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Without creditor agreement to release bailout funds Greece will not be able to make the $763 million payment to the IMF on May 12, 2015. Financial markets face uncertainty about the outcome of negotiations. In this report Landon Thomas Jr. describes meetings between debt lawyer Bucheit and the Greece finance minister Varoufakis, who are handling the negotiations with the EU and the IMF.

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Mario Monti, Italy's prime minister, tells Alessandra Galloni of the WSJ, "Germany will never let France go." French economist Sorman says Americans do not realize that the EU and the Euro were created for political, not economic reasons, and the idea was to bring peace to Europe and especially between France and Germany. He sees the EU countries staying through this crisis together, and France emerging more competitive from this experience.

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Antonis Samaras continues his efforts to get the EU to agree to a two year extension for deficit targets agreed to in the March 202 bailout. He meets Merkel in Berlin, Aug. 24 and Hollande in Paris, Aug. 25. Merkel's coalition partners the Free Democrats oppose an extension. The opposition Social Democrats leader Steinmeier tells the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper "its not very smart to abandon all conditions for aid over an extension of 12 months." Samaras tells the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper: "our economy shrank 27%. Greece is bleeding, It is really bleeding." And German finance minister Schauble tells Germany's SWR2 radio that its too early for Greece to come back and say the agreed aid is insufficient considering that its ony 6 months since the March 2012 agreement. Merkel and other leaders in the Christian Democrats say they will wait till a report from the troika (the EU, ECB and the IMF) in October 2012 before responding.

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Trump takes action against Mexico, China and Canada for illegal flows of fentanyl and migrants across US borders. It is specific targeted and excludes EU, India, Japan, South Korea trading partners. For a decade some countries acted with impunity and American leaders did not respond to protect the people from illegal flows across borders. This action did not come in the first DJT term in 2016-2020 though tariffs were placed. Free trade has to be clean trade where such illegal flows are not in the picture or acceptable.

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Spiegel Online provides a inside look at the leader of the Law and Justice Party which was elected to power in 2015. The liberal opposition that was in power since the fall of communism has seen its popularity decline in the rural areas of Poland, especially in the east. The urban-rural divide seen in other countries such as France is acutely present in Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe, with poor governance and a tendency for economic gains made under capitalism following the fall of communism to go to more educated people in the large cities. The party's leaders are Lech and Jaroslav Kaczynski who were president and prime minister from 2005 to 2007. At the time they were seen as outsiders lacking the sophistication and experience in government of the liberal opposition under Donald Tusk, who now is head of the EU Council since 2014. Tusk was prime minister of Poland from 2007 to 2014. Lech Kaczynski was killed in a plane crash in 2010. Jaroslav Kaczynski appoints members of his party to key positions in government including prime minister Duda. Kaczynski is strident about the manner in which the gains since Poland joined the European Union have gone only to certain groups able to benefit from capitalism. At a recent party congress near Warsaw he is quoted here as saying: "We are here to ensure that everyone in Poland has the same opportunities, regardless of where they live, in the cities or the country." Kaczynski's appeal is in offering a generous welfare state for the middle classes- small businessmen in villages and towns across Poland, common people, with subsidies to tackle the cost of living. His focus is on the "pathological" consequences of economic liberalism after the fall of the Iron Curtain, privatization that benefitted a few, including Kaczynski says former communists and dissidents. Small businessmen felt the inroads of large private retail chains, and families felt the problems of lack of investment in schools and kindergartens. The liberal opposition can only offer the hope that being a reliable EU ally will ensure prosperity, which does not go well with the eastern part of Poland. As a result the Kaczynski government is moving away from the ideas that anchor the European Union. It sees the rule of law and independence of the judiciary as something that can be changed to where the president appoints members of the Supreme Court and the judiciary. Protests in Warsaw and the large cities are taking place against these moves. Der Spiegel says this could end up the way it happened in Britain where it simply stumbled into leaving the EU just by accident. This is the situation in 2017. It could be a temporary process that is a response to the excesses of capitalism. As Kaczynski says to create a level playing field for all parts of Polish society by smoothing out some of the harsh effects of rampant capitalism. Or as Spiegel Online points out a shaky period in which the EU and Poland are at odds- ironically with Donald Tusk as the head of the EU confronting both Theresa May and Kaczynski.  ...

