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The Partido Popular party wins the most votes but loses its parliamentary majority in most of the country's provinces. Ada Colau in Barcelona, and a retired judge Manuela Carmena in Madrid supported by a left wing party, Podemos, are likely to become the new mayors. Spain's ruling Partido Popular party faces national elections in November 2015.

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Simon Nixon of the Econmist on the report's findings for the future of the world economy. He points to the heavy debt overhang for individuals and banks that will take years to overcome resulting in entrenched unemployment and sluggish growth, somewhat reminiscent of Japan's years of stagnation after its bubble. The entrenched unemployment he argues will permanently lower the economic potential of developed countries of US and Europe. Public debt will rise so that private debt can fall. Bank lending that is cautious will only slow any recovery for a long time. And the grim facts he presents are that about 25 million jobs will be lost in the 30 rich countries of the OECD before all this is over during the coming decade, and several million jobs probably will never come back. Auto manufacturing and manufacturing in general is an example where some jobs lost may never be regained. There is no room for complacency here.

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The British House of Commons voted on December 7, 2016, to commit the UK to trigger Article 50 for leaving the European Union by end of March 2017. The vote was 461 for and 89 against.

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This NYT report on Mohamed Bin Zayed of the United Arab Emirates, who comes from Abu Dhabi one of the 7 emirates in the Gulf Coastal region, is rare and unusual. It provides stories the prince loves to tell that make a point about how he sees the world. Here he tells them to Robert F. Worth, in the only interview Mohamed bin Zayad has ever given to a journalist from US or Europe. It took a year just to get the interview. The title about a Dark Vision is inappropriate as Mohamed Zayad simply reflects what is a British way of looking at things- valuing the Constitution, keeping religion private even its deeply held beliefs and cultural traditions such as Bedouin's practice, and a general tolerance that characterizes British society and similar societies throughout the history of Europe and Asia that were sitting on shipping lanes and practiced trade for a livelihood. It is also important because the other Mohamed, Mohamed Bin Salman of Saudi Arabia is seen as someone influenced by the ideas of Mohamed Bin Zayad of Abu Dhabi. President Biden plans a trip to the region in coming months to continue on building a narrative of development for the region. This provide an insight into the coastal regions that include Gujarat across the Gulf in India, that for centuries traded with the Gulf kingdoms. They have a trading mentality and with it comes a tolerance that is also seen in trading nations such as England. This is what brought Britain to India (and China) says Mohandas Gandhi. Gandhi went so far as to say that if there was trade on the moon you would find a British shopkeeper was first to setup shop there. Zayed has as a minister in his cabinet, a woman who is minister of Tolerance, Sheikha Lubna al Quasimi.  Zayed is unique for three reasons. He has embedded in his views the spirit of tolerance. As Worth puts it in NYT, Zayed has grasped what is true to the spirit of the Gulf region. The country's location on an ancient shipping lane has bred a type of Islam in the Gulf region, that is open to the world and tolerant.  His father Zayed Nahyan's  tendencies to openness and frank demeanor combine with this tolerance to provide a different kind of leadership. His father had the pluralist instincts that combined traditional Bedouin attitudes with a rare liberal mindedness. He died at age 86 in 2004. Zayed bin Nahyan MBZ's father was selected for these very reasons by the British in 1966 to rule the small Gulf kingdom of Abu Dhabi. In 1966, says this NYT report, the country was mostly illiterate, half of all children died during childbirth and one third of the women during childbirth, there was a complete lack of western medicine. Zayed Nahyan's brother was averse to development making the British select Zayed Nahyan at the request of Abu Dhabhi families. These early years shaped Mohamed Bin Zayed's views of how to see the world. Zayed the son loves to tell stories, and this one in the NYT shows how Mohamed bin Zayed the son and Mohamed bin Nahyan the father share a sense of what it means to be human and support all people's aspirations for a better life. This is the narrative in India and the region of 1.8 billion people that extends from India to Indonesia and Vietnam. This was seen at the G7 when leaders of India and Indonesia were invited to meet with the G7 in Munich, Germany and taken as utterly serious participants in the discussions to shape the Free World. To see the difference- UAE has signed agreements to increase trade with India to $100 billion over 5 years and was thanked by prime minister Modi for treatment of 8 million Indian workers in the Gulf region during the pandemic. Saudis are now stabilizing the Turkish and Egyptian economies with aid and providing some of the funding assistance for Siemens to modernize the entire Egyptian rail system with the latest technology over the next 5 years. Projects of this size that have never been undertaken since 1945. Sometime in the 1980's when Zayed was a young military officer having completed training at the Royal British Military Academy at Sandhurst, England, and educated in Scotland, he went to the grasslands of Tanzania. During his visit to Tanzania he went to several villages to see the Masai tribes. When he returned he sat with his father crosslegged on the floor in traditional Bedouin and Asian style and told him about his travels. His father asked Zayed about all the details- the wildlife, the Masai people and their customs, the extent of poverty in the country. After hearing it all his father asked Zayed what he had done for the people he had encountered. In response Zayed shrugged and answered, the people he met were not Muslims. Zayed still recalls his father's reaction, sudden, forceful and indelible from memory. Zayad says his father took a sudden hold of his arm and spoke to him in a harsh tone and stern demeanor- " We are all God's children."     ...

