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No less than a report by Harry Truman's Commission on Migratory Labor in 1951 says-  Migratory labor caused low wages in the Southwest and traced social ills to illegal immigration: “The magnitude … has reached entirely new levels in the past 7 years.… In its newly achieved proportions, it is virtually an invasion,” the report says. What one sees from this archive of the US Congress is that there ebbs and flows back and forth on migration across the southern border. The trade unions and even Harry Truman's Commission come out for restricting migration depending on this ebb and flow. Remember that Asian immigration is flatly opposed from 1910 to 1950. twenties - open to meet farm labor needs, 40% of US vegetables grown in the southwest. thirties - with the Great Depression a Hoover deportation effort forties- welcoming immigrants to meet war needs under Franklin Roosevelt fifties- under both Truman and EIsenhower the welcome ends and apart from the bracero program for agriculture, the Eisenhower administration conducts Operation Wetback. The House of Representatives Archives show the history of Hispanics in the southwest and immigration from Mexico in the period of the 1930's to the 1950's. One sees the effects of the Depression and Labor's AFL CIO and trade unions favoring limits on immigration from Mexico because of the difficulties American citizens were having finding jobs during the 1929-1934 period. Herbert Hoover moved illegal immigrants back to Mexico in the first program at a time when there were strict limits to Asians emigrating to the US. For much of the twenties the border was left open to meet the needs of the southwest farms for Mexican labor. Then came the war when Mexican Americans joined the war effort in great numbers. After the war the difficulty of finding jobs for troops returning to the US created new pressures to limit immigration. Ike setup Operation wetback to deport about 1 million migrants.   ...

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Arvind Subramanium, outgoing Chief Economic Adviser to the prime minister in an interview with the Hindu newspaper, shares some of the knowledge he gained from failures and successes. The key lesson he gained is that it is important to have independent advisers in government who can speak their mind. Finance minister Jaitley has embraced this point, that such an adviser is not just one more part in the technocratic machinery of government. The success in getting GST he says shows that cooperative federalism is needed going forward as a kind of technology for many changes, including agriculture, DBT.  Subramanium calls the Economic Survey a success with 350,000 unique visitors. He likes the independence and distance of the CEA job to propagate the big ideas combined with closeness to decisionmakers. He counts as a failure not being able to create an office of CEA to the states, a request from 7 chief ministers and state finance ministers. Subramanium sees the need for more people in government with specific expertise in different areas as opposed to generalists as the work of government is becoming much more sophisticated. There is much need for talent and the flow of lateral talent into government.  Responding to economic issues such as the impact of oil prices on the economy Subramanium sees CAD at 2%, inflation at 4.5% much better compared to 2013 levels of double digits and not in unhealthy territory and very manageable. He sees risks in the impact of a combination of oil prices, dollar appreciation, and currency trade wars that are happening. On Iranian oil imports and strict U.S. sanctions on importers Subramanium sees the cost of not complying as stiff once you are in the dollar trading system. On demonetisation he sees there are short term costs and potential long term gains that requires an assessment every 2-3 years provisionally, what happened to tax and formalization, and the costs. Including costs in inconvenience and hardship for informal cash intensive sectors noted in the Economic Survey. For GST he says the revenue growth rate is 16-17% in aggregate for next year, growing 12% in the first year after a difficult implementation. The poorer states have seen an expansion of tax base and revenue performance is unprecedented.    ...

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Vegetable prices in China went up by 22% in July 2010, from a year earlier, and grain prices went up by 12%, eggs by 8%. About a third of household budgets go to food in the budgets of people in India and China. Wheat prices are climbing on world markets after the ban on Russian exports, and rice prices are also climbing with the floods in Pakistan ruining the rice crop- Pakistan being the No.3 world's rice exporter. Personal spending accounts for 36% of overall GDP in China and 57% in India. Food prices in China were up 6.8% in July, 2010. Industrialization in China, and agricultural land freely taken over for factory sites with the consent of local authorites, may be a complicating factor. See the link to BYD's acquisition of agricultural land for factory site.

