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The top economic adviser to President Obama Lawrence Summers received more than $5 million from hedge fund D.E. Shaw. He was managing director of this hedge fund in 2006, before becoming economic adviser to the President and director of the National Economic Council. He also collected $2.7 million in speaking fees from Wall Street companies that received bailout money. At the recent G-20 summit the French President Sarkozy and the German chancellor Merkel had made regulatory reform and a global regulator a nonnegotiable point. Germany and France had insisted on strict regulation of hedge funds, something the Obama administration did not agree to. With the revelation of Summer's close ties to hedge funds, questions may be raised about the advice Obama is getting from Summers on the issue of hedge fund regulation.

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German chancellor Anglea Merkel selected her chief economic advisor, Jens Weidmann to head the Bundesbank, the German central bank. Weidmann replaces Axel Weber. Merkel prefers the quieter demeanor of Weidmann to the outspoken behaviour of Weber. Weber was Weidmann's tutor at the university, and at 42 is the youngest Bundesbank president. He headed the monetary analysis department at the Bundesbank and did a stint at the IMF, before joining Merkel's circle of close advisors. Weidman has a sense for markets and politics, and a close understanding of Merkel's policies. This would help Merkel as Germany sets the eurozone on a new path of reforms to build a firm foundation for the euro.

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US president Biden says efforts are being made to provide emergency assistance to India for vaccine making supplies, as well as therapeutics, ventilators and other equipment. The White House says "The United States has identified sources of specific raw material urgently required for Indian manufacture of the Covishield vaccine that will be immediately be made available for India." Joe Biden said that "Just as India sent assistance to the United States as our hospitals were strained early in the pandemic, we are determined to help India in its time of need." This assistance is now being coordinated at the highest levels and being done round the clock. Chancellor Merkel of Germany - "The fight against the pandemic is our common fight. Germany stands in solidarity with India and is urgently preparing a mission of support."  The European Union's von der Leyen said "The EU is pooling resources to respond rapidly to India's request for assistance via the EU Civil Protection Mechanism. We stand in full solidarity with the Indian people."   ...

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Germany's deputy finance minister, Jorg Asmussen, was nominated by the German government to the executive board of the ECB. This follows the resignation of Jurgen Stark. Asmussen was originally appointed by the previous finance minister, Peer Steinbruck, and is from the SPD party. He was retained by Finance Minister Schaeuble because he had experience with the global financial crisis of 2008. Both Asmussen and the new Bundesbank president, Jens Weidmann, are students of Axel Weber, who was a professor before becoming central banker.

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On foreign policy the new German government of Olaf Scholz seeks to build a stronger European Union. Scholz will also follow a policy of close ties with the US. On relations with China Scholz has not stated much. Greens party foreign minister Baerbock's views and Scholz's views suggest a close relationship with the US - a call with president Biden will follow visits to Paris and Brussels. Scholz says "It is now clear what binds us together," referring to democratic values.

Video of all members of the new German cabinet is shown in DW.com, individually with each minister's background, part of the new government of SPD's Olaf Scholz. Wolfgang Schmidt is Chief of Staff and Minister for Special Affairs for Mr. Scholz. Vice Chancellor and Economy+ Climate minister is Robert Habeck. Education, Digital and Transportation Infrastructure, Finance, went to the FDP. Other ministries were divided between the Greens and the SPD. 

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Is Norway endorsing the position of a former president of the US to "Drill, Baby Drill.?" It would cost upwards of 1 trillion dollars to fix US inaction on climate change to 2028. Norway is drilling like crazy to help Germany tackle the cutoff from Russian oil and gas supplies. It is also pursuing climate change action and green energy. The result is some confusion about where it is heading. The Guardian comments on this position taken by Norway. It can only be seen as oil and gas meeting a transition period's needs, yet with the severity of cliamte change events in the form of fires and floods in the world in 2024, is this a tenable position? Norwegians will say their cleaner fossil fuel production takes the place of dirty coal plants in Europe. How could Germany manage without Russian oil and gas without Norwegian supplies they ask. Others say Norway gets a quarter of its GDP from oil and gas. It is at the same time the country that is way ahead in renewables, most of its grid runs on renewables. And yet it has cut greenhouse gas emissions only by 11% since 1990 4 times less than Germany. Norway will come up for more criticism considering that its push on fossil fuels in 2023-24 is reducing investment for shift to a fossil free world. It is not an issue that can be talked away or not confronted head on as it is the harbringer of something worse- doing nothing for 4 years to 2028 that is proposed on the back of stuff that is being done by Norway- a US presidential candidate promising to relegate climate change action to zero by denying it exists and by saying "Drill, Baby Drill," at the RNC Convention in Milwaukee. ...

