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Merkel expresses her support for Portugal during a meeting with prime minister Pedro Passos Coelho of Portugal in Lisbon on Nov. 11, 2012. In a news conference which was live on German television Merkel said: " I feel a great sense of determination here in Portugal to overcome this difficult phase." Recognizing the cost of austerity measures and spending cuts, the 16% unemployment rate, Merkel added: " I know that its very hard for some people. Unemployment is high, especially among young people. Consequently, Germany in particular wants to support Portugal through professional training for young people." The German chancellor is travelling with a German business delegation which is meeting with Portuguese executives to determine areas for German cooperation with Portugal to generate growth in the economy.

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Veterans of the Iraq conflict see a decade of efforts in Iraq being undone in 2014 with increasing sectarian conflict and the spillover from the war in Syria.

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By June 10, 2010, the Democratic Party of Japan has recovered in poll ratings with 60% ratings for the new premier Naoto Kan and the DPJ. Ratings for Mr Hatoyama had dropped to 20% by the time he resigned. Hatoyama resigned June 2, 2010.

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U.S. president Trump's statement calling for a list of goods for tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods leaves China without a clear response and facing new risks. The U.S. exports about $150 billion in goods to China so that China would have to impose penalties to respond at the same level. Placing restrictions on American firms on access to China's market, and imposing other penalties would have the effect of reinforcing the perception of unfair practices targeting American business and lead to hardening of U.S. response.  The U.S. sees itself as being in a better position with the U.S. economy experiencing a growth trend. China with large local government and bank debt faces a difficult situation. President Jinping's policy of reducing the risks of bad debt in the banking system involved sacrificing some growth to stabilize the system. China's GDP growth in 2017 was 6.9%, the target at 6.5%. Future targets and actual growth now look to be much lower.The trade war with the U.S. has the effect of dampening growth leading to calls for the central bank to loosen its monetary stance. In response to Trump's announcement the People's Bank of China pumped $31 billion into the nation's banks. China is studying Japan's response in the 1980's and 1990's when the U.S. took strong action against Japan's growing trade surplus. Japan responded by appreciating its currency and using stimulus to cushion the effect of lower exports on the economy. The stimulus led to the housing bubble and over time a period of low growth and stagnant economy. The large China stimulus in 2008-2009 has compounded the problems in the banking system. Not deleveraging and controlling financial risks in China's banking system because of the trade war would bring a new set of risks. ...

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One big concern says Nancy Keates of the WSJ about the National Association of Realtors, is that the organization collects and puts out objective data about home sales, and at the same time provides a commentary on the statistics. It also has a mission to advance the interests of its members. There are 2.6 million licensed real estate agents, and NAR represents about 1.3 million of these real estate agents. Would the real estate agents and the NAR tolerate an economist who raised concerns about the boom in lending? David Lereah, is former chief economist for the NAR ,and worked there from 2000 to April 2007. He remained upbeat throughout these years, even when the market was headed downwards. And the way he sees it he was doing for 7 years everything the NAR wanted him to do, and he was pressured to issue these upbeat reports. Critics called him "Baghdad Dave", after a Iraqi information minister for his false upbeat reports even when the war on the Iraqi side was lost. And a Credit Suisse analyst called him Liar-eah for some of these upbeat assesments, when things were clearly going wrong. The way Nancy Keates sees it this economist was eager to profit himself in the boom years. He was an economics Professor at Rutgers, at the University of Virginia, and later an economist and regulator at the Federal Deposit and Insurance Corporation. He himself bought condos 2 in Washington in 2003 and 2004, and one each in Tampa, Richmond, Va. and Alexandria, Va. and Naples, Florida. Owning by 2006 six condos worth between $150,000 and $400,000 a condo. He had an expensive lifestyle says his wife, with a big house worth $780,000, a country club, sports fishing boat. So in some ways suggests this reporter, he was caught up in the boom himself with his investments and the demands of a expensive lifestyle, with little room left for independent opinion and analysis. This is a striking example of things gone wrong, with all the meticulousness and comprehensiveness with which data is collected having its value destroyed by the lack of strict objectivity in the analysis. And the intrusion of strong personal interest bias in one direction making the destruction of objectivity complete. Looking at the economists at companies and associations, there is a subtle bias in operation that needs to be discounted by CEO's and association heads, a bias for giving the CEO's better and optimistic assessments on a consistent basis. An example is the way a large number of economists see the recovery taking place in 2009. Another related example is the sales forecasts for the Detroit auto companies that continued to assume sales in the 16-17 million a year rate into the latter half of 2008, even after the Bear Stearns collapse in March and the increasing foreclosures suggested something was amiss. All with horrendous consequences for the companies or industries involved, and the US and global economies....

