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Women voters made up 53% of the voters in the 2012 election. The 2016 U.S. presidential election in unique because of the first women candidate for president with advantage in the women's vote. Also unique is the split between the college educated and the non college educated voter, something that has into happened in an election in this way for a long time. A pro business party such as Republicans finds itself with a significant part of the non college educated vote.  Another difference is the huge turnout of Hispanic voters, and questions raised about how their loyalty may have shifted for decades with Republican positions on immigration and deportation. The demographics have also shifted with college educated voters in suburbs of southern states such as Georgia, Colorado and North Carolina. States that once dominated the national election such as Ohio with a larger number of non college educated voters are now not as significant as in the past. As a result the picture is changing in the electoral map. ...

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Joe Nocera compares the German insistence for tough austerity measures in Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal, to the insistence ofthe Allies for large reparations from Germany after the First World War, which Germany was not able to pay and left it bankrupt by the late 1920's. He cites the failure of orthodox positions on financial and monetary policy to tackle complex issues such as the overvalued currencies of southern Europe, as productivity moved in opposite directions between Southern Europe and Germany. Austin Goolsbee, a former chairman of Council of Economic Advisors, makes the same point in an op-ed piece in the Journal, 11/29/2011. Nocera says this position is simiiar to the position on debt reduction for homeowners facing U.S. foreclosures with government intervention, where little action has been taken worsening the housing crisis and derailing the U.S. economy.

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US president DJT outspoken in "The Conversation," with Dasha Burns in The Politico magazine about dangers of "civilizational erasure" for the Europe that people knew in the past as its population changes with uncontrolled migration of the past two decades. DJT comments on a wide range of topics centering on the migration that has changed the life and politics of Europe by 2025 and what the future holds for Europe if it does not preserve it's own identity handed down for generations. Dasha Burns starts with Ukraine- the reports say DJT said this or that about Ukraine but look at the question she put to DJT- Which country is in the stronger negotiating position? Most people know the answer in the winter of 2025 is that Russia is in a much much stronger position in 2025 and a big part of this is it's size 40 million people in Ukraine to 120 million in Russia and oil revenues. Then Burns asks if it is Zelensky who is responsible for the stalled progress what's going on here, all the time giving DJT something that he might take up that would make a headline grabbing interview. She prompts DJT with the starter phrases and pausing for DJT to pick up on it- If Zelensky rejects this deal, do you think Ukraine has lost this war, and the consensus in Europe is to keep supporting Ukraine until they can win this war. And DJT does no more than what he has said many many times about the difficult situation Ukraine is in. Asked if the US may walk away from supporting Ukraine as Trump Jr. has said, and DJT says- "No it isn't correct. But it's not exactly wrong" because they have to play ball. And that is exactly what the European states UK, France, Germany, Italy, have done as they keep talking and modify the original plan devised by Russia and the US. What this says is that the European states are not trying to win this war and at the same time not willing to let this war be lost and the principle of invading another country be seen as acceptable. This is where there are limits to DJT's diplomacy as he attributes the problem to the hatred between the leaders of the two countries. DJT does not say Zelensky would lose the election if one were held in 2026 as he calls for elections.   ...

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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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U.S. president Obama's nominee for U.S. Supreme Court Justice to fill the seat open after the death of Justice Scalia is Merrick Garland. Garland is described here by the NYT as a centrist looking more for the right answer than pursuing any ideological agenda. He is from Harvard Law School and finished a clerkship under Supreme Court Justice Brennan. He is seen as a listener interested in getting a better understanding of what people are saying, and thinking things through. Garland is chief judge of the federal appeals court in Washington D.C.

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The P5+1 countries in the Istanbul talks with Iran are the five permanent members of the Security Council and Germany. Catherine Ashton, the EU's senior foreign policy official is the lead negotiator. Saeed Jalili is the lead Iranian negotiator. By July the two groups have held three rounds of talks which proved inconclusive and were lowered to meetings at the deputy level in July, 2012. This was followed by bellicose statements from Iran and U.S. defense preparations in the Gulf of Hormuz. The Israelis described the situation as reaching a critical point, with the U.S. continuing to put its faith in tighter sanctions to persuade Iran to give up its program.