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Ukraine with its rich soil used to produce 40% of the agricultural output of the Soviet Union. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 governments cbroke up the old state farms and gave plots to ordinary Ukrainians. These small landowners lacking the capital to invest usually planted small vegetable plots or let animal graze. About 55 million acres of arable land in Russia, Kazakhstan and the Ukraine remain uncultivated. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization in that region 494 million acres cultivated in 1992 dropped to only 437 million acres by 2005. Comparable figures for Brazil show that from 1992 are 128 growing to 146 million acres by 2005, and China growing from 306 to 350 million acres by 2005. The USA's figures show slight drop from 454 to 432 million acres by 2005. These 55 million acres of rich agricultural land can produce an additional 115 million metric tons of wheat per year which would be 20% of the total world production today. For this to happen this small plots have to be stitched together to form larger modern farms which can get captial investment and be run along modern lines. This is being attempted in the region by several companies. Landkom and other companies are trying to do this even though this is a difficult environment to operate in with corruption high in Ukraine and the attitude to foreign investment not always positive. With a large part of technology gains in agriculture already harnessed the search is now for more arable land to be put into cultivation....

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The water situation on the Euphrates river. Three reporters for the NYT, Amir, Mohammed, and Abeer, join NYT's Campbell Robertson in talking to farmers along different stretches of theEuphrates river in Iraq, near Jubaish, Karbala and where it meets the Tigris. The causes of the problem are the water policies of TUrkey and Syria which are the upstrema countries and have built dams along the river which control its flow, a two year drought, and water mismanagement and neglect in Iraq. The river is significantly smaller now, and at this rate could be half of what it once was. It affects rice and wheat fields along the river which are turning into scorched dirt, canals becoming small streams, and water treatment plants sitting idle. The area for wheat and barley in the rainfed north is down 95%, and the date and citrus orchards in the east are dry. There are no treaties for water use with Turkey and Syria, so the situation is unpredictable. Recently Turkey doubled the waer flow into the Euphrates, a mover that increased water flow to ablut 60% to cover half the irrigation requirements for the rice growing season....

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Lulu Garcia-Navarro interviews Homeland Security head Alejandro Mayorkas and asks him direct questions about the border with Mexico, published Feb 2, 2024 in NYT. Why the surge in migrants asks Navarro. Mayorkas is himself a Cuban born immigrant. Republicans in the House are impeaching Mayorkas. Navarro asks can you clearly say what has gotten us to this place and what went wrong? Clearly something had happened in Latin America. Central America drove migrants north after conflicts in Salvador, in Nicaragua and drought affecting Guatemala's agriculture for over 2 decades under different administrations. Mayorkas says in response to the question that the world is experiencing the largest level of human displacement that it has seen since World War II. He says the entire hemisphere is experiencing the enormous displacement in Venezuela as its economy collapsed. During the nineteenth century after president Monroe put forward the Monroe Doctrine that created a uniquely American sphere that asked European powers to stay away from the Americas north and south, any attempt by European powers was seen as an hostile act. It was American opposition to European colonialism. By the time of the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations this policy was not followed with the intervention of the Soviet Union in Cuba leading to a a wave of refugees from Cuba in the sixties. In the last decade the situation in Venezuela has worsened to the point that 8 million people have left Venezuela for neighboring nations, 2 million to Colombia alone, destabilizing the southern hemisphere. Venezuelans many from the educated middle class form the bulk of the surge in migrants across the US border with Mexico in 2022 and 2023. The problems were actually exacerbated under the Republican administration as the Venezuelan inflation spiralled after 2016 skyrocketing into hyper inflation by 2018 leading to the flow of immigrants outward that reached 8 million. This kind of hyperinflation the worst in the history of Latin America need not have happened with better managing of the crisis at that time. Mayorkas says the problem is that America's system of asylum is broken and both parties need to fix it. This is proposed by Tillis-Graham and Lankford all Republicans in the US Senate with president Biden's support. When he joined the Department of Homeland Security in 2009 Mayorkas says, US Border Patrol chief told him the real problem was that from the moment a migrant claims asylum at the border under US law and the adjudication of that claim it takes several years. This is the root of the problem the law can be fixed with the will of enlightened persons in both parties by simply passing a new law. Immigrants from Latin America are just as likely to vote Republican as Democratic and this may be particularly true for Venezuela's middle class that left the country as the economy collapsed with policies that led to inflation not seen in this hemisphere.  The other alternative is for the US and both parties to agree to what would be today's version of the Monroe doctrine- then opposing European colonialism, now opposing the breakup from within of Democratic countries in Latin America leading to waves of migration north of the border and causing upheavals all over the western hemisphere. Much less a policy of such resolution both parties have failed to fix basic policies of asylum and parole that today are being addressed by legislation being put together by Senator Lankford of Oklahoma, Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, Senator Tillis of North Carolina, three core states that are Republican since the Civil War, with the help of the White House and Senator Schumer. Yet in the House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson calls it dead on arrival simply refusing to break the status quo. ...

