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This in depth report in The Times reveals that after Brexit talks between Lord Frost and Michael Barnier were getting nowhere on December 3 and the EU had increased its demands, Boris Johnson came up with the idea of a direct call between Johnson and Macron of France and Merkel of Germany, with the EU Commission president Leyen present. This was rejected after Macron spoke to Merkel and both decided they should stay united in their demands that Britain agree not to relax environmental or other rules to gain unfair competitive advantage after leaving the EU. The decision by France and Germany not to talk directly with Britain had been made. Leyen at the EU headquarters in Brussels was to convey the decision. Leyen offered to meet Johnson for a dinner discussion in Brussels. Johnson hesitated. He finally accepted knowing that this would show he had done everything possible and would have the support of all his ministers including ones that supported Remaining in the EU. The whole world thought that the EU was making a genuine last effort to get agreement, but this was not the case. During the dinner meeting Leyen just listened and listened, not saying much, as the EU strategy was to convey to the British that it was serious and not going to budge. This is where the situation is today on December 12, 2020. Cabinet ministers say the chances of any agreement before December 31, 2020, the date Britain leaves are just 30%, some even say 20%. Both sides are ratcheting up the pressure. The British have taken steps to increase patrol ships to 4 and the total fleet to 8 ships to patrol its Economic Zone in British waters looking for EU, mostly French fishermen. Britain would keep the French from fishing in its waters.   ...

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German residents preparing to cope with a cutoff and rationing of gas for heating during the winter of 2022. Hospitals and homes will get priority over industry. DW.com shows how 8 people living together in a large home in Bonn's old city plan to cope with the situation in winter. Oil tanks used for heating will cost double this winter.

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Mercedes sales have seen asharp decline. May 2009 sales were down 33.4%% from May 2008 for the US region. Steve Cannon who heads Mercedes' marketing effort continues to believe that its performance, innovation and technology that will bring buyers back to Mercedes. The company's $75 million ad campaign in the USA for its updated E-Class Series cars, show tv ad spots with scenes of families admiring classic Mercedes cars at the Mercedes Benz museum in Stuttgart, Germany, and scenes of the car down a forested road. The car then bursts through the wall of the museum, and takes its place alongside other Mercedes cars. In contrast other manufacturers, GM, Hyundai, Honda and others are taking account of the economic downturn and lower consumer spending. Hyundai offers to help customers pay for the cars if they lose their jobs, which GM and Ford has matched. Honda is also keeping pricing emphasis. Mercedes only brings up the price at the end of its ad with the number $48,600 shown, a 9% drop in price for the updated E Class Series....

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U.S. President Obama's speech at the General Assembly of the United Nations, Sept. 25, 2012, in which he praised the work of Ambassador Stevens in Libya. He defended First Amendment rights in the U.S. of free speech to an audience that was not fully convinced that the "anti-Muslim video" designed from the start as a provocation, produced as a violation of probation rulings by the individual, and being given the distribution channel of a vast internet audience by Google owned YouTube, falls neatly into free speech. The German government is reported to be looking into banning the video from distribution in Germany, and Germany also protects free speech under its constitution. He cited the "voices that rally against bigotry and blasphemy," as the way a First Amendment democracy protects against this type of abuse; which would suggest that Google as one of these voices has the responsibility to treat such content similiar to other extreme content of a pornographic nature or other such provocative material inducing violence, which it routinely excludes from distribution. The ultimate protection of First Amendment rights comes not from the U.S. constitution itself, but from the responsible exericize of wisdom, vigilance and common sense. During the long years of drafting of the Constitution when Madison, Jefferson and others who drafted the document took pains to include every protection so that basic rights would be preserved, George Washington pointed out that one could do this only upto a point, because it was upto the wisdom of future generations to preserve these rights, and this could never be done completely....

