By Kyle Almond, CNN

Two high-profile elections came to a head this past weekend, with voters in France and Greece taking their countries in a new direction.

But there’s still much more to watch for in 2012, a year in which nearly a third of the world’s countries are casting ballots.

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Editor's Note: Edward Alden is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he writes the blog Renewing America. The following is reprinted with the permission of CFR.org.

By Edward Alden, CFR.org

I am rarely surprised when I go to Starbucks. The coffee is always about the same (good), and the menu of pastry items is thoroughly predictable (and not so good). But the other day, amidst the CDs and other miscellany at checkout, I noticed a small badge asking for a $5 donation. “Let’s Create JOBS forUSA” it implored, offering a snazzy red, white, and blue wristband in return.

I was taken aback.  I have donated to help poor children, to end famines,  to cure and prevent diseases, to help the homeless, to build bike trails, to save wild animals and wild places, and dozens of other causes. But it had never occurred to me to make a charitable contribution to “create JOBS.” Have we as a country really sunk this far? Must we now rely on charity to employ Americans? FULL POST

Editor's Note: Micah Zenko is a fellow for conflict prevention at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he blogs. You can also follow him on Twitter. The following is reprinted with the permission of CFR.org.

By Micah Zenko, CFR.org

Last week, the Obama campaign released a video starring Bill Clinton, in which he extolled the president’s decision to authorize the raid that killed Osama bin Laden one year ago. In the video, Clinton hypothesized: “Suppose the Navy Seals had gone in there, and it hadn’t been bin Laden. Suppose they’d been captured or killed. The downside would have been horrible for [Obama].” According to the former president, Obama’s decision was “the harder and more honorable path.”

Obama’s authorization of the bin Laden raid was indeed risky: based on incomplete information (such as the lack of definitive proof that the al Qaeda leader was in the Abbotabad compound) and objections from a split cabinet. Even if the operation had failed or cost American lives, many analysts and commentators — including Clinton — exaggerate the likely political costs to the president. FULL POST

Editor's Note: Martin Feldstein, Professor of Economics at Harvard, was Chairman of President Ronald Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers and is a former president of the US National Bureau for Economic Research. For more from  Martin Feldstein, visit Project Syndicate or follow it onTwitter or Facebook .

By Martin Feldstein, Project Syndicate

America’s presidential election is now just six months away. If history is a reliable guide, the outcome will depend significantly on the economy’s performance between now and November 6, and on Americans’ perception of their economic future under the two candidates.

At the moment, America’s economy is limping along with slow growth and high unemployment. Output grew by just 1.5% last year, and real GDP per capita is lower now than before the economic downturn began at the end of 2007. Although annual GDP growth was 3% in the fourth quarter of 2011, more than half of that reflected inventory accumulation. Final sales to households, businesses, and foreign buyers rose at only a 1.1% annual rate, even slower than earlier in the year. And the preliminary estimate for annual GDP growth in the first quarter of 2012 was a disappointing 2.2%, with only a 1.6% rise in final sales. FULL POST

Editor's Note: Tune in Sunday at 10a.m. or 1p.m. ET for Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN.

By Fareed Zakaria, CNN

This past week, the Supreme Court deliberated over a controversial Arizona immigration law. It comes amidst a climate of hostility. Just look at what candidates said during the Republican primaries:

"Mitt Romney will complete construction of a high-tech fence," the candidate announced on his campaign website. Michele Bachmann promised to "build a double-walled fence." And Herman Cain said: "We're going to have a fence; it's going to be 20 feet high; it's going to have barbed wire on the top."

The fence in question guards a third of America's 2,000 mile-long border with Mexico. Supporters of harsher laws argue that 3 out of every 5 illegal immigrants are from Mexico. But just as American hostility is reaching a crescendo, the problem might be disappearing.

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Editor's Note: Stephen S. Roach, a member of the faculty at Yale University, is Non-Executive Chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia and the author of The Next Asia.

By Stephen S. Roach, Project Syndicate

For seven years, the United States has allowed its fixation on the renminbi’s exchange rate to deflect attention from far more important issues in its economic relationship with China. The upcoming Strategic and Economic Dialogue between the US and China is an excellent opportunity to examine – and rethink – America’s priorities.

Since 2005, the US Congress has repeatedly flirted with legislation aimed at defending hard-pressed American workers from the presumed threat of a cheap Chinese currency. Bipartisan support for such a measure surfaced when Senators Charles Schumer (a liberal Democrat from New York) and Lindsey Graham (a conservative Republican from South Carolina) introduced the first Chinese currency bill. FULL POST

Editor's Note: Michael Spence, a Nobel laureate in economics, is the author of The Next Convergence. For more, visit Project Syndicate's excellent new website or follow it on Facebook and Twitter.

By Michael Spence, Project Syndicate

China and the United States are in the grip of major structural changes that both dread will end the Halcyon era when China produced low-cost goods and the US bought them. In particular, many fear that if these changes lead to direct competition between the two countries, only one side can win.

That fear is understandable, but the premise is mistaken. Both sides can and should gain from forging a new relationship that reflects evolving structural realities: China’s growth and size relative to the US; rapid technological change, which automates processes and displaces jobs; and the evolution of global supply chains, driven by developing countries’ rising incomes. But first they must acknowledge that the old pattern of mutually beneficial interdependence really has run its course, and that a new model is needed. FULL POST

By Fareed Zakaria, CNN

The drug wars dominate the discussion in Mexico and in many border states in America as well. There have been nearly 50,000 drug-related killings in Mexico since President Felipe Calderón began his six-year term. That's more than twice as many civilian deaths in the same period in Afghanistan.

Calderón is widely viewed as having blundered in taking on the drug cartels. FULL POST

Sunday on GPS, I interviewed Ruchir Sharma, author of the terrific new book Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles.  The following is a web-extra portion of our interview where Sharma lays out three reasons he's still confident in America's growth. Here's the transcript:

Fareed Zakaria: You don't deal with America, but you're also saying that in this new landscape, you're pretty comfortable with the United States?

Ruchir Sharma: Yes. I think that the U.S., as I talk about here, has three things going for it.

One, I think, is the exchange rate, that a dollar today, when adjusted for all inflation against its trade-weighted partners, is the most competitive that it's ever been in history. FULL POST

By Fareed Zakaria, CNN

On Monday, Senate Republicans blocked debate on the Buffett Rule, the 30% tax rate floor called for by President Obama affecting anyone earning more than $1 million a year. If I were in Congress, I'd vote for the Buffett Rule even though it remains highly unsatisfactory. Here's why:

The Buffett Tax will raise about $47 billion over the next ten years and the federal government will spend vastly more than that - $45 trillion over the next ten years. So the total revenue from the tax is clearly trivial in comparison to the scale of the problem in terms of deficit or debt.  I made this point in my discussion with the Chairman of President Obama’s National Economic Council, Gene Sperling.  His response was to really not view it in isolation but to view it as one part of a much larger deficit reduction strategy. He said 'We already have cuts in many programs; we proposed more.' Sperling implied that President Obama was going to accept even more discretionary spending cuts.

Sperling referenced the deal that President Obama and Speaker John Boehner almost came to this past summer in which there were deep cuts.  Sperling said that when cutting programs like Medicaid quite substantially, the Administration is saying ‘We have to balance those on the principle of shared sacrifice by asking those who have been most fortunate over the past decade to pay their fair share.’

I think as a matter of fairness, the Buffett Tax makes sense. FULL POST