LyrArc Article Gist
This Buttonwood column in the Economist after the British 2015 general election says the election results show serious dissatisfaction with the political class. Labor was never forgiven for the 2007-2009 financial and economic crisis, and the "lost decade" in terms of decline in real wages and no improvements in the standard of living since then. The SNP because it is not tainted by these actions did better as a fresh face and authentic voice in Scotland. The Liberal Democrats suffered from their participation in the coalition government and the austerity years. The Conservatives benefitted from the problems and the crisis of confidence faced by the other major parties. The column asks the question about whether austerity can ever be a vote winning strategy. And it points out that the Conservative party won 37% of the vote compared to 36% in 2010. Labor went from 29% in one of the worst results ever in 2010 to 31%. UK Independence Party gained 13% vote share with increase in English nationalism. Behind all this it says is the general disillusion with the political class in Europe. And the Conservatives should take care lest the dissensions in the party with the EU referendum lead to a divided party. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The only way the Conservatives can form a majority to govern in Britain is by getting the support of the Democratic Unionist Party with its 10 seats, and this would still give Conservatives 328 seats in parliament, with 326 required for a majority. This very thin 3 seat majority could lead to a fall of the government if a couple of Conservative party members defected. Here Davies points out that though the Democratic Unionist party supports Brexit it is of a very different nature. The party is based in Ireland and originated with Rev. Ian Paisley. With its Irish roots it wants free movement of goods and people across the border with Ireland which is an EU member, access to EU funding and protection for farmers. Ireland has shown serious concern about the Brexit vote, and Northern Ireland voters voted against Brexit 56% to 44% for Brexit. This open border and EU support is close to what is currently in place. As Davies points out this puts the whole Brexit negotiating process in doubt, with no coherent position for Britain at all, leading to a collapse of the talks and no deal with the European Union. Another reason the doubts about Brexit are likely to grow is that a large part of the UK Independence Party support has disappeared, with UKIP getting 1.8% of the vote compared to about 11% in 2015 election. The combined vote of the parties that see Brexit as a priority for Britain was in fact about 45.1%, combining Conservatives 42.4%, Democratic Unionist 0.9% and UKIP 1.8%. The parties that did not see Brexit as a priority for Britain won over 50% of the vote this time- Labor 40.0%, Scottish National party 3.0%, Liberal Democrats 7.4%, according to BBC. Davies says the increasing uncertainty is bad for the British economy. In coming months doubts are likely to grow about whether the referendum was a priority for Britain, and how this is a distraction from the other serious issues facing the British economy to ensure a better future. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Karl Rove, advisor to President George W. Bush, and organizer behind American Crossroads political action committee, says the election will be decided by the higher support for Romney among independents and the high turnout of Republican voters. The prediction for the voter turnout among Republicans is 36% Republican vs. 35% Democratic, according to Gallup. This compares with the 39% Republican and 37% Democratic in 2004, and 39% Democratic 29% Republican in 2008. The early and absente ballot voting advantage has significantly gone down almost by half for Democrats as more Republicans cast early votes in swing states like Ohio. Closing statements and crowds also appear to confirm this trend. Rove sees this as 51% to 48% favoring the Republicans. The addition of swing states - Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania also appears to suggest that a broader movement is underway that is happening right now in the final week before the election on Nov. 6, 2012. Rove focusses on the numbers. A behavioural assessment shows the importance in this campaign of the centrist position adopted by Romney in the closing months of the campaign; the selection of Ryan which gave Romney support from the Republican conservative base so that he could talk freely about his record in the liberal state of Massachusetts to independent voters and women, and most important the clear message to voters focussed on a five point plan to get the economy recovery were critical in shaping these numbers....