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Globalization is being replaced with government support for attracting new investment and industry. Germany is providing $11 billion for 2 Intel semiconductor plants. The Biden administration $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act investment by the US sets the new pathway for government to support industry to increase investment and create good paying jobs inside the US. This reverses decades of neglect of American manufacturing by administrations from the time of president Reagan through the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations. A new world order is being shaped that enables the EU and the US to compete with China with direct government support for industry.  The US and the EU gain, the UK and Singapore lose out in the new arrangement.

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The SEC filed the Goldman civil suit the same day that its Inspector General released a report on the gross failure of the SEC for a decade to catch the Ponzi scheme of Allen Stanford. As a result of the lawsuit against Goldman that report never got the front page coverage it deserved leaving most people unaware of some crucial facts about SEC behaviour. The IG report shows how the enforcement chief of the SEC Fort Worth office quashed his staff's efforts to investigate- and following this how he goes into private practice landing Stanford as a client. The Goldman Abacus case has a whole cast of characters, the SEC, the Ratings agencies, and even the supposed victims German bank IKB. IKB sold commercial paper IOU's to investors in mid 2007 that were worthless to investors by the end of that year. IKB's CEO Stefan Ornstein went on trial in Germany for lying about IKB's financial condition before its collapse.

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States in Germany that have imposed quarantine and lockdown are Bavaria, Saarland, Rhineland-Palatinate., Hamburg, Lower Saxony, and Hesse. People are asked to stay inside unless going to the doctor or supermarket.  Bavaria where Munich is located reported few violations. Chancellor Merkel is meeting with state premiers on March 21 to decide on a nationwide lockdown as in Spain and Italy. 

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The lack of trust in negotiations on the terms of spending cuts between Greece and EU ministers in February 2011. In difficult exchanges between German finance minister Schauble and Greece's finance minister Venizelos, Schauble criticized the Greek government for not beginning negotiations for reduction in the minimum wage. EU ministers at a meeting with Venizelos on Feb 10, 2012, showed a distrust of Greece's figures on austerity cuts and asked for an additional $428 million in cuts to make up for the refusal of Greece to cut supplemental pensions. In Greece five ministers in the Greek cabinet resigned in protest over the conditions set by the troika of the EC, ECB and the IMF, just as unions launched a 48 hour strike in Athens. Greece is in the fifth year of a recession with unemployment at over 20%, making sharp cuts more painful. A shrinking economy makes achieving budget defict targets even more difficult and worsening the debt situation.

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Jens Weidmann becomes the new president of the German central bank, taking over from Axel Weber. Weber was critical of the ECB's bond buying program for Greece and other countries facing a deficit crisis, to which he alluded when he said at the handover ceremony- "at times we struggled with one another in light of difficult and far reaching decisions- not over the common goal, but how to reach it." Weidmann was an advisor to Chancellor Merkel. He is a student of Weber and the youngest President of the Bundesbank. He brings a measure of flexibility and trust for Merkel, as he was part of her inner circle of advisors.

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With high unemployment at 11% in France, only 41% of the people in a Pew Research Center poll gave favorable impressions about the European Union. This is down from 60% in 2012. In Germany 60% of those polled gave a favorable impression of the EU in 2013. The number remained steady in Britain at about 43%.

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The U.S. Mexico, Canada trade agreement USMCA is now seen as a model for future trade agreements with China, Japan, Germany, the EU, and Britain as it leaves the EU. It is based on a pro-growth, labor protections, higher wages in America model. The USMCA provisions to raise American wages for workers, improve labor protections in developing countries, pro-growth, and level playing field, are portable and can be transferred to other trade agreements. The USMCA now has support from all parties and is expected to become law when it passes Congress next week. The USMCA when applied to countries that favor or subsidize their businesses also provides a template to level the playing field and ensure fair competition.

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The Times of London offers this Analysis of Chinese president Xi's visit to Russia for a Victory Day Parade to be attended by 20 countries including Serbia, Venezuela's Maduro, and Brazil's Inacio Lula Da Silva. Soldiers from China will March in the Red Army Parade. Other countries attending are Indonesia, Egypt, Iraq.

