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The strong showing by National Front leader Marie Le Pen and her focus on the economy in France, and the lack of growth with austerity measures, is likely to change the way the eurozone countries respond to the deficits and German insistence on austerity cuts. Marie Le Pen's economic positions for more government spending to reduce unemployment and provide additional benefits is closer to Socialist candidate Hollande's position. The right wing party in Holland also voiced the same concern recently- that it did not want to hurt Dutch pensioners with austerity cuts- when it refused to support the Dutch government leading to its collapse and new elections.

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Mariana Rajoy of the Partido Popular, Spain's conservative party, leads the opposition Socialist party candidate by a wide margin of over 15% in polls ahead of general elections in Spain on November 20, 2011. Rajoy is planning major changes in the first 100 days and the early period of his administration to bring down Spain's deficit and restore economic growth. Spain faces difficulty borrowing in capital markets after contagion from Greece and Italy, and Spanish bond yields were up to 7% on Nov. 17, 2011. About 150 billion euros in debt will have to be financed by Spain's government in 2012. Spanish banks will have to raise an additional 120 billion euros, and nonfinancial corporations will have to raise 30 billion euros, according to PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Luis de Guindos, head of Financial Center, a banking industry think tank, says the challenge to get markets to open up for Spain is to create expectations that the Spanish economy will return to growth. The outgoing administration of Jose Luis Zapatero, has taken some austerity measures with public sector wage cuts, changing labor laws to make it easier to hire and fire workers, and a pensions overhaul to move the statutory retirement age to 67 from 65. ...

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Spain accepts assistance from the European Financial Stability Fund with the EFSF committing $125 billion to the Spanish government for a fund specifically intended to recapitalize the banks. Some oversight will be provided by the IMF for Spain's banking system, but this is not a bailout in the sense of IMF conditionality or the EU imposing oversight of Spain's management of its finances and the economy. Instead a compromise was reached where only oversight over its banking system was offered in exchange for the loan. Spain has already committed to improving competitiveness in the economy, and reducing the fiscal deficit with some flexibility due to rising unemployment which has reached 25%. The problems in Spain's banking sector are focussed on the cajas savings banks which financed the housing bubble and not on all banks, with banks such as Europe's second largest bank Banco Santander which have intenational operations being in much better shape. The U.S. and the UK experienced a housing bubble at the same time as Spain, but the governments of both countries moved early on to recapitalize the banking system in 2008-2009. This move is significant because it helps stabilize the gobal economy by fixing the main problem facing Spain of recapitalizing its banks, this being the largest problem in the eurozone....

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Spain's prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, accepts EU and IMF aid for recapitalizing Spain's banks. Rajoy tells a news conference in Spain on June 10th, 2012, "nobody pressured me," he did this because it would "help the credibility of the European project." The Partido Popular took decisive steps to improve Spain's competitiveness during the first 6 months of the new administration, but was caught by surprise by the problems in Bankia, a bank put together from failing cajas savings banks. The cajas savings banks were heavily involved in the housing bubble in Spain.

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Three million additional Americans get access to Medicaid as a result of the Obama Healthcare Law (Affordable Care Act). Under the law states could expand Medicaid to people less than 65 years old with income of 133% of the federal poverty level of $15,521 for individual or $31,721 for family. About half of U.S. states expanded Medicaid and the rest kept the prior income guidelines. The figures are from a report by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which show 58 million Americans on Medicaid in third quarter of 2013, and up to 61 million in March 2014.

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Confessore describes ways in which the Republican Party agenda moved away from the interests of ordinary American working class voters in the last decade, ignoring some of the effects of the 2008 financial crisis and the deep recession in the years that followed.

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The Christian Democrats have their best results in 20 years in the 2013 general elections. The Free Democrats had about 4.5% of the vote, below the 5% threshhold required for representation in parliament. The Alternative for Germany party was close to but missed the 5% threshhold for parliament. The Christian Democrats received 42% of the vote. The Social Democrats won 26% of the vote. The CDU/CSU won 311 seats, the SPD 192 seats, the Left party 64 seats, and the Greens 63 seats in preliminary results. Because the CDU missed an absolute majority by a thin margin in parliament it will have to form a coalition government with one of the other parties, the Greens or the SDP.

