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Andrew Roth describes a situation in Russia where president Putin is more popular than the ruling party. The United Russia Party was shown having support of 45% in pre election polls. The election campaign used Putin posters and the slogan "the party of the president," to increase voter support.  Some voters see Putin working really hard to improve the economic situation. Samuel Greene, director of the Russia Institute at King's College, London, says that even after efforts to increase support United Russia Party has failed to generate voter enthusiasm. Voter turnout was low especially in Moscow and St Petersburg. The election result is seen by experts as a way to give Putin support to tackle the economic problems facing the country, and ensure stability. About 343 members of the parliament out of total 450 are from the United Russia Party. The budget shortfall of 3% is being met by the government  by using state funds, and one of the sovereign funds is likely to be exhausted in 2017. One of the options is to cut back on social entitlements, increase the pension age. Prime minister Medvedev has already said state pensions cannot be indexed because "we don't have the money right now." ...

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Kristof of the NYT recalls how his own father was a refugee from Eastern Europe, swam the Danube river to safety, and was given refuge by a family in Oregon. He points to the failure of world leadership in both Washington, Moscow and Arab capitals leading to the conflict in which about half of the Syrian people are dislocated by civil war.

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The Human Needs Index pioneered by 2015 Nobel Prize Winner Angus Deaton looks at consumption of services such as healthcare, housing and of food, to determine how people in each region are doing and poverty levels. Using this index Minnesota and North Carolina at about 1.15 are doing much better than Nevada and Michigan.

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Spain provides 14 public holidays that are mostly Catholic holidays, and an additional 22 vacation days, which is similiar to the the EU average. Unlike the practice in the U.S. and Britain to have these holidays fall mostly on Fridays and Mondays, in Spain many of these holidays fall in the middle of the week. This disrupts productivity as Spaniards use bridge days or puentes to create long weekends during which many offices and factories are empty, disrupting productivity. Most companies cannot plan for meetings and work because counterparts may be using the bridge days during these holidays, and working with international clients is difficult and hard to explain. Spain's new prime minister is determined to increase Spain's competitiveness, and bring Spain to the level of competitiveness of countries that do well in this measure, including other European and Asian economies. He describes this in his book "En confianza. Mi vida y mi proyecto de cambio para Espana." ("In confidence. My life and project of change for Spain") In his inauguration address he said Spain should correct "the work calendar to make the rights of workers compatible with the competitiveness of our companies." Vacations are a sensitive issue in Spain because tourism generates 10% of GDP and employs 10% of the workers. Alberto Nadal, who addresses labor issues at the main business association in Spain, says a change of mentality is needed in Spain, and doing away with bridges shows Spain is grasping the idea that things should be done differently for the eurozone community of nations. This also shows some of the differences in the Iberian peninsula countries of Spain and Portugal, where the countries are embracing the change and there is less unrest even with high unemployment, as compared to Greece. In Greece the changes are being resisted by politically connected groups, where political parties enjoy little support and there is much unrest, making the project difficult. Mariana Rajoy, Sarkozy and Merkel are from centre right parties in Spain, France and Germany, and have had a close association for years before Rajoy was elected- during EU meetings of centre right parties, as is evident in Rajoy's book. They also share a similiar business and political orientation. ...

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Questions raised whether the $125 billion in EU aid could stigmatize Spain's sovereign debt considering that Spain's banks and domestic sector was the prominent buyer of government bonds. If this were to happen the $125 billion would be insufficient and more funds would be needed. It would also bring up questions about Italy's sovereign debt and its banks. This suggests the crisis of confidence may abate for awhile but will continue.

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Castilla-La Mancha includes the region around Toledo, Spain. It has an unemployment rate of 27% for the 1st quarter of 2012, up 5.4% from 2011, faster than the increase of 3.1% to 24.4% for Spain. Estimates from the University Carlos III in Madrid show economic growth contracting with GDP decline at 3.1% annual rate by the end of June 2012 for Castilla La Mancha. Part of the problem was the lack of credible accounts by the previous administration. Unpaid bills to suppliers were not included in the accounts for the region. When Maria Dolores de Cospedal of the Partido Popular became the president in May 2011, these unpaid bills were discovered and led to the doubling of the region's budget deficit to 7.3% for 2011. Cospedal sees the austerity cuts she is making as a long term approach to preserve education and healthcare. In an interview with Sara Schaeffer Munoz of the WSJ she says reducing debt is the first priority, so that interest rate premiums on borrowing can be brought down. Debt for Castilla was 17.2% of GDP in 2011, according to the Bank of Spain, it was 16.6% in the first quarter of 2012, among the highest of Spain's regions Ms. Cospedal says she wants growth too, but insists that Spain cannot get growth as long as it is sinking in debt. Moody's Investors Service says Ms. Cospedal is strict in executing the budget- a new second hospital slated to be built for 150 million euros in Cuenca with population 56,000 was cancelled and other cuts are proceeding- and Moody's did not include Castilla in the downgrades of 7 Spanish regions in June 2012. ...

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Bill Keller describes the diversity of news sources available today from the BBC and Guardian websites to Al Jazeera and websites of other foreign news organizations. Radio stations are another source. Yet this diversity exists with one troubling factor- the decline in foreign news bureaus and experienced journalists covering events in distant locations. As a result many of the important foreign events are now covered by free lance journalists who take many risks and are still underpaid. Without experienced journalists it becomes more difficult to sort out the good information from the bad or poorly researched, and the average reader facing a glut of information or misinformation is faced with the prospect of being as uninformed as before or worse misinformed. Keller gives the example of NYT's journalist C. J. Chivers who carefully researched information from a UN report- compass bearings for two chemical rockets- to show that the chemical weapons attack in Syria originated with the Assad military forces in Damascus. This was after much of the media went with the stories spread by different sources that there were doubts about who was responsible. Unusual and cause for concern is that many governments around the world may have found the ambiguity useful by taking off some of the moral pressure for action, of having to intervene so soon after the Bush invasion of Iraq....

