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Baker and Erlanger describe Russian president Putin's effort to finance parties on the right and the left to oppose western sanctions on Russia. The effort by Russian television RT to spread disinformation in the European Union. The goal is to create fractures in European unity and weaken the European Union and NATO. Other experts such as former national intelligence officer, Fiona Hill, and former assistant secretary of state, David Kramer, are skeptical about the effectiveness of these methods. These methods may also come from an old book of methods from the Cold War period because of president Putin's experience in Dresden during the Soviet days, which current European Union leaders would see as having little relevance to the global economy and global scene of today. The rise of the smaller parties in Europe in opposition to the traditional parties has more to do with the difficult economic conditions in Europe, and has little in common with Russia and its problems with its oil dependent economy and its interests in Eastern Europe. As the 2015 Pew Research survey on Europe shows, opinion is shifting towards greater support for the European Union as economic conditions improve, and is likely to move further in this direction with a return to economic growth. Favorable views of the EU which dropped from 60% in 2012 to 53% in 2014, was up to 61% in 2015, according to the survey. The Euroskeptic parties are viewed "as a good thing," as a way to shake up the complacency of the major ruling parties in tackling the economy, according to the Pew Europe Survey. In the percentage of people who see the Euroskeptic parties as a good thing for the country- Podemos left party in Spain gets 70% favorable rating, UK Independence Party 66% favorable, Five Star Movement in Italy 58%, AfD in Germany 50%, and much less so in France with 36% saying this for the National Front, and 36% for the New Right in Poland....

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Alan Meltzer is a respected voice on US Federal Reserve policies since the time Paul Volcker was Fed chairman He says the Bernanke Fed is making some serious policy mistakes. The first is concentrating on near term events, such as business response to Obama administration policies, over which it has little influence, while neglecting the long term consequences of its policies. The second is its effort to tackle unemployment by interpreting its mandate as a dual mandate of tackling both unemployment and inflation. By tackling one at a time, he says, the Fed is likely to fail totally. The US is unlikely to not feel the inflation that is going on around the world. By ignoring the changes in money supply growth the Fed is making another mistake. His advice is for the Fed to increase interest rates it controls to 1%, to signal that it is aware of inflation risks. Second, the Fed should annonce a specific, detailed plan explaining how it will reduce $900 billon of the $1 trillion banks continue to hold in excess of the legally required reserves. Third, the Fed should end QE II, the most recent round of treasury bond purchases. Meltzer says if the Fed waited for two more months in Nov 2010, it would have found that a double dip recession was not about to occcur and it could have held off from pursuing QE II. Meltzer emphasizes that slow growth and unemployment is not a monetary problem, because of the ample liquidity already in the financial system. Uncertainty about government policy and the future direction has been clarified by the election which will help put the economy back on track. Philadelphia Fed chairman expresses similiar views in other articles and an interview with O'Grady of WSJ....

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Krugman says that China fears that a decline in the value of the dollar will reduce the value of the 70% of the $2 trillion in assets it holds, that are in the form of US Treasury bills. This may have been the reason Zhou Xiaocuan, China's central bank governor called for a new currrency to replace the dollar as new "super-sovereign reserve currency." He doesn't think this is likely to happen. Neither is his hope and that of Japan that somehow the two countries can export their way out of current difficulties. The US will not be the market it once was, that is certain. So Krugman says China, Japan, and the Europeans on the issue of the Stimulus are all hoping that things will return to the way they were. Something that is not going to happen. March figures in the US for jobs lost hit an high of 663,000, and this crisis says Krugman has years to run.

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Porter of the NYT points out that the figures released from census information that the U.S. median household income increased by 5.2% in 2015 to $56,500 is good news for Americans including minority and working class families at the lower tiers. However more needs to happen compared to previous recoveries in the mid-90's, and for people who suffered during the recession to finally put that experience behind them, says Porter. 

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The Bank of Mexico, Mexico's central bank, cuts interest rates by half a percentage point to 3% in June 2014. The consumer price index is at 3.4% for 12 months through mid-May, and the central bank sees the inflation target of 3% by early 2015 as achievable. The central bank's estimate for GDP growth in 2014 was lowered to 2.8% from 3.5%. GDP growth was annualized 1.1% for the 1st quarter of 2014. Mexico has failed to live up to the growth expectations after the new Nieto administration's efforts to jumpstart the economy and opening up of the state oil industry to foreign investment. The policy changes of the Nieto administration set the future course of the economy and will take time to deliver results in economic growth. More effective administration and execution is needed for economic growth.

