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This editorial in the Economist points out the dangers for Britian of having a non functioning opposition in parliament to act as a check on government policies. It says Jeremy Corbyn has damaged the Labor Party by being intolerant of other views. It points out that Corbyn is popular with young people in the half million members of the party, yet nationally among Britain's 45 million voters he has an approval rating of -18%. It hurts the Brexit negotiations putting the hard line Brexit supporters who see it in terms of a single issue immigration, in control. It hurts Britain's union, with Scotland in serious difference about Brexit. Corbyn is unpopular in Scotland where Labor needed a comeback. The Economist sees Corbyn as a disaster similar to the view expressed for Europe in a recent DW.com article.

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Both parties were given poor ratings by respondents for the way they conducted the debt ceiling negotiations- a 72% disapproval rating for Republicans in Congress and a 66% disapproval rating for Democrats in Congress. On the spending cuts the views are ambivalent. On one hand showing Americans 2 to 1 favoring job creation over spending cuts. On the other hand 44% of those polled saying the cuts in the debt ceiling were not enough, 29% that the cuts were about right, only 15% saying they went too far.

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Porter cites research by Andrew Berg and Jonathan Ostry of the IMF, which shows the strong connections between having a vibrant middle class, lower inequality and the sustainability of economic growth. In countries with higher inequality growth comes in spurts which fizzle out, and there are sharp contractions. Having good income distribution is important according to Berg and Ostry, if the process of economic growth is to be sustained. This logic is also supported by the need for a strong middle class for consumer spending, to provide the demand that supports growth.

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Spain's prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, accepts EU and IMF aid for recapitalizing Spain's banks. Rajoy tells a news conference in Spain on June 10th, 2012, "nobody pressured me," he did this because it would "help the credibility of the European project." The Partido Popular took decisive steps to improve Spain's competitiveness during the first 6 months of the new administration, but was caught by surprise by the problems in Bankia, a bank put together from failing cajas savings banks. The cajas savings banks were heavily involved in the housing bubble in Spain.

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A survey by Employee Benefit Research Institute shows that only 13% of Americans in 2009 feel very confident they will have enough money to retire confortably, compared to 27% in 2007. Things are stable in the middle with those somewhat confident dropping from 43% to 41%, and again shaky at the bottom with 22% saying that they are not at all confident in 2009, compared to 10% in 2007. Overall the curve has shifted towards deteriorating confidence with 31% or about one third saying things were worse than before.

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The U.S. Justice Department files suit to block the merger of American Airlines and U.S. Airways, saying the deal would hurt competition.

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The situation of ad cluttered mailboxes is a problem not just in the US, as shown in this report from Germany in DW.com. The Environmental Action Group DUH called for a new law in Germany to combat the flood of advertising trash in mailboxes. It estimates that 28 billion sheets of advertising material every year in Germany alone is printed by companies with the sole aim of putting it unsolicited in people's mailboxes. Currently people can opt out of junk mail in Germany by putting a sticker " No advertisements please," though this can be ignored by delivery people. An opt-in method differs by only people aho put stickers saying they are ok with ads being put in their mailbox. It is used in Amsterdam, Netherlands. An opt in method would save 6000 tons of paper and waste disposal trips, as well as save the air quality by half a million tons of carbon dioxide annually.

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French youth are an important part of the protests in France in extending the retirement age from 62 to 64 years. A neuropsychologist at a Paris hospital says "are there any social benefits they haven't rolled back," in this report in FR24. Youth feel that the reform asking workers to work longer in the current situation in France is basically unfair at a time when workers are facing a cost of living crisis and are just coming out of a once in a century pandemic. And with the stress on schools, hospitals and older people, the shrinking savings of workers and families as pandemic period benefits are being phased out. In the US and Germany there is support for working families during the cost of living crisis, much less so in France, and even less in Britain. France is facing protests and possible strikes, Britain has strikes across health, transport and education. 