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Fed vice chair Lael Brainard is president Biden's choice to replace Brian Deese as director National Economic Council. She would help Biden at a crucial period for the US economy with recession fears and inflation, and aggressive interest policy of the Fed's Jay Powell to slow inflation. Brainard is a daughter of a US diplomat who became interested in economics after living in Poland and Germany, and seeing how countries so close to each other divided by the Iron Curtain followed very different economic policies.

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German politicians are critical of Finance minister Schauble's remarks comparing Putin's takeover of Crimea to Hitler's annexation of the Sudetenland. Merkel distances herself from the remarks considering that a singular event. Former chancellor Kohl tells the Bild newspaper, "there's been a lack of sensitivity in dealing with our Russian neighbor, especially President Putin." Decades of hard work in building relations with the Soviet Union since Willy Brandt initiated engagement, followed by Schmidt, Kohl and Schroeder, are seen as being put at risk by the German public and government. Business interests are also at stake. Polls show 60% of German's oppose sending the German air force to NATO's eastern borders, and German foreign minister Steinmeier said there was no way for Ukraine to join NATO. A former German ambassador to the U.S., head of the Munich Security Conference, Wolfgang Ischinger, says Germany not the U.S. would suffer the most from a deterioration in relations. Companies like Siemens and Deutsche Bahn put a high priority on de-escalation of the crisis....

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US president's sweeping powers to use tariffs as a tool for policy when American people's jobs, communities, health, is threatened by fentanyl and concentration of manufacturing jobs in China, unfair trade by EU and Japan, is the issue presented to the US Supreme Court. The US president presented it in this way- tariffs as a foreign policy tool, not a way to impose economic policy in the form of a tax on American importers or buyers which is the power allocated to Congress by the US Constitution. Justices who mentioned these powers called them sweeping powers but would not say the word fentanyl or look back at the recalcitrant behaviour of Asian nations Japan and China when it comes to unfari trading practices, where the US could literally negotiate forever and get no result, or to the enormous concentration of manufacturing power and supply channels in China that not only ships out American jobs but leaves Americans at the mercy of foreign powers for cost of living. Nowhere was this more evident as during covid years and now in rare earths export restrictions from China. The Justices assumed it was just alright to ignore this or leave it unsaid.  The cost to American buyers is small because most of the tariffs are borne by foreign suppliers in China, Japan and Germany, who as in the case of automobiles unfairly benefitted for decades and are now bearing most of the cost of tariffs. The large business in the US have increased their margins so much in the 2020-2024 period that they are now bearing some of the cost of the tariffs, as reported in WSJ. So that inflation in the US is at 3.0 % in the US less than anticipated, when average tariffs are at about 10% overall, not what the headlines say of 15-20% because of the product exceptions made in the tariffs for each nation. Justice Roberts may be right when he says more care should be exercized in the placing of a tariff, but even Roberts and Justices Barrett, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and others know that the US has used this as a last resort, as a policy tool to protect the American people. Sweeping powers need care and caution as Justice Roberts stated- “power to impose tariffs on any product from any country in any amount for any length of time. It does seem like that’s a major authority."   ...

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A meeting of European leaders from Germany, France, Spain, and Italy with African leaders from Libya, Chad and Niger, comes up with priority steps to take for reducing migration from African countries to Europe. Steps include aid to countries with high flow of migrants. The EU gave $10 million to Niger to fight illegal immigration. The French president Macron suggested setting up hotspots from where migrants could apply for legal migration. Chancellor Merkel cautioned that this applied only to humanitarian refugees and not to economic refugees. The presidents of Chad and Niger point out that the cause is poverty, and smugglers need to be diverted to other occupations such as commerce or farming. During 2017 to August 125,000 migrants have come across the Mediterranean on boats. Smugglers put people on small boats leading to many deaths and rescue efforts. 

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The Times of London offers this Analysis of Chinese president Xi's visit to Russia for a Victory Day Parade to be attended by 20 countries including Serbia, Venezuela's Maduro, and Brazil's Inacio Lula Da Silva. Soldiers from China will March in the Red Army Parade. Other countries attending are Indonesia, Egypt, Iraq.

XI and Putin have a new common view of the war as aginst the Nazis and Japanese Imperialism. The role of US Gen. Joe Stilwell in uniting Chinese forces to fight the Japanese is not mentioned in history books in China as the focus under Xi has shifted to increase the importance of the common fight in Russia and China aginst Germany and Japan.

