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A recent poll by Forsa, independent polling institute, shows the governing parties in German chancellor Merkel's coalition have only 34% support. Forsa does surveys for German magazine Stern. By contrast the Social Democrats and the Greens have 47% support. Merkel lost an election in May 2010 in North Rhine-Westphalia. Merkel has three years remaining in her term.

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The Pirate Party, a party of digital activists favoring more transparency and sharing of information online has about 10% of voter support according to recent polls. The Pirate party concept started first in Sweden, but it is in Germany where it has gained political support. This party was founded in 2006 in an underground Berlin nightspot C-Base, where many digital activists gathered. In Sept. 2011, the German Pirate Party gained 9% of the vote, 15 of 249 seats in the Berlin state elections. This was repeated in the Saarland state elections, and now is likely to happen in elections in Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia. These votes are coming at the expense of the Free Democrats and the Greens. The Free Democrats are hurt badly, and may not make the 5% of votes needed to win seats in North Rhine-Westphalia. The Greens are seen as part of the establishment, giving the Pirate party support from people thinking outside of the establishment. The polls show the Christian Democrats having voter support of 35%, Social Democrats 27%, Left 7%, Greens 14%, Free Democrats 3%....

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Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel said the government will follow the recommendations of the government appointed Ethics Comission to close eight nuclear reactors immediately, and close most of the other reactors by 2021. Three plants may be kept online into 2022 for reserve power. About 70% of the German public by some estimates opposes nuclear power. Nuclear energy provides 23% of German energy supplies, and coal fired plants 42.4%. In 2002 a coalition government of Social Democrats and the Green party made a decision to phase out nuclear energy. Already Germany has the highest targets of any country in the world for alternative energy. German renewable energy targets are for the country to generate 80% of energy supply from sources such as wind, solar and other renewable energy by 2050. Currently Germany produces 16.9% of electricity consumption through renewable energy. And Germany has a thriving energy industry with solar energy companies SolarWorld AG, solar cellmaker Q-Cells SE and wind turbine maker Nordex. Germany sees the challenge as both reducing the risks of nuclear energy and an opportunity to become the world leader in renewable energy with growing markets overseas. Merkel vioced this by saying - "This path sets a great challenge for Germany, but we can be the first industrial country to make the transition ino an age of highly efficient and renewable energy." ...

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The Swiss National Bank gives up on its effort to maintain Swiss competitiveness by dropping the 2011 peg of 1.2 euros to the franc. That effort was becoming costlier as the central bank piled up hundreds of millions of euros on its balance sheet buying up euros to keep the value of the franc down. Investors have put money into francs as a safe haven since the 2008 financial crisis. By offering negative yields of 0.75% the central bank hoped to limit the damage with a surging franc. The franc went up by 15% on January 15, 2015, with the surprise announcement, and stocks of exporters declined sharply. The immediate decision was taken as the ECB planned to weaken the euro with a large quantitative easing program in its Dec. 22, 2015 meeting. The central bank said - "Recently the divergences between the monetary policies of the major currency areas have increased significantly- a trend that is likely to become even more pronounced." A December Swiss initiative was intended to force the Swiss National Bank to convert much of its foreign exchange holdings into gold, as public criticism of the large euro holdings increased with each currency market intervention. The SNB justified its peg to the euro and currency interventions saying that this gave the country's exporters time to make the transition to a stronger Swiss franc....

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Political activism and grassroots efforts- other than street protests - are increasing in eurozone countries facing high unemployment and austerity cuts. The focus is on cleaning up the political system rife with cronyism, corruption and wasteful spending. Brat and Bjork describe one such effort in the town of Torrelodones, Spain, 18 miles from Madrid. Criminal investigations in many Spanish cities have increased public awareness and participation in local government. European Social Survey based in London, reports political activity of this kind in Spain jumped from 27% in 2008 to 39% in 2010. There is an increasing sense that the political elites of the two main parties, the Partido Popular and the Socialists have failed to bring clean government and transparency to Spain. As a result progressives are joining conservatives in an effort to clean up years of wasteful spending, cronyism and corruption in government. The Union for Progress and Democracy, representing an alliance of such groups would win 13% of the vote in a national election, and the ruling conservative Partido Popular would lose half of its support and get only 22.5%, according to independent Spanish polling firm Metroscopia. The new push for transparency is one of the welcome changes at a time of austerity cuts and 27% unemployment in Spain. Many of the perks of public officials such as chaeuffer driven cars and police escorts, contracts for favored few at higher prices, are out in many cities, and accounts made public for scrutiny and change. Transparency International's transparency index shows 33 out of 110 of Spain's biggest cities scoring top grades on the 2012 index, jumping from only one. Following the example of the regional government in Navarra, the central government is drafting the first open-records law. Castilla-La Mancha, the area around Toledo, run by a clean government advocate Maria Dolores de Cospedal from the Partido Popular has taken aggressive steps to clean up the local government and wasteful spending- see the link to Castilla La Mancha. Her long term approach is to clean up government spending and accounts with the idea of preserving spending where it is most needed, in education, healthcare and vital services hit by cuts, an approach being taken in other Spanish cities. ...

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Zaragoza a city of 700,000 is the capital of Spain's fastest growing region, and its halfway between Barcelona and Madrid. It has grown rapidly. The arrival of GM here was a big turning point in 1982. The GM plant here can turn out 2000 sub compacts, small minivans and delivery trucks a day, now it is one of 7 GM plants in Europe to suspend production for 2 weeks in October to work off inventories. About 600 of 7000 workers were laid off. Young people here who have never seen anything but good times see this as a big shock. And its a sign of how things across Europe are shaping up. Spain's economy contracted by 0.2% this summer. The European Commission expects the 15 nation eurozone to be flat next year with no growth, but this is an early estimate and may be revised to show a contraction as the economic downturn is just beginning.

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Yields on Greece's 10 year bonds rise to nearly 9% in October 2014, as growth slows to near zero in the eurozone, including Germany, in the second half of 2014.

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Japanese firms have $2.65 trillion in excess reserves as of June 30, 2014, according to the Ministry of Finance. Yet slow growth and falling prices in the last decade have made Japanese companies overly cautious in increasing wages. A declining yen makes imports more costly. Real wages were up for only 4 months during the Abe administration in 2013-2014. The first increase in the national sales tax in April 2014 to reduce the large deficit has also hit consumers, leading to a recession in the third quarter of 2014. Prime minister Abe made an effort in 2013 to get companies to increase wages, but results were modest in Spring 2014 as smaller companies held back. At the time prime minister Abe promised to do his part by reducing corporate taxes and implement pro-growth strategies, expecting companies to adjust wages upward. Analysts now say tightening labor markets are likely to create a situation where businesses will have to raise wages. A Bank of Japan survey of business sentiment in Dec. 2014 shows the number of firms seeing a shortage of workers is at the highest proportion since 1992. Declining oil prices will reduce Japan's fuel import bill by 9.6 trillion yen in 2015, and give more money to consumers offsetting the effects of the increase in the consumption tax to 8%....