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Nobel laureate Michael Spence says the structural problems in the U.S. economy will require structural solutions where government, business and labor come up with collective efforts to restore economic growth. This might take some time says Spence. Short term fiscal spending alone is not the answer for jobs growth. And it will take a joint concerted effort of government, business and labor. Part of the effort might include a period in which there is lower income growth to regain competitiveness. This would be similiar to what Germany accomplished in the last decade in which it faced high unemployment. The German government, labor unions and business forged a consensus which included wage restraint, changes in the labor market. This would have to be combined with government-business partnership to make investments in advanced manufacturing technology and other innovations to improve competitive position. Educational standards and productive skill development issues would have to be addressed to create new advantage for the U.S., just as emerging market economies are making new strides of their own....

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Britain's chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, tells parliament it will be difficult for Britain to avoid a recession if Europe goes into a recession in 2012-2013. He also told parliament that British debt reduction will take longer than planned because of the economic slowdown. This means the British public will have to go through two more years of austerity than previously planned, now upto 2017. Britain will need to borrow an additional 111 billion British pounds through 2015. Britain's Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts economic growth at 0.9% in 2011, and 0.7% in 2012. Debt as a share of GDP will peak at 78% in 2015, instead of the 71% expected earlier. With strong opposition from the unions and a major strike planned by about 2 million workers on Nov. 30, 2011, the Cameron government plans to go ahead with its austerity measures. This includes eliminating 600,000 public sector jobs, and limiting pay increases for public sector workers to 1% for two years after the end of the current pay freeze....

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Under the current bankruptcy settlement plan of Judge Rhodes bondholders would get $1 for every $5 and pension cuts for ununiformed workers would be about 30%. A library clerk for example could see a pension cut of $400 in a $1400 pension. Retired Detroit firefighters and police would see smaller cuts of 10%. The Detroit bankruptcy is being closely watched as other cities an local governments are facing similiar problems. As part of the plan $1.5 billion would be spent on reducing blight and improvements in the city. About 40% of Detroit streetlights are broken and police response time is about 1 hour. One reader says the unions sent companies to low cost regions and stuck Detroit with the bill. After the bankruptcy of GM and Chrysler the city shaw a sharp decline and many people left the city reducing its tax base and worsening urban blight. The events in Detroit are being watched around the country and had an impact in the vote at the VW plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where former mayor Corker cited the situation in Detroit as an issue....

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Did GM miscalculate when after Katrina SUV sales took a dive, in the wake of higher gas prices in the summer of 2005. Instead of gving it thought and thinking about various possible scenarios in the future GM moved up the introduction of a new SUV models program and invested $175 million in updating the the Janesville Wisconsin SUV plant that was turning out 200,000 SUV's a year. And the unions also wanted to hang onto the SUV program and included product guarantees for several of GM's SUV plants, including a new line of SUV's for Janesville to come out in 2012. Each SUV made $10,000 to $15,000 per vehicle whereas passenger cars did not make money. Why? How? Considering that Honda was making profits selling passenger cars and so was Toyota, and Honda stuck to making better cars, and the Germans and the Japanese were not putting all their eggs in one basket. Something strange was going on, kind of a cosy trap for the Detroit automakers.

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The International Energy Agency estimates that a price of $100 a barrel would mean U.S. imports of oil at $385 billion, and European Union imports of $375 billion. This is $80 billion in addition spending on oil imports for the U.S. and $76 billion for the E.U., compared to 2010. The impact of a $20 increase in the price of a barrel of oil translates into a 50 cent increase in price per gallon at the gasoline pump. Economic estimates show a drop of 0.5% in GDP growth for the U.S. resulting from such a price increase of $20 per barrel.

