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Felipe Calderon is President of Mexico till Dec. 1, 2012, when Enrique Pena Nieto takes office. He describes the priorities for the next administration at the Mexican cultural center in Washington D.C. The first is to allow foreign investment in Mexico's oil industry. His efforts to do this were watered down in Mexico's Congress. The renewal of the ban on assault weapons in the U.S. is another priority, as 80% of the 150,000 weapons confiscated by Mexican law enforcement were bought in U.S. gun shops. Calderon's says he worked hard in his term of office to make Mexico "a rule-of-law state."

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Tyler Cowan writes about the problems of crony capitalism and lack of opportunities in American capitalism as it is practiced today.

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How one war widow is coping with the death of a husband in the war in Afghanistan. Lisa Hallett in Puget Sound with three small kids has kept alive her husbands memory as she makes a 26 mile run through the streets near Puget Sound, Washington.

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Tougher sanctions on Russia in July 2014 with the addition of Moscow Bank, VTB Bank. Sberbank was not added but other steps limit its access to financing in European financial markets. The limited access to international capital means banks and other companies will have to turn to the government for financing. Growth was estimated at 3.8% and lowered by the IMF to 0.2% in its latest forecast for 2014. It could turn negative, showing the impact both of the emerging markets crisis in early 2014, compounded by the crisis in Ukraine in the second quarter on the Russian economy.

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Stamouli and Walker of WSJ describe the last days of negotiations in June before Greece pulled out its negotiating team, and German chancellor Merkel decided to call off the bailout of Greece. The impasse was over pension cuts and vaue added taxes, yet the negotiations were still going over details when Tsipras pulled out Greece's negotiating team with the surprise announcement of a referendum on July 5, 2015. By saying the Syriza party would call for a "no" vote Tsipras alienated public opinion in Germany. Chancellor Merkel seeing the shift in domestic opinion favoring Greece's exit from the euro during the tense months of negotiations with the Syriza government and acrimonious charges, moved to call off a continued EU bailout of Greece.

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This editorial in the NYT calls for the IMF and the EU to rip up their I.O.U.'s after five years of debt negotiations with Greece and a contracting Greek economy. German public opinion looks at it differently having shifted to favoring Greece's exit from the euro. Chancellor Merkel says "if the Euro fails, Europe fails," what she means by this is that the economic responsibility of countries in the eurozone is a condition for the Euro to succeed. The two sides are far apart as Greece faces a "yes" or "no" vote to remain in the eurozone in the July 5, 2015 referendum.

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The IMF's estimate of extra aid needed for Greece to meet the damage done in the first 6 months of 2015 is $60 billion euros ($66.6 billion). The additional aid required is because of the worsening of the economy under the Tsipras Syriza party administration in the first half of 2015, the collapse in the negotiations, loss of trust, the imposition of capital controls, closing of the banks, and the growing uncertainty created by the referendum of July 5, 2015 on the debt talks and membership in the European Union. This may leave Greece worse off than before, as the cost of the cuts at issue in the talks were significantly smaller, and the small gradual improvement in the economy under the Samaras administration in 2013-2014 has suffered a serious setback. This is an unfortunate setback as Greece was allowed the needed flexibility on the most important points of the percentage of surplus and dateline, and cuts in the public sector employees.

