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The Christian Democrats (CDP) under Angela Merkel received only 23% of the vote in the 2011 Berlin elections. The Free Democrat party (FDP) with 2% of the vote did not reach the 5% threshhold for seats in the Berlin legislature. This was the fifth time the FDP failed to win enough votes to get seats in the regional parliaments. This endangers the CDP-FDP coalition. The FDP campaigned against Merkel's policy of financial support for Greece. The Social Democrats support the euro currency union and issuance of euro bonds, which suggests voters are not choosing parties based on opposition to bailouts of troubled European Union countries. The Social Democrats-Green coalition will have a majority in the state legislature, as the Greens won 18% of the vote. The Pirate party of internet free-speech activists and leftist voters dissatisfied with existing parties were expected to win 9% of the vote, which is a first for regional parliaments for a party of this type. Some of this vote could have increased the Greens vote....

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Monica Langley provides an excellent account of how U.S. Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, is using the $100 billion from the Stimulus funds in the 2009 Recovery Act to implement the Common Core education program in U.S. states and districts. Common Core is about raising student math and reading scores and standards, and implementing teacher evaluations based on test scores to make teachers accountable. This is the one significant area in which the Obama administraton in the U.S. is likely to leave a valuable legacy. Republicans in Tennessee, including Lamar Alexander, have embraced the program, showing how Duncan is using his persuasion skills to speed up the implementation across political party lines in a period of strong partisan feelings about programs. When governors have hesitated, Duncan has gone straight to the school districts using the funding. Teachers union say the program is moving too fast as evaluations would affect teacher careers, and Duncan agreed to a one year reprieve on the consequences of new teacher evaluations for states applying for an extension. This makes Duncan uncomfortable. He says he has only three and a half years left and he is going tooo slow. Business leaders such as P&G CEO, Robert McDonald, say the only political party they have is their educated workforce. Duncan has persuaded 40 states in the U.S. to sign up for higher standards in reading and math. Democrats see the Duncan initiative as helping poorer schools, which is also important to reduce the increasing inequality in the U.S. Since 2008 high school graduation rates increased by 3 percentage points, with a 5 point gain for black students and a 7 point gain for Hispanic students. After $4 billon in new funding to low performing schools, so called "dropout factories," the number of such schools has declined to 1424 from 1746. Teachers unions are only gradually adjusting to the need for accountability in math and reading scores. Duncan's father was a psychology professor at the University of Chicago, and Duncan grew up in Chicago neighborhoods before attending Harvard and playing for the basketball team. Duncan tutored younger school students in the afternoon at his mother's after school program in a black neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago. In 2001 he was made the head of the Chicago public school system by Mayor Daley, where he took action to shut down poorly performing schools and reopening them with new staff. All the time he pushed for greater parental choice, charter schools, new teacher talent and using data to track school and student performance. ...

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A Tax Policy Center study (joint project of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Insitute) shows $157 billion would be generated in the first year from an increase in taxes on the top 1% of income earners in the U.S., about 1.13 million households earning average $2.1 million, by increasing the federal tax rate from current 33.4% for this group to 40%. This could pay for a program to provide tution free education in America's colleges and universities. Even increasing the federal tax to 40% on the 115,000 households earning over $9.4 million on average, the top 0.1% of American households, would generate $55 billion in the first year, enough to pay for the $47 billion cost of tution free education at all of America's public colleges and universities, according to the Tax Policy Center. Economists including Stiglitz and others, point to significant impact of revenue generated from such a tax when applied to improving educational opportunity for the middle class and lower income groups. Education is a great leveler of income disparities as seen in the U.S. after World War II. During recent decades the highest income groups weren major beneficiaries of tax and economic policy, at the very time the middle class and factory workers were hit hard by global competition which lowered wages and exported jobs. The interest rate policies of the Fed after boom bust cycles also favored large investors in equity markets over smaller income earners with savings account deposits, whose savings experienced little growth under interest rates close to zero. ...

