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Khedery describes the complete collapse in Sunni- Shiite relations under the Maliki regime and the Iranian influence in Iraqi politics in stark terms. It will take a near miracle, tolerance for religious faiths and opinion, and an exceptional leader, to turn things around and put the decades of misrule of Hussein and Maliki behind. Without that there can be no Iraq. Khedery goes into the misrule in a manner that American political and military leaders only talk about in a sparing manner so as not to make the entire Middle East policy look disastrous.

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Miroff describes the situation for Mexico's middle class in the face of rising crime, a deep distrust of the police that extends to neighbors. This is seen through the lives of a middle class family, Alfredo and Lilia Hoyos, in the town of Cuernavaca, 50 miles south of Mexico City. Long known for its quiet neighborhoods, a second home to many civil servants in Mexico City, a university town famous for its language schools, Cuernavaca is now caught up in the struggle with drug gangs and rising crime. The Mexican government sent marines in helicopters to kill drug gang leader Beltran Levya. The level of trust in the police with rising crime is low making the situation worse. In a recent poll, only 6% of respondents said they could trust the police, 40% said "little" or "none." An OECD survey in 2008 showed Mexico at the bottom of the list of 34 countries for citizens expressing trust in their neighbors and community. The drug war has taken a serious toll on trust in the community since then. Hoyas had a difficult time setting up a neighborhood watch for security because people feared to participate. As Mexico modernizes and the middle class expands the situation on this basic parameter of development deteriorates....

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The Guardian in its Editorial on Keir Starmer on February 10, 2026, says Labour was in the political wilderness for 18 years, and yet it has taken only 14 months for the project which put it into power to implode. It is referring to the project of McSweeney from County Cork, Ireland, and others to put a centrist to replace Corbyn, and selecting Keir Starmer. This was a weakness from the start as a candidate has to emerge on his own merits not be put in place by handlers like McSweeney, as he would not be able to govern on his own thinking and make his own decisions.  McSweeney was a campaign organizer and not successful at that as portrayed as Labour could have taken more than the 34% of the vote it received after 18 years of Tory rule without the likes of McSweeney. The Guardian says "excessive power and influence" was given by Starmer to McSweeney, and that the outsourcing of Britain's direction served neither the prime minister or the country well.  This is aserious flaw. McSweeney did not have the long experience of advisers that backed up Biden in the White House. And even the long experience of Biden group of advisers failed Biden when it came to immigration policy and the Border. And yet the question remains why was there such a lack in the talent pool for good governance for Labour, as it was for the Conservatives, for 3 decades since the 1990's? Similar to the situation with Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama governance in the US, why is there not a good talent pool for effective governance in the UK and the US? The Guardian goes on to question the judgement of Starmer and the clique around him including McSweeney for their attitude towards helping the working class in support payments during a cost of living crisis- what it calls a contempt filled approach of the cliques to the normal priorities of a Labour party. The Editorial concludes that Labour has lost control of the trajectory of events- as more Mandelson emails are expected- and that it is hard to see how this trust can be won back. For Britain having 5 prime ministers over 4 years is a shocking lack of the talent, of confidence, that once prevailed in the nation that once led the world with the Industrial Revolution, and in science and technology. ...

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This opinion piece in De Zeit says there are different ways to look at Chancellor Merkel's refugee policy, as a failure, as an act of compassion, influenced by her experience in East Germany, her Christian upbringing as a daughter of a pastor, or Germany playing a role in Europe after Barrack Obama failed to provide American leadership in the refugee crisis. It says some of this commentary in the media ignores the fact that it was always the intention to accept a large number of migrants as part of a policy of European humanism in the face of misery of refugees, but to carefully manage this influx, to reduce the flow of refugees, and wind down the flow by vigorously addressing the causes. From this point of view the commentary about Merkel's failure is overdone. It is interesting that some of the weirder descriptions describe Germans conscious of the history as being outpatients in a American clinic closed down by president Obama. In any case American presidents have overreached, consider Reagan and Bush with German's strong or cautious reaction, and underreached with Obama providing cause for concern and efforts to fill in for a missing American role, with both roles difficult to fill for Germany by itself. America is not defined by its presidents and its politics alone, but by its own history, which has reflected the same values since the founding fathers Jefferson and Washington. Germany's policy has merely reflected these same values, at a time when the U.S. was simply taking a pause from its foreign involvements in regions fragmented by tribal, religious and other divisions. In doing so being the true partner it was its intention to be. ...

