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One hundred years after the First World War Germans look at memorials and museums in Kiel about the naval buildup in Germany in 1910-1914 in a different light. Germany's effort to match Britain's naval supremacy and the increasing tensions and nationalist rhetoric led to the war- worse, the defeat created conditions for a larger conflict in 1939-1945. To put this period behind it Germany has emphasized the dangers of war and getting people to realize what war is. Kiel itself was 80% destroyed at the end of the Second World War.

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Breakdown of negotiations between Greece and EU finance ministers led by Dijisselbloem of the Netherlands on February 16, 2015. Dijisselbloem says the best way forward is for Greece to take a 6 month extension of the current program, because more time is needed to work out the details. Finance minister Varoufakis of Greece says Greece should not have to make cuts that are clearly recessionary. The bailout ends on Feb. 28. Without an agreement reached Greece loses access to 7.2 billion in funds from the EU, needed to make repayments due in March.

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Workers at the VW plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee voted 712 to 626 in Feb. 2014 to reject membership in the UAW union. This makes it more difficult for the union to make inroads in the Southern states. In an unusual step VW- cooperating with the IG Metalls union in Germany- let union organizers into the plant for over a week and cooperated with the UAW to setup the election. VW wanted to setup a works council, a committee of employees which gives management feedback for running of the plant, similiar to ones operating in Germany.

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With the low popularity ratings of the LDP's Taro Aso, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) led by Ichiro Ozawa was considered afavorite to win elections in September, 2009. Now even the DPJ is hit by scandal as Ozawa's political secretary was indicted for taking $355,000 in illegal donations from Nishimatsu, a building company. Ozawa promised to stay on to fulfill his dream of setting up the first non-LDP government in postwar Japan. He was himself at one time a leader in the LDP till he joined the Opposition parties.

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Malpass call sfor astrong dollar policy as the way to prosperity for the US, at atime when other countries are looking to promote domestic consumption for growth by having stong yen in the case of new Japanese policy and a stable but stronger yuan in the case of new Chinese policy. With high levels of debt is easier for the US government to let a weaker dollar reduce the size of its debt, but ith has other bad consequences in promoting jobs and growth in the domestic economy.

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A sign that investors are moving too quickly is the manner in which investors are putting money in emerging markets. THe sovereign credits of Argentina, Ecuador, Pakistan and Ukraine have risen by 100% to date on teh benchmark JP Morgan's Energing Markets BOnd Index Global. Gavin of Barclays Capital says the odds that current level rise to bubble levels are very high. Emerging market funds have absorbed more than $40 billion so far this year according to EPFR GLobal fund tracker, reversing the outflows during the crisis in early 2009.

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Poland says its President Lech Kaczynski, is not hit as hard as other countries in Eastern Europe, by which he may be referring to Hungary, and may achieve 2% growth in 2009, if things do not worsen considerably. The prime minister of Hungary had warned of a new Iron Curtain coming down over Europe, as a result of the economic downturn. Unemployment is rising, but nowhere near the high double digits of the 1990's, and exports are still holding up, and Polish banking sector is relatively healthy not having made the risky investments.

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Should Bear have been allowed to fail? Would a bankruptcy of Bear Stearns created enough of ascare among highly leveraged investment banks and financial institutions that they would have started straightening out their finances 6 months earlier in crisis fashion without letting the 6 months pass without the necessary actions? This was stated in aspeech given by Ken Lewis after the failure of Lehman Brothers and the subsequent crises at other banks led to a wake up call on Wall Street. Here James Freeman of the WSJ makes asimiliar argument.

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In the March 29, 2009, local elections in Turkey the AK party led by Mr Erdogan got only 39% of the vote down from the 47% it obtained in the 2007 general elections. Unemployment is 13.6% and the Turkish currency's value dropped, and GDP is declining. Mr Erdogan's claims that the global meltdown had not touched Turkey irked voters, and other local issues and parties also resulted in a loss of support. Erdogan is seen as aloof and losing touch with the people compared to the years when AK was on the rise.

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On October 6, 2008 the Brazilian real and the Mexican peso plunged. Mexico had to spend 10% of its foreign reserves in a few hours to prop upthe peso. It started with some foreign investors selling latin american assets to cover losses at home. The peso's slide increased with theunwinding of derivative contracts of Mexican companies. For Brazil the fall in commodity prices led to weakening of the real and derivative contracts unwinding worsened things. Forecasters expected to see growth of 4.5% in Brazil and 3% in Mexico, now this will be lowered by 1.5%.