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The Labor Department reports 295,000 seasonally adjusted jobs created in Feb. 2015, with the unemployment rate dropping to 5.5%. This opens the path for the U.S. Fed to increase interest rates as early as June 2015.

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By July 2013 only about 40% of the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation rules were completed, 60% of deadlines were missed, according to law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP. A singular aspect of the Dodd-Frank legislation was that rule making was left to regulators in different agencies and open to lobbying by the financial industry. This has the effect of delaying the rule making until a consensus is reached, diluting some of the original intent as financial firms jockey for advantage, and making it voluminous in many cases because of the wording designed to achieve consensus and account for objections by various interests. Reform legislators such as Barney Frank openly said they had no interest in learning enough about the financial industry to do the rule making, and may have left an excessive amount of the rule making to regulators in the future. A consumer protection agency was established under the new law and derivatives are required to be traded on exchanges. The Volcker Rule to separate investment banking from deposit taking and a requirement that banks hold onto a portion of mortgage securities marketed are not completed. The S.E.C. has to write the rule on how much money brokerages must set aside for losses on swap trades. Another bubble in financial markets would leave the U.S. and European economies vulnerable to problems similiar to the global financial crisis of 2008, which is why the U.S. Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and the European regulatory authorites are requiring large banks to set aside more capital reserves. The S.E.C. under its new chief is also taking a more active role in overseeing the banks for violations of securities laws, including a series of actions taken against JP Morgan Chase bank in 2013. This has a deterrent effect as the huge monetary easing by the U.S. Federal Reserve to reduce unemployment also creates bubble conditions in financial markets, according to Fed governor, Jeremy Stein. Former FDIC chief, Sheila Bair, says the lack of leadership in this area is simply astonishing....

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The Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989 was a point at which the country could have made a search for peace iwth the help of foreign powers India, Pakistan, U.S. which supported the mujhadeen and Russia. The missed opportunity under Reagan led to 40 years of uninterrupted war at immense human cost to the people of Afghanistan, and financial and human cost to the U.S. with its involvement in the country's wars. A lecturer at the University of Amsterdam looks at the missed opportunities from the past for a peaceful settlement with the help of foreign powers. This happens as the Taliban meet in Moscow with other parties in the dispute.  A missed perspective relates to the origins of the problem in the India- Pakistan conflict and the history of Afghanistan in the colonial period. Afghanistan was seen as a buffer by Pakistan after the 1971 war with India that created Bangladesh from the former Eastern part of Pakistan. As a result both the Russians and the Americans were embroiled in wars and passions that had little to do with ideologies and  more with feudalism, factions and religious conflicts. Much national treasure in human life and lost opportunities for development at home on the side of foreign powers was the cost of the involvement.      ...

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The Bernie Sanders 2016 U.S. presidential campaign is compared to the Howard Dean 2004 U.S. presidential campaign. Both are from Vermont- Sanders was Mayor of Burlington, Dean was governor of Vermont. Dean and Sanders draw many white, educated, affluent voters to their campaign rallies. Yet the situation in 2015 is different. Dean's major issue was his opposition to the Iraq war started in 2003. Sanders says his position is more class based, and calls for a revolution to help working class Americans gain upward mobility as wages remain stagnant, and educational opportunity restricted. The Democratic Party today is also different, with more ethnic voters, and 40% female.

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The U.S. experienced a net increase in jobs of 69,000 in May. The average for the March-May 2012 period is 96,000 jobs, which is down from the figure of 245,000 net jobs added in the previous three months December- February 2012. Increasing auto sales did not increase jobs by much- only 12,000. Job gains were in health care, transportation and warehousing, with cutbacks in construction and at the local government level.

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The coronavirus pandemic has a significant negative impact on women as they face job, child care and home responsibilities. One report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis says that without a comprehensive system of support "women will forever be vulnerable to career scarring during any major crisis like this pandemic." This is true not just for the U.S., it is also true for women in countries in Europe, in Asia and other countries.