LyrArc Article Gist
A Washington Post poll in September 2016 shows some surprising results with Clinton competitive in Texas and Arizona, long red states. It shows Trump's appeal to older white voters helping him in Iowa and Ohio. Clinton has a slight lead in Michigan. Clinton also leads in Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Colorado, and also in Florida.  As the race gets closer with about 50 days left Clinton's lead of 8-9 points is now about 4 points. Most striking this time compared to 2012 is that Clinton is polling way ahead with college educated voters. A race with libertarian candidate Johnson shows him getting 15% of the vote in 15 states narrowing Clinton's advantage, but also putting pressure on Trump to win undecided voters. Clinton has consolidated the Democratic vote better than Trump with 90% support in 32 states compared to Trump's above that in only 13 states, a key weakness because of dividing the Republican vote with Trump's crude and blatant attacks during the primaries that have left some Republicans thoroughly alienated. Unlike any previous election this one is dividing the vote based on gender and education. A big additional difference is college educated white women where the gap is the widest seen in any election- a 23 point lead for Clinton with white college educated women nationwide. In the midwest Michigan still has a history of voting Democratic especially after the auto industry rescue by Obama. Demographic changes not mentioned here also play a part such as in Colorado and Nevada long time red states. A Clinton edge in Texas is the most surprising result in the entire poll results showing the old red state blue state division is now replaced by women, minorities and college degrees as the dividing line. Part of the reason for this is that the losses due to globalization. And in this respect Clinton does better than Obama, but not as well as Merkel in Germany who has also suffered with people who lost out in globalization but not to the extent of Obama, and to a lesser degree than Obama for Clinton. Enough minority support, Republican support, and blue collar support, in addition to women voters,  may be the difference for Clinton in Texas. The other factor is the advertising campaign funding and the national security issue, on which Clinton does better than Obama in the latter a key factor in red states, and is similar to Obama in the former to tackle midwestern states. Such as Michigan and Wisconsin, liberal in history but with large shifting blue collar votes. Hurt by globalization, but in the case of Michigan helped by the Democrats rescue of the auto industry. In a way this could bring the country together after Obama with the disappearing North-South or red state blue state division, and with enough union or working class white support for Clinton in addition to dominant college educated voters to form a new coalition of support compared to a predominantly red state white state division of Obama years based on the minority vote.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The Liberal Party led by Justin Trudeau wins an absolute majority in Canada's parliament with 184 seats, defeating the Conservatives. The NDP gets 20% of the vote but only 44 seats.

LyrArc Article Gist
History will see the lack of working on a bipartisan basis from the beginning of the Trump and Biden terms to stop illegal migrants and fight CMC (Canada, Mexico and China) on fentanyl flows as a blot on both parties. A remarkable change has happened in a matter of 100 days in Canada's stance on immigration and fentanyl flows. Trudeau now calling for eradication of fentanyl, his deputy prime minister saying Canada has more fentanyl deaths per capita than the US because of smaller population, and the need to wipe it out off the face of North America. The Canada Conservatives generally support DJT. The Trudeau Liberals have shifted policy to support DJT policies on immigration and fentanyl flows. In general Canada is making a pronounced shift towards support of the US position on immigration.  It is not just DJT policy as closing the border was part of the agreement agreed by Biden in 2024 with Republicans in Congress led by Lankford-Graham-McConnell which was not passed because it was too close to the election. One can only say the Covid pandemic, vaccination shortfalls, failures of supply chain distracted Biden from acting early and similar to DJT on the first phase of immigration action on illegal migrants committing offenses. The release of illegal migrants across the US is something that Democrats will years from now see as a major error in its policies. History will see the lack of working on a bipartisan basis from the beginning of the Trump and Biden terms to stop illegal migrants and fight CMC (Canada, Mexico and China) on fentanyl flows as a blot on both parties. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
This WSJ editorial makes an excellent argument of how the wrong conclusions can be drawn from Hamas, as an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood gaining participation and winning of the elections in Gaza. It calls this a mistake in 2006, which does not affect the liberal democratic openings of the Bush administration in the Arab world. Hamas had an armed militia and rejected the 1993 Oslo records, so the necessary committments which are required for democratic processes to work were not put in place, primarily on the advice of Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice who made an exception in this case. The Journal says the mistake was not about free elections, but elections before the proper groundwork had been prepared, which requires that anti-democratic parties cannot be part of a democratic system and elections- a lesson that goes back to 1933. If the Brotherhood in Egypt wants to participate in elections says the Journal, it has to promise to play by democratic rules , and work to establish religious and social pluralism, and honor treaty commitments. And the constitutional system has to setup a system of strong checks and balances that prevent an elected party from subverting the democratic process for future generations whatever its support at any particular time. This is significant as it puts things in the proper context and also clearly establishes a well established point- democracy can only work for democrats. And at the same time preserves what is best about America's heritage and core values in America's stance with the rest of the world, and in this case with the Arab world....