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Disappointment for those who had high expectations for the Obama Presidency. The slog of daily governance proves too much. Attempting too much in too short a time. Polarization in Congress. And the person Obama is -transformative but cautious.

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A native of Turin, who was a debonair lawyer then retrained as a physiotherapist, is beloved as "Alberto" to the Afghan people. He runs the Red Cross Afghan Rehabilitation Center in Kabul, and is the most loved westerner in Afghanistan. Its a visible location, but in all these years of war it has never been attacked. In the tradition of the Red Cross founded in 1860 as a neutral entity, the Red Cross's orthopedic centers make no distinction by political affiliation and help combatants on all sides because only the name is asked, as well as civilians who have lost legs to landmines. About 90,000 people have received new limbs since 1988, and 70,000 revisit the centers each year for replacement or adjustment of their prostheses, which last an average of 2 to 3 years for adults and as little as 6 months for children. All the treatments, including overnight stays at the centers that can run for weeks, are free. About 10 million mines were strewn across the landscape in the Soviet invasion from 1979 to 1988. Because most of these mines have been cleared by the UN and charities like the Britain's Halo's Trust, patients now recieve help for congenital deformities, polio, tuberculosis, and accidents as well as other war injuries....

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The Italian comedy movie "Quo Vado," became a hit in Italy in 2016, premiering on Jan. 1. It tells the story of a government clerk played by Checco Zalone, whose only aspiration in life is a 9 to 5 government job for life. It lets Italians laugh at the past in a Italy that is changing. Today, the Turin newspaper La Stampa points out from its survey, two of three Italians would take some risk if it means career advancement. Yet public sector job protections remain firmly in place even as the private sector is changing rapidly not just in Italy but in Spain and other parts of the European Union.

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The Editorial Board of the Washington Post draws attention to the speculative bubble in housing in China, the policies for sale of land by local governments that fuel the bubble, the corrupt local officials, and GDP growth that reflects overinvestment in housing creating serious imbalances in the economy. The structure of the economic and political system which promote this overinvestment in real estate has also reduced the role of the Chinese consumer in GDP growth, and is preventing a rebalancing of the world economy.

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E.J. Dionne, of Gerogetown University and the Brookings Institution, says the current situation in U.S. politics resembles the 1912 presidential election when a Princeton professor Democrat Woodrow Wilson called for stronger curbs on big financial institutions, and Republican Teddy Roosevelt, a former president, called for tighter regulation. During his presidency Roosevelt had helped pass legislation to curb monopolies, and represented the Progressive wing of the Republican party. Taft who was president was Teddy Roosevelt's protege and vice president before becoming president, and alienated Roosevelt by moving away from progressive actions taken during Roosevelt's administration. Dionne says Hillary Clinton's views are similiar to Teddy Roosevelt's views, and Bernie Sanders' views to Wilson's views. Wilson won 435 electoral votes to Roosevelt's 88, and Tafts 8. The big difference now is that on the Republican side the progressive wing that Teddy Roosevelt established is non existent, with Cruz's positions similiar to Reagan's, Kasich and Cruz at best close to Jack Kemp's views on broadening the Republican base with concern for working class issues, and Trump's views not clear because of lack of clear policy or programs beyond the personality based campaign. Dionne points to the problems facing the "progressives" of Sander's young supporters staying away from the polling booths with Hillary Clinton as the nominee, putting a Republican nominee into the White House. Overlooked here is the idea that much of the election campaign even in an advanced country like the U.S. is fought on slogans, leaving out some critical facts. The problems progressives face emerged during a period when a Democrat was president, and the influence of lobbyists had not diminished. Outsiders on the Republican side are focussed on diminishing the power of lobbyists, the political calculus of elections, and other interests that have affected policy in the last 8 years hurting the middle class and working class. ...

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Renewed calls for higher capital reserves by banking regulators and Britain's Independent Banking Commission after $2 billion in losses at UBS. The losses were a result of derivatives trades made at UBS's London trading desk.

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Seib draws parallels between the situation in 1889 with the large immigration, growing inequality, impact of science and technology, and progressive parts of the two main political parties. Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson pulled together progressives in the Republican and Democratic parties in the next two decades, and FDR-Truman continued progressive policies in the nineteen thirties and forties to tackle the Depression and promote economic recovery. Financial crises are not mentioned by Seib. The recurring financial crises since that period led to the creation of the central bank, the U.S. Federal Reserve and financial regulations for banks. The financial crises with asset bubbles in 2000 for tech and bubble in real estate in 2009, resulted from the lifting of financial regulation and lack of close supervision of financial markets.

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Efforts to bring the textbook industry under state control by selling the firm "Enlightenment," which had a 30% share of the market, to Putin ally Rotenberg. "Enlightenment" has now received further support as other competitor's textbooks were not given approval by the Ministry of Education and Science. Apparently Putin sees western ideas introduced in some textbooks as harmful to the development of Russia's youth. All schools will now be given state inspections, and where textbooks are not on the approved list the schools will see cutoff of state funds. Putin was chairman of the publisher "Enlightenment" when it was under state control, Rotenberg is the new chairman. During Soviet times "Enlightenment" as a state publisher controlled all textbook publication. The industry was opened up after 1990, resulting in a large number of new publishers. Now many small publishers are being pushed out as the industry is being consolidated under the state's private sector allies with an educational agenda being set by Mr. Putin....