LyrArc Article Gist
France's president Sarkozy, said of British demands to protect its financial industry: "To accept a reform of the treaties by all 27 countries, David Cameron asked what we all considered unacceptable: a protocol in the treaty which would exonerate the U.K. on a certain number of regulations on financial services." British demands included one that would have made transfers of power from a national regulator to a E.U. regulator subject to a British veto, and a committment to keeping the European Banking Authority in London. To European leaders who are dealing with the fallout from years of weak regulation and bad loan decisions by banks, Britain's efforts to shield its banking industry was seen negatively. Efforts by Cameron to win exemptions for Britain's financial sector during a time of severe financial crisis is only leading to Britain becoming isolated from the 26 other countries in the European Union.

LyrArc Article Gist
The household debt to income ratio is 1.62 in Britain compared to 1.42 in the USA and 1.09 in Germany. Britain has a record 1.4 trillion pounds of debtor about $2.8 trillion more than the country's gross domestic product. Ther is a culture of debt financed spending in Britain which older generations are not familiar with. Even the USA which has seen a debt financed spending spree is behind Britain where the spending culture is really prevalent with borrowing at its height to support consumption. Personal debt in the USA including mortgage debt is $13.8 trillion slightly less than the $14 trillion GDP. A decade long housing boom and strong economic growth has created consumer confidence and a virtuous cycle of investment in infrastructure, higher consumption, low unemployment and better incomes and growth. Now this virtuous cycle may be coming to a close. Interestingly Germans were much more reluctant to be the free spenders than the British. The average Briton has 2.8 credit or debit cards more than the other countries in Europe. And the home equity and borrowing on home equity with rising home prices, easy credit card debt, and low interest rates all have created a false sense of security which may not last long with rising rates and declining home values, and tighter credit conditions....

LyrArc Article Gist
A German reporter questions the value of the G20 meetings following the violence on streets at the last Hamburg meeting. He says the first G20 during the global financial crisis was useful but later meetings have not lived up to the hope for discussion and search for solutions to world problems. Global trade is at the top of the agenda following the tariffs dispute between China and the U.S. Divergent interests of participants are a problem. Would going back to G-7 in private meetings be a solution asks this reporter.

LyrArc Article Gist
The European Financial Treaty or Fiscal Compact referendum in Ireland is being fiercely debated in Ireland. The government says the referendum's outcome will determine Ireland's access to financing in financial markets. The opposition parties including Sinn Fein say the fiscal compact for austerity measures in the eurozone will subject Ireland to a decade of austerity and stagnation. The new property tax issue with over half of the population refusing to register has also hardened opinions in Ireland, and helped the opposition parties organize for this referendum. Cutbacks in spending on services and higher taxes will also affect the outcome. Opposition to the fiscal compact is growing in France with Socialist candidate for president, Francois Hollande, saying he will negotiate changes in the treaty to include growth measures. Both sides in Ireland support Hollande's viewpoint that growth is needed, and the election of Hollande is likely to influence the referendum results. As the fiscal compact has already been approved by 25 of 27 countries signing, except for Britain and Czech Republic, and can be ratified by a simple vote of parliament, the Irish referendum will not affect the treaty. Ireland is having this referendum because it is required under Irish law since 1987....

