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Belgium, Denmark, France and Sweden are the only major countries that have enshrined gender equality in laws for the workplace, according to a World Bank report.

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Mario Bartiromo's interview with Ken Lewis, CEO of Bank of America, in Feb. 2009.

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One survey in 2021 shows that about 73% of workers in all age groups are feeling burnout since the pandemic started says this BBC report on Work Life. The situation is the worst for young workers in their twenties who have the least work capital and the most work. For these Generation Z workers the burnout rate is higher at 80%. This presents a huge problem for mental health. Across all age groups volume of work is up over 50% with the highest for young inexperienced workers who are pushed to the limit, working late hours and not able to say no. 

This situation shows that so much has happened during the pandemic that mental health is a major priority in 2022 and beyond.

 

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A nuclear fusion experiment at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California where researchers have managed to release more energy than is used to heat the fuel with lasers. Nuclear fusion involves smashing together light elements such as hydrogen to form heavier elements releasing a burst of energy in the process. 

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Generation Z, the generation born between mid 1990's and 2010 is highly collaborative and favors working together. It is passionate about unionizing workers as a way to prevent more workers from falling into poverty or income insecurity during a cost of living crisis, and to obtain benefits from employers such as time off for illness or for things essential for quality of life. In 2023 71% of the American public supports unions and unionizing as the pendulum has swung too far in the favor of employers and large companies with declining union membership and a culture that often treats workers with a lack of respect or dignity.

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Housing and migration are major issues in the Dutch election. Omtzight is an intellectual who heads the New Social Contract Party that has economic policies to help working families and also wants to see curbs on migration. It ends a period of 14 years in which Mark Rutte a moderate was prime minister, 

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 Robert Costa CBS: Are you worried about the Senate majority? It's a narrow majority for you right now. What's your candid assessment about the Senate majority and Democratic chances? Chuck Schumer, US Senate Majority Leader:  My candid assessment is we're going to not only win the Senate, but we have a good chance to pick up a seat or two. Our candidates, our senators, are running on their records of accomplishment. And that's why they're running ahead of even the national ticket. Because when they show all the good stuff we're bringing to their states, through the infrastructure bill, through the Chips and Science Bill, was so many good new manufacturing jobs, through bringing broadband to rural areas for the first time, where rural areas desperately needed. You know, Franklin Roosevelt said in the 1930s, electricity was a necessity and brought it to them. We're doing the same thing with broad bands, which in the 21st century is a necessity-- ...

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After the Biden executive order closing the Mexico Border following 2500 illegal border crossings a day there remains the challenge of increased funding for DHS Border Control for Asylum processing officers and immigration judges, so that the intent of the executive order can be implemented effectively. Making the claim of asylum requires being in the country, a process that provides an incentive to cross the border from Mexico. Bipartisan legislation is required as the duty of Congress to address these immigration problems so that the Border issue does not become one on which all other problems facing the US can be put on hold and not tackled making the US fall behind in development, infrastructure, climate change action, education, supply chain, and health care, resulting in reducing the standard of living in the US.

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Most business leaders tacit support for Biden because of predictability in policy and infrastructure investments is covered in this NYT report by Casselman and Tankersley.

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Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer interview by NYT's Lulu Navarro looks at the swing state of Michigan and its popular governor. Asked about president president Biden's 3 trillion dollar investments in Manufacturing, in Chips and Science, in Infrastructure, Whitmer says the public is still just coming out of the pandemic and has seen only some of the beneficial effects of this program of massive investment in the US economy. She says it is similar to what she heard from Michiganders which amounted to "Governor Fix the Dam Roads." She says the former president Trump lacks any such vision for the US economy, and for the future. Of the present time Whitmer says that the pandemic has taken a toll in people's lives, people are stressed out, and just hanging in there trying to pay the grocery bills, get the kids to school, and show up at work. They have hardly the time to figure out what the CHIPS Act means. Whitmer is in her second term as governor and comes from the western part of the state around Grand Rapids which is traditionally Republican. In her election for governor she was able to win with good margins in this western part of the State even as a Democrat. This interview show Whitmer wanting to be able to work with Republicans in the best interests of the state and the Nation. ...

