LyrArc Article Gist
Failure of governments throughout the Arab world to deliver in the areas of democracy, free expression, education, economic and social development.

LyrArc Article Gist
Stanley-Becker of the Washington Post looks at the story of Horst Kasner, Lutheran pastor in East Germany, Angela Merkel's father. In 1954 when Angela was born, her father moved the family to East Germany, then called the German Democratic Republic. The family settled in 1957 near the town of Templin in the Brandenburg countryside. He had an idealism based on the Lutheran faith and believed at the time that it was possible to build a East German Protestanism that reconciled with the professed socialist ideals of the GDR. Over three decades that faith was tested and by 1990 Kasner was known for his dissent to the state repression practiced by the GDR limiting free expression and religious beliefs. He worried about the domination of economic thinking even in the churches after the reunification.   Angela Merkel was close to her mother, Herlind Kasner, who joined the Social Democrats after reunification. Her brother joined the Greens. Merkel joined the movement called the Democratic Awakening in 1989, which merged with the Christian Democrats after reunification. Horst Kasner died in 2011 about 6 years after Merkel became chancellor. Speaking at a church in Templin in 2014, Merkel said what she believes- "God created every human being. We should strive for perfection. But we can make mistakes." To some Merkel remains inscrutable, hard to make out. This may be because she retains some of the thoughtful way her father meditated on what life was about and how best to live it.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Responding to criticism of the Clinton Foundation which has affected Hillary Clinton's ability to win voter support in her contest with Bernie Sanders, the Clinton family has decided to take action in August 2016. The Clinton Global Initiative will be discontinued in 2017. Bill Clinton and Chelsea Clinton will stop raising funds for the Clinton foundation. The Clinton Foundation will not accept funds from foreign donors. What started as a do-good effort to raise funds for worthy causes such as world health, poverty and hunger turned out -because of its very success in raising large amounts of money from corporate donors- into a distraction for the election campaign of Hillary Clinton in 2016. It opened up Hillary Clinton to charges of having conflicts of interest from outsiders Sanders and Trump. Hillary Clinton discontinued her association as a board member of the foundation in 2015 when she began her campaign. Bill Clinton continued to give paid speeches and raised $2.6 million. All that fund raising appears to have been a big mistake and not even fair to the candidate, as it gave rise to misperceptions about the candidate going far beyond what the Clintons ever understood about was happening. As former Labor Secretary Robert Reich put it, it gives rise to accusations of impropriety that may affect an election, without the voters getting a chance to evaluate the candidates on the basis of what each candidates program or agenda is. In this the Clinton family may have realized that in retrospect the entire foundation activity appears to be a small matter, when put next to the choices facing the U.S. and the world in 2016 for the next decade and beyond. The Clinton Foundation in future would be managed by people independent of the Clinton family and circle. The next step would be setting it up as a public foundation, a new board and professional staff. Was it all worth the problems it has created for voters being able to get a clear idea of what each candidate offered, an not acting as a huge and dangerous distraction which Hillary Clinton and the country and the world could do without, considering the significance of making good choices in a general election- very much so. The foundation and the fund raising made it possible for outsiders Sanders and Trump to turn this election into one of slogans and accusations, to which the Clintons were unprepared to respond, acting as a distraction  which was bad for the country and the world. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
JP Morgan Chase disclosed that traders in the Chief Investment Office may have tried to avoid showing the full extent of losses by placing inaccurate prices on their positions. A trader named the "London whale," may have been asked by his boss to mark positions more aggressively. CEO Dimon said this has "shaken our company to the core."

LyrArc Article Gist
Investors such as hedge funds and mutual funds that are investing in U.S. mortgage backed securities in the hope of returns in the range of 6-12%. With the recovery in prices since 2010 some of these mortgages bundled into securities are going for about 70 cents on the dollar.