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Earnings of the typical American man working full-time year round declined in 2010, and is now in inflation adjusted terms below the level in 1978, according to the U.S. Census Department. The income of a typical Ameircan family has declined for three consecutive years and is now at $49,445 for 2010. This is the level reached in inflation adjusted terms in 1996. 15.1% of the American people lived below the poverty line in 2010, and 22% of children lived below the poverty line. The poverty line is set at $22,314 for a family of four in 2010. Statisics from the U.S. Census Department.

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Daniel Altman's proposal for a tax on wealth over $1 million. He makes the case for taxing wealth not incomes to reduce inequality as this is where the situation in terms of inequality has worsened for the U.S. in recent decades. To support this proposal Altman cites the change in the U.S. Ginni coefficient, which measures inequality. The Ginni coefficient is anumber from 0 to 100 which goes up with higher income inequality. From the late 70's to the 1990's, the Cnesus Bureau showed this to be in the low 40's. By 1992 the Ginni coefficient went up to the mid-70's, according to the Federal Reserve data. It increased to about 80 in 2010. In 1992 the top 10% in the U.S. population controlled 20 times the wealth of the bottom 50%. By 2010 this figure triples to 65 times. and the graduated income tax even if it redistributes a small share of the wealth does little to affect the trend of wealth extremes from building up and threatening the social fabric of America, reducing mobility and opportunities for the bottom 50% to unprecedented levels since the 1950's. ...

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By acquiring Vodafone Japan Softbank CEO Son brought competition to the industry and challenged the duopoly of DocoMo and KDD telecom providers. After acquiring Sprint Son is taking a hands on approach to shakeup management at the company, which has lagged behind T-Mobile in building its subscriber base. After years of losses Sprint now faces the prospect of a complete makeover from the old way of doing things. Sprint is based in Overland, Kansas. Son says Sprint is like Japanese lords in feudal Japan who controlled everything in their lands, and said Sprint is a Kansas Daimyo. Masayoshi Son has asked executives to fire all the ad agencies and start over, at one point asking executives if they were stupid. Son has established shadow offices at San Carlos, California to monitor weekly progress at Sprint.

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Even with the growth strategies of the Abe administration in 2014, projections of the IMF show growth rate for Japan are at 1.0% for 2015, compared to 3% for the U.S., 2.5% for UK, and 1.6% for Germany. The Third Arrow in prime minister Abe's Three Arrows program now follows the implementation of the other two Arrows- monetary easing and public works spending. Abe is faced with the task of convincing foreign and domestic investors that he can implement a winning growth strategy for Japan. The plan announced in June 2014 is an effort to overcome barriers to growth with a strategy that will work. The core of the plan is to cut the corporate tax rate from 35.64% to below 30% in the next couple of years. The corporations are expected to do their part to improve corporate governance and return on equity, so that shareholders, domestic and foreign investors, have more incentives to invest in the Japanese stock market. Analysts and economists say this plan has attractive features. It asks Japanese companies to increase ROE and ROI to global levels through a Tokyo Stock Exchange corporate governance code. Companies listed on TSE and not following the code will have to come up with reasons why they are failing to do so. Some analysts say this would increase the value of companies. Companies are more likely to make investments with cash that is not being invested. The plan includes measures for bringing more women into the workforce, which is seen as a serious committment to women. In addition to increasing the number of child care centers, this plan includes tax revisions that benefit women joining the workforce. Increased representation for women at the executive level is also part of this plan. Hiroshige Seko, a top adviser to Abe, says importance was given to execution for results, so that a score of 80 with definite results was preferred to an uncertain attempt to get a 100. To do this some compromises were made. The plan for special economic zones is still in the drafting stage as discussion is just beginning. A shakeup of the Central Union of Agricultural Cooperatives and more flexible medical care will be taken up gradually. The efforts to increase ROI, ROE, and improve corporate governance were initiated from the time of the Koizumi administration, and the latest plan may bring results after over a decade of effort in this direction....