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Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute points to trade barriers reducing competition and free trade that should raise an outcry when free trade and competition advocates focus alone on the Trump steel tariffs. He points to estimates that show $90 billion in additional costs to Americans from the barriers that prevent Americans from paying world market prices for surgeries and medical treatment, prices similar to what is paid in advanced countries like Germany, Britain and France. A bigger barrier in pharmaceuticals prices being sheltered from market competition worldwide costs a huge $370 billion in additional costs to Americans. These two costs in healthcare would help Americans by a magnitude compared to tax cuts that do not work for average Americans with the business tax cut going more into share buybacks than into increasing wages or capital investment in 2018.  Bernstein points to Neil Irwin's column in the NYT that flags statements such as Senator Mike Lee, Republican, that the steel tariffs are a huge job killing tax hike, as being misleading. Bernstein says two actions were never taken that would have used benefits of free trade to help affected communities that lost jobs in industries such as steel and textiles, other industries affected by foreign competition.  He lists these steps as sectoral employment training, apprenticeships ,and job creation efforts in the worst affected areas. Basically no one really knows what is good trade policy, the textbook concepts and theories are out of date when countries can subsidize particular industries such as steel and dump products into the American market. At a press conference on CSPAN with the Swedish prime minister Mr. Trump stated that China was exporting more than what is officially shown as there are transshipments from other countries, some of them with no steel mills.  As Mr. Trump stated at that press conference he was elected partly because of the worst affected communities- in places such as Michigan and other states in the midwestern U.S.- that suffered from unfair trade. Bernstein admonishes the economists and politicians, media, for the headlines that are misleading in showing that bad trade policy is being pursued and trade wars are being started. This deserves attention because the Trump administration and advisors such as Lighthizer who served in the Reagan administration seek fair trade, and the Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross successfully pushed for NAFTA trade deal renegotiation not the outright rejection of NAFTA that was mentioned in the election campaign. Ironically no one is helped by this trade rhetoric and misleading headlines. In fact the strengthening of the U.S. currency as the huge trade surplus of China goes into U.S. assets, and with the election of Mr. Trump, gives foreign competitors a continued advantage. And in fact Japan, South Korea, China, had a mild response to the tariffs as reported, because these countries are aware of global overcapacity created especially by China which produces 50% of the world's steel, and as China shifts to higher technologically value added products closing many older steel mills. ...

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The 7.1 million Venezuelan refugees who have settled in other Latin American nations puts a great burden on the region and its resources. This NYT report shows how it is affecting Mexico today. Shown are migrants who are by the rail tracks trying to board a freight train north in Mexico. It is an endless dilemma for Americans, for Democrat states facing Republican opposition, and has been a problem for both Republican and Democratic administrations. How do you deport Venezuelans as US has no diplomatic relations with Venezuela? The Biden administration is pursuing legal immigration channels by taking in a specified number and cutting the dangerous migrant flow over the Mexican border, the only policy open to Republicans also in this situation. At some future date the Venezuelans absorbed into the US can fill worker shortages, in the present it is creating some chaos for many nations including Mexico and the US and other latin American nations, and neither party Democrat or Republican has easy answers. As the Democrats are deporting nearly as many as the Republicans. ...

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Elizabeth Duke helped forge consensus and compromise in policy as Governor of the U.S. Federal Reserve in the five year period following the 2008 crisis. She stayed on till July 2013 to help formulate the new capital rules requiring banks to hold more capital to handle any future crisis conditions.