LyrArc Article Gist
Ines Pohl of the DW.com points out the failures in the media to fact check the assertions of U.S. presidential candidates. She points out that there is no institution in the media that acts as a check on what is said on social media. That  sphere of discourse remains in isolation from the rest with a self perpetuating effect- statements gaining credence because they are repeated again and again. This is the situation in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. Other unusual factors remain the polarization of groups- why are white men on one side and white suburban women on the other, why are less educated voters on one side and college educated voters on the other side. This reflects deeper divisions. As Pohl points out in her concluding sentence this reflects also the view of people struggling for a living, and people much better off. In the U.S. this leaves people with fears of economic insecurity which are then extended to fears on the basis of race and immigration. In this case immigration becomes a proxy for other problems in society which have not been addressed. Pohl calls for elites to come out of their ivory towers and start talking in terms that relate to people's lives and real concerns, real fears.  There are puzzling signs. At a time when immigration has declined to the lowest levels in a decade  from Mexico, and with a tough deportation policy for 8 years under president Obama, how is it that it is the big issue in this U.S. election? At a time when  the number of people of other ethnic origins are a tiny fraction in eastern Germany why is this the big issue there in German elections and politics? Is this a proxy for fears of economic insecurity or lack of upward mobility, or uncertainty about the future?     ...

LyrArc Article Gist
A study by the National Employment Law Project shows most of the job creation in the economic recovery to 2014 in the U.S. is replacing the better paying jobs with lower paying jobs in fast food retail and similiar low paying industries.

LyrArc Article Gist
Thomas Frank writing about the public outrage about executive compensation quotes Bill Black, a Professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, who makes an important point. Beyond the size of this compensation there was something else happening that was perverse in its design and in its effects. Black says that at each point in the development of the disaster of mortgage securitization, it was the pay for performance systems that sent the wrong signals to loan officers, real estate appraisers, accountants, and bond rating agencies. The compensation or reward systems actually encouraged wrong, unethical and ultimately disastrous behaviours for the companies and the economy. Another way to look at it, the way it happened on Wall Street- especially at Merrill Lynch and some other financial institutions- the bonuses and other compensation was a way for executives to recklessly milk (loot is the other word) the companies for all they could yield regardless of the results afterwards. And as Black says, to do this through normal corporate mechanisms. A whole range of behaviours of this type took place in the final years of the boom. See other articles by Thomas Frank. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
A study group at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy sends a public letter to U.S. president Obama on the Iran negotiations. It says the nuclear agreement negotiated with Iran "may fall short of the administration's own standard of a 'good' agreement." It is signed by some of Mr. Obama's main advisors during the first term. Some of these officials told the NYT that the letter was the result of serious concern that Mr. Kerry and other negotiators were moving towards major concessions that would weaken the international inspections of Iran's facilities, back away from making Iran reveal suspected past work on weapons, and allow Iranian R&D to move ahead with making nuclear fuel once the accord expires. The five Obama advisors from the first term who signed the letter are: Dennis Ross, Middle East negotiator, David Petraeus, CIA director, Robert Einhorn, State Department proliferation expert, Gary Samore, chief advisor on nuclear policy, Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman Jt. Chiefs of Staff. Gary Samore is president of the advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran. The letter was also signed by President Bush's national security advisor during his second term, Stephen Hadley. Such a large group of advisors to presidents Bush and Obama familiar with the details of Iran's development of nuclear technology and weapons capabilities could give Republicans support to kill any agreement that falls short on inspections during Congressional Review. On this key factor where only vague assurances are made by the Iranian side- such as signing an International Atomic Agency convention giving inspectors broad rights to visit suspicious sites, followed by Ayatollah Khamanei ruling out military sites- the letter is specific. Inspections it says " must include military (including Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps), and other sensitive facilities. Iran must not be able to deny or delay timely access to any site anywhere in the country." Inspections work rigorously done is set as a precondition before any significant relief from economic sanctions on Iran....

LyrArc Article Gist
Bill Keller compares the situation in 1940 with that of today. He sees isolationist tendencies in the U.S. today similiar to that which prevailed in the U.S. in 1940 when Roosevelt faced the Nazi invasion of Europe.