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Bill Keller reflects on Mandela's contacts with and one time participation in the Communist party. At the time the communists were the only organization with whites supporting the ANC, as the ANC was completely black. The result in shaping Mandela's thinking were positive in his views for a multiracial South Africa. Communist type liberation ideology has also hadicapped African countries including the ANC party in that it has failed to bring in new thinking and different views. Keller brings special insights into this behaviour as he covered both the Soviet Union 1986-1991, and South Africa 1992-1995, for the NYT.

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Prepackaged bankruptcy has to be very carefully and meticulously arranged to work. With this creditors have to agree to retstructure debts before a company seeks court protection. In the case of GM complex union and dealership contracts and a number of creditors means someone in the government has to use governmental powers and authority, and with the leadership of the President, and help from Congress with new legislation, to get the job done in a short period of time. Something that would put the company on recovery track and its customers warranties and other incentives to buy protected.

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Britain's parliament voted 358 in favor and 234 against to back prime minister Boris Johnson in his effort to get Britain to leave the European Union by January 31, 2020. Negotiation will not be extended beyond 2020. With a comfortable 80 seat majority and many lawmakers newly elected in parliament in favor of Brexit the process appeared easy compared to the problems faced by Theresa May who lacked a majority. In October Mr. Johnson negotiated a deal with the EU which stated how Britain plans to leave the EU. This covered citizens' rights, a financial settlement to leave, and an arrangement to avoid a physical border in Ireland. With another vote in parliament and passage in the House of Lords the process now appears certain to be completed before January end 2020. To get Brexit done Mr. Johnson sought blue collar support in the north of England and the Midlands, a region neglected by Labour and the old Conservatives. Too much of the focus had remained on London. This strategy worked after neglect of working class districts by Labour under Blair and Brown. Mr. Johnson's approach was to commit the Conservatives to new infrastructure spending, spending on schools and the NHS, just as Mr. Trump had done in the U.S. to permanently change the Republican party. This combined with an appeal to patriotism and the idea of Britain drew strong support across England in the election. ...

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The U.S. unemployment rate shows a surprising improvement. The unemployment rate drops to 13.3% in May dropping from 14.7% in April. Employers added 2.5 million jobs, as states reopen in phases. Hiring was seen in the hospitality, construction and education sectors. This is a piece of good news suggesting that the pandemic is likely to follow a pattern of rapid decline in economic activity and rapid gain in economic activity in 2020, till it gets back to close to the original level in January before the pandemic hit the U.S.  One of the reasons for the rapid gains after steep loss in economic activity is that the errors in preparing for the pandemic led to a loss of crucial weeks before responses were made giving the very contagious virus time to spread. Yet once the response was made in mid March it was coordinated - with U.S. and India acting together, and Europe also moving together with the U.S. The economic response was unprecedented in scale with the U.S. putting in close to 1.5 trillion and the European Union and British response also about $1.5 trillion. Jobs were protected in different ways either by loans to business, or payment of wages by the government or from funds for this purpose. After some vigorous debate the reopening also was done rapidly with regions less affected, and others following soon afterwards even taking some risks so that the economy could recover. ...

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Tory MP's rebels in the southern part of England are opposed to prime minister Boris Johnson's second lockdown for the whole of England. This report in The Times of London looks at how Johnson's conservative government might have to get Labor party support to pass the lockdown measures in parliament. Or Labor may decide to abstain from the vote. Mr. Gove says the NHS risks being overwhelmed if the lockdown does not take place. Responding to the statements that southern England does not have high or has falling rates of coronavirus Mr. Johnson says it has been shown that a low rate catches up in one area when it is next to a high rate area for coronavirus so that the result is the spread of the virus to the point where the NHS cannot cope.  The NHS like the French health system and other health systems in the European Union, U.S.  India, and other countries are strained to the limit. Most healt care workers in hospitals have felt severe strain on themselves and their families during the first wave. Most are exhausted and are in a situation of fatigue with the added factor of some healthcare workers on leave from the virus illness. This puts additional burdens on the system. Without the action taken the health system may be overwhelmed in many countries leading to disaster.   ...