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Axel Weber, former head of the Bundesbank, did economic and monetary research at the University of Siegen, Germany, where he received his doctorate. He joined the economics faculty at the University of Bonn in 1994. This is unlike others in central banking who rose through finance ministries or national central banks. He was made head of the Bundesbank in 2004. He resigned recently after expressing his dissent when the ECB made the decision to buy the government bonds of Greece and other financially troubled eurozone countries. In his view the ECB should stick to its mandate for setting monetary policy and not get involved in fiscal policy. He returned to academia and will teach central banking at the University of Chicago till May 2012. He brings an unconventional approach by his willingness to talk to the media and express his dissent over issues that affect Europe and the global financial system. The same informal style he adopted in teaching and engaging in discussion at the University of Bonn. See the interview in the Wall Street Journal, June 27, 2011....

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The Dow Jones Average drops again 300 points on Dec 27, after a record 1000 point gain on Dec 26, 2018. All S&P sectors are no in the red for the year after losses for the quarter. Investor anxiety stems from the Fed winding down easy money policy, interest  rate increases, the trade war with China, and slower economic growth,

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The constructive contribution made by the G-20 meetings of leaders towards building agreement on economic and other policies for peace and progress in the global economy. The meetings were especially useful for coordinating policy and addressing issues arising in the global economy after the 2008 financial crisis. Here Li Baodong, China's vice minister for international organizations and conferences, international economic affairs, describes the path ahead: IMF reforms implementation, better coordination of macroeconomic policies, pursuing the anti-protectionist and free trade policies with further support to the WTO and ministerial MC9 meeting in Bali in Dec. 2013, and infrastructure financing proposals for developing countries on the agenda at the St Petersburg, Russia, G-2- meeting in Sept. 2013. Baodong says the mechanism called the Framework for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth as part of the G-20 meetings is a major achievement. Each G-20 economy submits it macroeconomic policy plan for a Mutual Assessment Process under this arrangement. The progress from the Bretton Woods financial architecture to the new arrangement- from the G-6 to the G-20 to include developing countries from India to Mexico and Brazil- is another major achievement, not fully recognized by the public, says Baodong. Interestingly Baodong makes particular mention to global rebalancing, rather than pushing what he calls the impossible task of increasing demand to get growth. This is a realization coming to China's economic policymakers under the new Jinping-Keqiang administration after the overly aggressive effort to stimulate demand in the 2009-2011 Stimulus, and the ensuing financial problems in the banking and credit system. It is indicative of the policy shift and its implementation underway in China in 2013-2015....

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Paul Krugman, Nobel prize winning economist points out an astonishing fact about the 2016 U.S. presidential election- U.S. television networks nightly news devoted only 32 minutes in 2016 to all policy issues combined. And these networks devoted 100 minutes to Clinton emails. He calls this "disgraceful."  For weeks at a time in September and October the main television networks lacked the integrity and courage to ask questions and persist on the major questions facing the country of the economy, correcting income distribution that has been skewed away from the middle and working class, infrastructure rebuilding, education and healthcare, and what the policy proposals of each candidate would do for the country. Krugman does not mention this but the media devoted hardly any time to the economic plan devised by Trump that respected economists and economic analysis showed would increase the deficit by $5.3 trillion, and lead to a short term temporary increase in growth followed by a sharp decline. The worst thing that could happen to middle and working class families struggling to recover from the blow to their finances from the last recession.  The cyber hacking of a U.S. presidential election by a foreign power never received the unanimous rejection that it deserved from the television networks, not just Fox News as Krugman points out, but by all the networks. The future landscape of the media needs assessment to bring in new ideas and new entrants to bring constructive improvements, and for older media organizations to rebuild after the loss of confidence among young people. Only about a quarter of young people in the U.S. have confidence in the large media organizations news coverage according to surveys done recently. There are other pressures coming from the tech world that make it imperative to do this. Many experts point to the destructive effect of social media in spreading rumors or information disguised as facts, which are spread instantly by Twitter and Facebook, without any obligation to check the facts. This is also dangerous with a public that is now divided between better educated and less educated along political lines, older more settled in their views people, and younger people quicker in looking for the facts and checking things out before believing them. ...