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Globalization is being replaced with government support for attracting new investment and industry. Germany is providing $11 billion for 2 Intel semiconductor plants. The Biden administration $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act investment by the US sets the new pathway for government to support industry to increase investment and create good paying jobs inside the US. This reverses decades of neglect of American manufacturing by administrations from the time of president Reagan through the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations. A new world order is being shaped that enables the EU and the US to compete with China with direct government support for industry.  The US and the EU gain, the UK and Singapore lose out in the new arrangement.

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Alas, economists and intellectuals such as Gita Gopinath of the IMF, just don't get it when they say the EU can increase growth by half percent meeting labor shortages using immigrants. As WSJ reports 50-60% of asylum seekers in Netherlands since 1999 are less skilled /less educated immigrants, are unemployed or on benefits.The new view across all parties is lets stop the immigration surges, its too overwhelming for the people to deal with, so that we can focus on cost of living and low wages for workers. Across Starmer's Labour in Britain, across Biden/Harris Democrats lined up with Republican Lankford in the US pledging to sign the legislation to close the southern Border, and in France Macron's premier Michel Barnier wants to do the same.   Mette Frederiksen of Denmark was a pioneer in the EU in showing that immigration acts as a distraction that hurts the working class as it distracts people from the key issues facing workers of cost of living and low wages, poor benefits. She was elected as a Socialist party leader in Denmark in 2015 and as prime minister in 2019. Sahra Wagenknecht, follows Mette Frederiksen, herself a daughter of immigrant, has formed her own party out of Socialist Die Linke in Germany which is now getting about 15% German voter support, 25% in the east, along similar lines to pause and stop immigration because it hurts the working class. In other parts of EU- France's Macron coalition has a prime minister who has called for a pause on immigration. US president Harris and Candidate Harris have pledged to sign bipartisan legislation drafted by Republican Senator Lankford to close the southern Border. The European Asylum Agency has the numbers at just over one million asylum seekers in EU in 2023 and agains in 2024 split by country- Germany 127,000 24% France 77,000 15%, and Italy and Spain 87,000 each 17% each Belgium, Netherlands and Austria 17,000 each at 3% each, Greece a bit higher. Some like the US and Germany with stronger economic base and industries can absorb the educated immigrants from middle class fleeing wars and strife, and less educated immigrants in construction and hospitality. The bigger danger is in creating support for parties that will use the issue to take whole economies and countries backwards by further depressing workers wages, benefits and rights, exacerbating social divisions around race and income that they say they will solve but have no economic policy to do this. All socialist and socialist democratic parties have grasped this in 2023-2024, some earlier by 2019. ...

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The revival of NATO in 2022 as America "prepares extensively and carefully" to meet the challenge from Russia as it invades Ukraine. President Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Germany's Scholz and America's Biden form a partnership as the Europeans and Americans join together to defend the interests of Europe, America, Latin America, India and other Asia, Africa, the entire free world in a way that FDR and Truman, with Adenauer defended the free world after the Berlin Airlift in 1948. Biden tells Europe and America the days ahead will be hard but America and Europe and the allies in Japan, India and the rest of Asia, Latin America, Africa, are resolved to met this challenge.

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Angela Merkel's handling of the coronavirus crisis wins praise from world leaders and leaders in Germany. Public opinion from Argentina and New Zealand to Britain and the U.S. gives her a lot of credit for the way she has tackled the situation. She now has the highest approval ratings in Germany since 2017, after a period of 2 years during which her popularity waned with the migrant crisis.  Much of her period in office was consumed by crises- the eurozone financial crisis, the migrant crisis, and now the coronavirus crisis. She brings her style of a scientist rationally looking at the situation, her experience, and her willingness to take bold positions under much criticism. Today even one of the premiers in Thuringia from the socialist Left party praises Merkel for being "pleasantly calm and goal oriented, particularly evident in the well structured video and telephone conferences." He says he prefers a leader "a quiet scientist" rather than "pompous men who as populists, dangerously ignore the facts of the danger." Merkel now assumes the 6 month presidency of the Council of the European Union on July 1.  Germany faces the future in rebuilding its economy, in rebuilding its infrastructure and public services, for now Merkel provides the leadership needed for this time. As Andreas Nick, vice president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe puts it she is "always analytically scrutinizing and carefully weighing up, soberly Protestant and refreshingly unpretentious, a trained scientist with life experience in the downfall of an all too self-confident ideological system."   ...