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Philip Hampton, chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland, tells a shareholder at the annual meeting in Edinburgh in June 2014- "compensation in the financial industry got out of line with the underlying performance of the business."

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The Nation is faced with another Supreme Court decision as in 1868 for the 14th Amendment, in 2025 on birthright citizenship.  The 14th Amendment was written in the 19th century it had no concept of the 20th century and absolutely no idea of the 21st century we live in, unable to even conceive of conditions today, or even think of  setting rules for immigration today. It rejected the Dredd Scott decision of 1857 denying black people rights as citizens, restating the law of the land, had nothing at all to do with stating the opinion of the Judiciary on whether a mother flying in from Asia could secure US citizenship for a new born child by merely visiting the US. As in 1857, in 2025 the law is based on assumed historical facts as Lincoln said on Dredd Scott decision, that are not really true. Lincoln said in 1857- "That burlesque upon judicial decisions, and slander and profanation upon the honored names, and sacred history of republican America must be overruled, and expunged from the books of authority." The 14th Amendment was written to give black people the rights of citizens of the US, in a complete repudiation of the Dred Scott decision of the US Supreme Court of 1857 that deprived black people of rights as citizens because Judge Tanney said the British Empire had set up the institution of slavery in the American colonies and the British were responsible for the institution, little we can do about it. When by 1807 slavery was being banned in Britain and in 1838 totally banned in the British Empire. It created the idea that Americans were not the master of their destinies after the departure of the British to choose which institutions they would keep and which they would reject including slavery. Abraham Lincoln citing President Andrew Jackson said each the executive, the judiciary, Congress, and the common man were entitled to their own view of the US Constitution as they understood it. Lincoln also said Judge Tanney's decision in Dred Scott case was based on assumed historical facts that were not really true- Judge Tanney making no mention of the fact that in 1857 the British Empire had already abolished the institution for 50 years. The DJT Executive Order banning birthright citizenship shown here on the White House site has the title- Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship. It is written in  simple language in 1 page -Purpose, Policy, Enforcement and Definitions, Provisions.  The purpose clearly states that the Dred Scott decision of the US Supreme Court in 1857 is what the framers of the 14th Amendment had in mind when they drafted the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. A reading of the 14th Amendment makes this abundantly clear. The wording comes out at the outset reversing the Dredd Scott Decision of 1857. It's repudiation was why the Northern and Southern States fought the Civil War. The National Archives say that with Dred Scott decision to allow the spread of slavery to American territories in the West,  America moved one step closer to civil war. With such  momentous events in the history of the US 1857-1868 the framers of the 14th Amendment were not sitting down to write rules about what was right for America a century and a half later.    ...