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ECB president, Mario Draghi, is interviewed by Wall Street Journal reporters Blackstone, Karnitschnig, and Thomson, at his offices in Frankfurt. The reporters press questions such as- are austerity measures going to work in Greece, what happens with Portugal, what is "good" and "bad" austerity, why aren't eurobonds the answer. Draghi sidesteps the Greece question by saying it will depend on implementation of the commitments in fiscal policy and structural change. He takes the discussion to the general situation in southern Europe, in Italy and Spain, with the high youth unemployment and inflexible labor markets, making the point that there is no alternative to fiscal consolidation considering the excessive debt to GDP ratios of Italy, Spain and other countries. Good fiscal consolidation is where the taxes are reduced and government expenditure is on infrastructure and capital investments. Bad fiscal consolidation merely raises taxes, leaves current expenditures as is, and reduces capital investments. From his experience with the situation in Italy- and a similiar situation exists in Spain- Draghi points to the ways in which inflexible labor markets for the protected part of the population leads to temporary work contracts and few job opportunities for young people. The unemployment rate in Spain for young people exceeds 50%. Draghi's view is that fiscal consolidation is contractionary in the short term, but leads to growth in the longer term as structural changes are made and the confidence channel operates. It is also necessary to be put in place first, so that there is time to put the structural changes in place. He sees the program in Portugal on track. At the same time Draghi is aware of the drying up of credit in Spain, Italy and other countries even after the Long Term Financing Operation, and will respond as the situation changes. On the point of eurobonds, Draghi says it cannot be accepted that you spend and I pay, countries spend as they see fit and then they issue bonds jointly. For there to be trust its essential that each country stand on its own, and this is also a condition for setting up a durable fiscal union. This aspect of his views are consistent with the views of German chancellor Merkel and the northern European countries, Germany, Netherlands, Finland. Draghi is not new to this job after being president of the ECB for 4 months. He was on the Governing Council of the ECB for 6 years and has a good grasp of decisions made in the past. When asked if there is more that he could do for growth, Draghi's response is that the ECB will do the most it can do for price stability in the medium term and at the same time within the terms of the Treaty to promote financial stability. ...

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The increasing competitiveness of Mexico compared to China and India as an investment destination in 2013. Foreign companies are investing heavily in Mexico because of investment advantages in labor cost, supply of engineering and management talent, and proximity to the U.S.

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New anti-monopoly laws introduced by Mexico's president Nieto in March 2013 to bring competition to the telecom sector. For decades Mexico has suffered from high telecom rates because of a lack of competition in the telecom sector.

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The Harz labor reforms in Germany in 2003 changed the way unemployment was treated. The idea was to get the government to work more closely with private employers through several initiatives to fund jobs that did constructive work within these companies. This helped reduce structural unemployment because of the almost indefinite unemployment benefits that existed earlier, reducing it from 12.7% in 2005 to 7.1% in November 2008. In November 2009 even after a year of recesion it stands at 8.6%. Are there lessons for other countries in the German experience? THe Harz reforms directed the German Labor Agency to work closely with private employers to fund newly created jobs. One such program paid a Dutch staffing agency Randstad to teach 15,000 Germans information technology, business English an other skills. THe Labor agency funds jobs at a Daimler truck facility in Worth, near Stuttgart, where short term employees instead of being laid off work as mechanic trainees. Another initiative pays parts of the wages of workers hired from those who are jobless, so that the costs of retraining are shared by the government and the employer, making it more attractive to take a chance and go out and hire. And if you lose your job the Harz reforms made it possible to get unemployment benefits for an additional 6 months, if you went out and started a small business. Like the case of an employee who worked at a Kawasaki motorbicycle dealership, who started his own bike repair shop. There are political pressures to extend unemployment benefits as the recesssion becomes more severe. And the structural mismatch in jobs going unfilled, and the number turned out by universities is still a problem. One study by Adecco Institute, shows 29% of large German companies having trouble filling technical jobs, which is why these companies try to keep all their experienced employees....

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The Home Affordable Refinance Program's (HARP) gradual success in 2012-2013 in reducing foreclosures, after struggling in 2010-2011. From about cumulative 1 million who refinanced loans under HARP for relief in home payments the numbers went up to close to 3 million by the end of 2013, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Of this a major proportion were people who owed less than 105% of their home's value. The performance of the program improved with a revamp of HARP at the end of 2011.

