LyrArc Article Gist
The boost to investor perceptions for India with Modi's election, and to Indonesia with Widodo's election are major changes in the second half of 2014. The first half saw the dented confidence in Argentina, Venezuela, Turkey and South Africa. To this can be added Russia with Putin's response in Ukraine and western sanctions. China with Jinping's response to pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong for restoration of the pledge of free elections by 2017, appears to be losing investor confidence, especially with investors seeing this as adopting the Putin Way. This is happening with a gradual movement towards restoration of trade relations with Iran.

LyrArc Article Gist
The election strategies of the ruling Congress party and the opposition BJP party in India for the 2014 general elections.

LyrArc Article Gist
Antonis Samaras continues his efforts to get the EU to agree to a two year extension for deficit targets agreed to in the March 202 bailout. He meets Merkel in Berlin, Aug. 24 and Hollande in Paris, Aug. 25. Merkel's coalition partners the Free Democrats oppose an extension. The opposition Social Democrats leader Steinmeier tells the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper "its not very smart to abandon all conditions for aid over an extension of 12 months." Samaras tells the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper: "our economy shrank 27%. Greece is bleeding, It is really bleeding." And German finance minister Schauble tells Germany's SWR2 radio that its too early for Greece to come back and say the agreed aid is insufficient considering that its ony 6 months since the March 2012 agreement. Merkel and other leaders in the Christian Democrats say they will wait till a report from the troika (the EU, ECB and the IMF) in October 2012 before responding.

LyrArc Article Gist
This WSJ editorial says the EU bailout deal for Cyprus of March 25, 2013, which shut down Cyprus Popular Bank, and aggressively downsizes Bank of Cyprus, is the right move. Under this bailout deal no money from the EU's $10 billion to the Cyprus government goes to bailout banks. Cyprus Popular Bank is allowed to go bust, with only insured deposits below $100,000 protected. Larger depositors are compensated with equity shares in a "bad bank," holding this bank's questionable assets. The good assets of this bank are transferred to the Bank of Cyprus. Bank of Cyprus, the largest bank, will have depositors and creditors take haircuts so that it can maintain a 9% capital ratio- estimated losses of depositors being 35%. All this leaves Cyprus with lower debt of 140% of GDP than under other plans. A large part of these losses will be borne by Russian depositors taking advantage of Cyprus as an offshore tax haven. Germay's Angela Merkel and finance minister Schauble face German voters in 2013 elections. Merkel and Schauble did not want to be seen burdening German taxpayers for bailouts in Cyprus to help affluent Russian depositors....

LyrArc Article Gist
Gen. Martin Dempsey took a cautious approach to U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Syria. He did not approve of the way Gen. McChrystal expanded U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, and the hasty manner in which the Iraqi army was trained under his predecessors leading to some commanders being appointed who later became members of sectarian death squads. Under his command the U.S. limited its role in Afghanistan and Iraq and handed more responsibility to local forces. Gen. Dunford who succeeded Dempsey as chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff for the U.S. follows the cautious approach set by Dempsey. Dempsey's approach extends to what he believes is an Heisenberg effect in physics where when you you observe or touch something it changes the way it functions and operates. For critics such as Senator McCain, who served in Vietnam as a pilot, if Dempsey did not want to intervene in some country, he could invent the reasons not to get involved. President Obama exceeded the caution exercized by Dempsey, leading to a situation where the U.S. after hasty action under a Republican president seemed to lurch in the opposite direction under his Democratic successor by not taking action where U.S. presence was needed, followed by a corrective course to make up for this....

LyrArc Article Gist
In this exceptional essay in the New York Times, Prof. Eitan Hersh of Tufts University is critical of the political hobbyism that has taken the place of the hard work of civic participation at local levels. Its easy to bash someone on the social media channels, and not have to talk to real people in face to face conversations as happens on social media with one sided conversations happening in a vacuum. He points out that real civic participation can be boring, take energy and dedication, and involve taking the trouble to do something for the public good. He calls this engaging in a sinking low type of politics which appeals to people operating in their comfort zones and doing things that have short attention spans, and which offer instant gratification. He says Democrats should pay attention because mass engagement was seen as their thing, what they have fallen into says Hersh, is what appears to be mass participation but which is not. Middle and upper class Americans are particularly at fault of operating in their comfort zones, using the internet to express opinions as a leisure time thing, yet shirking from the hard work of civic duty activated by self interest and public interest. This has replaced real conversations between neighbors, between parents, real conversations that involve listening, and putting oneself in the other person's shoes, conversations that recognize the need to change views as one's understanding grows, or let oneself be nudged with fresh thinking. Conversations in which all sides are learning. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
A look at the history of the founding of Pakistan and the 60 years since, looking all the way back to Muslim League's activities in the 1930's under Jinnah, and the failure of politicians and the military to help build Pakistan and improve the lives of its people. One by one the generals and the politicians, including Ms Bhutto and Sharif, have all failed and the dim prospects that it would be different this time with a new elected government.

