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Mario Monti, Italy's prime minister, tells Alessandra Galloni of the WSJ, "Germany will never let France go." French economist Sorman says Americans do not realize that the EU and the Euro were created for political, not economic reasons, and the idea was to bring peace to Europe and especially between France and Germany. He sees the EU countries staying through this crisis together, and France emerging more competitive from this experience.

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Theresa May becomes the only candidate for leadership of the Conservative Party after Ms Leadsom withdraws from the race. No leadership vote will no take place with Conservative Party members and no early general election is planned. May is expected to become prime minister of Britain by July 12, replacing David Cameron. Her theme is for "one Britain" and to do away with the rising inequality and gap between London and the rest of the country, which was part of the anxiety of voters who voted 52% for Brexit on issues of immigration burden on social and health services, national sovereignty, and a sense of ordinary people being neglected by elites in both parties. May will invoke Article 50 to leave the European Union and begin a 2 year period of negotiations only after she has developed a clear negotiating strategy. Kenneth Clarke, a Conservative Party cabinet minister called May a "bloody difficult woman," but this did not affect May, who said Mr Juncker of the EU was the one who would find this out in negotiations.  What is significant for Britain is May's moderate position coupled with a clear goal for removing some of the causes of the inequity in British society, which is needed for Britain to remain united. She called on companies like Amazon, Google and others to pay their fair share of taxes, and made clear her intent to strengthen the mechanisms for controlling executive pay. Also part of this strategy will be a more effective immigration control policy, which she did not implement vigorously as Home Secretary in the Cameron government, partly because of constraints set by EU membership. May made clear her agenda going forward by saying: "There is a growing divide between a more prosperous older generation and a struggling younger generation. And there is a gaping chasm between wealthy London and the rest of the country."  Changes May is supporting are to make executive pay rules to become binding not just advisory, and for employees and consumers to gain seats on company boards.  ...

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Some of the ideas of Richard Holbrooke that have never been disclosed before on the conflicts in Pakistan and Afghanistan are disclosed by Kristof of the Times. Holbrooke believed the Obama administration's military approach to the conflict would not work. He worked hard to build a diplomatic solution similiar to the Dayton accords that he helped negotiate for the ethnically divided Yugoslavia. He earned the respect of Pakistanis in working for a long term solution to problems in the region.

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Mary Barra, 49, is appointed as the new leader of global product development at GM. Her background is in engineering, manufacturing and human resources. Barra is an electrical engineer who has been with GM for 30 years, was a vice president for global manufacturing and engineering, and manager of a Detroit assembly plant.

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Friedman says Putin acted emotionally by letting impulsive reaction to the anti-Russian feelings in western Ukraine determine Russian policy following the collapse of the Yakunovych government. The months long Russian response in Crimea and eastern Ukraine may have secured Russian pride at a large cost. This includes the damage to the relationship with Germany, seting the EU on a path to look for other sources of energy to reduce dependence on Russian gas, a natural gas deal with China in which the price was kept "a secret" and may have provided China with a bargaining edge considering the timing of the negotiations. The most severe impact is in the loss of confidence within Russia, reminding the Putin administration that though the economy has grown in the Putin years it is still fragile and connected to the global economy. The capital outflows of the magnitude of $160 billion at a time of high inflation and sharply slowing growth actually put at risk the gains Putin and Russia made in the last decade, and risk the future agenda to improve the standard of living of the Russian people eyond the major cities. Putin's own assessment would eventually be closer to that of Alexei Kudrin. Kudrin, finance minister in Putin's previous term, correctly saw the dangers of impulsive policy concentrated in one figure, and the suppression of other voices including the opposition needed for Russia to be governed in a manner similiar to western Europe, to attain a similiar level of economic progress and standards of living. In today's global economy even the U.S., France, UK and states inside Germany need foreign investment for jobs, new ideas and technology, and the opinion expressed on media television and internet shapes investor sentiment to a larger degree than fully understood....

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James Glassman, has published a new book, "Safety Net." In the book he makes an admission that he was wrong in his theory and understanding of the stock market described in his earlier book, "Dow 36,000," published in 1999. That book called for stocks to triple in value in 5 years. Glassman wrote then, at the height of the tech boom, that stocks could immediately double, triple or even quadruple as was happening at that time for tech stocks going public, and they would still not be too expensive. Part of the arguments rely on a definition of risk. Glassman said in his earlier book that stocks and bonds are equally risky in the long run, because stocks had never lost money over the long term and over long periods of time their returns were constant. But Glassman is using a technical definition of risk as how much returns can deviate from the average. What investors face in the real world is a common sense definition of risk, which is- what are the chances you will lose money? This point says Jason Zweig, is clearly stated in Howard Marks coming book, "The Most Important Thing." And what about the point about stocks never losing money, the central point in Glassman's thesis? Here research from Dimson, Marsh and Staunton of London Business School is useful. This research shows that in France from 1912 through 1977, stocks lost money after inflation. The upshot of this is to emphasize the need for looking at risks as real in the real world, where things have changed to the point where the current stock market rally is attributed by the Fed chairman to vigorous efforts to fight a downturn in the economy. For investors these risks are not going away with a sudden surge in stock prices....

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The slow hunch, serendipity, error, inventive borrowing and the collison between order and chaos. Nancy Koehn looks at two new books on innovation.

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The number of unemployed in Spain reaches 5.6 million people in April 2012. Finance Minister Guindos said the only bright spot was exports and a drop in the current account deficit which shows Spain's improving competitiveness: "This shows the Spanish economy is competitive, unlike some other European economies, thats the most important element of optimism for the future." The Spanish cabinet approved a Stability Program Report to be submitted to the European Union showing GDP growth of 0.2% in 2013 and 1.4% in 2014, following contraction of 1.7% in 2012, and unemployment falling slightly to 24.2% in 2013. Spain's government debt level is shown at 82.3% of GDP in 2013 declining to 81.5% in 2014.