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David Brooks of the NYT comments on the Hillary Clinton interview by Goldberg in the Atlantic magazine, where she criticized U.S. president Obama for a weak foreign policy and failure to act in Syria. Brooks says Obama's failure to act in the robust manner Clinton is advocating only leads Obama into situations where he is forced to act later as the situation deteriorates with more serious consequences for the U.S. By not acting in a timely manner the U.S. may be forced into greater involvement later, which makes Obama's "don't do stupid stuff" less of a sound idea than it appears. As Clinton points out not leading to better decisions in the same manner as the Bush-Cheney jingoistic policy making.

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The Australian government forecasts lower GDP growth in 2012- dropping to 3.25% fro 4% earlier. The government plans spending cuts of 11.5 billion Australian dollars over the next 4 years, which will further affect economic growth. The mining and resources sector boom is leading to an overvalued currency which is affecting growth in manufacturing, tourism, and retail sectors. Australia has two economies and this limits economic policy options.

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Signs of a permanent shift in property and housing markets in China in 2014 as the new administration of premier Li Keqiang shifts policy to focus on employment and indicators of wellbeing such as pollution, education, and healthcare.

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Paul Peterson, a professor who heads the Program on Education Policy at Harvard, says that public school education has not done as well as private or charter school education. In two areas character or values, and school discipline, public schools lag far behind private schools or charter schools. Private schools score 59% and 46% in these two areas, public schools lag far behind at 21% and 17%, in the 2016 Education Next Survey, says Peterson. He says by appointing Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary, the Trump administration sees the need to think how public schools can benefit from improvement in these areas.

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Forget Macron who is simply following French policy in the manner of De Gaulle, says Greg Ip in WSJ. The European Union has already set its policy to decouple its relationships in the supply chain from China, it just calls it something else -"de-risking." The EU he says is even tougher about this than the US. The EU's Leyen has stated: "The Chinese Communist Party's clear goal is a systemic change of the international order with China at its center... We need to ensure that our companies capital, expertise and knowledge are not used to enhance the military and intelligence capabilities of those who are also systemic rivals."  Mikko Huotari, the head of the Berlin based think tank Mercator Institute for Chinese Studies says that the US and the EU arrived at this through a process that went on in parallel. In fact the Scandinavian countries such as Sweden and Denmark, and the Baltic countries came across this much earlier before Biden became president because of acrimonious relations with China. This is also true of countries in Eastern Europe such as Czech Republic.  Germany's position is based on finding a transitional period for decoupling to reduce the impact on its economy. And even China is aware of this situation and looking for a transitional period for decoupling. More significant is the attitude of companies says Greg Ip- companies such as Tesla, Apple and even Airbus that have continued investments in China with little change. And it is this that president Biden is seeking to change with US policy positions. Another less observed aspect of this is the realization of both the US and EU, that the clear and obvious mistake of overconcentration of the supply chain in China was made under Merkel and the Bush-Obama adminstrations. China too realizes that it would have been better off - less recrimination from workers in the US,  and less costly damaging growth that led to climate change- if there was not this much overconcentration of the supply chain in China. In short it benefitted no one, and happened simply because companies sought to take advantage of attractive offers of building in China offered by local governments in China with subsidies from the Chinese government, and the manufacturing capabilities that kept expanding in a virtuous circle as better infrastructure and logistics were built over time. It goes to show that unless governments are vigilant and aware of these risks the unintended can happen with different consequences including destabilizing the social fabric and the political structure of western democracies.  ...

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A surprise move that creates turmoil in financial markets and damages the reputation of the SNB as it failed to provide any communication to markets whatsoever. The SNB removed a cap on the Swiss Franc of 1.20 euros in a sudden move in Jan. 2015, seeing that its policy was increasingly untenable as the ECB prepared for massive monetary easing.

