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Varghese George of The Hindu provides this analysis of the elctions in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhatisgarh.  He points out that primeminister Modi's own popularity may have prevented a worse result. There are questions about how much Hindutva politics will play a part in 2019 elections and the role Yogi Adityanath plays after campaigning in this election. There is alo a question of how the opposition can unite if the Congress party becomes an alternative to the BJP, and the lack of any particular leader in the non-Congress opposition. How will the campaign take shape in the 2019 election in which a national election without the local incumbency politics and local issues makes a national focus emerge between competing visions for the future- that of the Congress and the BJP. And how these visions are articulated and not lost in the clamour and din of political wrangling particularly in the case of the BJP's focus on development that pushed it forward in the last election. ...

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The 2016 presidential election campaign is expected to lead to $10 billion in campaign spending. The Federal Election Commission is unable to take any action against campaign abuses with the commission deadlocked 3-3, with 3 Democratic members and 3 Republican members voting strictly along party lines and seeing any move by the other side as partisan. The members are not even on talking terms. Republican members see the issue in terms of First Amendment rights to free speech. The Supreme Court's decision in the 2010 Citizens United case affirmed First Amendment rights of free speech and unlimited fund raising to conduct election campaigns. The Supreme Court ruling considered corporations as associations of individuals and therefore entitled to First Amendment rights of free speech. The Court suspended the "electioneering communication" ban imposed by the Bipartisan Reform Act of 2002, allowing corporations and unions to engage in free speech electioneering during election campaigns.

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The European Central Bank follows the US Federal Reserve in raising interest rates. The ECB raised rates by half a percentage point. The Fed earlier raised rates by three quarters of a percentage point. The effort is to tackle inflation before it takes root in US and Europe.

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"The whites are here to stay," a line in a paper prepared by Kissinger set the policies of the Nixon administration supporting Apartheid in Africa. NYT in this report on Kissinger points to his involvement of the US in the Angolan civil war on the side of South Africa as he did not understand the popularity of liberation movements. Kissinger was steeped in the Austrian and German politics of his original home country Germany from the Napoleonic period to 1914 covering Metternich in Austria-Hungary and Bismarck in Germany. He also failed to grasp the popularity of liberation movements in Indochina. As a result of these policies many many hundreds of thousands of lives were lost, which cannot be said of Secretaries of State before him. Jefferson, Madison and Adams, and Seward for Abraham Lincoln, Elihu Root for Teddy Roosevelt, Cordell Hull for FDR, George Marshall and Dean Acheson for Harry Truman, John Foster Dulles for Eisenhower, George Shultz for Reagan. Kissinger served only for 3 years and the lives lost are incredibly large. We think of Geroge Marshall and the Marshall Plan that rebuilt post war Europe, Seward's role with Lincoln in the Civil War, and Cordell Hull's fight for freedom of Asian countries including India under Gandhi.  And we can see why there are such strong opinions for Kissinger almost seeing Kissinger as a Napoleonic figure where power faced the hundreds of thousands of lives lost with complete indifference. There is the opening to China yet this happened simply because as a coincidence of events in China in 1970 after the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution led to Lin Piao incident and China seeking a connection to the US more than Kissinger's own policy or plans. David Sanger's account of his conversation with Kissinger simply says he just "shut up and took notes."  ...

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Burton Malkiel says other ways to rebalance and adjust allocations after the surge in equity prices in the U.S. and Europe are to invest in high quality emerging market bonds, quality U.S. municipal bonds with rates of 7%, high quality large caps with dividends over 5%, and quality emerging market stocks which are at price earning multiples of 10.

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The NASDAQ Internet Index is up 46% in April 2014 over the past year, even though it was down 12% in March-April 2014 as investors grew wary over high price rises for stocks in the "cloud," "big data" and "social" fields. Investors turned to old tech stocks such as Microsoft which were seen as value stocks because of lower price and valuations. Gallagher suggests watching the IPO market for signals of where this market is headed. In the 1st quarter 2014 companies raised $10.6 billion in the U.S., the busiest quarter since 2000. 103 companies submitted initial IPO filings in the same quarter. Venture Capital has invested $29.4 billion in 2013, an increase of 7% from 2012, according to MoneyTree Report. Even though the NASDAQ Composite Index is down 5% over the last 30 days, Gallagher points out that the NASDAQ has witnessed 4 drops of about 10% since 2010.

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The debate in parliament on the no-confidence motion against the Modi government in India. The speech made by Congress president Rahul Gandhi criticized the Modi government for crony capitalism and the lack of transparency in the Rafale aircraft deal. The motion of no-confidence was initiated by the TDP, Telegu Desam Party in the state of Andhra Pradesh.  It was defeated with 325 against and 126 in favor of which the Congress party had 65.

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James Galbraith points out how Trump appeals to aging Reagan voters on Social Security, and older white Americans. He says much of the talk about the wall is bluster to appeal to this group of voters. On the Democratic side he points out the failure of Hillary Clinton to appeal to younger voters. Galbraith says the young are voting in large numbers for Sanders, and this is likely to shape U.S. elections in 2020, even though Trump and Clinton are nominees of the Republicans and Democrats in 2016.