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With the end of the yen carry trade and the flight to safety the surges 10% last week.

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 India would be 27% richer if it rebalanced its workforce to include more women, according to the IMF. Women's participation in the workforce is the lowest of the G20 countries except Saudi Arabia. Contributing only one sixth of economic output, half the global average. The employment rate of women in India has dropped instead of rising from its low level, an alarm signal. It was 35% in 2005, now in 2018 it is 26%. In the last decade the economy has more than doubled in size and number of working age women, according to the IMF is 470 million. Part of the reason is that more girls are in school. Conservative social rules mean that women are discouraged by their families or in-laws from working outside the home. As families become richer more women stop working. The lack of manufacturing jobs is also a constraint. Men have taken 90% of the 36 million jobs in industry created since 2005. Census data show that more than one third of women would take jobs if they were available. Urbanization and the shift to cities means less work in farming, mechanization of farming makes for less agricultural work. Changes in attitudes and better policies for maternity leave and women friendly workplace could help. Because most of the jobs are still in the informal economy, this is not as effective today but could make a difference in the future as more formal jobs are generated. Attitudes where men do more housework can make a difference. If men spent about 2 hours doing dishes and putting kids to bed, there would be a 10% increase in women's participation rate in the workforce, according to a World Bank study. One study shows this would add 550 billion dollars to India's economy. True especially as more women are getting university degrees and high school education. and the census study shows women have the desire to work if cultural attitudes, more men doing housework, and the job market were to change.       ...

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To really understand American history from its founding with the Mayflower voyage read the two volumes of Francis Parkman of the period between 1600-1756 that is rarely read and understood about how the American Indians and the French, the British, lived and built new settlements on the American continent. It is told in a very readable and authentic way by the greatest history and story book teller of this period. Library of America published Francis Parkman's France and England in North America. The Washington Post said that a thousand years from now, if their are still Americans here, Parkman will be their Homer. Too much of the American story told by only one person and PBS documentaries. One can learn about it simply by reading about it through different books, asking one's own questions,  and coming up with one's own understanding of American history which would be more authentic. This would include excellent biographies written by authors such as David McCullough whose range and vision combined with other authors including Barbara Tuchman for the 19th century, and many British authors such as Roger Knight covering the Napoleonic period offer a better picture of European and American history intermingled, a better perspective than the monopoly business venture that history becomes with these PBS documentaries by one person.           ...

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FBI's Kash Patel enjoying himself at US Olympic mens hockey finals in Milan as US get Olympic gold in overtime 2-1 against Canda, first win in 46 years. He makes time for the exciting game in a busy schedule. Patel plays ice hockey and is an ardent hockey fan. 

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Simon Wilde of The Times Analysis of a Test cricket series for the Ages, India vs England 2025- showing 10 Key Moments in the Series of 5 Tests over 25 days of cricket. He compares it to Ashes cricket series back to 1981, 2005, and 2023. I would go furhter back to the West Indies Australia series of 1960 which ended up tied, with both sides having the same score down to the last run. It was a series in which Richie Benaud and Gary Sobers played major roles. Siraj has Christiano Ronaldo on his phone screen with the words BELIEVE! as he prepares for the final day's bowling. The catch of Siraj that did not count as he went over the boundary line for Brooks, and the last ball of the match at the Oval that flattened the wicket of Atkinson, the fielding effort of Woakes that cost him a dislocated shoulder and his heroic effort to come out for the 10th wicket when it was painful to run, the burst of sixes and fours knock of Sundar as India went up to 396, and the tense nervousness of the crowd in the final moments, Gill's perplexed face as he arranged the fielding deep at the boundary lines to avoid fours and the final sigh of relief when Siraj bowled out Atkinson- these were the moments that linger in the memory of the final test at the Oval in London. ...