LyrArc Article Gist
The declining popularity of prime minister Stephen Harper and the Conservatives in Canada in 2013. The Liberals under Justin Trudeau, son of a popular Liberal prime minister in the seventies, see an upsurge in their popularity as the Conservatives see a large dip in the polls. New elections are planned for 2015. Harper announces new proposals to help consumers in the new session of parliament.

LyrArc Article Gist
Witte, Booth and Adam of the Washington Post describe the situation Britain's prime minister Theresa May finds herself in after calling a snap election. A badly run campaign by May focusses on Brexit, and leads to election losses to Labor. Without the support of voters in Scotland who voted tactically to prevent Scotland from breaking away, the Conservatives would have no chance of forming a government. May now needs the 10 seats of the Democratic Unionist Party in Scotland to have a 3 seat majority. Labor leader Corbyn despite a barrage of negative publicity from British tabloids, maintained his cool and composure. His focus on the austerity politics of the Conservatives under Cameron and now May, enabled Labor to get 40% of the vote compared to the Conservatives 43%, with the Scottish National Party getting 3% and the Liberal Democrats 7.4%. Giving the parties that have never seen Brexit as a priority for Britain over 50% of the vote. The Democratic Unionist is a small party with less than 1% of the vote (0.9%), which in some countries makes it ineligible to take seats in the legislature. In the mixed up out of focus nature of British politics today this party is the kingmaker. The UK Independence party or UKIP party that started the whole affair of Brexit- that prime minister Cameron responded to to gain votes for the Conservatives by promising the referendum on Brexit- won just 1.8% of the votes cast, in a election where 69% of voters went to the polls, winning zero seats, down from 10.8% in the 2015 election. This is the state of British politics today  following the failure of political leaders, as Theresa May acts as if the election results are not sending a message about Brexit, say Witte, Booth and Adams.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The caretaker government of prime minister Mark Rutte in the Netherlands will commit to following austerity plans in its Stability Program report to the European Union. Elections are now set for September 12, 2012. The government was able to get the support of two smaller left-leaning parties to austerity plans. Opposition parties have questioned the policies and said they will reverse them if elected. Rutte's Liberal party and Jaeger's Christian Democrats, with the help of the Christenunie, D66, and Groenlinks, now hold a slim 2 seat majority in the 150 seat Dutch parliament. The Freedom party that had previously supported Rutte withdrew support for austerity policies that it said would hurt pensioners. The moves help avert a credit ratings drop by the credit ratings agencies leading to a loss of the Dutch triple A credit rating. The measures will increase the sales tax from 19% to 21%, make health care spending cuts and impose a pay freeze on civil servants. Savings achieved will be 11 billion euros. Rutte described his actions as: "the government's respose to the acute crisis in confidence in the financial markets." Earlier in the week Fitch Ratings had threatened to lower the Netherlands credit rating. The measures will reduce the Dutch deficit to 3% in 2013 from 4.5% in 2012 to meet EU fiscal compact rules. The changes to the health system are part of changes advocated by the OECD and the IMF because of surging health care costs for an aging Dutch population. There is concern about the sales tax increase because of its effect on consumer spending, and recent comments by S&P managing directors and others in financial markets emphasize the need for economic growth, as austerity measures by itself are inadequate solutions....