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Andy Street, Mayor of the West Midlands Combined Authority, says when you consider that London gets 7 times the infrastructure spending per person than West Midlands, "its not bloody surprising" that his region is not growing fast. West Midlands covers a large part of central England, including Wolverhampton, Birmingham and Coventry. Even life expectancy is lower by 8 years in Blackpool, and disposable income can be quarter in Camden compared to North London. Labor's Corbyn and Conservative's Thatcher in the British general election are both campaigning for reviving the regions outside London, that have seen investment in people and technology lag substantially behind London. Regional revival is the big issue in this election. Consider that London which accounted for about 15% of economic output in the 1980's now accounts for nearly 25% of economic output of Britain. Berlin is about 4% of Germany's economy, and Paris 10% of France's economy. A word of caution on Brexit is sounded by experts at the University of Birmingham, who say the whole process of Brexit is so complicated that it may detract from the task of reviving this region. Even though the political upheaval had origins in this discontent, was it more about shifting government attention to the gap between London and the rest of the country, and less about a complex process of withdrawal from the European Union. ...

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As Trump tries to gain the support of black voters with his visit to Detroit, the questions remain say people in Detroit.  His alienation of minorities from the primaries is not forgotten, and the lack of underlying empathy is why some experts say this is not resonating in the last 50 days before the election. Another problem is that presenting blacks in a bleak state is not seen as showing respect because Trump was absent during the struggles Detroit went through since 2008 down to street lighting and schools, foreclosures, and is only here now that the Michigan and Detroit economy has recovered to a considerable degree. Here Vanessa Williams of WP says there is a near universal condemnation of this kind of talk such as "what do you have to lose," as seeing blacks lacking the ability to think about where they were and where they are now, and the path ahead in clear terms as whites or Asian Americans are able to do. A sure sign of condescension. Democrats point to the gains for blacks in declining unemployment, some of the issues of inner cities not responding to either party's policies, improvement in health insurance, and access to voting rolls, and in the Michigan economy the rising tide lifting all boats with a booming auto industry. Largely an achievement of Democrats and the Big Three's good relationship with the UAW union. ...

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Gerlad Seib in the WSJ points out that other issues may be distractions, the no. 1 issue for Democrats in the U.S. is to get back the blue collar workers it has lost. One thing he says Democrats need to stop is to talk down to blue collar workers on cultural issues this can happen even without knowing it, as blue collar workers may sense it differently. He points out that the migration issue has divided the centrist parties as we point out in the insights provided by Jose de Cordoba in the article on Guatemalan migration in today's WSJ. This has happened in the U.S., Britain and in European Union countries such as Germany, France, Italy, and in Eastern Europe.  In the U.S. it is this drift to tech support, to pushing trade agreements such as TPP that hurt manufacturing,  and moving away from bread and butter issues of working families that have led to a drift away for Democrats from their usual base with working class people. The Labour Party in Britain has sensed this, and the CDU, the SDP in Germany are beginning to recognize that migration and austerity regimes for the economy need not be a distraction from basic issues with the end of the Merkel years, yet the Democratic Party is yet to find its footing in the U.S. ...

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The governor of the Punjab province during the Jallianwala massacre in Amritsar was an Irishman. Ireland was a troubled spot in Britain during the French revolutionary wars and France even attempted landings to liberate Ireland. Forward to 1900 and the Irish Easter rebellion leading to the Irish Free State in 1906. Read this article in the BBC for a nuanced understanding of history. As the writer an Irishman says Irish people following the European project called the European Union are now able to sit on equal terms with the British. Old conflicts are not uppermost even in the IRA that won the recent Irish election with its focus on economic issues.  This is good reading for anyone in Pakistan or India also as old conflicts can only be sustained for so long before economic, social and development issues such as education, healthcare and services take prominence in people's minds. It is also good reading in India as it looks at the British period in India, to realize that India now sits astride the Indian Ocean. What Britain accomplished in the eighteenth and nineteenth century with its  Royal Navy is now the task of the Indian Navy in alliance with the American Navy, and the Australian Navy on the world's seas. Indians like Irishmen can sit with the Americans or British on equal terms. ...