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US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will spend Tuesday night August 2 in Taipei, Taiwan. China has threatened severe consequences and Taiwanese forces are on alert. Yet with over $1 trillion in China's exports to US and EU in 2021 the response will have to take this into account as also the US and EU to redesign its supply chains. This is the first trip of a senior US official to Taiwan as Speaker Pelosi comes next to the Vice President to succeed the presidency. The US response to the Russian attack on Ukraine was made in Biden's word as a deterrent to China in its role in the Indo-Pacific region. The Pelosi trip may be a reflection of this policy that seeks to maintain the US position that Indo-Pacific is international waters, that US policy will continue as before undeterred by actions such as the Russian attack on Ukraine with the support of China. And that US will engage fully with allies in the Indo-Pacific- Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan. And that is doing this with the cooperation of its allies in the region- Australia, Japan and India. US and EU imports from China are $541 and $522 billion over $1 trillion for 2022. Loss of even a significant portion of these exports from major tensions in the region would have a severe impact on Chinese economic growth. The US and EU are already engage in redesigning the supply chain and would also face problems in a transition similar to the gas rationing in Germany after cutoff of Russian supplies. The trade is too big a factor at this time. ...

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It is about the fighting spirit of FDR and reviving and renewing the New Frontier of John F. Kennedy that was muddled by the Vietnam War. As Frank Bruni in NYT, and many others are saying US president Biden seen along with the team of Jake Sullivan at NSA, Anthony Blinken at State, Janet Yellen at Treasury, and Katherine Tsai at USTR, Pat Schumer Majority Leader in the US Senate and other cabinet members may be the best team in terms of experience and talent that the US has had in many decades, combining relative youth (Sullivan and Tsai) with many years of experience (Schumer, Yellen and the president). The president's experience in US Congress for about 40 years was invaluable in getting through Congress the Chips and Science Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the assistance to families during the pandemic. Only LBJ in recent post war American history had this kind of experience in getting Medicare and Social Security legislation through Congress. Combining this with the experience and negotiating skill for legislation of Pat Schumer Senate Majority Leader is something not seen since the 1960's. This team comes with a clear dedication and plan to restore democracy to the people by building infrastructure, rebuilding American manufacturing and protecting workers and families through cost of living action and higher wages. As Jake Sullivan NSA, a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice, and one who with the advice of the president has put domestic policy at the heart of foreign policy, puts it for workers and families in the US, these are goals he said at Brookings, "we must, we will achieve." Compare that with every other administration since FDR and Kennedy/LBJ for workers and families everything pales in comparison.  ...

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Richard Barrett, former head of overseas counter terrorism operations of Britain and now head of the UN AlQuaeda and Taliban monitoring group, in aspeech to the Washington Institute of Near East Policy, says Al Quaeda is a diminishing threat because a new generation of Muslims who have little recollection of the events and are less interested in religion. And CIA officials say they are having greater success penetrating Al Quaeda, because of vastly improved intelligence capabilities. In terms of intelligence and capabilities, the technical colllection, intercepts are much better, and overhead surveillance is much better. The human intelligence is much better and they have fewer competent people.

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Former U.S. president Geroge W. Bush in retirement years spends time in Dallas, with time spent on his passions for painting, golf, and mountain biking. He stays out of the discussion of current issues even though many of these issues relating to fairness in economic policy, immigration, security surveillance and the Middle East go back to the time when he was president. Friends say he has simply left behind concern about legacy and moved on focussing on living. Privately he has expressed concern about the Tea Party and America's isolationist tendencies in world affairs. He is also skeptical about the new Iranian government's offer of negotiations on nuclear policy.

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Thomas Sargent of New York University and Christopher Sims win the Nobel Prize in Economics for 2011. Sargent, a professor at New York University, is best known for his work on "rational expectations theory, " which points out that people base their actions on their expectations about the impact of government policies in the future. The implications for today are that monetary policy by lowering rates cannnot permanently lower unemployment, as people will expect higher future inflation and insist on higher wages for labor and higher interest rates for capital. Sargent did most of the signifcant work on the theory of rational expectations at the University of Minnesota from 1971 to 1987. Sims work is in statistical relationships and use of vector autoregressions to study the economy. He taught at the University of Minnesota from 1974 to 1990.