XI and Putin have a new common view of the war as aginst the Nazis and Japanese Imperialism. The role of US Gen. Joe Stilwell in uniting Chinese forces to fight the Japanese is not mentioned in history books in China as the focus under Xi has shifted to increase the importance of the common fight in Russia and China aginst Germany and Japan.

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German effort to be actively involved in African countries and in aid and investment to Africa, is one of the lessons learned from the migration crisis. Anglea Merkel cisits south Africa and Angola in an effort to improve ties with these countries and the rest of Africa. South Africa gets two thirds of all German investments in Africa. It is also an important ally in Compact with Africa launched in 2017, and better ties with the election of Ramaphosa in South Africa. Angola is moving to restore better ties under a new government of president Joao Lourenco with its focus on the economy.

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France plans to increase military spending from 295 billion euros to 400 billion euros for 2024 to 2030. Some of this will come from reform of the pension system that takes up 13.1% of economic output by raising the retirement age from 62 to 64 years. A million people protest in Paris on Jan 20. One of the problems in implementing this is that in France there is significant age discrimination for jobs compared to Germany and other countries. This means workers would have to wait longer for pensions even workers with good qualifications looking for work. Efforts to tackle this cultural issue with companies biased against older workers are lacking.

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WHy did NHS Test and Trace fail to contact no more than 50% of the persons who tested positive. Why was it not able to followup with the people who needed to be visited in their homes to ensure isolation. Why was NHS associated in the name when the NHS had not been consulted and involved in the design of this service. In fact it ignored lessons from Germany where the contact tracing was entirely from local, started very quickly with the key being local or state employees who were diverted to this task and were skilled and motivated to do it. Why was this critical task simply handed out to outsource it to private companies.  Germany's example was there very early in March-April and it was working. Why reinvent the wheel. Setup quickly and entirely local it required only a desk, a desktop PC, and a national database to which PC was connected, the skilled caller being the key to getting people to talk to and cooperate. About 80% of those testing positive needed to be contacted. NHS Test and Trace was reaching about 50% and many that needed to be visited at home could not be followed up quickly. The shift is only now being made to go local. It worked in Leicester and other places but the learning came the hard way, as with many things during this pandemic. ...

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Roger Cohen interviews Glenn Greenwald, a journalist for Britain's Guardian newspaper, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Greenwald made disclosures of NSA spying on Brazil's president Dilma Rousseff. He now has the backing for a online publication from eBay founder, Pierre Omidyar, for the venture with financing of $250 million. Greenwald helped make Snowden's information on NSA spying public by writing about it in the Guardian from his base in Brazil. Cohen says old style mainstream journalism has been affected by the 9/11 events, and brings up David Halberstam's words at Columbia University in 2005- about not letting the powerful intimidate independent journalists. In 2013 the government of Britain asked the Guardian to turn over documents related to NSA spying, which the Guardian resisted, leading to a protest by Germany that this violated respect for freedom of the press.

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S&P downgraded France's credit rating from AAA to AA+ on Jan 13, 2012. S&P downgraded Italy's credit rating to BBB+ and Spain's credit rating to A. The AAA ratings for Germany, Netherlands and Finland were left unchanged. S&P stated its reasoning: "Today's ratings actions are primarily driven by our assessment that the policy initiatives that have been taken by European policy makers in recent weeks may be insufficient to fully address ongoing systemic stresses in the eurozone."

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Italy's borrowing costs increased by one percentage point one week after the July 22, 2011 eurozone debt deal for Greece. The Italian Treasury sold 2.7 billon euros of 10 year bonds with a yield of 5.77%. The yield in late June for a similiar bond issue was 4.94%. Yields on Spain's 10 year bonds increased to 6%. German bonds are getting investors with a 10 year bond yield that has decreased to 2.62%, which means the gap between the German bonds and the bonds of southern European countries is widening.