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The full text of the letter is given here. In this letter the U.S. sets out some important facts about events that happened during the coronavirus crisis during the crucial 4 month period from December 2019 to March 2020. Every week lost in this time due to reasons of a lack of transparency, openness meant hundreds of thousands of people more infected and tens of thousands of deaths worldwide. There are questions of transparency, of openness and this raises questions about the manner in which the World Health Assembly operates with hundreds of small countries in Africa and Asia having votes equal to that of the U.S., India, Brazil, Mexico with votes taken of over 200 countries. The entire election process can now be seen as questionable, when over a billion people in one country alone such as India or hundreds of millions in Brazil and Mexico would have to bear the consequences of poor decisions made by small countries that can be swayed in one direction or another based on political bias and other considerations that have nothing to do with global health.  At the conclusion of the letter by the U.S. to the current WHO shaped by a controversial election in 2017 the following is stated about the standards set by Gro Harlem Brundtland and which helped the world prevent the SARS crisis which originated in China in 2003 from spreading to the large countries of the world India, Brazil, Mexico, and other such countries in Asia and Africa, Latin America, and the U.S. European Union. "In 2003, in response to the outbreak of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in China, Director-General Harlem Brundtland boldly declared the World Health Organization’s first emergency travel advisory in 55 years, recommending against travel to and from the disease epicenter in southern China. She also did not hesitate to criticize China for endangering global health by attempting to cover up the outbreak through its usual playbook of arresting whistleblowers and censoring media. Many lives could have been saved had you followed Dr. Brundtland’s example." Even this does not come to grips with the flawed way in which the election of WHO head is done. It can no longer be relied on when there is the danger that lack of transparency can emerge in the WHO leadership itself because of a flawed process. It risks endangering the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions in countries such as India, Brazil, Mexico, as well as in the relatively small countries of Africa and Latin America where even basic water supplies are at risk but which could tilt elections at the World Health Assembly. Consider that a cyclone just hit the Indian state of West Bengal and Bangladesh on May 20 just as the coronavirus pandemic is spreading. That this region of 1.5 billion people had just 2 votes out of over 200 cast at the World Health Assembly in 2017 shocking. And even these votes cast based on old geopolitical considerations not how good the candidate is, and how good the country he is coming from is in terms of its record  on public health. The irony here is that private foundations in the advanced countries in the U.S. and Europe some of whom are major donors to WHO did not think that more experienced candidates in their own countries with a better record of public health such as in France or Germany are better qualified, in a flawed NGO support mentality left from the Clinton years. Basically the people in these large countries such as India, Brazil, Mexico were disenfranchised, when the austerity policies were consuming the European Union, and the U.S. had just elected a new administration itself groping for ways to reverse years of neglect of public services and infrastructure priorities. They would trust good leaders no matter where they come from, who have a record of transparency, leadership, and all the values we cherish together no matter where we come from. ...

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The second time around European leaders are more adept at handling a new DJT administration in the US. Scholz meets with Orban in Budapest. All European leaders meet in Budapest to assert a combined approach to Ukraine, to the US tariffs plans. European Union leaders feel confident they can come up with solutions acceptable to Europe, and assert Europe's interests without being dependent on the US.

Even the collapse of the Scholz German coalition government with the FDP party and Lindner defecting is taken in stride by saying that a new coalition will take its place. The loss of the FDP is not seen as critical as it is down to less than 4% in popular support in Germany. Orban and Hungary are also brought into the discussion to present a united Europe.

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With 80% of Wisconsin precinct votes counted, Governor Walker had 55% of the vote compared to Tom Barrett's 44% in the recall election of June 2012.

