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In one of its first major votes the newly elected U.S. House of Representatives approved the Keystone XL pipeline by a vote of 252 to 161.

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Brooks points out that the best way to arrive at workable solutions is to take the best ideas from all sides of the political spectrum. The Republicans and the Democrats are too ideologically and politically driven and lack the imagination to come up with good solutions.

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Galston focusses attention on the major problem facing democracies in Europe and the U.S.- that of providing decent paying jobs and improved economic prospects for lower and middle income households. He cites the surveys from the Pew Research Report and the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics showing how middle income households median net income remains stuck at levels of 1997, and lower income households at levels of 1996. The median net worth of American households adjusted for inflation presents an alarming picture of being at $96,000 in 1983 and $98,000 in 2013 for middle income families, and being at the level of $12,000 for lower income families the level of 1975. Most of the new jobs as much as 95% are being created in the low wage service sector and the BLS statistics show the future looking much the same- with huge numbers of low wage jobs, fewer decent manufacturing jobs because of automation and jobs shifts to low cost locations overseas, remaining manufacturing jobs in the U.S shrinking by another 800,000 to 7% of the workforce by 2025. The result is the alarming rise of populist politicians like Trump in the U.S., Le Pen in France , and populist politicians in Hungary and Poland. Cultural liberals in the Democratic Party and the Republican establishment are both threatened by the rise of cultural illiberalism, xenophobia, and nationalism, as economic anxiety increases, and fears of terrorism and immigrants add to this anxiety. Progressive tendencies in the Republican party since the days of Theodore Roosevelt and of professional elites in the Democratic Party could become endangered if no serious effort is made to come up with solutions to the problems these trends present. The disconnect between the concerns of the working and middle class and the professional elites as the gap widens and the social compact in America and Europe breaks apart, means a new mindset will be required in America and Europe to deal with this. ...

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Obama's five year $200 million "My Brothers Keeper" effort to help black and minority youth.

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Greece's national statistics agency Elstat shows data indicating a rapidly deteriorating Greek economy. The unemployment rate went up to 20.9% in November, up from 18.2 % the prior month, with the total number of unemployed at 1.029 million. Industrial output declined by 11.3% in December 2011 compared to the prior year. The unemployment rate is 48% for young people ages 15-24 for November 2011 compared to 35.6% in the prior year. For women the unemployment rate was 25.4% in November, compared to 17% the prior year. In the region of Attica, which includes Athens, the unemployment rate was 21.1% in November compared to 19.2% in October, and 13.9% the prior year. This creates new concern whether austerity measures will work and whether the Greek people can go through a decade of austerity programs, with debt still at 120% of GDP in 2020 under the program designed by the EU and the IMF, or whether there are other solutions that offer more hope of recovery.

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Ines Pohl of the DW.com points out the failures in the media to fact check the assertions of U.S. presidential candidates. She points out that there is no institution in the media that acts as a check on what is said on social media. That  sphere of discourse remains in isolation from the rest with a self perpetuating effect- statements gaining credence because they are repeated again and again. This is the situation in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. Other unusual factors remain the polarization of groups- why are white men on one side and white suburban women on the other, why are less educated voters on one side and college educated voters on the other side. This reflects deeper divisions. As Pohl points out in her concluding sentence this reflects also the view of people struggling for a living, and people much better off. In the U.S. this leaves people with fears of economic insecurity which are then extended to fears on the basis of race and immigration. In this case immigration becomes a proxy for other problems in society which have not been addressed. Pohl calls for elites to come out of their ivory towers and start talking in terms that relate to people's lives and real concerns, real fears.  There are puzzling signs. At a time when immigration has declined to the lowest levels in a decade  from Mexico, and with a tough deportation policy for 8 years under president Obama, how is it that it is the big issue in this U.S. election? At a time when  the number of people of other ethnic origins are a tiny fraction in eastern Germany why is this the big issue there in German elections and politics? Is this a proxy for fears of economic insecurity or lack of upward mobility, or uncertainty about the future?     ...