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As the federal revenues rise to about 18.1% of GDP (close to historical rates after return to growth) and outlays to offset the effects of the 2008 recession diminishing, the deficit is forecast to drop to 3% of GDP in 2014, and 2.6% in 2015, close to the average for the last 40 years. The deficit is estimated to be total $514 billion for fiscal year 2014, declining from $1.4 trillion in 2009. Real GDP growth (adjusting for inflation) of 3% is forecast for 2014-2017. In 2018 and the years to 2024 the deficit will increase because the pace of growth slows, and spending will increase- slower growth of the labor force as the population ages, increasing health care costs, subsidies for health care, and increasing cost to service debt. Outlays other than for health care, Social Security and interest payments on debt for year 2016-2024, are set to be the lowest percentage of GDP since 1940, according to the CBO report in 2014. Debt will increase to 79% of GDP by 2024 from an estimate of 74% for 2014. CBO projects unemployment only slowly decreasing, remaining above 6% till late 2016, with the rate of participation in the labor force- lower now because many people have opted to not look for work discouraged by the job prospects- slow to recover....

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President Obama's proposal on Dec. 17, 2012, in the fiscal cliff negotiations sets the figure at which Bush era tax cuts are permandently extended at $400,000 instead of the $250,000 in earlier proposals. Speaker Boehner's Republican proposal was for a figure of $1 million. The $400,000 proposal would mean that the top tax bracket of 35% would increase to 39.6%. Currently the tax rate increases to 35% from 33% at the cutoff point of $388,500. The White House plan now cuts spending by $1.22 trillion over 10 years. $800 billion comes from cuts to programs, with half of these cuts in federal health care programs, $200 billion in programs like farm price supports, $100 billion in military spending, and $100 billion in other domestic programs over which Congress has control. The White House proposal also supports additional spending on infrastructure, extension of expiring unemployment benefits, protection of "vulnerable populations" such as the disabled and wounded veterans on Supplemental Social Security benefits in inflation calculations, and permanently stop expansion of the alternative minimum tax affecting the middle class. On business investment the president's proposal would make permanent the credit for corporate research and development....

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This piece by Cambanis in the NYT shows how even Syrian Free Army soldiers have switched sides to join the ISIS extremist Sunni militia. Sheikh Hassan a Syrian Free Army brigade leader describes the case of Mustafa who switches sides for a higher salary wih ISIS. ISIS gave Mustafa triple his salary at the Free Syrian Army - increasing it to $400. In a region with many unemployed youth the ISIS pays salaries for joining, and taps Sunni frustrations in Iraq, with money raising and financing capabilities a critical part of the organization's capabilities. A piece by Nordland shows how the ISIS's crude but effective money raising uses taxes and other illicit ways to increase revenues. This provides a unique insight into what is happening in Iraq and Syria after the failure of the U.S. to effecively support the Free Syrian Army and moderate groups in Syria, the premature withdrawal from Iraq, and the frustrations of Sunnis built up under the government of prime minister Maliki openly favoring Shiites. This has provided an opening for extremist groups in the region, and created more tangles for the Obama administration as its policies to distance itself from the region have not let it extricate itself from the U.S.'s important role in the region. The vacuum created by these policies has been filled by extremist organizations and created about 2 million refugees- a large humanitarian crisis and undone years of effort by U.S. soldiers in Iraq. ...

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Stamouli and Walker of WSJ describe the last days of negotiations in June before Greece pulled out its negotiating team, and German chancellor Merkel decided to call off the bailout of Greece. The impasse was over pension cuts and vaue added taxes, yet the negotiations were still going over details when Tsipras pulled out Greece's negotiating team with the surprise announcement of a referendum on July 5, 2015. By saying the Syriza party would call for a "no" vote Tsipras alienated public opinion in Germany. Chancellor Merkel seeing the shift in domestic opinion favoring Greece's exit from the euro during the tense months of negotiations with the Syriza government and acrimonious charges, moved to call off a continued EU bailout of Greece.

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Bruni on the view that Obama has squandered his advantages of oratorical transcendence, poetry, serious thoughtfulness, in the U.S. presidential election of 2012. He does not mention the lack of a serious plan to turn the economy around, high rate of joblessness and declining incomes that are a basic issue in the 2012 election, and how oratorical transcendence has little correlation with getting the right policies implemented. The Des Moines Register's support in 2008 put Obama on the road to the presidency in 2008 with a victory in the Iowa primary. In 2012 it gave its endorsement to Romney to give him a chance to correct the problems with the economy and to do this with a new effort to forge the bipartisan consensus missing in the Obama first term.

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Maleeha Lodhi, a former Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. and Britain, has edited a collection of essays in a new book titled- Pakistan: Beyond the "Crisis State." It tries to form a new construct to move the debate on Pakistan into a future in which Pakistan can exist as a "normal country" free of a paranoia about India that affects its outlook, and free from the military connections that have shifted the focus from development that a friendly neighborly coexistence with India would provide. Intriguing essays include one by Saadat Hasa Manto who goes back to 1951, when the Cold War was at its peak and the U.S. formed a relationship with Pakistan based on military assistance, with only small fraction of aid going into development programs. Syed Rifaat Hussain, professor of strategic studies at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad puts it directly: Pakistan needs to become a normal state and the only way to to do this is for the rivalry and obsession with India to be resolved and put behind it. As it now stands the U.S., India and Pakistan all stand to gain tremendously in such an outcome- the U.S. disengagement from Afghanistan and the Taliban because at its core the Taliban issue goes back to the Pakistan rivalry with India, Pakistan and India because it puts the focus on development, infrastructure building, and economic gains....