LyrArc Article Gist
Steve Bannon is described in this indepth report by Scott Shane as a workaholic, born to working class family with his father a telephone line operator, who went to Virginia Tech and joined the Navy in the hope of advancing a career in politics. At Virginia Tech he won a leadership position of the student organization. He was described by another student who knew him well as passionate but not likely to get much done. The period at Virginia Tech and in the Navy were the Carter years followed by election of Ronald Reagan. The election of Reagan had a huge influence on Bannon- the same overtones of that campaign of Reagan are seen today in the forgotten men and women, white working class families that Conservatives then and Tea Party Conservatives in the Obama years felt ignored. The downward drift of the lower middle class families that saw incomes drop as manufacturing hollowed out in the U.S. with foreign competition, the failure of establishment politicians of both parties to protect American manufacturing and working class families, added to the sense of angst for Bannon. Bannon just like politicians in the Obama camp such as Emmanuel, found the way to politics through finance and gains made as the banking sector and financial institutions made huge financial gains by 2008. This was a stepping stone for their political ambitions. Emmanuel who is also a workaholic and passionate about his views worked to elect a black president, Bannon choosing to do the opposite and push for bringing back the Reagan era. Most on the liberal side see him as part of a racist movement. Reagan was none of those things. How does one reconcile the two? It is possible that seeing the fight against the established politics as an impossible task, Bannon in his passionate temperament did not object to the support of right wing extremists, in the same way that Trump did. As both Trump and Bannon have people of Jewish origin and black people in their circle of friends or family. What incensed Bannon as described here by Scott Shane of the NYT, was that after the financial crisis of 2008, hardly any bank executives who had committed wrongdoing went to jail, his father's line operator retirement savings were devastated by the financial crisis, and working class families struggled harder than ever, that his daughter at West Point was with mostly children of working class families who were the ones fighting America's wars. Many ironies abound in the story. Bannon got his business start in the same financial institutions that were involved in the financial crisis of 2008, Bannon & Co was acquired by Societe Generale. He is from an Irish Catholic working class family in Richmond and attended Benedictine High School, with a mother Doris that worked on the campaign to elect Douglas Wilder, a Democrat, as the first African American governor of Virgina.  The other ironies are in that Bannon sees Trump as "an imperfect vessel" but still good enough, and Trump sees himself as "making all the decisions" when asked about Bannon, as a range of interests struggle to form a coherent movement on the right in American politics- an unlikely combination of a telephone operator's son and real estate magnate's son who built his own real estate business in luxury real estate towers far removed from ordinary men and women they represent. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Cohn and Monkovic of the NYT show how the shift of blacks, hispanics, and white collar professionals is doing to the demographics in the eastern, coastal and southern states, and how this will impact 2016 and future presidential elections in the U.S. This includes North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Virginia, and Florida. It means the electoral map may have changed by 2016 and 2020, as the less educated voters in rural areas are balanced by a growing minority and white collar vote in the suburbs and major cities of the South.