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Reports by David Sanger and other reporters from the NYT on the situation in Ukraine as seen from the US, Russian, European, and Ukrainian sides. Russian president Putin sees Ukraine as part of the Russian cultural and economic sphere with deep ties to Ukraine in its history. The western parts of Ukraine near Poland and near the capital Kiev see their future more in relation to other Eastern European countries that have moved closer to or joined the European Union such as Poland and the Baltic republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. It is not clear even to advisors to the Russian government what Mr. Putin's intentions and plans are. Russia has not yet recognized the two breakaway republics in Eastern Ukraine based in Donestsk.  Some of the key points in Ukraine's recent history- one needs to know this because Ukraine has a difficult history in its relations with Poland/Lithuania and with Russia alternating over centuries, with neither relationship providing the kind of government that would have helped Ukraine's people. Formed only in 1991 the Republic of Ukraine has a long history since 1500 of being part of Poland and Lithuania, and later part of Russia, with some parts of Ukraine under the Austrian Hapsburgs till 1900. Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union in the 1920's to the 1950's in one phase in which it suffered badly with collectivization of agriculture under Communist Soviet leadership and famines. In the second phase of Soviet rule after the 1950's Ukraine made a dramatic recovery as Krushchev assumed control with Leonid Brezhnev who was from Ukraine. After 1964 Brezhnev ran the the Soviet Union till 1984 and this was a good period for Ukraine. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1990 and Russian leader Yeltsin separated Ukraine and Belarus to go their own ways as separate countries from Russia. For 1990-2000 Ukraine did badly losing about 60% of its GDP, a situation also experienced by Russia with economic instability. Russia recovered under Putin, yet Ukraine has struggled since because of mismanagement under different governments and widespread entrenched corruption.  Governments alternated in the period 2000 to 2020 between ones friendly to Russia and friendly to Poland and European Union. This happened in 2004 and again with protests in 2014. The protests in 2014 in Kiev and Lviv led to a government that favored closer ties with EU and NATO. It is this pendulum swing that is Ukraine's and Eastern Europe's experience in the 20th century and it continues into the 21st. What Russia wants is for Ukraine to not be a place for NATO operations, even if it is not allied to Russia after Russian president Putin was disappointed with the Russian allied government's performance under Yanukovich in the 2000-2014 period with corruption and mismanagement. France in the 16th and to 18th century is described by Brendan Simms of Cambridge in his new book on Europe, as needing the external danger for unity, and unity to meet external danger. This could be true also for Russia as the danger posed by NATO helps bring unity to Russia. And this could be a way to unify Russia and provide it with the confidence that it seeks in its effort for parity with the European Union and the US, China in the 21st century.   ...