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India's ruling BJP party wins 103 seats and is leading in one more seat in the 2018 Karnataka state assembly elections. This compares with 40 seats in the last election in 2013. The Congress party won 78 seats down from 122 seats in the 2013 election. A regional party Janata Dal won 37 seats. 113 seats are needed to have a majority and form the next government. The elections here could influence the national elections in 2019. India's tech city of Bangalore is the capital of Karnataka state. For the BJP Party is was critical to win the state as it prepares for the national elections in 2019 to advance its rapid infrastructure development program in India, and increase foreign investment in India's economy.

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Achievements of Elvira Nabiullina as central bank chief in Russia since 2013 are the reducing of US dollar reserves from 40% to 11%of $600 billion in Russian reserves shifting to hold most of its reserves in euros, gold or renminbi Chinese currency. She also implemented the alternative to SWIFT the global bank messaging system, and changed the payments infrastructure to process credit card transactions in the country so departure of Visa and Mastercard had minimal effect.

In this way this highly respected banker has protected Russia's economy from western sanctions, says NYT. She is trusted by president Putin and was adviser to Putin in 2012, minister of economic development before that when Putin was prime minister. When Russia suffered an economic crisis in 2014 as oil prices fell sharply and Saudis increased oil production, the ruble fell. Nabiullina increased rates to 17%, and the economy shrank till it stabilized with inflation down to 4% by 2017.

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U.S. GDP growth was revised to show 3% growth in the second quarter of 2017. The GDP growth estimate from the Federal Reserve in June is for full year GDP growth of 2.2% in 2017, 2.1% in 2018, and 1.9% in 2019. Experts say it is hard to achieve full year GDP growth of 3% because the labor force would have to be much larger, grow faster and productivity would have to be much higher. 

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The FDIC report in Feb. 2012 shows improvement in bank lending to $130 billion, for the 4th quarter of 2012. This is an increase of 1.8% over the previous quarter. Lending to commercial and industrial borrowers increased by $62.8 billion, or 4.9%. Smaller commercial and industrial loans of less than $1 million increased for the first time since 2010. Banking profits for 2011 were up to $119 billion, up 40% from the prior year. Banking revenues for 2011 declinedby 4.5% from 2010, as a result of low rates and slower loan demand.

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Questions raised in Germany whether Chancellor Merkel is losing touch with ordinary Germans with her statements on immigration. Merkel was critical of the Dresden protests on immigration saying the protestors had "prejudice, coldness, and even hatred in their hearts." This will present a new challenge to Merkel in 2015 as more ordinary Europeans question whether openness in immigration policies have gone too far.

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Portugal's statistics agency showed GDP growth was 1.1% higher in the second quarter of 2013 compared with the first quarter. GDP level was still 2% below the level in 2012. Exports were up 6.3% in the second quarter. Half of exports were from sale of refined petroleum products. Unemployment declined in the second quarter of 2013 to 16.4% from 17% in the first quarter. Portugal is continuing negotiations with the EU to soften austerity cuts planned for 2013-2014. The current budget deficit target is 4% in 2014 down from 6.4% in 2012.

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Indonesia continues to experience surging growth in consumer spending as more people enter the middle class and buy everything from motorbikes, consumer appliances, mobile phones and other products. It is similiar to the growth in China and India. GDP increased by 6.5%in 2011, and most of the growth comes from consumer spending. Mr. Riady of the Lippo Group says spending is growing to unprecedented levels. About 50 million people in Indonesia are in the middle class out of a population of 250 million- when measured at the level of $3000 per year incomes- and this will grow to 150 million by 2014, according to PT Nomura Indonesia. Another important demographic fact is that the average age of the population is 28.2. Motorcycle sales doubled to 8 million in 2011, twice that of 2006. Mr. Riady of the Lippos Group says its home sales are expected increase to $450 million in 2012, up from $100 million in 2010. Sales at Lippo Groups hypermarkets are expected to go up by 40% in 2012 and sales at its department stores increase by 25%. Lippo Group plans to add 10 new hospitals each year, to the 14 it plans for yearend 2012. Philips Electronics NV says healthcare equipment sales in Indonesia will quadruple in by 2015. This pace exceeds that in India and China for Phillips Healtcare....

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Government bonds will be purchased by central banks of each country roughly in proportion to the size of their national economies in the eurozone. Risks for 80% of the purchases of bonds in the $1 trillion program will be borne by the central bank of each country. For 12% of the remaining bonds purchases will be made in the European Investment Bank bonds, here risk will be shared with the ECB. For the remaining 8% the ECB itself will make bond purchases. This avoids a situation where the risk of bonds going down in value is borne by that country and not passed on to other countries in the eurozone, as a matter of fairness in distributing risks. This also limits moral hazard where painful budget decisions are not made by countries in need of budget overhauls because risk can be passed on. A big reason why this can work in 2015 is that the eurozone has already emerged from the crisis period of 2012-2013, and is beginning to experience growth in 2015. Just this kind of boost to lending was provided by the U.S. Federal Reserve when the U.S. emerged from its crisis period in 2009-2011, and helped the economy grow in 2013-2014....