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The ECB stands ready to act with the unanimous support of its 25 member governing policy, says Mario Draghi, president of the ECB. Draghi said that "if oil feeds into other prices, that could generate exactly what we want to avoid, namely a spiralling downward phenomenon" for wages and prices. Mark Carney of the Bank of England, says he will see "how things evolve." The U.S. Federal Reserve might slow planned rate increases in 2016, if inflation remains well below the target of 2%, and conditions indicate adverse effect on the economy.

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Starmer and Home Office say 16,400 deportations have been made in 6 months to home countries in Jan 2025, this is inthe first 6 months of the Labour government. This includes asylum seekers, illegal migrants, and foreign criminals. Starmer is shown at the City of London police headquarters on Jan 30, 2025. 

This says the Home Office is the highest since 2017 when 17,328 were returned.

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The narcotics revenue source is only one of three sources, says Defense Sec Gates. The other two are funds generated locally from the Pashtun minority in Pakistan, and funds generated from outside sources like people in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. A 2006 World Bank report says the hawala system- an informal money transfer system using a network of money brokers with little oversight- "carries out the majority of the country's cash payments and transfers." Of the local sources, its only now that the Pakistan government is making a serious effort to freeze these bank accounts traced to the Taliban. The CIA says it has identified the charities and organizations that send money, but it is not clear if these sources have been suspended. The implications of this is that the war could be sustained by the Taliban even if the opium crop was destroyed, or smuggling routes and labs were destroyed. Gates points out that the very same external funding channels for sending money by wealthy Muslims that the US supported in the 1980's to help Muslim militants expel the Russians may still be open today. His comment that "it would't surprise me if some of those channels were still open today," suggests that even the Defense Dept does not know how these channels operate because of their extreme secrecy. In a way this shows how the war and the people that the US supported have come back to hurt the US, just as the people on the Pakistani side find that the people they supported in the Afghan and tribal areas and the Taliban organization they created is now coming back to hurt Pakistan. What makes it deeply disconcerting is that as Gates points out, there is so little time before the patience of the American public wears out with rising casualties. And on the Pakistani side there is so little time also because the war is spreading to Pakistani cities. See the link to The Taliban's war on the ill trained Pakistani police forces across the country in the WSJ May 28, 2009. ...

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French officals are pushing for a new eurozone architecture to address many of today's problems. This includes setting up a pathway that leads to the joint issuance of eurobonds. It also would include coordination of monetary policy with the budgets and fiscal situation in the eurozone. French officials see the lack of this as the cause of many of today's problems.

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Koizumi's legacy 2001-2006, five years of change and a break with the past in Japanese economic policy. Sebastian Moffett review's Koizumi's achievements, bringing Japanese government and policy closer to the people bypassing the bureaucracy and ministries, appealing directly to the people and carrying on conversations with the public on television on critical economic policies such as privatization of the post office savings accounts system, and hiring newcomers such as Takenaka to implement reduction of bank debt that stifled Japanese economic growth. Koizumi also created an effective Prime Minister's office to execute policy and provide new directions to Japan.

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Michael Gerson was there in June 2005, with then Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and nine Egyptian opposition figures, including presidential candidate Ayman Nour, in a shabby Cairo conference room. Rice was in that room to call on President Mubarak to allow free elections. Nour was skeptical about the result. The Mubarak legacy was to undermine all legitimate opposition to thirty years of rule. Gerson makes a remarkable statement when he says that the universal desire for self-government is rooted in the natural human resentment of humiliation. A 26 year old fruit vendor in Tunisia is humiliated and set himself on fire in protest, setting off protests against servility, oppression and silence. He calls the lack of faith in American ideals a pervasive failure of foreign policy elites. Someday he says, Americans are likely to say the same for China, with the complete absence of a policy for anticipating a democratic transition.