LyrArc Article Gist
Friedman calls for a third party candidate to bring a focus on the issues facing the U.S. - winding down the war in Afghanistan, increasing fuel economy and conservation to reduce dependence on foreign oil inclusing a gasoline tax, enacting the proposals of the Simpson-Bowles Commission which eliminates or reduces tax expenditures and reduces spending, and provides any needed fiscal support for the short run. He says the two party duopoly is not working and even if the third party succeeds only in framing the debate and the issues in a constructive and useful way, it will have achieved something significant.

LyrArc Article Gist
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.

LyrArc Article Gist
President George Bush said in 2005, that if someone wanted to get a glimpse of how he thinks on foreign policy, he should read Nathan Sharansky's book "The Case for Democracy." Sharansky was an aide to soviet physicist and human rights advocate Andrei Sakharov. Here he is interviewed by David Feith of the Wall Street Journal. His outspoken activism in favor of the right of Soviet Jews to emigrate got him 9 years in the Soviet Gulag. He was released from prison in 1986, with the strong support of President Reagan. He emigrated to Israel and served in ministerial posts and in the Israeli parliament. Sharansky says the recent protests in Egypt prove his fundamental points. That there are limits to how much you can control people through the use of fear, and that all people, regardless of religion and culture, desire and want freedom. This is a very human message, it showed its power when the Berlin Wall fell, and it is true today in the Arab world. He says the fear that this endangers the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty is not well founded. Over the last 30 years the border with Syria has been quiet, because it is really Israeli deterrance that is responsible for this and the quiet border with Egypt. He adds there is no justification for Mubarak remaining, as it only creates hostility in the Arab world against the US and Israel. And he says that Mubarak was no friend of the Jewish people, because even as he made peace with Israel, he continued to let anti-Semitism thrive and used Jews as the enemy to enhance his control. Sharansky says Gaza and Hamas control after the election was an unusual situation because of the corruption of the people around Arafat, so that even Christian villages supported Hamas. And he says the longer a dictatorship is in place the worse the situation becomes in creating more hostility to all those who support the dictatorship, including the US and Israel. For Sharansky, the Obama adminstration's response to the Iranian protests after what is seen as a stolen election in Iran, were one of the greatest betrayals of freedom in modern history. To prevent a one time, one person, one vote, Sharansky says the democratic institutions have to take root and this will take more than 8 months, so guarantees need to be put in place that this is not allowed to happen. Safeguards put in place to ensure that whoever is elected cannot survive if democratic institutions and reforms and democracy building does not occur. Dissidents like Mr Ibrahim and others should enjoy the ability to build trade unions and women's organizations. Sharansky says this is a real chance, a chance for the US and the free world to become a partner in change. In change that will help Egypt pass the town square test. Can people freely protest and express their grievances in the town square. And move from this fundamental change to establishing democratic processes and institutions. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Different estimates on how quickly and how much additional oil would come into world oil markets if sanctions are lifted. The time estimates range from quickly to 6 months for additional new supplies into world oil markets. Estimates of how much production can be added range from 500,000-800,000 barrels a day from private estimates to 1 million additional barrels a day from Iran's oil company, if sanctions are lifted. UK foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, says "there is still a long way to go if we are going to get there." He told a parliamentary committee that the nonnegotiable part is a window of one year advance notice if Iran were to break out and go for a nuclear weapon, which would be based on technical expert opinion of how long it would take Iran to build a nuclear weapon using its knowhow and materials at that Mr Zanganeh took over as oil minister after the election of Rouhani as president 18 months ago. Zanganeh calls the effect of sanctions and the mismanagement of the previous government as "a catastrophe," and he has tried to instill anew discipline in the oil sector. Iran currently produces about 1-1.2 million barrels a day under sanctions, half of earlier levels before sanctions were tightened in 2012 because of the nuclear weapons development issues....