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Michel Barnier is approved by 52% of French people in an Ifop poll, yet 74% think he will not last long. The NFP will call a no confidence motion when its candidate 37 year old Lucie Castets of the Finance Ministry was turned down by Macron. The RN of Marie Le Pen will support Barnier for now and Marie Le Pen says she expects new elections within 1 year. Barnier supports halting migration to France for 4 years, a position RN of Le Pen supports. Denmark with a socialist government has taken similar position. By taking strong action on migration as northern and southern Europe both shift to this policy including Socialist parties, the EU as is happening in the US can address fundamental issues of cost of living action, infrastructure investment and investment in education, healthcare, science and technology competitiveness, renewable energy. Removing the migration issue can put a clear focus on the action needed to address these problems.

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It took 75 years for a British prime minister to visit Gandhi Ashram on the banks of the Sabarmati river in Ahmedabad. George Bernard Shaw, the English writer, in a handwritten note at the Nehru museum in Allahabad after meeting Gandhi says "ask somebody 100 years hence" about Gandhi's contribution to the world. Today it is more clearer than ever. Mohandas Gandhi wrote Hind Swaraj on a ship from South Africa to London in 1910 after negotiating with the British government on behalf of Indians in South Africa. In 1915 Gandhi returned to India and used his savings to buy 110 acres of land for the ashram on the banks of the river Sabarmati in Ahmedabad. By 1923 Gandhi was questioning the expenditures of the British government that did little for the development of the country and a budget that was focused on military expenditures, in his magazine Young India, with nothing for developing the country except for railways and transport. Gandhi launched his non cooperation movement for self-rule or Swaraj from the Ashram. By 1937 elections were held and the first provincial assemblies were set up in an experiment for self-rule. In 1930 the Salt March for noncooperation in the British salt monopoly, salt seen as the common man's right, was launched from the Ashram. In 1942 the Quit India movement was launched in the middle of World War II. In 1945 after Labour party's Clement Atlee won the election in a landslide against Winston Churchill the path opened for Britain to start negotiations with Gandhi for independence. In 1947 India was free. Why 75 years for a British prime minister? Much of the period after 1950's was lost in the recovery from partition, wars on Kashmir, China's entry into Tibet and the invasion of India. The non aligned movement under Nehru and Indira Gandhi and successor governments to 2000 appearing more as voicing a grievance for being left out led to an ambivalence of the US and UK towards India, and reflected a period when India was small in economic terms and lacked the opportunity to find its place in the world as a country with the largest population in the world. Which today with with Bangladesh and Indonesia sharing a common history of Hinduism and Buddhism represents 1.6 billion people. In the Nehru home museum in Allahabad there is a hand written note by British writer George Bernard Shaw who visited India and the Nehru home. It says it would take maybe 100 years before the world realized the significance of what Gandhi had done and only at that time would the world truly understand Mr. Gandhi. Mr. Boris Johnson's effort to make up for 75 years that went by without UK prime minister's visit to Gandhi Ashram in Ahmedabad is one such moment that George Bernard Shaw had seen coming.  George Bernard Shaw's handwritten not at the Nehru Museum in Allahabad says- "What is the place of Mahatma Gandhi in political philosophy? I do not know. Ask somebody a century hence. I recollect Gandhi as only a very likeable fellow- Mahatma from India. We did not talk Mahatma shop."       G. Bernard Shaw            28/6/1947     ...

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John Taylor challenges Ben Bernanke's defence of why he and Greenspan at the Fed kept interests rates too low for too long thus helping create the housing bubble. Bernanke ignored the Taylor rule which at the time would have called for increasing interest rates, using forecasted inflation which turned out to be too low rather than actual inflation as the Taylor rule would call for, and which had been used says John Taylor in the previous 20 years for proper central bank interest rate policy actions.

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The stronger T cell responses in women that help them fight the coronavirus better than men.