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President Macron calls it "the moment of truth" for Europe. The European Recovery Fund includes $500 billion in nonrepayable money to be handed out to countries hit hardest by the pandemic as a show of solidarity and support for the European community. Only one lone holdout are the Dutch, who have not earlier and today show little solidarity with the European community. It is supported by Merkel and the CDU, Macron, EU president Leyen, the head of the European Central Bank's Lagarde. This report in BBNC shows how the funds would be distributed- Italy 81 billion euros Spain  77 billion euros France   39 billion euros Poland 38 billion euros Greece  32 billion euros Germany 30 billion euros Portugal 17 billion euros France plans to put the 39 billion euros towards its own 100 billion euros recovery plan. 20 billion euros of this will go to insulating buildings and for bicycle lanes in cities in France.   ...

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France's unemployment rate for youth 15-24 is over 25%. France's president Hollande has a plan to get companies to hire young workers on a permanent contract. The "generation contract" gives small business 4000 euros a year for three years to hire a young person on a permanent contract a the same time committing to keep an employee over 57 years in age. Companies with over 300 employees are required to set targets for hiring younger workers and keeping older workers or face sanctions. The program would cost France $1 billion a year and the government estimate is to generate 500,000 jobs in 5 years. A think tank OFCE sees this as generating about 100,000 jobs, because many companies would have hired anyway. The German approach is focussed on state sponsored apprenticeships and vocational training, which some French companies says is the right direction for France. German youth unemployment is 8.1%, with 2.6 million students at vocational schools, and 1.46 million apprentices. Beginning Jan 2013, Germany will support youth from other eurozone countries with language courses and travel costs to work in these programs in areas of Germany with shortages of workers....

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Britain's prime minister David Cameron seeks a "better deal" for Britain before the planned referendum on Britain's membership in the union. Changes Britain is seeking are: restrictions on some social welfare benefits for European migrants for 4 years, guarantees that Britain and other countries using a currency other than the euro would not suffer economic discrimination, and more powers for national parliaments to block European laws. A less tangible change is one that relates to the preamble to the Treaty of Rome, signed in 1957, the founding treaty for the bloc, which says: "Ever closer union among the peoples of Europe." This is similiar to the preample to the American Constitution: "We the people of the United States in order to form a more perfect union." The euroskeptic wing of the Conservative Party objects to this term "ever closer union," and Cameron will seek a pledge to change the wording. Yet as experts point out the phrase was put in as a result of British requests from the John Major Conservative government in response to a stronger wording from the Dutch government suggesting a federal Europe. Veteran reporters and negotiators at the Maastricht talks, say it is strange that Britain is now objecting to the words. Stephen Wall, a British historian on Britain's relations with the European Union, and a former senior official in the British government, says Margaret Thatcher and other British prime ministers did not object to this. That this issue comes up now is a result says Wall, of Britain's sense of being on the sidelines, of being on the outside to a close partnership between the French and the Germans, and as a result of being outvoted on issues Britain considers important. The president of the European parliament, Martin Schulz, says the change would require the approval of all 28 EU members, and an alternative is for a declaration that states Britain is not included in the sense of the phrase....

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Ms. Annegret Kramp-Krarrenbauer, elected leader of the CDU party in 2018 with the support of Angela Merkel, will not run for chancellor in next years election and will resign from her position by the end of the year. She will continue as Germany's defense minister. After losses for the CDU in recent elections and the embarrassment of local CDU leaders in Thuringia supporting the far right AfD, AKK as she is known decided to step down. Angela Merkel has decided not to run for chancellor again. Germany is set to chair the EU in the second half of 2020, and Merkel is no longer seen as a leader of influence. The Nationalist Alternative for Germany AfD has gained votes in recent elections following the 2015-2016 migrant crisis, with large numbers of refugees from North Africa and Arab world landing in Greece and Turkey and walking to Hungary, Austria and Germany. Merkel's handling of the crisis with acceptance of a million refugees in 2015-2016 unsettled European and German politics. Why? One way of looking at it is that in the same way that the U.S. took in Chinese imported goods ending in the Trump tariffs war, at some point it just becomes too big to handle. That ended up at $1 billion a day in imports from China when president Trump called it off and accused Obama Democrats, Bush Republicans, of betraying the country. Putting it into perspective Germany with one fourth of the population of the U.S. took in about twice the number of refugees in just one year 2015-2016 that the U.S. took in 10 years 2005-2015. The U.S. took in 675,000 immigrants between 2005-2015. This is as if the U.S. took in something like 20 million immigrants in a short period of 1 year on an equivalent basis- though the cultural impact is even greater in a nation like Germany that is like Japan an historically immigrant averse nation. All this happened too quickly for Germany to handle for its fragile cultural fabric. Much of the initial outpouring of support and positive sentiment came from the sense of having gone through World War II and the refugees in that and the early post war period, the need to return in the same spirit support Germany had received. Over time it eroded support for the Christian Democratic Union and Merkel. That Merkel could have done this is itself a small miracle. Now the rebuilding has to begin. Adenauer's CDU and the socialist SPD party of Willy Brandt now have less than 50% support, only with the Greens Party do they make up 50%. The question now is can the CDU, and the SPD which has fallen to 14% in elections, make it back and what kind of future makeup political parties will have in Germany, how the social fabric can be restored. AKK's achievement is to mend relations between the liberal Merkel wing of the CDU and conservatives from Bavaria (CSU) over immigration.  Candidates for CDU leadership are Armin Laschet, Jens Spahn, and Friedrich Merz. Laschet premier of North Rhine-Westphalia has Merkel's support. Looking back too much attention was taken up by the euro crisis, and too little was done in the areas of infrastructure, inequality gaps, education, child care, under Merkel's leadership and of the preceding SPD years, much like what happened under Bush and Obama administrations in the U.S. where wars, economic crises led to neglect on issues that affect lives of ordinary working families. ...