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The neglect of Saturn as GM moved to emphasize SUV sales, with no new models for five years and the folding of Saturn in to the small car group and expected to compete for scarce resources with other brands including the Buicks, the Hummers and the Pontiacs. Saturns were doing what they intended to do getting buyers of imports shifting to American models but lack of investment and attention and steady perseverance over time led to its potential never being realized. This may be one of the many errrors of GM executives and its board.

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Prince Salman's efforts to launch an IPO of Saudi Arabian National Oil Company faces resistance from Saudi bureaucrats. Prince Salman wants to reduce the country's dependence on oil revenue, and hoped to use the IPO generated $100 billion to make investments in other industries. Saudi technocrats see risks in the plan- as costing consumers billions of dollars in higher gasoline prices, legal risks and public scrutiny. The IPO has been pushed back to 2021. Large new investments such as solar generation hub also face passive resistance in the bureaucracy. New investments policies have led to a Saudi recession in 2017, and reduced investment and consumer spending. Prince Salman sees it differently, once telling Theresa May of Britain that even if he got 50 of the 100 things he wanted done, that would be 50 not done otherwise. Salman has a disdain for the bureaucracy and has tight control over the country. He has led popular social changes such as letting women drive and taking away the power of religious police to make arrests. The Economy Minister has slowed down a plan to sell state assets such as government owned hospitals,airports, because conditions are not ideal. A plan to invest $7 billion in Uber was shelved. Aramco chairman Mr. Falih has reduced the size of investmetns including for the solar energy generation project. A plan to have ARAMCO listed on the New York Stock Exchange preferred by Prince Salman has been changed with advisers suggesting the London Stock Exchange as a place with lower risks of law suits under U.S. tort laws. Saudi executives at ARAMCO also pointed out that to reach the $2 trillion valuation that the Prince has in mind for ARAMCO the company would have to sell gasoline to Saudis at market rates, tripling oil prices in the kingdom -costing consumers $98 billion. The advisers believe it is more prudent financially to raise debt. Under that plan ARAMCO could raise debt to buy the Public Investment Fund's (PIF) 70% stake in state owned chemicals company Saudi Basic Industries Corp. which would infuse PIF with $70 billion, almost as much as generated by a IPO for ARAMCO. On solar energy Mr. Falih lowered the plan from 1500 gigawatts to 200 at a cost of $200 billion. Under a new plan this is at 60 gigawatts from solar and wind with 70% produced by the Public Investment Fund, the state's investment fund.   ...

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The SNP Scottish party and the Liberal Democrats favor early elections and will push for this in parliament. The thinking is that both parties can do better in an election before Brexit is passed. A You.Gov poll for The Times shows only one person in five or 19% see the EU withdrawal deal negotiated by Boris Johnson as "a good deal." SNP, and Lib Democrats say this means voters will vote for parties with clear for or against positions on Brexit including the Independence Party of Nigel Farage. Both SNP and Lib Democrats are for Remain. Labour Party under Corbyn is divided on how quickly to go into another election. The Tories under Boris Johnson are relying on polls showing they are leading by 10 points yet this can change as Theresa May faced a similar situation and called for an early election which led to losing its majority.  Experts on BBC say a December election is highly unusual and most unpredictable, posing big risks for Boris Johnson and the Conservatives particularly now with Johnson advisor Cummings tactics dividing the party. ...

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Speaking to journalists after a meeting with the Irish prime Minister Leo Varadkar, the European Council's president Donald Tusk warned of a "special place in hell" for politicians who promoted Brexit "without even a sketch of a plan." Tusk was also critical of Jeremy Corbyn saying there was a leadership void at the heart of the Remain movement. "Today there is no political force and no effective leadership for Remain."  Tusk said there are no alternative arrangements that could replace the backstop, saying "the backstop is needed as a guarantee, A safety net is not a safety net if it can be destroyed by one party." The backstop is a way to keep peace in Northern Ireland. The Irish prime minister and Mr. Tusk circulated a "thank you card" from a Dublin family thanking the EU for its solidarity. The card said Ireland was drawing strength from the words of EU leaders. It said "Britain does not care for peace in Northern Ireland.  To them it's a nuisance." ...

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The Ford Motor Company's effort to get president Trump to work on a compromise with California on fuel economy standards has failed. Leaving the industry split with Ford on one side and GM, Toyota on the other siding with president Trump on lower fuel economy standards than set by California and lower than the standards set by Mr. Obama. When Ford made a deal with California it got an antitrust inquiry, and led to the Trump administration speeding up its effort to strip California of its authority to set its own fuel economy standards. This WSJ report says the legal fight between Mr. Trump and California is likely to be long and drawn out with Ford and the auto companies caught in the middle. It also shows how the disagreement with the Trump White House can lead to unforeseen consequences and more uncertainty. Ford had originally expected that a deal with California which relaxed standards set by Mr. Obama but not similar to Mr. Trump's would show California would compromise. This is not how it has worked out. ...