LyrArc Article Gist
Lt. Gen Trainor and Michael Gordon describe the situation during the last months of U.S. presence in Iraq. President Obama is ambivalent about the size of the military presence he would like to leave, settling for 3000 troops and a few F-16's from a inital figure of 10,000. Obama sees the presidential election approaching and sets an objective of keeping it minimal. The military cooperation treaty with Iraq has to be approved by a Iraqi parliament with different factions in parliament not likely to approve it. Prime Minister Malliki decides not to move ahead. In the end no military cooperation treaty is signed after 8 years of war and a date is set for a complete withdrawal. Iraqi airspace is used by Iran to ship supplies to Syria's Assad regime, and the U.S. has less leverage in the region as the Arab world goes through a transition to popular government and elections. The Obama administration shifts most of its attention to Afghanistan where the U.S. has no vital stake in the long run compared to the Middle East region, with its large population, growing economies, move towards democracy and meeting the aspirations of hundreds of millions of young people. One Middle Eastern leader says the U.S. had no long term policy under the Obama administration for Iraq, and this applies also to the rest of the Middle East region, and mostly reacted to events as they happened. The Obama administration's committment to the war in Afghanistan, just as it focussed on winding down the war in Iraq, responded to the American public's waning support for the war in Iraq. It did not reduce the total cost of the conflicts because of the initial escalation of the war in Afghanistan and later slow progress towards a negoiated settlement to that conflict. A negotiated settlement is the best the U.S. could achieve, and the best desired objective considering the limited interests in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan most of the dynamics would be determined in the long run by the situation in Pakistan, and India-Pakistan relations, which the U.S. could influence constructively only through dialogue, promoting cooperation between the two countries, and economic relations....

LyrArc Article Gist
Sandhya Sharma of The Economic Times puts a spotlight on the dominant role of China in global shipping by 2005. In 1980 China had a tiny role in global shipping, with bicycles a dominant form of transportation in Beijing. By 2019 this role had expanded to dominant position in all the largest modern technology container ports with global shipping volume having more than doubled since 2005. Much of this was done by working with major providers of container port technology such as Maersk of Denmark and other European shipping companies, with imported technology playing a critical part. India is starting from basics in its effort to develop its shipping in the Indian Ocean region with its large coastline facing the Suez Canal and the eastern coastline facing Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia. This was evident during the recent "Atman Nirbhar" global shipping meeting in Vizag- the Maritime India Summit 2021. The goal is to make the next decade one of rapid development of the maritime sector to secure India's position in global shipping particularly in the Indian Ocean region. Collaboration with major European technology providers will play a key role in developing container ports to the levels required for India's future role in global shipping. Sharma discusses the visit of premier Boris Johnson in April 2021 to India to forge strong trade ties.  The Indian prime minister held virtual meetings with premiers of Sweden and the Netherlands, two major maritime nations in Northern Europe for stronger trade and technology ties. These ties are part of the broader effort by the US, UK, and European Union countries to forge strong trade and technology ties with India now that it is clear to them that new supply chain will be needed over the next decade as China disengages from that level of its trade ties with Europe, US and India. New global supply chain means new global shipping container ports and global shipping links of India, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, with the US and Europe. Looking at what happened between sometime in 1995 and 2005, and in 2005 to 2009 when the global financial crisis hit, when China went from a miniscule level of world trade to predominance. And the years of the Obama administration 2008-2016 when this simply continued without any understanding of its implications for both sides, to levels of China's predominance in world shipping that can only be considered as unbelievable. Growing at over 12% through continued use of  imported technology from Europe and the US. Looking back at what happened one sees that this made China over dependent, its economy too intertwined with Europe and the US. This also made the US and Europe over dependent on China in its supply chain. It took the pandemic and the one term Trump administration, the crisis in Hong Kong, the situation in Ladakh and India's norther border, the South China seas and Vietnam,  for both sides to realize this was not in the interest of any of the countries involved.   ...