LyrArc Article Gist
This report in the Hindusthan Times on president Trump's 25% steel tariff on steel imports focuses on the trade deficit with China of $375 billion in 2017. It shows the trade deficit for the month of February 2018 citing data from China as growing rapidly in 2018 over the prior year by 45%, even as imports went up only by 6.3%. In looking at coverage in the U.S. on this topic many of the reports in the Washington Post and the New York Times were critical of the tariff without mentioning the size of the trade surplus of China. Hardly any reports mentioned the growth by 45% in the February 2018 trade surplus of China with the U.S. over the prior year.  This report cites a tweet by president Trump that China was asked to come up with a plan to reduce its trade surplus by $1 billion in 2018, only 0.27% of the trade surplus, which looks strange as this would do little to change the trading relationship except that it puts pressure on China to change the direction of the surplus that is growing because of the strengthening dollar and the growth in the U.S.  This suggests that even with the 25% steel tariff America's basic problem of the imbalance in trading relationship with China will continue.  The headlines critical of Trump for starting a trade war therefore look strange in this context and show how little this subject is understood or debated with facts. Even today textbook economics principles are cited after two decades of hollowing out of industry in the midwestern U.S. and in Ontario, Canada. This led to public sentiment shift electing a liberal Justin Trudeau in Canada, and an outsider real estate businessman Donald Trump in the U.S.  For Democrats in the U.S. the support of marginal additional gains in trade with president Obama's push for another free trade agreement in the TPP may have cost them theiir working class base and the election.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Voter fatigue with the Conservatives under prime minister Harper is showing up in the province of Ontario. The area around London, Ontario, and Toronto is critical in the 2015 general election. A large loss of manufacturing jobs has left this key manufacturing region of Canada so weakened that the recent 20% decline in the Canadian currency is not leading to a rebound in the manufacturing sector. The Liberals under Justin Trudeau have promised to run a slight deficit to invest in infrastructure that would help the manufacturing sector, while Harper's Conservatives plan to keep the status quo. The vigorous campaign run by Trudeau, the son of a former prime minister, is also helping the Liberals, who are moving ahead in the polls.

LyrArc Article Gist
After 13 years of Labor government, the new Liberal-Conservative coalition is seen as good for both the parties and good for Britain A good deal of optimism about the prospects for this government. The optimism rests on the pragmatic sensible nature of Cameron and Clegg, on the fact that the 2 parties combined have 59% of the vote in the elections for making some tough decisions- on spending cuts, a sensible fiscal program to generate $9 billion in savings through spending cuts in 2010, and generally agreement between the two parties on the significant issues of state finances. The Tories holding to their position on immigration but giving in on the idea of proportional representation. The election changes would have Parliament members in office for 5 years and the manner of election changed to remove a growing distortion of the popular vote. Labor and Conservatives share of the vote has dropped from 81% in 1979 to 65% in 2010, and still Tory and Labor MP's have 565 of the 650 seats in Parliament or 87%....

LyrArc Article Gist
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. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Ms. Annegret Kramp-Krarrenbauer, elected leader of the CDU party in 2018 with the support of Angela Merkel, will not run for chancellor in next years election and will resign from her position by the end of the year. She will continue as Germany's defense minister. After losses for the CDU in recent elections and the embarrassment of local CDU leaders in Thuringia supporting the far right AfD, AKK as she is known decided to step down. Angela Merkel has decided not to run for chancellor again. Germany is set to chair the EU in the second half of 2020, and Merkel is no longer seen as a leader of influence. The Nationalist Alternative for Germany AfD has gained votes in recent elections following the 2015-2016 migrant crisis, with large numbers of refugees from North Africa and Arab world landing in Greece and Turkey and walking to Hungary, Austria and Germany. Merkel's handling of the crisis with acceptance of a million refugees in 2015-2016 unsettled European and German politics. Why? One way of looking at it is that in the same way that the U.S. took in Chinese imported goods ending in the Trump tariffs war, at some point it just becomes too big to handle. That ended up at $1 billion a day in imports from China when president Trump called it off and accused Obama Democrats, Bush Republicans, of betraying the country. Putting it into perspective Germany with one fourth of the population of the U.S. took in about twice the number of refugees in just one year 2015-2016 that the U.S. took in 10 years 2005-2015. The U.S. took