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Raising the minimum wage makes sense because it is low and has not caught up with inflation. In real terms it is lower today than in the 1960's, even though productivity has doubled, which is why it makes sense. Economic sudies show that it is not likely to reduce jobs.

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O'Malley, Sanders, and Clinton emphasize the issue of wages, income disparities, rising inequality, and a shrinking middle class in the first Democratic debate of the U.S. 2016 presidential election. Clinton points out that "at the center of my campaign is how we're going to raise wages." Sanders says that "the middle class of this country for the last 40 years has been disappearing." Clinton points out her opposition to the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement because it does not help raise American wages. Clinton calls herself a progressive, but "a progressive who gets things done," and a moderate when it comes to getting things done. Sanders points to the "deep injustice, an economic injustice that threatens to tear our country apart, and it will not solve itself." Sanders points to the wealth concentration in the U.S. "with the top one tenth of 1 percent owning about as much as the bottom 90 percent, and 57% of all new income going to the top 1 percent." Clinton comes to Sanders defense on the issue saying "it's our job to rein in the excesses of capitalism so that it doesn't run amok and doesn't cause the kind of inequities we're seeing in our economic system."...

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Foxconn announces salaries for workers would increase by 16-25% to about $400 a month before overtime. Foxconn plans to reduce overtime. Foxconn is a major supplier in China for Apple Computer.

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Joseph Rago, a member of the WSJ editorial board, reports from Exeter, New Hampshire, in the days before the Republican primary. Here he cites Ted Cruz's comments before crowds in Rye, Exeter, Hollis and Manchester, about how the Republican party is now under the control of lobbyists and special interests and does not represent the people. And Cruz's efforts to start a Reagan style grass roots movement that bypasses the establishment Republicans.

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President Obama's program for education includes promoting charter schools, closing failed schools, making teacher pay reflect the quality of education they can provide, and providing financing to support better education and better classrooms. Here he outlined his plans in a major speech on education to an Hispanic group.

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The Bank of Mexico, Mexico's central bank, cuts interest rates by half a percentage point to 3% in June 2014. The consumer price index is at 3.4% for 12 months through mid-May, and the central bank sees the inflation target of 3% by early 2015 as achievable. The central bank's estimate for GDP growth in 2014 was lowered to 2.8% from 3.5%. GDP growth was annualized 1.1% for the 1st quarter of 2014. Mexico has failed to live up to the growth expectations after the new Nieto administration's efforts to jumpstart the economy and opening up of the state oil industry to foreign investment. The policy changes of the Nieto administration set the future course of the economy and will take time to deliver results in economic growth. More effective administration and execution is needed for economic growth.

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After years of rapid growth and rapid rate of credit creation China's economy is stalling. Each $1 of new credit generates only 17 cents in GDP growth, according to Bloomberg. This compares with 83 cents of GDP growth for each credit dollar in 2007. Local governments cannot find projects that are worthy of investment. Financial repression with low interest rates for savers is further depressing consumer spending when it is needed to rebalance the economy away from exports.

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A health care practitioner says the real problem is the high cost of medical care in the U.S. when compared to other countries. She points out that the Obama bill in 2008 did not take effective steps to bring down the cost of health care before enacting legislation to cover the uninsured, leading to higher premiums for the middle class. The link between healthcare and profits is seen as the main problem. 

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Polls show 83% of the German public support increasing the minimum wage to 8.50 euros an hour. About two thirds of the public support increasing income taxes on high wage earners. The Social Democrats talks with the CDU to form a coalition are likely to lead to CDU accepance of the condition for a minimum wage of 8.50 euros an hour, but not to the condition for raising the taxes on high income earners. The SPD sees the higher taxes as a way to pay for new infrastructure. A survey done for TV broadcaster ZDF shows 61% of Germans favoring a SPD-CDU coalition. In the 2013 elections the SPD gained 25.7% of the vote and the CDU-CSU gained 41.5%. The SPD is pushing for flexible retirement age, equal pay for men and women, a tighter financial regulation, and a growth and employment strategy in the EU.