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France showed zero GDP growth in the second quarter of 2012 compared to the first quarter, according to the national statistics office Insee. French president Hollande will have to raise 33 billion euros in spending cuts or higher taxes to reach the target for the budget deficit of 3% of GDPin 2013, according to a July report of Cour des Comptes, a body that audits public institutions. This will be harder now that the slowdown globally is leading to expectations of slower growth than the 1% growth forecast used in the audit. French president Hollande has so far received good marks from analysts and financial markets. French borrowing costs have reached new lows especially in short term maturity bonds where bondholders are lending money at zero interest rates, partly because of the flight to safety from Italian and Spanish bonds.

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Preident Karzai of Afghanistan joins the three way peace talks of the U.S. and Afghanistan's government with the Taliban, with the cooperation of Pakistan.

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In private conversations, Paul Volcker has advised administration officials, that in implementing the Volcker Rule, regulators should follow the practice in money laundering laws. There the government bans a certain behaviour, and then the burden is on the banks to screen for red flags and to ensure compliance. His advice is to ban banks from trading with their own funds if they benefit from any kind of government guarantee. Banks would be required to police their own actions, and the Fed examiners ensuring they are in compliance. The recently passed regulatory reform bill left a lot to the regulators, who have to fill in the blanks. Volcker's concern is that narrow rules would invite gamesmanship from the banks to evade the intent of the law. At one Congressional hearing Volcker suggested a Potter Stewart type of approach- Stewart as Supreme Court Justice said about pornography: "I know it when I see it." For Volcker bankers know what proprietary trading is and is not, and he does not want to let bankers tell anybody anything different. Thw new Financial oversight Stability Council is charged with the task of coming up with a course of action by January 2011, and then writing the rules by October 2011. The fear among a group of 18 senators is that bankers will weaken the Volcker rule protections. A letter pointing this out was sent by the group to the Oversight Council last week....

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A study by Dr. McCormick of the Harvard Medical School and professors at the City University of New York School of Public Health at Hunter College, shows that the anticipated savings from conversion to medical records may not materialize to the extent expected. This study of data from 1100 doctors of 28,000 patient visits shows that with access to digital records doctors actually increased the number of tests ordered- from 12.9% of visits without digital records to 18% of visits with digital records. For more advanced tests such as MRI and CT scan the rate was 70% higher. Dr. McCormick says this may be because the new digital technology may have made it easier to order tests.

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Francesco Gurrerera, Money and Investing Editor for the WSJ points to the risks in the U.S. and global economy in April 2012- overdependence on the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank, not enough "de-leveraging" of financial institutions after the 2008 global crisis, and the increasing risk associated with individual investors and businesses investing in risky securities in search of yield in a low-interest rate environment.

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During 2012 and 2013 the U.S. put pressure on China and India to cut oil imports from Iran to increase the effectiveness of sanctions. As negotiations eased the sanctions, China increased oil imports in 2014 by 30% in 2014 over the prior year. China's Foreign Ministry sees a "win-win spirit" in the nuclear deal that opens up economic relations with Iran. Analysts say China has setup three new storage facilities on its eastern coast with about 45 million barrels of new capacity, which could be filled with new supplies as its growth slows and demand decreases. China's imports were about 7 million barrels a day in June 2015.

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Sohrab Ahmari of the WSJ talks to Masrour Barzani at a forward base on the Syria-Iraq border in Dec. 2015, at a time when terrorist attacks in France and the U.S. are shifting public opinion in the UK, Germany and the U.S., as well as France.

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A WSJ/NBC poll of Sept 20, 2012 showing Obama with a eight percentage point lead in Iowa, and a five point lead in Colorado and Wisconsin.