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English parents struggling to feed their children even this preschool teacher in London, as Emma Bubola reports for the NYT from London, UK. It is atrocious says a church minister running a food bank in Derby, in central England, that working families are having to come to food banks. Prince Charles talked first about people at food banks in his Christmas message this year. One estimate is that a fifth of familes are from families with jobs but unable to keep up with the cost of living. Warm spaces are being set up in Methodist and other churches. One food bank worker says you see ambulance crew, teachers, and asks what does this say about the community, about the country? Ten years of Tory austerity policies have made things worse. On a recent night a nurse walks into a food bank in the east London neighborhood of Hackney. This isn't a normal Britain.

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WSJ's Christopher Mims shows the failure of tech startups in low margin industries in which the startups added little real innovation. What he does not say is that these so called "tech startups" have caused a massive capital misallocation and poor productivity of capital for trillions of dollars of American savings. This  happened when the productivity of capital for infrastructure and manufacturing industries in which the US has fallen behind is increasing. It has also caused "crowding out" of essential government investments in infrastructure and manufacturing in the US. In food delivery, used car delivery, online streaming and a whole range of business startups sales are falling as consumers hit by high inflation are budgeting carefully for all expenses. Many are disappearing after years of losses leaving a trail of destruction that includes the unrealized infrastructure and manufacturing that America's communities so badly need.  ...

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Arthritis drug Humira from Abbvie is shown in this NYT report as having made $114 billion from Humira using the US patent system to delay the introduction of competing products that would have lowered prices for Americans suffering from arthritis. NYT says the114 billion was made just since 2016 when competing products were coming to market. In 2022 this is ending as nine competitors including Pfizer come up with their competing products. In many ways the system of market competition does not operate in the way textbooks or free market advocates say. It is considered ok to engineer advantage within what is a supposedly a market competition system and to turn a blind eye to it. Is it acceptable when it comes to health products and when prices increase from the exorbitant to the outrageous. The Inflation Reduction Act of president Biden included efforts to prevent just such abuses of a market competition system to restore fairness after years of egregious behaviours.

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Henrik Bohme says not just Putin is responsible for the situation Germany faces of a cutoff of supplies of gas from Russia if the Nordstream pipeline never comes back on after maintenance. Bohme says that in September 2018 at the UN  General Assembly Donald Trump told Germany to look in the mirror, saying that Germany would become completely dependent on Russian energy if it did not change course immediately. In return Trump only got laughter and head shaking from the German delegation says Bohme. Over that period the response was the same from Merkel and the CDU - a smugness and condescending attitude to the US. When the US imposed sanctions on Nordstream 2 Germans suspected a backhanded trick to get Germany to buy dirty fracked gas. Today it is buying the same fracked gas from the US and asking for more. It is similar to the situation for coal as coal is being brought from Colombia.

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Grant is remembered for his humility in talking to a black union soldier who as a member of the police force stopped him for speeding. What is less known is the story about the sudden reversal in his health and finances after he left office, his effort to finish his memoirs in the last year of his life stricken with cancer. Noonan has left it to readers to draw meaning, wisdom and virtue, from Grant's experience. Grant, who led the Union forces in the last years of the American Civil War in the 1860's was next only to Lincoln in the country's estimation as the war ended. Humility is the main part of virtue and Grant was all the better for having it. This applies to all past and future presidents. Divine providence and the power of Nature has its own ways and there are no exceptions.  

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The failure of Merkel's and Macron's policies in Europe. The policies contained a contradiction says this WSJ report- doing little to address concerns of Russia over NATO expansion and yet opting to build better economic relations with Russia. Merkel and Macron failed to tackle the main issue of NATO expansion. Did NATO need to expand continuously and what could be done so that Eastern European countries could join the EU but not NATO as a defense alliance. Without some new framework on this issue that was determined between US, Russia and Germany, France, for post 1990 peaceful relations the relationship with Russia based purely on trade has collapsed.  

