Germany had 11.8% decline in foreign trade in November, and similiar numbers for France and Britain. Chief US Economist at IHS Global Insight, Nigel Gault, says this is going to be the worst global recession since World War II. Combined with what is happening to inventories, (see links) and what is happening in housing, banking, the auto industry, and other industries, the complications of non-transparent packaged financial products clogging the American financial system, the hugely indebted consumer (see links), and the $2.1 trillion and rising cost of the stimulus and bailouts needed by one estimate, suggest that the recovery forecast for 2009-2010 does not take into account all these simultaneously occurring patterns and developments working together. ...

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Reducing inequality and giving labor a larger share of national income to increase consumer demand, allowing more immigration, and targeting a higher inflation rate are unconventional measures necessary to increase growth as monetary policy reaches the limit of its effectiveness at near zero interest rates, says Galston. Growth in U.S. since 2000 is about 1.8% annually on average compared to 3.6% in the postwar years to 2000. Growth since 2000 rarely reaches 3% a year. Robert Gordon has pointed out the factors of a slowdown in mass education, rapidly aging population, rising inequality and increasing public debt as reasons for slower growth in the future. Glaeser and Summers also support this view. There is also the possibility that the secular stagnation idea suggested by Hansen in 1938 after years of low growth, comes at a point when growth is about to pick up pace as happened during and after the war.

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Whats happening at design schools in Paris like the Creapole, where masters students are experimenting with new designs of vehicles with making as small a carbon footprint as possible as a startingpoint for all design. And whats happening at other design schools in Brussels and Tokyo.

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Think BIG America, Reagan-Friedman theory that says government is best kept out leaves the Nation with hobbled dilapidated infrastructure.  New York City languishes in crisis with decades of neglect of its subway system modernization, the failure of the congestion pricing scheme puts the city in dire straits. Even Mumbai, India, where no subway system existed is getting a new subway. We show the Erie Canal as part of the DNA of America, to think big and move at the forefront of the first Industrial Revolution. It was built in 7 years from 1818 to 1825 for $7 million and opened up the vast hinterland of New York State- Rochester, Buffalo on Lake Erie, Schenectady- and connected it by navigable waterway with locks to the Hudson river at Albany and on to New York City and the Atlantic. On May 13, 1954 Republican president Eisenhower signed the Seaway Act and authorized construction of the St Lawrence Seaway with Canada at cost of $C135 million with 22,000 workers.The US Army Corps of engineers began construction of the US section in 1957 and completed it by 1959 for oceangoing ships to navigate the St. Lawrence River from Duluth in Minnesota and Milwaukee to Quebec and on to Montreal and the Atlantic. These are the projects that built the Midwest and Northeastern states, and Quebec.  ...