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Richard Thaler, a Professor of Economics at the Booth School of Business, University of Chicago, on the reasons why millions of homeowners under water- owing more on their homes than their homes are worth- have not defaulted in large numbers. In places like Nevada nearly two thirds of homeowners are under water. Changing a home, changing school for children, losing one's credit rating, social stigma. He points out that the costs are outweighed by the benefits of getting out of an underwater mortgage, and research has shown this is contagious once the process of defaulting has started. So once the neighbors are defaulting its much easier to do so and the proces picks up momentum, the psychic costs simply decline. So he says the result is that we may face a tsumani of strategic defaults. Professors Posner and Zingales of the University of Chicago have a proposal. Banks should be required to provide loan modifications in neighborhoods with home prices having dropped over 20%. Banks would reduce the payment by the average price reduction in the area and get in return 50% of the average gain in prices when the house is eventually sold. This requires Congress to pass legislation....

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Edward DeMarco is head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), which is the independent regulatory agency overseeing U.S. housing lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The FHFA was formed in 2008 after merging two existing agencies. Later that year Fannie and Freddie were taken over by the government. FHFA head, DeMarco, is reluctant to help homeowners with underwater mortgages on their homes with reduced payments because this would mean losses to the taxpayer. He sees his mandate as protecting the taxpayer. Sheila Bair, former head of the FDIC, says she understands DeMarco's mandate is not to provide fiscal stimulus, and the Obama administration has been all over the place when it comes to providing homeowner assistance. The result is that there is little help by the U.S. government to homeowners with underwater mortgages since 2008, and this creates larger headwinds for the Federal Reserve Bank to provide momentum to the U.S. economy. Many experts see this as a serious problem and a well respected economist, Martin Feldstein, has made repeated proposals for structuring the help to homeowners since 2008. ...

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David Brooks on the change in Romney as he breaks away from tea party orthdoxy to be the man Brooks believes he truly is.

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According to First American CoreLogic, a real estate information company, 10.7 million households had negative equity in their homes. That is they were under water because they owed more on their mortgages than the properties are worth. The proportion is 23% or one in four homeowners. Mark Fleming CoreLogic's chief economist points out that having negative equity lowers labor mobility and in that way makes it harder to sell the house to look for jobs elsewhere. This is happening in Michigan and other states and is a discouraging sign for improving the job numbers. In this way the poor prospects in housing, banking bad loans in commercial real estate with tight bank lending, and the already high 10.2% umnemployment rate intersect to make 2010 pose significant risks for the economy.

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Unemployment rate up from 8.1% to 8.5% , with 663,000 jobs lost in March, 2009, according to the Labor Department. The number of unemployed hits 13.2 million. Labor Dept data shows that between 423,000 to 9 million people were forced to work parttime for "economic reasons."

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This WSJ editorial says the U.S. Federal Reserve needs a chairman who is politically independent, especially since the Fed has not been politically independent since 2008. It calls Ben Bernanke a political sidekick of Timothy Geithner at Treasury since 2008. A Summers Fed would have become too much influenced by the White House, which would not serve the country well, as new policies will be needed to wind down the loose monetary and fiscal policies, says the editorial.

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Efforts in 2014 by Jizhong Energy Company to reduce pollution in the city of Xingtai, population 7.6 million, by closing down the worst polluting plants and installing new equipment. The World Bank put the cost of pollution, including cancer and other health problems, at 9% of gross national income in 2009. The Ministry of Environmental Protection estimates 3.5% of GDP as the cost of pollution in 2010. Xingtai's pollution levels have been recorded by air quality monitors at as high as 30 times China's national standard. Government figures show the PM2.5 in the city's air is 150 micrograms per cubic meter over the last 12 months, more than 4 times the national standard. To get some idea what this means, consider that Fresno, California, with the highest pollution level in the U.S. had PM2.5 level of 18 micrograms per cubic meter. To show it is serious the central government requires the city to post pollution figures online, down to individual smokestacks and exhaust ports.

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The Romney story says this editorial is one of a turnaround- of a kind patiently nurtured from his days turning around businesses as a management consultant. This one was different and probably required a lot of soul searching and courage to take up new positions. As a technocrat, says the Journal, Romney would have been more comfortable with a room full of IQ's going over spreadsheets of numbers. He tried to do this by not taking up specific positions till the need to convince voters, first in the GOP base and then centrists and independents after the convention, forced Romney to make the reassessment and turnaround he needed to make. In November 2011 he accepted the Ryan position that Medicare needed changes, and in Feb 2012 he took up the case for lower tax rates and cutting deductions. In October 2012 came the first debate, with it Romney abandoned his reluctance to put forward a plan for the economic recovery and put forward his five point plan. That was the turning point in the campaign but all the other steps including the selection of Ryan, a Congressman from a working class district in Wisconsin, agianst the advice of advisors, were leading up to this turnaround. This was likely the most difficult of turnarounds, even searing in its soul searching as Romney scribbled "Dad" on paper at the lectern before the first debate- turning back to beginnings he had doubted for so long....