LyrArc Article Gist
This exceptional report by Chulov in the Guardian shows the changes in the war in Iraq and Syria in 2015-2016 since the downing of a Russian jet by Turkey in late 2015. It says that the Syrian government's future was uncertain in late 2015 with Turkish support for rebel forces in the north. During this period Russia curtailed trade and tourism relations with Turkey, and improved relations with the Kurds. Russia intervened in northern Syria directly to prevent a collapse of Syrian government forces in the north. Kurdish forces were already controlling large parts of the Syrian territory adjoining Turkey, and Turkey was concerned about the support to Kurds within Turkey from Kurds in Syria and a historical movement for  Kurdish independence. In April 2016 Russia made a move to win Turkish support by saying it would support the territorial integrity of Syria, so that no support would be given to the Kurds. As the U.S. consistently supported the Kurds in the fight against ISIS, Turkey under prime minister Erdogan changed its policy of support for rebel forces in Syria to focus on what it perceived as the threat fom Kudish control of the region at its Syrian borders. Rebel forces were told to focus not on the Syrian government forces but on ISIS, leading to withdrawal of support in Aleppo. What remains now of the war in Syria and Iraq is Iranian influence in Iraq, the Russian influence from support of the Syrian government in Damascus, and for the first time U.S. ground forces in the north with 900 troops supported by artillery on the side of the Kurds. The next stage in the war to take ISIS controlled Raqqa is being negotiated between Russia, Turkey and the U.S., according to this report.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
During the presidential debates Donald Trump was asked about his proposal for a 45% tariff on imports from China to the U.S.. Trump's response was "if they don't behave." he would use this as a negotiating tactic against China. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas responded by reminding viewers of the high tariffs under Smoot-Hawley legislation that were one of the factors that created the Great Depression in the 1930's. Economist and former Federal Reserve chairman Bernanke is a student of the Great Depression, and says "it was highly counterproductive, it lengthened and deepened the Great Depression." Economist Peter Petri of Brandeis University in his study cited in this article, says that the tit for tat that starts with such a move could eventually cost the U.S. 1 million jobs. It might fix one problem the one of imbalanced trade with China his figures show, and create another huge problem the loss of markets for U.S. goods all over the world. Overall a 45% tariff would reduce U.S. merchandise imports by $383 billion and reduce U.S. merchandise exports by $658 billion, says Petri. Gordon Hanson, economist at the University of California, San Diego, who has actually shown how trade has affected different counties in the U.S., leaving some dependent on government assistance. Hanson sees this tariff as counterproductive, it makes the U.S. more self-sufficient but hurts U.S. exporters, would significantly hurt the tech boom, and reduce America's standard of living. The problem is that everybody can get into this in a tit for tat. France did this even before the Smoot Harley Act of 1938 was passed in 1930 with 60% increase in tariff on individual items, by higher tariff legislation in 1928. Close allies Canada followed quickly after Smoot Hawley increasing its tariffs, so did Great Britain. Unemployment went up significantly after 1931, worsened by weak banks and lack of support from the Federal Reserve. Trade with Mexico would come to a halt Petri shows, and the result would be more Mexicans trying to cross the border turning a relatively non existent problem of immigration in 2015 -with Mexicans preferring to remain home and net immigration dropping significantly following the 2008 financial crisis and the strict Obama policy of deporting illegal immigrants- into a real one. Trump says its just a threat, but it is likely to lead to a tit for tat response by China, then by U.S. allies, other trading partners. Consider that president Herbert Hoover opposed the Smoot Hawley bill for raising tariffs on industrial goods, and only proposed adifferent legislation reducing tariffs on industrial goods and increasing the tariffs on agricultural goods to give relief to American farmers. Politics intervened as Smoot from Utah and Hawley from Oregon, from mountain and agricultural states with a lack of understanding of how the international trading system works but as heads of two influential commmittes, the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee, let politics overrride and pushed their legislation through Congress. In 1932 Smoot and Hawley were defeated for reelection, but the damage had been done, and promises of better conditions for workers and farmers never kept. A significant reason for the U.S. standard of living is that it is a leader in the global trading system. Even in 1945 and the years following the end of the war tariffs were higher in Britain and other countries. In return for this leadership the U.S. enjoys the advantages of the dollar being the main global currency, and the advantages of a world leading technological sector that has large global markets. Hanson and Autor have pointed out how imbalanced trade has hurt some counties in the U.S. This is a very real problem for workers in the manufacturing sector, as shown by elections in the midwestern states, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois and other parts of the country. The problem is compounded by the tech sector looking out for itself, the financial sector looking out for itself, and forgetting that we are all in the same boat. And that includes the Chinese who are in the same boat. China is doing a major shift in policy towards a consumer driven economy, and this needs to be accelerated for the benefit of ordinary Chinese. This makes the policy of a 45% tariff by the U.S. doubly unproductive because it hopes to add urgency to the problem of the U.S. trade deficit and manufacturing workers, but takes an approach that risks ending up damaging the global trading system by setting in motion a process that no one controls or can foresee the destination....