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Indian prime minister Modi speaks to a special session of parliament on the 75th anniversary of the Quit India Movement. Modi says by 1942 conditions were right for the goal of independence declared by the Quit India Movement and its leader Mahatma Gandhi. He suggested a slogan in Hindi for "we will do and surely will do" to overcome corruption, illiteracy and poverty. For 2017 to 2022 five year period he suggested taking the resolve for "Sankalp se Siddhi." Making the good thoughts happen. Modi told parliament that just as in 1942 the global conditions are favorable for India today.

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WSJ reporters Chow, Schechner and Kostov provide this exceptional report from the 11th Arondissement in France, scene of the terrorist attacks in Nov. 2015, describing the conflicting visions of French society- one secular and the other in other parts of the country anti-immigrant. The National Front of Marie Le Pen sees immigration as "a mortal threat to France" and won about 25% of the vote in France in the 2014 European parliament elections, a first for a anti-immigrant party in Europe. It did very well in rural areas and small towns of northwest France and southern France. The debate on immigration is now dominating headlines in Europe, including Denmark, Norway, Germany, France, Rumania, Hungary, and other countries. The Syrian refugee crisis has exacerbated the situation.

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Francois Bayrou the new PM of France speaks a dialect of the Pyrenees mountains, is mayor of Pau, and was a school teacher before entering politics. He has a disdain for extreme positions on both sides left and right, including polarizing politics of Sarkozy. He gave key support to Macron at the right time when he needed it to run for president. He gets along well with Le Pen and has helped Marie Le Pen run for president in the past when she needed support because he felt this was essential for the democratic process. He was not the first choice of Macron and insisted on taking the job over other choices.

Pau is located 31 miles from the Spanish border with a clear view of the Pyrenees mountains. It is an ancient city with a University at Bearns, and a medieval heritage.

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The significance of Notre dame Cathedral for France and Europe over 1000 years is shown in this timeline in Le Monde.  The year 1163-  An ancient cathderal St Etienne Cathedral is in decline. In its place will be built Notre Dame. Maurice de Sully becomes Bishop of Paris in the reign of Louis VII in the 12th century. Sully decides to build a great cathedral in honor of the Virgin Mary. The first stone is laid inthe presence of Pope Alexander III. The year 1239- Louis the IX is the first canonized King of France, Saint Louis participated in the seventh and eighth crusade and purchased the relics of the Passion from the Latin Emperor of Constantinople. These relics are seen to be the most honored in Christendom and are installed in the Notre Dame Cathedral.The most significant is the crown of thorns which he carries into the cathedral barefoot in 1239. He build Sainte Chappelle 500 metres away in the Isle de Cite. The year 1594- The Wars of Religion tear France apart. Henry IV is caught in the midst of the Wars of Religion between Catholics and Protestants from 1562 to the Edict of Nantes in 1598 . It is at Notre Dame that the King Henry iV asserts his power against the Catholic League by attending a Te Deum. Notre Dame is again used as a symbol of recapture in 1918 and on Aug 26, 1944 with the Magnificat for Liberation. 1708- With Louis XIII comes the dedication in 1638, the Vow of King Louis XIII putting his kingdom under the protection of the Virgin Mary, and August 15 as celebration day. 1844- Viollet le Duc emerges as the builder of the renovation of the now aging structure of Notre Dame. Two million frances for restoration run out in 1851. The project resumes in 1859. 1991- It is the project of tourism and heritage as the national site of France. 2019- the second renovation of Notre Dame in Paris begins after the fire.   ...

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Gallup found last summer that only 16% of Americans polled had "quite a lot" of confidence in newspapers, in its decades long polling of "Confidence in Institutions." For TV news only 11% trust it. Bret Stephens of NYT says the right approach to give marginalized communities a voice is to create more diverse newsrooms not let objectivity be eroded. He reminds people that in a democracy its not just about reporting, it's also about listening, listening to all the people. He quotes Arthur Miller- "A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself." President Biden showed this in his State of the Union address, by working hard to listen to what the nation is saying about itself, about communities all across America that were for too long being ignored while jobs were sent overseas and communities suffered. For far too long, a period that stretched into four decades, turning them into the "invisible" people. Ninety years after Carl Sandburg's "The People, Yes" the task is one of restoring that voice of the people of America. About Lincoln, Sandburg wrote that he said Yes to the paradoxes of democracy, Yes to the hopes of government, No to debauchery of the public mind, Yes to people struggling in the middle of illusions, which of the faiths and illusions would he or she choose for his portion of the light, to take one out of the wilderness. If death was in the air, so was birth.   ...