This WSJ report also brings up the issue of the US and Europe not having it both ways - continually expanding NATO in the interests of the smaller nations in Eastern Europe and yet hoping to build a better relationship with Russia.

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Key points from the prime minister's Independence Day speech on August 15, 2021, as reported in The Times of India. 

The prime minister concluded by saying that 25 years from now on the 100th anniversary in 2047 the aspirations of today will be presented as accomplishments by the then prime minister. He covered many topics relating to goals for India in the next 25 years, from the environment, small farmers, and infrastructure to hydrogen and renewable energy. The thread running through the entire speech was the aspirations of the Indian people, and of Indian youth, that are irreversibly set and that nothing could stop the Indian people from achieving these aspirations with the goals set high for the first time in 50 years. The impossible had to become the reality with hard work and calm, good humored resolve, not affected by the difficulties on the way.

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Mistakes under Merkel continue under the Greens and Social Democrats. Germany fails to invest in its solar industry even as the fight against climate change ramps up and the need for solar energy is growing rapidly. Manufacturers of solar cells in east Germany that remained under Merkel- surviving Chinese investment ramped up to overcome a German lead in solar- by pursuing niche markets, are still failing to get the federal government's attention and support. This NYT report shows the situation in Germany as Chinese imports of solar take up 97% of the market. China sends solar panels to Germany and the EU at below production costs this NYT report says, with the US having erected barriers to Chinese imports to build its own manufacturing capabilities with Biden's support. Product intended for America is now put in the European market pushing prices down even further. 

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In the current situation France- with Germany sharing a border with Russia and a difficult history- it is France that is responding to the challenges of NATO and Eastern European states. In 1966 De Gaulle took France out of NATO. In 2007 Nicholas Sarkozy brought France back into NATO and integrated with the armed forces command structures of NATO once again, yet keeping its nuclear deterrent separate from NATO. In 2024 it is Macron who is responding to the Russian advances in the war in Ukraine saying France and NATO will "support Ukraine for as long and as intensively as needed." This means the EU and Western Europe will build the capability and prepare for situations to defend Eastern Europe on their own. There is also unanimity between Scholz, Macron, Meloni, Sanchez on this issue for Germany, France, Italy and Spain, the original founders of EU.

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Ram Manohar Lohia is the Gandhian with a world view having been educated at Humboldt University in Germany, who took Gandhi's idea of the equality of all men and women into the India of the post 1950's. He mentored Mulayam Singh Yadav and other leaders who brought tribals, the lower castes, women, Muslims and others into the mainstream of Indian society in the 1990's and afterwards. He also created the first opposition movement in India giving Indian democracy a good framework. Mr. Modi has in his own way brought forward some of the ideas of Mr. Lohia and Mulayam Singh Yadav as he struggles to modernize a nation of 1.2 billion and bring Clean India, Water through Har Ghar Jal, and electricity, cooking gas, digital banking, agricultural support, food rations during covid, and infrastructure building,  to hundreds of millions of people.

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The WSJ Editorial Board on the predawn vote on February 14th 2024 with a vote of 70-29 approving US aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. A lot of the investment is in the US in Patriot missiles built in Arizona and defense equipment in Alabama as the president pointed out in his message to House Republicans shown alongside saying history is watching. WSJ reminds readers that Arthur Vandenburg of Michigan helped president Harry Truman setup the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for the defense of Eastern Europe falling into Soviet hands- the danger seen in Greece and Turkey in the 1947 and the Berlin Blockade 1948-49. The Truman Doctrine was announced on March 12, 1947. People forget that Truman asked Congress for $400 million in military and economic aid to Greece and Turkey. With it Greece, the mother of western democracies was able to stave off defeats from Soviet supported forces by 1950.