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Foreign investment in the auto industry is having a significant impact in the growth of Mexico's middle class. VW has plants in Puebla, General Motors in Silao, Chrysler in Toluca, Nissan in Aguascalientes. Production increased by 24% in February 2012 over the prior year. The growth is likely to continue. Facilities in Mexico have high productivity and are technologically equiped comparable to plants in the U.S., Europe and Japan. Nissan plans a $2 billion investment in a plant in Aguascalientes. Because of the lower cost of living, with food, transportation and health care costing less, even though household appliances cost more, workers at a Mexican plant earning $4 an hour in pay and benefits or $130 a week can still have a decent standard of living. Foreign investment is likely to grow with Mexico's emphasis on technical education - about 130,000 engineers graduating each year according to Mexico's president Calderon- the work ethic of young Mexicans joining manufacturing plants, the productivity of these lower cost plants, and a growing market in Latin America. Nissan plans to produce 1 million cars in Mexico with an investment of $2 billion in Aguascalientes. Nissan has succeeded in taking over from VW as the preeminent manufacturer in Mexico, and has 32,000 workers in the Aguascalientes area, once a small town but now a thriving city of 700,000. Drug cartels have no interest in places like Aguasalientes, which is why foreign investment continues to come into Mexico. The lack of economical credit- interest rate on car loans is about 10%- and the flow of about 600,000 used cars each year into Mexico from the U.S. has restricted growth in Mexico's automobile market. Jose Munoz, Nissan's senior executive for Latin America sees this changing as more credit including Nissan's new financing center in Aguascalientes make lower cost credit easily available to a growing middle class....

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How Southwest might benefit from a Delta Us Airways merger by acquiring assets as the combined merger partners sell off some assets. This would intensify competition in the eastern markets.

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The New York Times reports from the comments of current and former members of the Chase Chief Investment Office (CIO), that risk officers at Chase were ignored when they raised issues about the complex trades made by trader Iksil. Iksil's trades had the support of his manager Mr. Macris, and Ms. Drew who was in charge of CIO. The comments also indicate that at one point Mr. Macris brought in a Risk Officer with whom he had worked closely for many years. Risk Officers are supposed to be independent and their concerns seriously heard, with the authority to halt trades that pose excessive risks. Which made this kind of cozy behaviour in the CIO trading offices in London cause for alarm. These reports also say Mr. Braunstein, the new CFO at JP Morgan Chase, did not strengthen controls after he assumed office in 2010. Bank officials disputed this. The New York offices did not fully grasp the complex trades being made in the CIO London offices, and upper management let the CIO operate pretty much on its own, especially with CEO Jamie Dimon's confidence in Ms. Drew's management of the CIO. This led to another gap in the process of risk management. Dimon had other priorities and distractions, from problem mortgages coming with the acquisition of Washington Mutual, pushing back aginst financial regulation after the 2008 crisis, stress tests and others. At the same time the U.S. Federal Reserve, regulators, and Treasury's coordinated effort to merge failing banks with other larger banks- because of the lack of the process of unwinding failed banks provided later under Dodd-Frank legislation- created mega financial banks. Unlike what the U.S. under Treasury Secretary Rubin pushed for in the case of S. Korea during a banking crisis in 1997, Treasury under Geithner and Fed officials did not push for unwinding of failed financial institutions such as Countrywide and Washington Mutual in 2008-2009 Chase's own portfolio of assets under the CIO, increased by an astounding amount from $76 billion in 2007 to $356 billion in 2011. Even if Ms Drew had managed CIO well before, managing a portfolio of this size is most likely to have presented a whole set of new challenges and problems for which the CIO office was not prepared. Similiar concerns were raised by other Fed officials such as Fed governors, Hoenig and Fisher, who raised the issue that such mega-banks posed unacceptable risks and were too big to manage. Pressures to increase investing profits, growing complacency, relaxing risk management controls, led to the situation where a single trader Mr. Iksil, who had only joined the bank in 2007 according to other reports, could create large losses. This follows a situation at UBSin 2011, where a novice trader made bets that resulted in large losses....

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Higher inflation and interest rates at 2.2% are having a profound effect on the Japanese economy. Japan is starting a new era of positive interest rates with the first interest rate increase in 17 years this week. Pay raises reached an average of 5.28% in 2023, according to the Japan Trade Union Confederation where the highest for the previous decade was 2.4%. PM Kishida has pursued a course that encourages workers to get needed pay raises. It will affect everything from US mortgages to how much money stays at home and is invested in Japan. Japan holds $4.2 trillion in foreign investment holdings of which $1.1 trillion is in US Treasury bonds. As the differential with US interest rates decreases - varying from 1.5% to 3%- it will increase investment in the Japanese economy and in manufacturing at home. Japan has seen low wages and a hollowing out of its manufacturing sector similar to the US creating a sense of less hope for the future. This shift to investing in Japan is a change for reasons of supply chain reliability and increasing confidence of workers and worker's families in Japan. ...