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The renewal of America requires new leadership at the helm of America's institutions for higher learning when men's enrollment in college education is endangered as reported in WSJ. This WSJ report shows presidents choosing to retire at Dartmouth, NYU, Columbia, U Penn, MIT. Lee Bollinger is 75, he started at Columbia as president in 2002. He helped raise $13 billion and expanded the 13 acre Manhattanville campus. Yet what does it say for so many college presidents when during the period when they raised vast sums of money and during the last 2 decades college education is harder and harder to afford for ordinary Americans? During the pandemic WSJ reports in 2021 even show that American men are having a hard time paying for college education and rates of enrollment are dropping for men to alarming levels. Never before in America's history has it been said that American men are becoming endangered for higher education. One rarely hears college presidents talk about these social issues that are top and center for ordinary Americans. It is not just Columbia or what are called Ivy League institutions, most of the leading colleges in America have forgotten why they are here in the first place and what made America what it was and again can be, a land of opportunity for all. It is time for anew generation of leaders in American higher education to dedicate themselves to this task - so that we hold these rights to be self-evident, to renew America in the face of many challenges and set a model for the free world. ...

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The cooperation announced between India and Britain on the experiment to look at one grid between countries in different time zones could be a game changer in the way new technologies have already achieved in making solar less costly than fossil fuel. Embrace of new technologies is essential for achieving net zero emissions. India first proposed connecting solar energy across countries and time zones at the International Solar Alliance in 2018. If a way can be found to integrate the grid across time zones the problems of solar energy could be tackled effectively. Storage would not be needed in the way it is now as the solar energy can be sent to other areas with the demand. And the equally vexing problem of supply can be solved as the regions such as Spain could be generating solar energy when the sun had set in India. It is ambitious but it also brings in scientists and engineers from Europe, America, India and Japan to tackle the problem. There is also the opportunity to build on one discovery to make another scientific discovery in the way advances have happened in medicine and science.  And nothing about net zero is not ambitious. One of the lessons Modi learned early in Gujarat is that experiments are needed and to never rule out new ideas. In some of his speeches he describes the early experiments with electricity and solar energy in Gujarat that led to more ambitious efforts over time, and eventually to where solar targets like the one made at COP26 Glasgow of 500 gigawatts by 2030 are now within reach. ...

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The end of another long war in Asia that started in 1979 with Soviet forces followed by American forces- the war lasted for 44 years in a country of mountains with 38 million people. Just as with the Vietnam war that started in the sixties under president Kennedy and ended in the mid 1970's, yet even earlier than that in the 1950's with French colonial forces. That war lasted 25 years. It achieved little in terms of ideology as market capitalism now prevails in China and Vietnam. What it achieved was a single Vietnam under nationalist forces led by the Communists under Ho Chi Minh who was a student in Paris when the Versailles Treaty was signed in 1918, when he called for self determination in Indochina. That war had a parallel in the war from the 1930's to 1949 between Mao's communist forces and first the Japanese, then Chiang's Nationalist forces. The war in China lasted 20 years.  This ends a long chapter of anti colonial and anti western wars in Asia that covered most of the 20th century and the early part of the 21st. Asians are weary of wars just as much as the wars that divided Europe. Americans and Europeans have much to do to rebuild their economies and improve life in their countries. Asians have much to do to build infrastructure and a better life for their people. China, India, Indonesia, Vietnam and Japan have much to do after the pandemic.     ...

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Showing how short lived and misdirected were the efforts to use election wins to make the presidency all powerful under Gotabaya Rajapaksa, prime minister Wickremasinghe proposed an amendment to restore the powers of parliament in a parliamentary democracy. Sri Lanka stumbled badly into economic mismanagement with debt pileup and no action till it was too late without the checks and balances inherent in a parliamentary democracy. Prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa resigned and with protests calling for the president Gotabaya Rajapaksa to resign, Mr. Wickremasinghe a four time former prime minister was brought back to lead the country out of the crisis. Mr. Wickremasinghe returned with an agreement with the president to restore the powers of parliament which were established since the independence of the country in 1948. Mr. Wickremasinghe has support of the western lending agencies and governments in US and Europe as he and an independent central bank governor Nandalal Weerasinghe with many years of experience working with the IMF seek a way out of the economic crisis. A level of transparency that was present in the early years after independence is being restored as the public suffers from energy shortages and 40% inflation. The foreign exchange reserves of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) were exhausted to the point that the country lacked the funds to let oil tankers in Colombo harbor unload oil and be paid for oil supplies. As a lack of oversight is being corrected Ceylonese are beginning to realize the costs of a unneeded war, wild swings in sentiment for and against parties, deconstructing parliamentary democracy and its checks and balances, corruption and economic mismanagement. ...