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Polls just days before the French presidential election show independent candidate Macron getting about 60% of the 18-24 year age group. There is discontent in this age group because of high unemployment. The unemployment rate is 24% for people below age 25, higher than 18% before the financial crisis of 2008, compared to 7% in Germany for this age group. For people 25 to 29 years it is 14%. This is why Marie Le Pen has appeal in economically struggling northern towns. Yet most French people are finding it difficult to take on an agenda as radical as Le Pen's that takes France out of the eurozone. In the final debate just 24 hours before the vote Le Pen entered into a discussion about leaving the eurozone but showed she had no clear idea of what this would mean for France. She described Brexit as an example and Macron shot back that Britain was never in the eurozone to begin with, and it appeared that Le Pen was just hoping that it would all work out, without a clear grasp of the facts. She had no response to Macron on how an exit could create panic in the markets and lower the value of savings of ordinary French people by about 20%. On pensions she stated that 60 was the age for retirement under her plan opening herself up to the criticism that she had no clear idea of the facts as Macron pointed out- that it would mean lower benefits or higher payments into the retirement system. This may be why even some young people who see the banking experience of Macron as a liability, may be offset by others who see this as a possible asset because of the need for some valuable experience in an independent candidate, as described by Dalton.    ...

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Thomas Frank writing about the public outrage about executive compensation quotes Bill Black, a Professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, who makes an important point. Beyond the size of this compensation there was something else happening that was perverse in its design and in its effects. Black says that at each point in the development of the disaster of mortgage securitization, it was the pay for performance systems that sent the wrong signals to loan officers, real estate appraisers, accountants, and bond rating agencies. The compensation or reward systems actually encouraged wrong, unethical and ultimately disastrous behaviours for the companies and the economy. Another way to look at it, the way it happened on Wall Street- especially at Merrill Lynch and some other financial institutions- the bonuses and other compensation was a way for executives to recklessly milk (loot is the other word) the companies for all they could yield regardless of the results afterwards. And as Black says, to do this through normal corporate mechanisms. A whole range of behaviours of this type took place in the final years of the boom. See other articles by Thomas Frank. ...

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Antonio Horta-Osorio of Banco Santander, is a Portuguese native who took up the task of turnaround of Lloyds Bank after the British government took a 39% stake in the bank during the financial crisis. He is credited with a major turnaround, making it possible for the government to sell 6% of its stake earlier than anticipated. He reduced the dependence on short term funding sources and sold off assets overseas. He has also strengthened its retail banking operations in Britain. He took on the task with a micromanaging approach and had to be admitted to a rehab clinic after 5 sleepless nights. Following this period of two months of recovery the Board rehired him in Jan 2012 and he delegated tasks to other managers. Osorio was a senior manager at Banco Santander when he took up the Lloyds job. The stock price of Lloyds has soared in 2013.

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Simon Nixon says British prime minister, Cameron, has antagonized European leaders by making demands to protect Britain's financial industry. Ironically this happens as Britain was arguing for stricter financial regulation. Britain has been isolated and risks remaining on the sidelines from now on. Nixon says this starts a process that could lead to Britain withdrawing from the European Union.

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Anne Applebaum describes comments of European diplomats she talked to who were strongly critical of British prime minister Cameron's efforts to win special protections for London's financial district, the City. They described this as petty, especially when the European negotiators were working to save the Euro currency. Sarkozy said recently that the British hate the euro, and have done little to help, and should shut up. And that is the sense today in European capitals even as Conservatives in Britain applaud Cameron's move. The result is to isolate Britain from the rest of Europe, even as Britain will be put in a position to having to play by rules set by the other 26 countries in the European Union, who are its main trading partner.

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Friedman scores the presidential debates and the candidates for president in the 2010 U.S. elections on how well they put forward a plan to put the U.S. back on the right track. The scoring system he suggests focusses on how well the plan addresses the deficit in education- he points to the 25% dropout rate in the U.S. and younger workers in the middle of the pack in educational skills when compared to other countries. The other points in the scoring system are the deficit, setting aspirational goals to restore U.S. leadership, promoting innovation and startup companies, and rebuilding infrastructure. Much of the stimulus he points out went to help unskilled workers, not enough is being done to improve the education and training of America's young workers to compete in a global economy.