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Declining agricultural exports and lower prices are expected to lead to U.S. net farm income dropping by 38% to $55.9 billion in 2015, according to the USDA. Importers such as Egypt and Japan can buy wheat in export markets at lower prices from France, Russia and other countries- U.S wheat going at $205 a ton, French wheat at $193 per ton, and Russian wheat at $194, according to grain analysts. Depreciating currencies in Russia and Eastern Europe mean sellers can sell in dollars and convert to local currencies.

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What Peter Bernstein, 90, remembers about the Great Depression. He says one was conscious of it evertime you walked outside on the stree, and people looked so threadbare. A mass of policy errors made the situation worse. And life was different then, more like a developing country as the USA went through the throes of urbanization and industrialization. Food took up about a quarter of disposable income compared to one tenth today. About 20% of the jobs were in agriculture in 1930, compared to 2% today. Less than half of the jobs were in service industries in 1930 compared to 75% today. And there were no food stamps, no unemployment insurance, no social security, no medicaid and medicare, none of the automatic income things that maintain income in the USA today for people out of work. Economist Robert Solow, 90, remembers growing up in Brooklyn, New York, and how his parents constantly worried about the next month's money. Paul Samuelson, another economist, 93, remembers attending classes at the University of Chicago during the depression years. And he says the economics lecures were on laissez-faire principles, which stopped making sense when he looked out the windows and from what he saw and heard on the street. Showing how out of touch policies were in the early years when the depression's worst chartacteristics took shape. However we are in the early stages of this, and it can still be very painful as people make it through the storms ahead. What will things look like as the nations unemployment rate hits 10% by 2010,? Which means things are much much worse in parts of the country like the midwest, where industries like the automobile industry depend on sales of vehicles which have seen sales go down from 15 million vehicles down to 9 million annualized in 2009, and may see further declines in 2010....

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Irish voters rejected the Lisbon treaty 53% to 47%. Ireland joined the EU in 1973 and has gone during this period from the poorest country in the bloc to the second richest in per capita terms after Luxembourg. As the first attemp to get approval of an EU constitution for a closer political union was rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005, the effort was modified to take out the EU flag and call it a treaty and not a constitution and to go the route of approval by parliaments in each country instead of elections. But Ireland's constitution required a referendum and now Ireland has rejected the treaty. The Irish generally have favored the EU so it will give more thought to those who favor closer political union about how to proceed from here. Opposition to it in Ireland was based on a fear that Irish taxes would have to be raised and make Ireland less attractive for investors, and fear that the EU's global free trade stance meant that cheap food imports would be forced on Ireland and hurt Irish agriculture, but the Lisbon treaty has little to do with taxes and farming. The Lisbon treaty calls for a EU President that is appointed and ceate a Foreign Minister who can speak for the EU and greater powers to legislate in areas like immigration. How will EU supporters proceed from here? One is to go for ratification by the Parliaments of the 26 other countries in the EU without risking a vote. Another is to work on a two speed Europe with core countries like Germany and France and Spain and Portugal and Italy forming a political union and countries like the UK and Netherlands taking a more trade and economic based union approach. Also subject of discussion will be how to get the message of European union across, what is it about, and what are the institutions for, according to one expert at Oxford University....

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Demand for biofuels, global warming on food supply in places like Australia, increased demand for food as living standards rise, population growth in Asia, affects food supplies and increase food prices.

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Small shortfall in China's agricultural production can make a big difference in world food prices. A 5% shortfall in China's grain harvest can take up 20% of current global grain exports, according to an analyst at Standard Chartered Bank. China's food imports are small- about 3% according to an economist at HSBC. Just a small increase in the exports as a result of drought can have a large increase in food prices. The use of good agricultural land in places like Shandong province for industry, means more of the agricultural production is being shifted to the drier north, which has water shortages. China's agricultural land is shrinking- going down by 12 million hectares since 2000 according to the government.