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A recent book "The Spirit Level" has become popular in Britain. It says that countries with greater disparities in income also do worse in a number of social indicators, from higher murder rates to lower life expectancy. It also affects the consensus in society which is a necessary underpinning for sustained economic development and economic growth. Inequality when it affects the middle class and reduces the size of incomes in the middle, or creates stagnation in incomes, poses large risks for society and affects economic growth. In the US the home foreclosure crisis and the lack of bargaining power of wage earners in the middle class has created this problem. This is exacerbated by the banking crisis and bad loans in the banking system. Studies show that slow growth in college graduating rates in the USA after 1970 compared to the period 1900-1970, has increased inequality, especially with today's knowledge economy. Germany is also affected by this problem as wages for workers have remained stagnant with the labor reforms. Interestingly a combination of economic growth and payments to the poor have increased the size of the middle class and its incomes in Brazil. The austerity policies in Britain will affect incomes and income growth in Britain for the middle class. In China the gap is widening quickly between the urban areas and the rural areas. And the policy of residency permits- the hukou system-which limits internal mobility from rural areas to the cities and towns, makes the inequality all the more glaring. The lack of democratic election makes the situation worse in China compared to Brazil, because free elections in Brazil enabled leaders from the working classes such as Luiz Inacio Da Silva and Ms. Rousseff to emerge as heads of government. These leaders pursued policies that would explicitly bring a more shared prosperity in Brazil compared to the leadership in China. In China policies are determined by entrenched interests in its model of development- the state-owned companies and banks and their managers, local and government officials of the Communist party, and businesses with the networks and connections with the Communist party and local governments. This is why the ginni coefficient which measures inequality has dropped significantly in China, putting it in the rank of developing countries with poor records in equality. Inflation in China, India and Africa also affects the poor and lower middle classes to a greater extent. Current trends suggest that rebuilding the middle class in the developed countries and providing fairer distribution in developing countries will be of serious importance in coming years. Especially with the likelihood of more economic crises which tend to adversely affect the middle and lower classes disproportionately....

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Tyler Cowan says slower growth in India is a troubling sign in 2012, and as significant if not more than the eurozone crisis. A less mentioned and major problem is the low productivity in agriculture, and he points to Japan, Taiwan, and S. Korea where major increases in agricultural productivity preceded successful industrialization. With growing population and continued growth India will be one of the largest economies in the world. The other major problem is shortages of energy supplies and the inability of state owned company, Coal India, to upgrade technology and increase output.

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The home ownership rate for the U.S. in March 2012, is 65.4%, the same rate as in 1997 before the housing bubble, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The irony of this is that the housing bubble was inflated by politicians in Congress and mortgage lenders and purchasers of mortgage securities. Fannie Mae and Countryside worked together ostensibly to promote home ownership while pursuing profits. In the case of politicians they pursued goals of raising employment and growth without understanding the risks of artificially inflating home ownership, and without consideration for incomes of subprime borrowers. A less benign view of the interests and goals of politicians comes from reflections on the impact of political lobbying by Fannie Mae and other housing lenders in the U.S. Congress. The consequences in terms of foreclosures have been devastating for minorities as well as other middle class homeowners. It has also damaged the U.S. banking system, credit growth in the economy and prospects for recovery, which will take years to correct. The federal government is also saddled with large losses at Fannie Mae because of its quasi government agency role. That role led to inflation of the bubble. Most of the consequences will be borne by middle and lower income households in the U.S. The pass-through effects in a global economy affect Europe, and emerging market countries. ...

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Chrysler's sales are dropping the fastest of all the car companies . April 2009 sales dropped 24% from March 2009. Ford sales are doing better than Toyota, as they declined in April over same month prior year by 32%, compared to 42% for Toyota. It appears that the Buy American factor may be helping Ford Motor more than the other American car companies, and that Chrysler also suffers from the lack of new models with new technology and investment in new features. At GM the situation is better at Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac and GMC, where sales in April 2009 declined by 29%, over same month prior year, which compares with a 55% decline in sales, of Pontiac, Hummer, Saab, and Saturn brands which are likely to be dropped. See the related link on same day on steep fall in Chrysler sales.