in 675,000 immigrants between 2005-2015. This is as if the U.S. took in something like 20 million immigrants in a short period of 1 year on an equivalent basis- though the cultural impact is even greater in a nation like Germany that is like Japan an historically immigrant averse nation. All this happened too quickly for Germany to handle for its fragile cultural fabric. Much of the initial outpouring of support and positive sentiment came from the sense of having gone through World War II and the refugees in that and the early post war period, the need to return in the same spirit support Germany had received. Over time it eroded support for the Christian Democratic Union and Merkel. That Merkel could have done this is itself a small miracle. Now the rebuilding has to begin. Adenauer's CDU and the socialist SPD party of Willy Brandt now have less than 50% support, only with the Greens Party do they make up 50%. The question now is can the CDU, and the SPD which has fallen to 14% in elections, make it back and what kind of future makeup political parties will have in Germany, how the social fabric can be restored. AKK's achievement is to mend relations between the liberal Merkel wing of the CDU and conservatives from Bavaria (CSU) over immigration.  Candidates for CDU leadership are Armin Laschet, Jens Spahn, and Friedrich Merz. Laschet premier of North Rhine-Westphalia has Merkel's support. Looking back too much attention was taken up by the euro crisis, and too little was done in the areas of infrastructure, inequality gaps, education, child care, under Merkel's leadership and of the preceding SPD years, much like what happened under Bush and Obama administrations in the U.S. where wars, economic crises led to neglect on issues that affect lives of ordinary working families. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
This report in the WSJ points to Democrats having won consistently 18 states plus District of Columbia adding upto 242 Electoral College votes in every election since 1992. Democrats need 28 more to cross the needed 270 votes. Republicans consistently having 13 states with 102 electoral College votes. Demographic changes in recent years have shifted to where Hillary Clinton may not need to devote resources to Colorado and Virginia because of a more favorable position there.  Carrying Pennsylvania with these 2 states would put Clinton over the 270 required. Vice Presidential candidate for Clinton, Senator Keane is from Virginia and is popular in the state.  Pennsylvania has a long history favoring Democrats. North Carolina has also seen demographic changes favoring Democrats. The Clinton campaign is focussing ads on these states as well as the swing states of Nevada, Iowa and New Hampshire, as well as Georgia, Arizona and Utah which are becoming competitive for Democrats. By keeping up the effort in Georgia, Arizona and Utah, Clinton hopes to make Trump divert resources there. Other two swing states are Ohio and Florida, but this WSJ report says Clinton has to win only one of the four swing states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, and North Carolina to go over 270 and Trump needs all four. Of the 20 media markets Clinton or her super PACs have focussed their ads on 16 are in these 4 states. The Clinton campaign is looking at several alternative routes to 270 Electoral College votes, which gives it more flexibility to plan the campaign.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Stephen Harper's Conservative party won 167 of the 308 seats in Canada's House of Commons, the NDP won 102 seats, the Liberals 34 seats and the Bloc Quebecois 2 seats. Harper gave indications of how he would govern by saying that he would stay on the same path the Conservatives followed when they were a minority party. He said there would be no changes to Canada's public health care system. He told a news conference in Calgary, Alberta: "Even as a majority you have to, on an ongoing basis, keep the trust of the population." The Conservatives won only 40% of the popular vote, and this may be a reason for the caution in making major changes. The Conservatives maintained their base in western Canada, and gained seats in Ontario. The gains in and around Toronto, came because the left-of-center vote was split between the Liberals and the NDP. Experts say Harper will shut down a disputed registry for rifles, end direct government subsidies of political parties, and maintain scheduled corporate tax cuts. The Conservative government is also expected not take any significant steps to cut greenhouse gas emissions that are opposed by the oil and gas industries in western Canada. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
After years of running budget deficits, Canada under the Conservatives worked hard to balance its budget. The Conservatives under Stephen Harper did not accept the need for large stimulus spending, as a result his government almost lost its second term in a parliamentary vote that did not happen because the governor general closed Parliament for 7 weeks. Now it has come up with a stimulus plan of $40 billion in Canadian dollars of tax breaks and new spending. Most of the money will go to maintaining roads, railways and ports and in encouraging home improvements. The government is also adding C$50 billion to its C$75 billion fund to buy mortgage-backed securities.