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Mr Leung, the highly unpopular Chief Executive of Hong Kong, and target of protesters demanding his resignation and universal suffrage in 2017 as originally promised, is a reserved man who does not interact much with the public. His secondary scholing was at Kings School in Hong Kong followed by studies at Hong Kong Polytechnic for a higher diploma in building surveying. He then studied valuation and estate management at Bristol Polytechnic in Britain graduating in 1977. He was a surveyor by training and worked in this field to help China open up its property markets in the 1980's. By 30 he was made head of the JLW real estate firm's Hong Kong branch, and in 1993 formed his own firm DTZ Debenham. Throughout his life he has worked for or had close ties to the authorites in Beijing in the property field, and has little political experience. In 1985 he was elected to the Hong Kong Basic Law Consultative Committee, and later became its Secretary General. This was followed by a position in the Chinese government as a member of the National Standing Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference till 2012. His first political campaign in 2012 was itself of a limited nature because he only had to win support from members of a 1200 member pro-China, pro-business Executive Council that currently approves nominees and elects the Chief Executive. Albert Ho, one of three candidates in 2012, says Leung was completely insulated from political pressures, political give and take, and uses a "greenhouse" comparison to describe this isolation from the public. His progressive credentials for providing affordable housing involve ideas to open up housing development in territories near Hong Kong appear to be merely election period ideas. The large gaps between rich and poor, or rich and a struggling middle class in Hong Kong- becoming sharply accentuated in China to the point where China is probably one of the most unequal societies similiar to Brazil- are also keenly present in Hong Kong. How much part this plays in the protests is not clear in media reports, though the "Occupy Central" name for one of the protest groups suggests a connection to social issues as well. Protestors may see democratically elected chief executives as more responsive to voter concerns including social, income, housing and other issues, in sharp contrast to more than 1200 well heeled business executives who have prospered greatly in China's boom years. China's national leadership under Jinping and LiKeqiang appeared to sense this income divide as they focussed on extragavant displays of wealth in the transition, but may still have failed to grasp how big that gap has become and how the political processes of rigid control cannot keep up with the times even with the best of intentions. Especially when growth slows and the problems of the boom years such as hyperinflation in property prices and pollution remain unsolved. Bloomberg quietly let the Occupy Wall Sreet protests fizzle out clearing protestors at times, yet voters could peacefully elect Mr. Blasio as Mayor of New York in response, a level to which Beijing's political system has not evolved and to which Hong Kong offers both a challenge and an opportunity. As one protester quoted in the NYT put it- "we are not the enemy, we are the people."...

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This report in NYT shows the movement of Mexicans who migrated to the US in the 1970's in an earlier migration and the problems they faced seeking a better life in America on the east and west coastal cities. In 1971 Ruperto and Eustacia Enriquez migrate from Puebla, Mexico to New York. They make two migrations within the US after a mugging incident in Brooklyn in 1980. First to Santa Ana, California where they find life difficult with gang crime in neighborhoods, and move to an affluent suburb in the east side of Seattle. Their son Daniel gets a Bachelors degree in philosophy from the University of Washington. In 1996 he returns to New York to study for a Masters degree in Latin American Studies at New York University.  After 25 years in New York and taking up a jobs two financial firms he reflects a strivers mentality, always looking for self-improvement. He helps his younger sister with an application to win a Fullbright scholarship in Germany. Another sister works in Washington as a business analyst. He helped a brother who became a school teacher in New York public schools. Daniel found an apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn and by 2013 joined another financial firm in its global investment research group coordinating publications.  The story reflects some of the growing pains of Mexican Americans who migrated to America in the 1970's in the earlier migrations. In 2022 Daniel Enriquez 48 years was shot on the subway while going for Sunday Brunch, 25 years after returning to New York City. Crime was once again up in the city after the pandemic. 950 crime offenses happened in the subway system for the year till May the same as in 2019. Subway ridership was 40% lower in May this year.   ...

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The UK's Office of National Statistics said construction output fell by 3.7% in the first quarter of 2012, compared to prior year. Output fell 3%. The revised decline in GDP for the first quarter is 0.3%.

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Portugal's foreign minister, Paulo Portas, resigns in protest against continuity of austerity measures signalled by the selection of Ms. Albuquerque as the new finance minister. Portas's party is part of the coalition of centre right parties in the administration of prime minister, Pedro Passos Coelho. Cuts in public employee pay and spending on health and education, income and sales tax increases, have cut the deficit to 6.4% of GDP by 2013 from about 10% in 2010. The cost of this is an economy that is shrinking more than expected- by 4.8% in 2011 and 2012, and an additional 2.3% in 2013. Unemployment exceeds 17% in 2013. The loan terms negotiated for the 78 billion euro bailout with the IMF and E.U. in 2010, were renegotiated so that the 3% of GDP target for the deficit for 2013 was relaxed to 5.5%. Portas's party and other leaders are calling for a further renegotiation to take into account the economic conditions in Portugal and boost growth. Portas's party opposed the effort to cut labor costs of companies with a large increase in worker social security contributions, a measure seen as counterproductive even by business leaders that was later dropped. In financial markets the 10 year Portugal bond yield increased 0.22% to 6.615%....

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Boudreaux and Bjork of the WSJ interview Mariano Rajoy, prime minister of Spain, in September 2013. Rajoy says he used to look at an app on the iPad hourly for changes in Spain's borrowing rates at the height of the banking crisis and found it a bit stressful. He hopes the current improvements in the economy will not stall the progress towards a closer union and setting up the financial architecture for the euro which puts the financial strength of the EU countries behind EU banks. Rajoy would like to see a banking union. He sees Spain's banking system not needing a bailout in 2014 and the changes having improved transparency, and capitalization of Spain's banking system. Other signs of improvement are increase in exports, a historic high in tourism revenues as a record is being set for the number of tourists visiting Spain in 2014, lower labor costs, and a current account deficit that reached 10% of GDP now in surplus.The 3rd quarter of 2013 brought an increase of 0.1% to 0.2% increase in GDP. If maintained this represents an annualized growth of 0.4% to 0.8% in GDP. GDP has declined 7.5% in the last 3 years. Rajoy expects GDP to go up 0.5% to 1% in 2014 and jobs being created but the progress only gradual. The government will consider further improvements for a flexible labor market. Increases in pension payments will not automatically be indexed to inflation for Spain's 9 million pensioners in 2014 as part of expected changes. Electricity rates will also not be indexed to inflation. Rajoy's main worry now is that there is a shortage of credit to increase household spending and the dire need for job creation....