LyrArc Article Gist
Ishaan Tharoor provides a brief history of Russia's intervention in Syria and its role in the Middle East since 1950. This does not mention the Dulles period under Eisenhower in U.S. politics when the U.S. engaged in the Cold War withdrew support for building the Aswan High Dam, thinking that the Soviet Union would not come up with support. The Soviet Union under Krushchev provided $1.2 billion at 2% interest in 1958 for building the Aswan High Dam- constructed from 1960-1970- which helped increase irrigation and crops in the Nile river region and reduced the damage from droughts and floods. Soon after the dam was built it provided about 50% of Egypt's electricity. This was the high point of Soviet Union's economic engagement, latter support was defined by military arms supplies and led to the Six Day War, and the economic stagnation of the economy under Nasser's successors from the military. The Soviet Union was actively engaged in Iran with a Russian and British zone in the country in 1907, soon after the flowering of an effort to write a democratic constitution 1900-1907 for Iran with the help of British intellectuals, similar to the failed effort of the Arab Spring today. In neighboring Afghanistan the Soviet Union fought a long war under Brezhnev, contributing to the unravelling of the economic structure of the Soviet Union before the fall of the Berlin Wall. The British were primarily focussed on protecting oil interests in Iran in the period 1900-1950, yet contacts with British civil society led to the first grasp of democratic constitution and processes in Iran during this period. The American intervention funnelling arms support to the Saddam regime in Iraq in a war Iraq initiated against Iran 1980-1988, marks a low point in American intervention similiar to the Russian intervention in Iran-Iraq-Syria today. It may also define some of the problems of today because of the length of that war, the entrenching of military in the government in Iran, suspicions of the U.S., and the possible sense of a need for nuclear weapons to prevent attacks on Iran, as Pakistan has done in its conflict with India, though this is rarely brought up in discussions. The American arms support intervention, led to a series of cascading conflicts since 1980 with the invasion of Kuwait by the Saddam regime in 1990, the destruction of Shia in the marshlands of Iraq after a flawed peace agreement, and the follow up to that conflict with George Bush's invasion of Iraq on grounds of WMD development in 2003 for the 2003-2011 Second Gulf War including the Surge. The arms support of the Saddam regime in the war it initiated against Iran, was policy designed under President Reagan 1980-1988 following the hostage crisis and the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979. The cascading crises with Iran and Iraq may not have led to this level of conflict and disruption, refugees and deaths in the Middle East, if American policymakers had heeded George Washington's advice during his presidency, that your enemy's enemy is not your friend when it comes to framing policy- for this reason Washington as president did not see it in the national interest to get involved in conflicts between Britain and France beginning in 1793, France having aided the American side against the British in the War of Independence. In the Proclamation of Neutrality, Philadelphia, April 22, 1993, he says: "Whereas it appears a state of war exists between Austria, Prussia, Sardinia, Great Britain and the United Netherlands, on the one part, and France on the other; and the duty and interest of the United States require, that they should with sincerity and good faith adopt and pursue a conduct friendly and impartial towards the belligerent powers.." And in a letter to Patrick Henry offering him the position of Secretary of State from Mount Vernon, October 9, 1795, Washington says: "My ardent desire is, and my aim has been, to comply strictly with all our engagements, foreign and domestic; but to keep the U States free from political connexions with every other Country. To see that they may be independent of all, and under the influence of none. In a word I want an American character, that the powers of Europe may be convinced we act for ourselves and not for others, this in my opinion is the only way to be respected abroad and happy at home and not by becoming the partizans of Great Britain or France, create dissensions, disturb the public tranquillity, and destroy perhaps for ever the cement which binds the Union." At a time of passionate political debate, it is time to step back and reflect on lessons that can be learned from the founding fathers about the way they tackled the important issues of their time....

LyrArc Article Gist
Krugman points out that the loss of 490,000 public sector jobs in Britain, as laid out in British Finance Minister Osborne's plan, is equivalent to the loss of 3 million jobs in the U.S.. He does not see the private sector being able to create the jobs to make up for this loss. He cites Osborne's speech to Parliament, in which he said that "Britain was on the brink of bankruptcy," as a shift in rhetoric of the Cameron government from hope to concern that jobs in the private sector would not materialize.

LyrArc Article Gist
With 121 medals the U.S. team did better than in any Olympics except 1984. Britain did extremely well, and the Australians were overestimated. China did not do as well as in the Beijing Olympics, which was expected. The British investment in training athletes has paid off since the London Olympics, getting 67 medals.