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Angela Merkel finally reaches an agreement for a coalition government of the CDU, CSU and the SPD parties. Under the agreement the CDU cedes the Finance Ministry to the Social Democrats SPD party, and the Interior Ministry to the CSU which favors a stricter immigration policy. The agreement still needs the consent of the SPD party members in a vote. In addition to the Finance Ministry the Social Democrats will hold the Foreign Affairs Ministry. It means Merkel will have a fourth term as Chancellor, this time in a period roiled by immigration issues and the volatility of the Trump administration in the U.S., ensuring that Germany acts as a stabilizing force in world affairs.

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A 110 aircraft $15 billion deal is being negotiated by India with Boeing and other manufacturers. This deal requires all aircraft be assembled in India to create jobs, and requires transfer of technology so that India can build up its own defense industry for exports. The U.S. sees India as a counterpoint to China in the Indian Ocean as China expands in that region, and transfer of technology is being done to increase Indian capabilities. In the past India has sourced defense needs including aircraft from Russia, and this is an effort to improve ties with India. Lockheed is considering building F-16 aircraft in India with Indian partner Tata. 

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Radio Marti and other pending issues in U.S.- Cuba relations as steps towards normalization.

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Mary Barra, 51, head of global product development, is the new CEO of GM following Dan Akerson. Akerson will retire. She is a electrical engineer who started as a co-op student at GM in 1980. Her experience includes engineering positions, managing a assembly plant, and heading the human resources department in 2009. The president's position goes to CFO Dan Ammann, 41. Former Cummins CEO and chairman, Mr. Solso, will take up the chairman's position at GM. Mark Reuss will assume Mary Barra's position. This completes the transition planned by Akerson as the government sells its remaining shares in GM following the bailout. Akerson says he felt as if he was seeing a daughter graduate from college. It is a significant moment for the U.S. auto industry as a younger leadership looks to the future.

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One foreign policy expert says president Trump tried to reverse everything in Obama's foreign policy almost to the point of an obsession. He visits Saudi Arabia before visiting Mexico and Canada, close neighbors, as other presidents have done. The relationships with Mexico and Canada deteriorated. Yet Mr. Trump has a good personal connection with Trudeau of Canada and Macron of France.  Taking the advice of advisers including Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, president Trump despite tough talk on the North American Free Trade Agreement, takes a moderate approach on NAFTA renegotiation. Trump also softens some of the rhetoric on China as he seeks Chinese help to restrain North Korea. An international coalition of states supported by the U.S. reverses gains by Islamic State, with Iraq and Iran gaining over Islamic State. President Obama's policy of not taking decisive action, reversed towards the end of the second term, had led to the rise of Islamic State and the refugee crisis in Europe as refugees left Syria and Iraq. NATO or the South Korean defense was not significantly weakened as feared at the beginning of the first year. Missile defense proceeded in South Korea with U.S. missile systems. The appointment of a senior senator from Texas, Kay Hutchinson, signaled that the NATO policy had not changed significantly. As a result it could be said that the year 2018 began with a bang about the risks internationally with president Trump's unconventional approach, and ended without some of the worst fears being realized. Relations between North and South Korea improved as Koreans decided to work together for peace in the peninsula- with North Korea agreeing to participate in the Winter Olympics in South Korea.   ...

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The minimum non-negotiable "breakout window" for 2015 nuclear negotiations of the EU, the U.S. and other nations with Iran, is a period of 12 months. The term "breakout window" refers to the period in which Iran decides to breakout of a signed nuclear agreement and rushes to develop nuclear weapons. It should take at least 12 months for Iran to be able to develop a weapon so that there is time to develop an effective response to the threat to world peace.