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With unemployment at 27% millions of Greeks and the elderly like Nikos Solomos, 60, cannot afford premiums and have joined the ranks of the uninsured. Greece's budget cuts have hit the health care sector hard because of mismanagement and corruption with prescription drugs costing about three times the cost in other EU countries. Cuts in heathcare are over 25% since 2009 and more cuts planned. Anthony Faiola with contribution from Elinda Labropoulou provides an exceptional account of the state of health care through the stories of ordinary Greeks like Nikos Solomos with intestinal cancer and the shortage of staff, equipment and supplies at Metropolitan Community Center in South Athens and Gennimatas General Hospital. Problems now include a resurgence of tuberculosis. Some of this pain is being felt in other EU countries with sharp cuts in public health spending, including Spain and Ireland.

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This report looks at the idea of jointly issuing debt for nonrepayable aid of 390 billion euros for the recovery fund for Europe. This goes to aid the countries hardest hit by the pandemic including Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Poland.

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The pound trades at 1.23 U.S. dollars and the Euro at 1.12 U.S. dollars. Both currencies lost about 3% in 2019 and the pound could reach parity with the U.S. dollar if Boris Johnson takes Britain out of the EU without a negotiated settlement.

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The Indian Supreme Court Bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and JB Pardiwala rejected a petition of 14 political parties in India for guidelines to prevent avoidable arrest of political opponents, saying it is asking for special immunity for politicians.

"Ultimately a political leader is also a citizen, and as a citizen he or she is amenable to the same law."

"Once we accept that political leaders stand absolutely on the same footing as citizens of the country, they will face the same due process of law and are not entitled to a higher immunity than what is available under law."

"You (political parties) say there is selective targeting of opposition leaders. But at the same time you say you do not want any special treatment of politicians as they are only citizens of the country, they will face the same due process of law and are not entitled to higher immunity than what is available under law."

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In a first Vietjet Air will connect Hyderabad, India to Da Nang, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam by November 2022. Direct flights will also be set up from Ahmedabad and Bengaluru to Vietnam.

This will build the connectivity for business and tourism as the new supply chain is set up by the US and EU in Asia with Vietnam and India.

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The US received a boost in the economy with larger public spending than the European Union countries and more spending on vaccines. This is changing quickly as the EU has secured a large order of vaccines from Pfizer and other companies. France and Germany are now making steady progress in their vaccination drives. Britain has already secured results in the NHS vaccination drive, a leader in the field.

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U.S. president Obama made negotiating a Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement with the EU a priority for his second term. Further reduction of tariffs would increase trade by over $120 billion over 5 years from the current $1 trillion level, according to the U.S Chamber of Commerce.

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The new cabinet of prime minister Valls in France includes Segolene Royal as Ecology minister. Michel Sapin, labor minister in the outgoing cabinet, becomes finance minister. Sapin was finance minister under the Mitterand government in the 1990's. A critic of austerity policies Industry Minister Arnaud Montebourg, continues in this position with a wider role. After losing badly in local elections in March 2014, president Hollande has asked the new cabinet to combine planned tax cuts for businesses with efforts to increase spending power of households. Finance Minister Sapin faces the task of convincing the EU and Germany that France should have more leeway in plans for deficit reduction to boost its economy and especially reduce unemployment. Unemployment is at a high of 11%. Sapin is seasoned in the ways of operating in EU circles. In his role as finance minister in the Mitterand administration he pushed for the passing of the French referendum on the Maastricht Treaty that laid the baiss for the euro currency....

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France's Thomas Piketty concentrated on inequality and arrives at no solutions or relief, just a historical summary that is also intuitively seen. The pandemic, climate change's impact on agriculture and livable planet, the Ukraine war have raised three questions right before our eyes that are broader and cover more and deeper ground.  The pandemic showed that the dependence on manufacturing in remote locations was a serious error. Climate change showed that agriculture the ability to feed the world itself was affected by this dependence on remote location manufacturing.  Much of this manufacturing was shipped out to China, Europe and the US lost their manufacturing base and with the communities spread out  across the US and EU lost factories and work. Manufacturing was not just shipped out to China, the process was concentrated in a short span of time leading to destruction of the environment on an unprecedented scale in China and the world  by burning lots of coal and fossil fuels. The Russian invasion of Ukraine showed the failure of this arrangement  and exposed its cracks  for Europe, US, and the free world in Asia and Latin America. The shipping out of manufacturing in this way not only destroyed communities and jobs in manufacturing in the US and the EU, but also led to such a broad accumulation of  dollar reserves in Russia and China, that enabled the invasion of neighboring countries in Europe without serious consequences to their economies, the invasion of Ukraine and the threatened takeover of Taiwan. By tackling these issues and building a supply chain concentrated more at home and in the free world better manufacturing jobs will be created in Europe and the US and in the nations of the free world that mitigate and reduce all the effects of inequality that Piketty and others talk about. The newer factories built in advanced nations of the EU and the US and set up in the free world in Asia and other countries, will be built with climate change in mind and make the shift away from coal and fossil fuels, and for conservation plus efficiency in use of energy at every step in the newly built supply chain. The results will be good for all countries in the world including the US, EU, China and India, as climate change can be aggressively tackled in this way with the latest technology and trillions of dollar of capital investments for the benefit of all. ...