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A seven member panel formed by Toyota to look into Toyota's recall problems made its recommendations recently. The panel's report says Toyota was not good at responding to criticism from outside. Company executives looked at complaints about sudden acceleration defensively or skeptically, and viewed regulators in an "adversarial" manner. The NHTSA also has come under criticism in investigations, because to some extent Toyota's close connections with the NHTSA made it possible for the company to drags its feet in responding to complaints. Edmunds.com CEO, Jeremy Anwyl, says Toyota has a stable and predictable way of doing things and this does not work well in a crisis, leaving Toyota uniquely vulnerable to this. The insularity of executives in Japan because of the lack of non-Japanese on the Board. and in other important positions, magnifies the problems when they are rooted in a crosscultural environment. Such complaints in the U.S. media are viewed differently than in Japan. The report also pointed out that safety and quality are two different things - that processes that improve quality will not necessarily produce safe vehicles. By putting safety under quality and making everyone responsible for quality, no specific executives were assigned responsibility for safety. One of the lessons learned from the recall crisis is that specific responsibility needs to be assigned for safety, and the person in charge has to report directly to the President and top managers. One of the panel members, Brian O'Neil, a former president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Saferty, says the old adage is true in this case- when everyone is responsible, no one is responsible....

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Krugman points to financial deregulation, cross border financial flows, private debt in dollars and depreciating currencies, and the U.S. Federal Reserve's low interest rate policies, as the main culprits for bubbles and the emerging market crises in the 1990's and 2013.

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Parallels between the Taft, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson election campaigns of 1910 and 1912, and the campaigns of 2010 and 2012, drawn by a T.R. biographer. He points to a tumultuous period ahead as lobbyists, outside interests, and the political parties and their supporters battle it out to set the direction of the country.

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The U.S. and Japan sign a new security agreement in 2015 which removes a geographical constraint on Japan participating in joint action with the U.S. in protecting vital global interests. The agreement is called the Joint Defense Guidelines. The agreement will enable Japan's Defense Forces with the permission of its parliament to participate in such action. Earlier agreements limited action to the defense of Japanese territories. A new alliance coordination mechanism will be established with officials from diplomatic, defense and military departments of the two countries. Consultations between the U.S. and Japan will take place through this mechanism in peacetime and in emergency situations. The new guidelines also include joint development of weapons systems and sharing of military technology, and cooperation on cybersecurity, missile defense, reconaissance activity. Japan's reinterpretation of its Constitution will now be discussed in parliament in the context of this agreement, to clarify what other activities Japan can take on....

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A small tax on the $800 trillion foreign exchange industry of 0.005%- with the tax on currencies where the leaders of these countries approve like Merkel of Germany and Sarkozy of France- would generate much needed money to help the word's poorest, says Philippe Jouste-Blazy, a former foreign minister of France. For instance he says tuberculosis killed nearly 1.8 million people in 2007, and caused the GNP of some countries to fall as much as 7 %. THis would bring serious gains to economic growth in the poorest countries. Look at the $1 to $5 tax imposed on airline tickets in France and 10 other countries since 2005.It has raised $700 million and financed three quarters of the AIDS treatment now being received by the world's HIV positive children. Unitaid, is an organization Blazy leads. It manages the money from the airline tax, and has negotiated 50 to 60% reductions in the price of pediatric anti-retroviral drugs in low income countries. The reason why the banking community should support this tax. One it is tiny, 0.005% on a foreign exchange transaction, and should not affect the flow of transactions. It is done automatically by computer systems. The currency trading system right now is untaxed. More importantly the bankers says Blazy have been benficiaries of taxpayer money. Isn't it time to give back to those worst affected by the global crisis the bankers helped create? Does'nt it create more credibility for the global financial, monetary and trading systems? He says the tax money could be managed by the Global FUnd to fight AIDs Tuberculosis and Malaria, with upholds programs in 100 countries to high performance standards....

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Adly Mansour, Chief Justice of Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court is sworn in as interim president in July 2013, after the ouster of president Morsi.