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DW.com's Ines Pohl says the U.S. presidential election campaign in 2016 with Donald Trump is a reflection of the state of American society today. She says lets not kid ourselves, what is happening is a reflection of the changes in society, demagogy as a reflection of the society we live in- people's lack of interest in serious issues, the loudest getting heard, less interest in checking the facts, and looking for a good show or entertainment in the debate. She points to problems in today's society, new technologies in media, that have fostered a new kind of shallowness. This includes fragmented social media groups, media that allows scapegoat theories to thrive, and elites or people in authority that lack the ability to respond to the challenges posed by this. She rightly points out that it goes beyond this campaign season and will continue into the future till it is resolved. What would Abraham Lincoln think of this, or what would George Washington or Thomas Jefferson think of this? LyrArc has frequently quoted these lines from a letter by Washington to Jefferson in Feb. 1783, and in the First Letter from the Editor- "To merit the approbation of good and virtuous citizens is the height of my ambition;  and will be a full compensation for all my toils and sufferings in the long and painful contest that we have been engaged." Washington told his countrymen in his draft of the First Inaugural Address that "there is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage, between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity." This has profound meaning and is truly applicable in meeting the challenges America and Europe face today.   ...

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George Washington's first Inaugural Address in 1789 from the National Archives speaks to us in 2024, for 2050, like the bells that toll from ancient cathedrals- "The circumstances under which I now meet you... refer to the great constitutional charter (US Constitution) under which you are assembled, and which, in defining your powers, designates the objects to which your attention is to be given. It will be more congenial with the feelings which actuate me, to substitute, in place of a recommendation of particular measures the tribute that is due to the talents, the rectitude, and the patriotism of the characters selected to devise and adopt them. In these honorable qualifications I behold the surest pledges that on one side no local prejudices or attachments, no separate views nor party animosities, will misdirect the comprehensive and equal eye which ought to watch over this great assemblage of communities and interests. So, on another, that the foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the preeminence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens and command the respect of the world." "There is no truth more thoroughly established than that there exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity; since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained; and since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people. ...

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Yannis Stournaras, economcs professor at the University of Athens becomes the finance minister in the new administration of prime minister Antonis Samaras. He holds a doctorate from Oxford University in economic theory and policy, lectured at St. Catherine's College, Oxford and at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. He was special advisor on monetary policy to the finance minstry and Greece's central bank. His public official positions include vice chairman of the Greek natural gas company and board member of the public debt management agency. He is well qualified to lead the effort for Greece to remain in the European Union with modified terms that extend the achievement of deficit targets by 2 years to 2016, and offer tax cuts and other growth oriented measures to get the Greek economy back on the path to recovery and growth after 4 years of declining GDP. He also brings a sense of committment to the EU, because he was chief economic advisor to Greece's Finance Ministry in 1994-2000 and took part in the negotiations that led to Greece's joining the eurozone in 2001. His strong views about changes needed to Greece's overregulated economy which favors special interests also coincide with the moves for labor and other reforms taken by the Monti and Rajoy governments in Italy and Spain. ...

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Gerry Adams of Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland says in the NYT that some way has to be found to respect the vote of 55% in Northern Ireland in favor of remaining in the European Union. He says Northern Ireland and Scotland should not be made to leave the EU because of a different preference expressed in England and Wales. He points to one of the most harmful effects of the Brexit i- the return to a hard  border between the EU state of Ireland and Northern Ireland. This will affect the economic, healthcare, tourism, business and cultural links of Ireland in the north and south, and reverses the gains of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. He calls it a result of factional infighting in the Tory party, the rise of far right anti immigrant groups such as UKIP, and the Gove faction which never really supported the peace deal in Ireland that has brought two decades of peace. Adams says concurrent referendums for a united Ireland is one solution to this problem. Another is an All Ireland forum of political parties and civic partners to meet, and for the Irish Government to stand behind the Good Friday Agreement, so that the Brexit does not hurt the interests of Ireland as a whole. ...