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In an interview with the Wall Street Journal Deutschland, Hans Werner Sinn, head of the Ifo Institute in Germany, says Greece's bondholders are overly exaggerating the effects on the eurozone of an exit by Greece. He sees it in the best interests of Greece to improve its competitiveness and return to growth by going back to the drachma. Just to get to the level of Turkey Greece would need to reduce prices by 31%, which is impossible to do within the eurozone without risking a complete breakdown in civil order. The best way to use the 130 billion euro second bailout package is to use it to recapitalize its banking system, says Sinn. Sinn says Portugal's faces the risk of a debt crisis following the crisis in Greece.

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British prime minister Theresa May calls a surprise general election for June 8, 2017, with the hope of winning a new mandate for Brexit negotiations larger than the slim 17 vote majority in the House of Commons. Experts say the disarray in the Labor Party improves chances of Ms. May winning a large parliamentary majority. A YouGov PLC poll shows Conservatives at 44% support, Labor at only 23% and Liberals at 12%.

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Becky Branford of BBC News gives five reasons for Emmanual Macron's win in the French presidential election. She cites experts who say Macron was lucky, had a canny ability to see the timing was right for a new party to be formed so that socialist voters had an alternative. His luck comes from the failure of Republican centre right party Fillon to mobilize right wing voters following reports that he had hired his wife and children for government jobs. Yet this is not a complete explanation. Macron had the intuition that something was happening in French politics and the courage to act on it early, the youthful energy to take up the challenge of a mass movement. The events were the declining popularity of the socialists, and the fragmentation of the left wing, the uncertain prospects of the Sarkozy effort at comeback because of his image from years in power, and the need to counter growing far right support for the National Front- to do this by offering an alternative in the centre. From that one courageous decision things from that point fell into place as the Republican party also failed to attract strong public support.  A mere 24% of the vote enabled Macron to enter the second round. Macron's grasp of the economy and conviction helped him win the final debate with Le Pen decisively. His sense of his own mission to revive the idea of Europe sustained him against attacks from the far right, including the late cyber attack on his emails in the last 24 hours.  Macron could still have prevailed over Le Pen without the strong campaign for staying on a positive message and confidence in his ability to turn France's economy around. Yet without a margin of victory of this size in the face of abstaining voters from the far left, Macron as president would not have looked the same. The next step is parliamentary elections in June, and governing France with a turnaround plan requires winning a majority in parliament of sufficient magnitude that he can implement a program which makes the French economy as competitive as Germany's. People forget that Germany was considered a economy with high unemployment and not as competitive under the Schroeder administrations that preceded Angela Merkel, this includes the French with the layers of pessimism. Emmanuel Macron deserves credit not for winning, but winning with the idea of Europe, and it has done as much for him from the French people who have put their faith in Europe when the chips are down, as he has done for Europe already. How this helps put a turnaround in the economy in place is that he will have the energy and enthusiasm of Germany behind him, as well as the energy of French industry and young people to do what Germany accomplished in the 2000-2010 period to emerge from years of high unemployment with a strong economy. ...

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Newly elected president Poroshenko's personal relations with Putin and his connections to Russia's business interests will help him improve relations with Putin. He wants to have substantive preparations for talks with Russia so that progress is made in relations and in other issues. Putin has said he will respect the results of the Ukraine election. Senators Portman and Cardin, and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright were in Kiev to monitor the elections, and found them to be fair and properly conducted. Turnout was high and voters rejected the old world politics of the main rival candidate Tymoshenko, who received only 13% of the vote compared to Poroshenko's 54%. Poroshenko is a businessman who started out in chocolate, but has business interests in automobiles and owns television station 5. He was Speaker of parliament, and Trade minister in previous governments. The election result and voter rejection of the old politics gives a fresh start, and a chance for Russia, Germany and the EU to move forward. Russian president Putin had serious problems with the old politicians and may find it easier to work with Poroshenko. American led sanctions provide Russia an incentive to resolve the situation to give Russia's economy a chance to recover from serious capital outflows. Poroshenko is pro-EU, with enough Russian connections to maintain confidence in Russian-Ukrainian relations, for the fresh start Ukrainians are looking for. His focus is on economic development, with jobs as a priority for the young people facing extremely high unemployment....