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India has learned lessons from past health epidemics- the plague Gujarat 1994, avian flu H5N1 in 2005-2006 Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, swine flu H1N1 Pune, and more recently MERS. The Indian Express looks at past epidemics, how they were tackled and what India learned from them. Major improvements in sanitation and hygiene since then and advances in medicine, public health.  Experience was gained. The municipal commissioner of Thane near Mumbai was district collector of Jalgaon during the avian flu epidemic. He used quarantine to restrict transmission of infected material. He shifted bus stands, closed weekly markets, and had health workers check symptoms in a 3 kilometre radius area. His message for today- have a contingency plan, track, test and treat people, stay focused, not panic, and know exactly what has to be done. Moving migrant crisis today was also seen in Surat, 1994, with the plague epidemic when migrant workers left the city. The government had to use paramilitary units in 1994 to quarantine the entire area. During these earlier epidemics the Indian Council of Medical Research and other medical organizations played a significant role. One of the lessons learned from the H1N1 epidemic that originated in Mexico was the need for effective surveillance and real time reporting so that the pathogen can be recognized in real time and tests done at labs to determine what it is, followed by effective response through isolation of region and patients. Dr. Pradeep Awate, Maharashtra's surveillance officer, says robust surveillance systems are important to understand the magnitude of the problem and strategically place resources. The strategies put in place for the Nipah virus in Kerala state by its Health Department in 2019 are the same ones now being used for cornonavirus - contact tracing and management of persons under quarantine. ...

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The yuan is up 5.5% since the peg to the dollar ended in 2010, reaching 6.469 to the dollar. But this is not helping the U.S. trade deficit. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the price of imports from China are up 2.8% in May over the same month prior year. And the trade surplus for China in the first four months of 2011 is higher than the same period in 2010. What is happening? The improvements in productivity of Chinese manufacturers and the acceptance of lower margins is reducing the effects on trade balance of a small appreciation of the yuan, so that only a fraction of that appreciation is showing up in higher prices for Chinese goods. Also significant is that the yuan's small appreciation against the dollar is not enough to make up for the dollar's fall against other currencies. The yuan is down 8.3% against the euro and has actually declined 3.7% on a trade weighted basis in the last year.

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Galston cites a Federal Reserve Board of Chicago 2014 study showing setbacks for black people in achieving improvement in income status. Even for children born into middle income black families about 55% are expected to fall below middle income status compared to 36% for children of white middle income families. The problem is not just the gap as Galston points out but what it says for the declining income mobility for the white middle class when 36% are likely to see declining status and prospect for the future, and 23% will see no improvement. Overall it shows a lack of income and social mobility for whites and minorities alike compared to the past improvements since the 1960's, not a bright prospect and less hope for the future the way things are, and why so many of the establishment candidates and existing policies are being questioned by voters.

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Mike McNamara, CEO of Flextronics, on the increasing competitiveness of U.S. manufacturing and the return of manufacturing jobs to the U.S.

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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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Fitch Ratings downgrades Brazil's bonds to double-B-plus in Dec. 2015, a junk rating from an investment grade rating. The yield on Brazil's 10 year benchmark dollar denominated bond increased to 6.97% from 6.7%. Other emerging markets such as Turkey and South Africa now expect ratings downgrades in 2016 as the U.S. Fed raises interest rates. Standard & Poors downgraded Brazil's sovereign debt to junk status in September 2015. GDP in Brazil declined 4.5% in the third quarter of 2015 from a year earlier. Brazil's currency, the real, declined by 32% in 2015, making it harder for companies that borrowed in dollars to pay off debts. President Dilma Rousseff is facing impeachment proceedings following a corruption scandal at Petrobras.

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The warning light is again on for Greece in the beginning of 2012, as the rapidly deteriorating economy makes a 50% loss by private creditors insufficient to help it meet repayment or refinancing of bonds coming due in 2012. Additional funds will be needed from EU countries unwilling to do this. 14.5 billion euros in Greek bonds come due on March 20, 2012. Greece also faces a public increasingly resistant to austerity cuts. A vountary exchage of existing Greek bonds by private creditors for new bonds at 50% face value and maturing over a longer period will be done under English law. This will be harder to change in the future. Most of the existing bonds were issued under Greek law which can be altered by Greece's parliament.

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NYT reporter Elisabeth Malkin reports on the way the ruling PRI party suffering from low poll ratings- following corruption scandals and the poor handling of the deaths of 43 students by drug gangs- is using the distribution of free television sets to working class people in the State of Mexico to win votes.