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The effort by the Tories in government in Britain to consign railways to managed decline during the green transition shows how little they understand the potential of rail. In Germany rail passes have cut the cost of traveling by Deutsche Bahn and created new interest in rail travel. Britain not only lacks such a plan, rail is being pushed into decline by the plan to cut 1000 ticket offices. About 90 percent of 750,000 comments about this plan were negative during the consultation period. It is now being scrapped. The Guardian says now is the time to create a renaissance for rail and Labour needs to lead the way just as president Biden has done for revitalizing Amtrak with $91 billion in planned investment. 

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Peter Navarro Trade Adviser to US president DJT says the problem with Germany and Japan is about finished cars, but also about their strategic control of powertrain manufacturing − the engine, transmission and drivetrain components that are at the heart  of a vehicle. These components not only give the highest profit margins, they provide the highest paying manufacturing jobs. The result of their domination of engines as only 20% of the engines in cars made in the US are made in America, the rest 80% are imported from Germany, Austria, Japan and South Korea, is that the US is consigned to doing low wage labor assembly in this script written by foreign manufacturers. He calls this the gut punch from VW, Benz and BMW, from Toyota, Subaru and Hyundai.  Navarro says- "This isn’t protectionism. It’s restoration. Restoration of full-spectrum manufacturing, from bolt to body. Restoration of high-wage, high-skill jobs. And restoration of America’s arsenal of democracy. Let the restoration begin."   ...

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Elected to the Politburo in 1980, Gorbachev became president of USSR in 1985. In the six year period to 1991 he launched a movement to free the USSR from the rigid constraints of communist party rule called Perestroika to improve productivity, freedoms and quality of life. He came from a peasant family with Ukrainian origins and was born in 1931 during the period of upheaval in Russia. The rapid removal of Soviet rule was something Russia was not able to adapt to in the early years with no experience in democratic process. By 2000 after drop in life expectancy and fall in the standard of living Mr. Putin emerged as president.  Russia's economy recovered under Putin's three terms till the miscalculations in the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, that were itself a result of a sense that Russia had lost something with the fall of the Soviet Union and the advancement of NATO and the European Union. Gorbachev's sense in his memoirs was that Russia would do best under democracy. Even in 2017 he wrote that Russia and its people were "ready for a real multiparty system, fair elections and a regular rotation of government." Yet he was too much of an optimist and not enough hands on to grasp that Russia was a large economy and safeguards had to be put in place for the rule of law to prevent lawless elements that could control companies, safeguards for the vulnerable sections of society such as pensioners and older people, and limited self government through elected assemblies and parliaments were needed for a decade before democracy to take roots. Gorbachev's knowledge of American and British democracies, constitutions and parliaments and their evolution over centuries was non existent, with little contact and education of this sort under the Czar or Soviets. The democracies in Germany and Japan were established with American power and extensive education, the Marshall Plan, and unlimited imports by the US from Japan to prevent economic catastrophes of the kind experienced by the Weimar Republic in Germany in the 1920's. No plan from western aid and assistance, limited self government of the people was introduced as training ground as in India. In India the British introduced limited self-government or Swaraj in the 1930's with elected assemblies in Indian states, in the pattern of Dominion states such as Canada and Australia. Mohandas Gandhi negotiated the rights of indentured Indians in South Africa in this arrangement and studied British law and constitutions. This led to the catastrophic failure of the rule of law in Russia after 1979, lawless elements emerging under Yeltsin  that controlled companies and the state, high unemployment, failure of the economy, and drop in life expectancy between 1979 and 2005. How this led to the Putin years and now led to the war in Ukraine is covered in more detail under the Lyrarc article on Gorbachev and how he is seen in Germany. ...