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France's foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, has sounded a warning about a nuclear agreement with Iran in the past. In 2013 he warned the West not to get drawn into a "fools game." In an intervew with the WSJ on May 31, 2015, he says without proper verification which includes military sites a nuclear agreement with Iran is meaningless. He points to the dangers of other countries in the region saying the agreement lacks clout and opting for developing nuclear weapons.

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Of 21 reader comments to this piece on banker pay, all except for 4-5, were very critical of the bankers behaviour, including many of their colleagues in the financial industry who commented. The lack of any response from the FSA on the grounds that its not the FSA's job, or from the Treasury, is disconcerting. Treasury is said to have not said a word, when RBS hired a head trader for a rumored 7 million pounds. All this coming on the heels of the RBS and Lloyds debacle, makes the Labor government open to attack from the Conservatives under Osborne and Cameron. and from Mervyn King of the Bank of England. They have expressed strong disapproval of the busines as usual attitude of bankers.

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WSJ looks at the 75 years of the US Saudi Arabia relationship that started when US president Franklin Delano Roosevelt met Saudi king Ibn Saud at Bitter Creek, Egypt, on a US Navy destroyer ship in 1945. It has gone through many phases over this period and mainly involved the Saudi kingdom maintaining its supply of oil to the US and Western Europe. This relationship went through an oil embargo during tense periods of Israeli Palestine conflict as in 1983 with an oil embargo that pushed up oil prices. What is different this time is the situation in Yemen where Iranian supported Houthi rebels near the border with Saudi Arabia are engaged in a conflict with the Saudis. Democratic administrations under first Obama and Biden today support reaching a deal with Iran on nuclear weapons development and limit US military support for the war in Yemen. The Saudis for their part are not keen on a regional war and turned down efforts by president Trump to respond to attacks from Yemen. Mr. Biden's envoy has arranged for a deal to reduce tensions between the Houthis in Yemen and Saudis. The diplomatic impasse in relations stems from the Kashoggi incident and president Biden's concern for the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia. Other factors making relations difficult are the economic interests of the two countries diverging. The relationship Roosevelt started in 1945 has changed in its fundamental character. Oil supplies for imports into the US is no longer a factor for the US which was the original interest of president Roosevelt in Saudi Arabia. This changed by 2015 as the US fracking industry enabled US to become self sufficient in oil and able to supply LNG to western Europe. Instead of the US Saudi oil now goes to China. Russian oil also goes to China as its industry expanded with American investment. This has led to a new Saudi relationship with China which has changed the dynamic of the American Saudi relationship. Some of the new aspects of this can also be seen in Saudi relationship with South Asia. Saudi ties have increased with India and India in 2021 was the first country to provide vaccine supplies to Saudi Arabia. Saudis, Qatar, United Arab Emirates are building relationships with India as a close neighbor in the region. Relationships are in some ways improving in the Asian region compared to the period when oil was simply exchanged as a commodity for defense supplies from the US without regard to cultural, educational and other changes in Saudi society. In a sense US and Western Europe paid little attention to the huge democracy of over 1 billion people right in the middle of Asia and followed policies that led to major investments in China and little or no investment in India, and without realizing it followed a policy that the British had pursued in the British Empire of treating different communities and religions as separate as opposed to one community of people in South Asia that were engaged in modernizing, building infrastructure and changing centuries old ways of living. The British Empire was sustained by this kind of thinking, and as long as Indians were complacent and lacked the will to make their aspirations for a better life and infrastructure for modernization this kind of thinking prevailed. The economic crises in Asia have reinforced the idea that there is one community entirely focused on development and modernization in South Asia. The people in South Asia care most about the cost of living and the infrastructure and services for the quality of life they live and their children can aspire for- same in European Union that chose the Greens and chancellor Scholz, and same in the US that chose president Biden to invest infrastructure and people, the same in China and the same in India and the rest of Asia. This is the situation that the US and Britain, and the European Union are now beginning to learn and adapt to that is a constructive aspect of these changes to rebuild the connections and supply chains that were sorely neglected before now. ...