LyrArc Article Gist
This year 2025 is the 75th year since the invasion of Tibet by Communist China under Mao in 1950, and the 66th year since the uprising in Lhasa in 1959. The new book by Tibet Dalai Lama will be out in March 2025- Voice for the Voiceless: Over Seven Decades of Struggle With China for My Land and My People.  The Dalai Lama calls for preserving Tibet's Buddhist civilization and culture within China. Bringing China's borders to the borders of India was a serious mistake as the mountains of Tibet and Nepal acted as a buffer zone between China and India. The invasion was a result of seeing India as India under a colonial power the British and independent India still run in 1950 under a system modeled on Britain- what Mao fought against since the 1920's.  In 2025 India has emerged as distinctly Indian and China has emerged from the 1950's communist state into a market economy state. The old colonial period systems no longer exist and only a reversion to the old Buddhist periods since the 5th century in terms of borders makes sense. The Tibet invasion after millenium in which Tibet had relations with Nepal, China and India has created other issues in this region. In the centuries before the colonial powers entered Asia in the 15th century, the Portuguese, Dutch and the British, there was contact, commerce and other relations between India, Nepal, Tibet and China. The earliest contacts were with Bodhidharma prince from from India going to China through these Tibetan mountains to convert China to Buddhism in about the 6th century AD. China reverting to its Buddhist culture is a serious possibility because it is so intertwined with a sense of being Chinese and the culture of China. And with this the borders of times past.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
New figures released by Britain's Office of National Statistics in June 2013 show a difficult road ahead for the British economy. Britain's economy is suffering from a lack of investment. Investment by firms declining by 34% since 2008 in real terms. Spending on machinery and equipment declining by 33%. Exports are 1.5% lower, even after pound sterling has dropped by 25% in trade weighted terms since 2007. Manufacturing output is 11% lower than in 2008.

LyrArc Article Gist
A new West Coast Model is emerging with ballot measures in the states of Washington, California and Oregon. The model is to make up for decades of faulty income distribution which favored tech communities in west coast states leaving behind people from minority communities and the working class outside tech hubs such as San Francisco, San Jose and Seattle. During this period budgets for education and healthcare, social services and essential infrastructure suffered as budgets were squeezed for local governments. Minimum wage also lagged behind and communities struggled to keep up. Washington votes for a ballot measure that raises the minimum wage to $13.25 statewide and mandate paid sick leave for workers. In California a ballot measure makes permanent an income tax surcharge on millionaires to use these funds for education. In Oregon measure 97 places a gross receipts tax on corporations with annual sales in Oregon over $25 million, raising $3 billion a year for schools, health care and other programs. The California and Washington measures are likely to pass, Oregon uncertain, say experts. And even in Oregon supporters have learned from the experience to put forward new proposals on the ballot. The Washington measure is supported by Nick Hanauer, and Zach Silk, president of Civic Ventures in Seattle, who say it is essential to put more money in workers wages to increase growth and to bring better lives outside the tech hub areas. Most of the tech booms of the last two decades have not touched the areas outside tech hub metropolitan areas. The conservative approach adopted in Louisiana and Kansas of reducing taxes first and then when holes in state budgets developed to cut education, health and other service expenditures has not worked, and it has led to the backlash in the form of the new West Coast Model, which is expected to be brought up in other states in the east and midwest. The tech hub areas have grown with the boom in tech but this has largely ignored the rural areas, communities just outside of the tech cities, and led to uneven and distorted growth shortchanging the working class and the middle class, and hurting investment in education and healthcare across each state. Bill Whalen, a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution conservative think tank ,says that its hard to deny that the balanced growth for all communities across the state has lagged far behind as the tech booms boosted growth in the economies of California, Oregon and Washington. An article in the German online site Zeit on Silicon Valley described this vividly showing how this can happen in communities sitting side by side in the San Jose area, with minority Hispanic communities and working class communties seeing very little of the benefits of growth. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
France's finance minister says the focus in 2013 will be on meeting the structural deficit goals. The recession will likely make it difficult to bring the budget deficit in France down to the 3% target in 2013 as planned.

LyrArc Article Gist
Pakistan prime minister Nawas Sharif's friendly overtures to India. The need for improved trade and economic relations with India to improve Pakistan's economy and fears that the military and intelligence services or extremist groups could torpedo these efforts.

LyrArc Article Gist
In a closely watched election Mr. Wilders of the far Right in Netherlands gains 20 seats, far behind centre right People's Party for Freedom and Democracy of prime minister Rutte who won 33 seats. The Dutch Green party which is strongly pro- Europe went from 4 seats to 14 seats, the Christian Democratic Appeal party gained 19 seats and the pro-European Democrats 66 party also gained 19 seats. In the 150 member parliament Rutte needs 76 seats to form a new coalition government, and he is likely to ally with these other parties to form a new government that supports strongly the European Union. This editorial in the NYT says the people of the Netherlands turned out in large numbers to support pro-European Union parties. Next the focus is on France and Marie Le Pen's challenge from the far Right. Cyber threats from Russia are seen as a way to discredit otherwise strong candidates, and the French government is taking this seriously. Chancellor Merkel said she "was very happy that a high turnout led to a very pro-European result," and president Hollande said this was "a clear victory against extremism."  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, has a fascination with Germany. He helped arrange the recent exhibition on Britain's relationship with Germany at the British Museum. He now leaves Britain to help manage another project, the Humboldt Forum in Germany.