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Renault signs an agreement with labor unions which provide for longer working hours and a one year wage freeze to reduce labor costs. Renault will in turn not close French factories and invest 1.1 billion euros to increase production in France. A similiar agreement was signed by Renault in Spain in 2012 and increased the urgency for reaching an agreement in France. Renault says increasing working hours 6.5% provided in the agreement will save the company 300 euros per car. Analysts estimate lower breakeven point for Renault after the deal. Renault said it will increase production to 710,000 cars in France by 2016 as part of the deal, taking output up to 85% of factory capacity. Production in 2012 declined to 532,000 in 2012, from 646,000 in 2011 and 1.2 million in 2007. Unions went into the negotiations sensing the danger in lack of competitiveness vs. Spain and Germany, and CFDT published a book titled "Renault in Danger!." Based on the experience in the U.S. as the economy recovered and sales recovered for Ford and GM, Renault may be seeing the effects of a gradual recovery in Europe by 2016. The 710,000 figure is a one third increase from the low 2012 figure, leaving room for expansion if this strategy succeeds. Renault's market share declined in Europe by one percentage point in 2012 to 8.4%, and its sales in Europe declined by 19%, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers Association. The increased production planned by Renault also includes 80,000 cars made for its partner Nissan....

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The U.S. unemployment rate drops from 5.8% in Nov. 2014 to 5.6% in Dec. 2014, according to the Labor Department. But hourly earnings failed to register growth. Average hourly earnings declined in Dec. 2014 from the prior month, and increased by only 1.7% over the prior year, just a little bit above the inflation rate of 1.3%. Overall 2.95 million jobs were created in 2014. Yet 8.7 million Americans looking for a job could not find one. The U.S. Federal Reserve officials see tepid wage growth as a sign of slack in the labor market. The Dec. 16-17 Fed meeting minutes show that "most participants saw no clear evidence of a broad based acceleration in wages." The labor force participation rate is also stuck at a low level- 62.7% in Dec. 2014. The U-unemployment rate that includes involuntary part time workers and workers marginally attached to the labor force was at 11.2% in Dec. 2014. This includes workers too discouraged to look for work and people working parttime because they could not get full time work. It is steadily dropping from 16.6% in 2010 to 14.4% by 2012, 13.1% by 2013, and now 11.2% in 2014, showing steady improvement but still high....

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An index for consumer prices for the U.S. was up only 0.8% for the 12 months of 2014, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is well below the U.S. central bank's target of 2% inflation. It creates uncertainty about whether the U.S. Fed will raise interest rates in 2015.

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Arne Duncan describes the improvements in K-12 education in two regions of the U.S.- the District of Columbia and Tennessee between 2011 and 2013, shown by the 2013 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The hard work of educators, parents and school officials is paying off and offers examples for other parts of the country, says Duncan. Lessons include facing the facts, not dumbing down by setting low standards. With higher standards Tennessee students were only 34% proficient in math and 45% in reading compared to the 91-92% with lower standards. Republicans followed up on the work of Democrats in the state. Soliciting feedback from critics and experts- the feedback was used to improve systems and learning to help teachers and students. Schools chancellor Kaya Henderson says improving teacher quality was critical, and so was academic rigor. Still Duncan says more needs to be done, this only shows the right direction for states lagging behind, and one should not get complacent. The other areas college enrollment and dropout rates need to be followed carefully. International PISA results still show the U.S. at 27th in math and 14th in reading of 65 countries- making this only the beginning in setting the future course for U.S. educational improvements....

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This report by Landon Thomas Jr. of the NYT describes what happened in the days before and the 48 hours before the referendum decision was announced by June 27, 2015. It shows talks progressing right up to Monday, June 22, 2015. By June 23 Greece received a paper marked in red from the IMF, EU and the ECB on their proposal of June 22. The Greek proposal of June 22 rejected pension cuts and removal of tax breaks for Greek islands, but proposing instead a series of tax increases and increase in pension contributions to be made by companies in Greece. The reply marked up disagreement areas on the paper which voiced objections to too many tax increases as hurting business growth, need to simplify value added taxes, and insisting on pension cuts and reforms. The two advisors Tsipras had used were a complete contrast to the new advisor and finance minister Mr. Tsakalotos he was to use in negotiations after July 7, 2015. Nikos Pappas is described here as an academic with a temper and Varoufakis as a person who would not hesitate to confront and lecture the creditors negotiators. Varoufakis who already had arguments and shouting matches with his counterparts on the other side, had a difficult relationship with the Dutch finance minister, Dijsselbloem, who was the chief of eurozone finance ministers. Dijseelbloem especially objected to Varoufakis lecturing on the need for a debt haircut. Varoufakis was removed from the discussions for a period of several weeks as a result and his reintroduction on June 25 was to have a negative effect on the EU and German negotiators. The same issue of debt came up again in discussions on June 25, 2015, and Varoufakis confronted the EU ministers by calling on the IMF's Christine Lagarde to state if the debt was sustainable. Before that Dijsselbloem had already told him flatly that any discussion on debt reduction would make a deal impossible. At one point German finance minister Schauble argued with EU official Pierre Muscovici of France about his favorable comments on the Greece proposal, saying he could not get the Greek proposal through the German parliament, and saying the ony solution now was capital controls. IMF's Christine Lagarde responded by saying that debt reduction needed to be considered. According to this report the Dutch finance mnister did not wait for Lagarde to explain- he told Varoufakis that it was take it or leave it....

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Efforts to change labor laws by Italy's prime minister, Mario Monti.