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WSJ committed to orthodox economic theory thinks of tariffs as tariffs such as Smoot Hawley from the 30's. This is why it is not true- It is about fentanyl flows that have led to 490,000 deaths over 12 years in the US and few in the US like to talk about it. Smoot Hawley had nothing to do with fentanyl, drugs trafficking and migrant trafficking that every nation not only has a right but a No.1 responsibility to its citizens to keep its neighborhoods and its children in neighborhoods safe. Smoot and Hawley were US Senators and US Congress was isolationist in mood. Their grasp of the world trading system was meager and they stepped in at a time when the world had economically not recovered from World War I, and the French against US General Pershing's advice had set the most punitive arrangement in Germany that crushed Germany after an armistice Pershing opposed that left the Kaiser's political structures intact. Tariffs is not DJT's idea. It is the solid experience of Deputy US Trade Representative, Robert Lighthizer under Reagan who conducted negotiations with the Japanese who stalled and stalled Lighthizer says, let negotiations drag on into endless nights, and Lighthizer and his team stood firm. The relentless Japanese relented and Lighthizer secured the agreements that ended this phase of trade relations in the 1980's. Lighthizer was Trade Representative in the DJT first term 2016-2020 and launched the negotiations with China. This is now 8 years since 2016 and 2016 itself was 35 years after Lighthizer negotiated with the Japanese. Today's US Trade Representative is Jamieson who was Deputy Trade Representative under Lighthizer in 2016. Each detail is carefully thought through to bring it to a fair conclusion in the interests of the world and the US. Information traveled slowly GM could not tell at any time how many cars were in inventory on its lots in 1920's. US lacked basic infrastructure for government that FDR and Labor Secretary added firt in New York in the 1930's and which was transferred to 50 states by 1940's. Today information is quickly at fingertips and consultation processes are built in between industry and government at all levels. A lot of information is carefully evaluated. USTR as DJT showed, the major study of USTR Office in the Rose Garden on April 2, 2025, has all trade barriers carefully analyzed in minute details for every country. And is working on this for 40 years. There isn't even a slightest  comparison between this and the Smoot Hawley crowd in the 1920's.  The goal not to beat anybody. Just to set the goal of a level playing field for world trade. That is the foundation of trade that is fair and respected, and is a win-win for all. WTO's basic foundation No. 1 principle is a level playing field. It is just that this was a kind of Marshall Plan for Asia of the US to let poor countries such as Japan war wrecked in 1950, and China colonial power wrecked by first Britain then Japan struggling and poor in 1990's, giving them some time to rebuild by ignoring unfair barriers to trade for 10-15 years 2005 for China. Barriers that never got dismantled and technology that leaked from the US 2005-2016 under the Obama administration. Smoot Hawley was not about the US Navy building its own ships and US shipyards in the 1920's. In 2025 US shipbuilding industry is stolen, this is why the words used "pillaged" "looted" were used in the Rose Garden. Little by little American private enterprise capitalism was superseded by a new form of capitalism in Japan then in China that combined state capitalism with private enterprise capitalism. This then was the threat America faced, and needed to redouble its energies and seek fair play.   ...

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Chancellor Merkel of Germany proposed bilateral or trilateral deals between smaller groups of countries as a temporary solution till some agreement can be reached on immigration. She said "The European Council will not yet provide an overall solution to the migration problem." Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic which have opposed a quota system for asylum seekers did not attend.  Austria, Denmark, and Italy with the new government openly opposing immigration, attended the summit. Merkel said  a "lot of goodwill" was created, and leaders agreed that borders need to be better protected to prevent people from entering illegally, and reducing immigration at its source points in Africa. The migration problem has persisted as an issue long after the huge surge in immigration in 2015 has diminished to a trickle, and after chancellor Merkel has accomodated critics with new policies strictly limiting new immigration. New governments in Denmark, Austria and Italy, and the government in Hungary under Viktor Orban, have kept the issue alive by running on anti-immigration platforms. The European summit in 2018 was used by Merkel to reduce disagreement on this issue by allowing different countries to express their views and working in smaller groups for mutual benefit. It also reduces tension inside her CDP-CSU coalition after Bavaria based CSU decided to run in 2018 state elections on a platform calling for securing borders. ...