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Major decline in oil prices in Oct. 2014 as prices drop to $81 per barrel and are forecast to reach $70. U.S. oil production increased by about 56% or 3.1 million barrels a day since 2004. U.S. demand for gas and fuel declined 8% compared to 2004. Initially instability and wars in the Middle East sustained high oil prices in 2012-2013. Yet with growing output from shale and other sources in N. America and slowing economies of Europe and China, the situation reached a point in 2014 where supply exceeds demand. This shift more than offsets any instability in trouble spots. The situation affects the U.S. consumer favorably with an estimate of $1 billion in savings for American consumers with every one cent drop in price at the gas pump, by one estimate from Deutsche Bank analysts. Typical American families gained an extra $50 a month from the decline June to October 2014, according to analysts at Gasbuddy.com. The declines are a boost for the slowing economies of Europe, Japan, China, S, Korea and India. China's imports for 2015 are estimated at 61% of oil consumption, using official estimates. In the current slowdown the lower prices offer relief. India which imports 75% of its energy benefits signficantly, as this helps lower inflation and reduces cost of fuel subsidies for state run companies. Russia is adversely affected by the declines as it depends on oil and gas exports for 50% of the nation's budget. Estimates by AFK Sistema economists show the Russian economy contracting in 2015 with oil at near $90 per barrel (Brent crude is at about $85, and WTI at $81 in early Oct. 2014). Russia's former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin reflects opinion among Russian executives and politicians, when he told state television that Saudi Arabia may be pushing prices lower to target Russia's oil resource based economy and Mr. Putin, in an effort to broaden the effect of sanctions. (The Saudis have strongly protested the Putin intervention in Syria.) Venezuela has used $120 per barrel and Angola $98 for its budget, leading to a strong hit for the economy. ...

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President Obama's speech announcing the details of his executive order on immigration on Nov. 20, 2014, starts by saying he is not bypassing Congress or the Republicans. He says Republicans had the opportunity to pass legislation in the House that passed the Senate, or come up with their own bill. And still have an opportunity to come up with a bill he could sign into law that address the shortcomings of the current immigration system. In selling the bill to Americans he points out that this is not an amnesty, that the current system which allows immigrants here to stay illegally without paying taxes or any accountability is an amnesty. He points to deportation of millions as not an option, an out of the character of America. That deportation of criminals will continue and is up 80% in his administration, without mentioning that deportation under his administration for ordinary undocumented immigrants without any criminal record had reached a high of 400,000 a year under his administration, higher than under the Republican Bush administration. In fact it had reached such levels that Hispanic groups stated they would sit out the midterm 2014 elections and not vote for Democrats or Republicans, after providing a significant part of the winning margin for Obama in the 2012 presidential election. President Obama says he has the legal authority to prevent deportation, and that this is essentially what this executive order does- providing a temporary right to stay and work in this country to undocumented immigrants here living in the shadows who are here for more than 5 years, not a permanent status or citizenship. He cites other presidential decisions of the last 50 years, Republican and Democratic, that have integrated large groups of undocumented immigrants, including an executive order by President Reagan. And he refers to the Bush presidencies 41 and 43, where both father and son, considered Hispanic Americans "a part of American life," as good hard-working people deserving a chance to be Americans. The speech ends with an appeal to the compassion of Americans urging them to look at their own individual stories going back one, two or several generations, or Ellis Island where the early waves of European immigrants entered the country in the 19th century, and to immigrants from the period after the early British settlements in the 18th century. This is typical Obama, as much as the calculated decision to pursue a aggressive deportation policy was for the first 6 years of his administration, including the decision for "Dreamers" or young people before the 2012 election. "Scripture tells us, we shall not oppress a stranger, for we know the heart of a stranger. we were strangers once, too. And whether our forbears were strangers who crossed the Atlantic, or the Pacific, or the Rio Grande, we are here because this country welcomed them in." Over 2 million deportations in one of the most aggressive deportation policies of any administration, followed by an effort to stop deportations before the next presidential election, when the NYT had called his deportation policy "infuriating." ...

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Spiegel Online describes the discontent with the Tsipras government after two years in which it failed to keep promises of reducing the impact of austerity cuts on pensioners. government employees, teachers and other groups. Now riot police buses are situated in the street facing the presidential residence in Athens. In early 2015 after Tsipras won the election the police were removed from the area. German Foreign minister Schauble is for no further concessions for Greece's debt programs till after federal elections in 2017, and austerity cuts continue to affect people in Greece. About 90% of Greeks are dissatisfied with the Tsipras government according to a recent poll. Tsipras had said he would stop privatization projects when elected, now he is moving forward with privatization for airports and other state assets.