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The contrast between the background and style of Britain's chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, and the shadow chancellor, Mr. Balls.

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  In a way that recalls FDR Biden backed dockworkers on wages that fell behind.  Former Fed Governor chief economist at the White House, Lael Brainard, together with the Transportation and Labor Secretaries Buttigieg and Julie Su, with White House chief of staff Zient, all in a Zoom call at 5.30 am with shipping company management in the EU and Asia. Brainard made proposal the shipping companies accepted for 62% increase in wages over 6 years, increasing top wages $24. The dockworkers union Longshoreman's Association asked for 77%, a decent share in the large shipping company profits after decades when wages lagged behind cost of living. Zient told the shipping companies in that Zoom call- “I need the offer today — not tomorrow. I’m going to brief the president in an hour that you believe you can get this done today.” Stein, Duncan and Gurley tell the extraordinary story of how Biden backed the call for raising 45,000 workers wages on the port docks along the East.  Coast. ...

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This piece in the Economist magazine points out why people in Portugal, Spain and Italy resent the remarks of Dutch finance minister, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, current head of the Eurogroup council of finance ministers, In an intervew with Germany daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, he said he was proud of the solidarity shown by northern European countries with the southern ones, but solidarity he said means obligations- " I cannot spend all my money on schnapps and women, and then ask for your support."  It also points out that Dijsselbloem's Labor Party lost three fourths of its seats in the recent Dutch elections and so is an unrepresentative presence in the Eurogroup. By supporting austerity policies in a coalition with a centre right party the Labor Party lost most of its seats. Dijsselbloem did this in the EU with strict rules for Italy for injecting money to recapitalize its banks and increase growth that have hurt Italy, and earned the resentment of Mr. Renzi, says the Economist magazine.He may even be replaced by an official from Spain or another southern European country, says the magazine. In any case it does little for EU unity at a sensitive time, and was a serious mistake. The timing was even worse, as the EU faces a test in elections in France and Germany, after Netherlands, and needs popular perceptions to be positive about what has been achieved since the dark days of 1945. ...

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Key points made by Keir Starmer of Labour party during a 2 day visit to Berlin to meet Chancellor Scholz. Starmer says -Labour is ready to fight an election on the economy and win. Labour understands what it means to live with high inflation. He said "it feels like the Tories are like a football team dragged into the relegation zone and can see the drop, and are desperately trying to change the manager in the hope and belief that it will make a difference." "We're dealing with a cost of living crisis- people literally unable to pay their bills- and you've got a Conservative Party leadership race that is completely divorced from reality." Starmer says all the Tory leadership candidates should be challenged how they are going to fund their tax cuts and spending pledges- by borrowing or slashing public services. Labour will win respect at the negotiating table in any efforts to work with the EU to make Brexit work better. Its position on Northern Ireland will be well received in the EU.   ...

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The Times of London provides this view of Brexit and the no-confidence vote against Theresa May from her own party, the Conservatives which she survived. Views are from Paris, Berlin and Rome. French commentators agreed that the paralysis on Brexit and the situation of Theresa May are a result of a mendacious referendum campaign, and a understanding that Britain is only going to lose by leaving the European Union.  Le Figaro, conservative newspaper says the British were sold an impossible vision by pro-Brexit politicians egged on b ancestral arrogance, that they would somehow have upper hand in negotiations. Le Monde the centre left newspaper pointed out that the Britain's economic losers were hoodwinked by a branch of the conservative elite. It said enormous lies were used in the campaign - Boris Johnson saying that we are leaving the EU but we will keep all the advantages.It added an insight that "Brexit is not straightforward because the EU today is a British creation: single market, free trade, enlargement, serving British interests."   ...