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UK prime minister Sunak makes changes to policies of the UK post-Brexit that bring the UK closer to France and the European Union. This follows a deterioration of Britain's relations with the EU and France under Boris Johnson during the years Brexit happened. Sunak also comes up with a different policy for Northern Ireland closer to the EU's position. Mark Landler has covered Britain and the EU for NYT over three decades. He calls Boris Johnson's approach bombastic and one that made loud claims for "Global Britain" with little to show in results.

Sunak's challenges are in Britain with strikes across transportation, health sector and NHS, and the cost of living crisis. Labour party is seen as having better solutions and as more caring in its policies for both the environment, workers and families in 2023.

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Hillary Clinton attacks Trump's policies in an address in Warren, Michigan, saying this was another version of failed trickle down economics. She called Trump's idea of taxing pass through entities such as small business reporting business income on individual tax returns at 15%, as a "Trump loophole." On trade policy Hillary Clinton said she would oppose the TPP or Trans- Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement that president Obama has supported. She put it flatly- " I oppose it now. I'll oppose it after the election, and I'll oppose it as president." And pointed out that too many companies have moved jobs overseas and "moved operations overseas and sold back into the U.S." after pushing for trade deals. The answer she said 'is not to rant and rave- or to cut us off from the world," in reference to protectionist policies Trump has supported. 

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 Mayor Reiter of Munich, Christian Kern, head of Austrian railway OBB, say here that the actions of Viktor Orban of Hungary gave the German government very little time, only a few hours, to act. The first motivation was to act in a humanitarian way, which is what happened. The German government had asked Orban to register and handle immigrants in an orderly way. In the end with the failure of Orban to do this, the immigrants who would have come north anyway, streamed into Germany and Austria in buses and trains. Clearly Hungary and Germany could have handled this better. The German public provided support with a large number of volunteers helping. One German minister is cited here as saying that if Orban wanted to build a fence he should have done it in a quiet way, as there are fences between Bulgaria and Turkey, and Turkey and Greece and it has not bothered anyone.

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Senator John Thune of South Dakota who had the support of Senators Daines and Mullin, and of retiring Republican Minority Leader won in a 3 way race against John Cornyn of Texas and Rick Scott of Florida. Scott of Florida had support of the MAGA allies of DJT. His liability was the way he had run the party as head of the Congressional campaign of 2022 with poor results. DJT stayed aloof from the race only saying he expected the Senate leader to defer to his policy for Ukraine.

Thune won 29 votes to 24 for Cornyn. His way of running the senate will be more open than Mitch McConnell's, getting more feedback from Senators, and more open to amendments. Priorities are securing the border and reauthorizing the tax cuts.

Thune seems a good choice so that the president gets to hear views of all members in the Senate and is well informed to make decisions.

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Investopedia's Hiranmayi Srinivasan gives the average year over year Consumer Price Index by president as prepared by the Bureau of Labor Statistics's Adrian Nesta, and offers discussion of each president and inflation rates from Eisenhower to Biden. The highest Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, both lost the election for second term. Nixon and Biden are next. Nixon survived the high inflation rates. During the Biden presidency something else happened the pandemic which made people feel worse and compare the preceding president's inflation rate at 1.9% compared to 5.7% average per year. 5.7% adds up to about 23% increase over 4 years. The worst part was that basic food items eggs, bread and other groceries may have been priced at much more than 23%, and with added burden of higher monthly rent as landlords increased rent by much more than 23%. This meant dipping into savings and money saved for a house, destroying the American dream.

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Left out in much of the media coverage is that Zelensky's popularity rating in Ukraine, after three years of war and everyone having lost at least one family member, is at a low of 16%, and most people prefer that he not run again for president, as reported in this In Depth report in The Times of London. After huge losses on the Russian side, Russia's economy on war footing and costs of the war, and on the Ukrainian side fatigue and losses with infrastructure badly damaged, there is only one way out with a negotiated settlement. Biden and NATO's support is mostly to give Ukraine a negotiating position for a settlement as a new president DJT takes office in the US, also looking for a settlement of the war not letting it drag on with nothing to gain for NATO or Russia.