LyrArc Article Gist
Timothy Geithner as New York Fed Chairman was a key person in the rescue of Bear Stearns. In an interview with the WSJ he recounts events and defends his actions on March 14 in a conference call at 5am in the morning with Ben Bernanke, Kohn, and other regulators and staffers and Treasury Secretary Paulson. By 7 am a decision was made choosing from 2 options not to do it, let Bear Stearns fail, and Fed would make an infusion of liquidity into the banking system to reduce the impact, or make a loan to to give time for Bear Stearns to make a merger. Mr Bernanke did the head count and all top officials agreed to the loan option. At 7.30 the morning of March 14 about $80 billion in short term loans would come due. If Bear Stearns went into bankruptcy protection lenders would get back collateral instead of cash and might sell the collateral en masse and pull back trillions of dollars of similiar loans to other investment banks. Also Bear Stearns had trading positions with 5000 other firms so the ripples would extend throughout the banking system. At issue in a Bear Stearns collapse with no Fed loan- a full blown run on Bear Stearns had begun on March 13 with customers and lenders pulling out billions of dollars. The man- Geithner does not have a PhD in economics and has never been a banker or trader, the background of previous chairmen of the New York Fed. He joined Treasury Department in 1988 and was an assistant to first Treasury Secretary Rubin and then his successor Sommers. Geithner was active in the rescue of Mexico, Indonesia and Korea in the Asian and Latin American banking crises. He was appointed to his position at the New York Fed in 2003, so he has 15 years of experience dealing with international banking crises. The criticism- has come from a colleague at the Fed Vincent Reinhart on the oped pages of the Washington Post, and from former Fed chairman Paul Volcker in a speech to the New York Economic Club. Geithner has asked to speak at the same club to give his account and his defense of his action. Note that Bernanke and Paulson and Kohn were in on this decision and voted in favor of it and there appears to be a consensus that all in the conference call supported it. Geithner kind of put it all together and so he is defending it. Geithner's contribution- Geithner pulled in the other players in the financial markets into close communication with the Fed. He assembled an informal advisory group including Rubin, Summers, Greenspan, Volcker, former New York Fed Chairman Corrigan and investment banker Pete Peterson. He would also phone them individually asking : what should we think about an issue? What are the best 3 arguments for or against? What do smart people think? He also initiated a series of dinners at the NY Fed's executive dining room in which 5 or 6 senior executives from a major investment firm would meet his own top people. He also calls CEO's of important banks and investment firms every week in a crisis situation to ask- Whats changed? Whats better? Whats worse? What worries you? And after the credit crisis in August ,Geithner joined Bernanke in a small group that included Fed vice chairman Donald Kohn and Kevin Warsh, a Fed governor, investment banker and White House aide. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
This editorial in the Wshington Post is sharply critical of the Obama administration's policies of inaction in Syria and Iraq. It says president Obama and his administration will have to answer for the policies to the American people and the people of the Middle East and Europe.

LyrArc Article Gist
Mr Leung, the highly unpopular Chief Executive of Hong Kong, and target of protesters demanding his resignation and universal suffrage in 2017 as originally promised, is a reserved man who does not interact much with the public. His secondary scholing was at Kings School in Hong Kong followed by studies at Hong Kong Polytechnic for a higher diploma in building surveying. He then studied valuation and estate management at Bristol Polytechnic in Britain graduating in 1977. He was a surveyor by training and worked in this field to help China open up its property markets in the 1980's. By 30 he was made head of the JLW real estate firm's Hong Kong branch, and in 1993 formed his own firm DTZ Debenham. Throughout his life he has worked for or had close ties to the authorites in Beijing in the property field, and has little political experience. In 1985 he was elected to the Hong Kong Basic Law Consultative Committee, and later became its Secretary General. This was followed by a position in the Chinese government as a member of the National Standing Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference till 2012. His first political campaign in 2012 was itself of a limited nature because he only had to win support from members of a 1200 member pro-China, pro-business Executive Council that currently approves nominees and elects the Chief Executive. Albert Ho, one of three candidates in 2012, says Leung was completely insulated from political pressures, political give and take, and uses a "greenhouse" comparison to describe this isolation from the public. His progressive credentials for providing affordable housing involve ideas to open up housing development in territories near Hong Kong appear to be merely election period ideas. The large gaps between rich and poor, or rich and a struggling middle class in Hong Kong- becoming sharply accentuated in China to the point where China is probably one of the most unequal societies similiar to Brazil- are also keenly present in Hong Kong. How much part this plays in the protests is not clear in media reports, though the "Occupy Central" name for one of the protest groups suggests a connection to social issues as well. Protestors may see democratically elected chief executives as more responsive to voter concerns including social, income, housing and other issues, in sharp contrast to more than 1200 well heeled business executives who have prospered greatly in China's boom years. China's national leadership under Jinping and LiKeqiang appeared to sense this income divide as they focussed on extragavant displays of wealth in the transition, but may still have failed to grasp how big that gap has become and how the political processes of rigid control cannot keep up with the times even with the best of intentions. Especially when growth slows and the problems of the boom years such as hyperinflation in property prices and pollution remain unsolved. Bloomberg quietly let the Occupy Wall Sreet protests fizzle out clearing protestors at times, yet voters could peacefully elect Mr. Blasio as Mayor of New York in response, a level to which Beijing's political system has not evolved and to which Hong Kong offers both a challenge and an opportunity. As one protester quoted in the NYT put it- "we are not the enemy, we are the people."...

LyrArc Article Gist
This Journal editorial which advises patience, comes on the day after the U.S. Senate voted 79-19 to move forward with a bill on sanctions against China for undervaluation of the yuan. The editorial says the Chinese currency has come down 30% since 2005, and inflation in China is reducing the advantage China gains by keeping its currency valuation low. Over time the editorial suggests China will see a decline in trade surpluses similiar to the experience with Japan, and emphasizes the importance of the two leading trading nations U.S. and Britain not repeating the experience of the 1930's with the Smoot-Hawley retaliatory tariffs legislation. The Journal quotes American economic historian Charles Kindleberger: "When every country turned to protect its national private interest, the world public interest went down the drain, and with it the private interests of all."

LyrArc Article Gist
Krugman says China's inflation is raising labor costs in China, and in this way gradually reducing the undervaluation of the yuan vs the dollar. But he cautions this would take a long time, 4-5 years. The U.S. faces the costs of high unemployment close to 10% today, and this requires serious efforts now to reduce the undervaluation. It alone will not solve America's problems. It is one of a number of actions that need to be taken and not put off again.