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A state wide ban on single use plastic bags goes into effect in New York state March 1, 2020. This is part of a global push to get rid of single use plastic bags that pollute the environment, end up in waterways, rivers, on trees and landfills. Some clues are offered here on why store owners still used plastic bags, and why large grocery chains still use plastic. The plastic bags cost much less than paper bags. Here one small store owner says 100,000 plastic bags cost him $2000, the same number of paper bags $15,000. New York state uses 23 million single use plastic bags a year. A public education campaign is underway. New York city requires stores to charge 5 cents per paper bag, with 3 cents going to an environmental fund and 2 cents to a the local government. Astonishingly for a large city in a developed country this report shows a Moroccan immigrant saying that it is already popular in her home country Morocco where the ban on single use plastic bags has reduced litter. Americans are not used to carrying reusable bags to the grocery store in the way Germans or people in other countries are. ...

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The rapidly changing demographics as the U.S. becomes more of a multicultural society. For the first time minority babies formed a majority in 2011 with 50.4% of new babies, according to the Census Bureau. The median age of the non-Hispanic White population is 42 compared to 28 for Hispanics. Hispanics are right at the child bearing age. This also raises the issue of how the U.S. will educate the minority population. Today 13% of Hispanics have college degrees, 18% of Blacks and 31% of Whites. High school graduation rates in places like New York City for Hispanics are lagging far behind other groups. The economic downturn after the 2008 financial crisis has worsened the educational prospects for Hispanics and other minorities. The education of minority children is essential to improve the competitiveness of the U.S. in a global economy, as the educational levels in emerging markets accelerates with more opportunities.

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The Indian government's chief economic advisor, Kaushik Basu, says the opening up of India's retail sector would have benefitted everyone including middle traders. This would happen because the retail sector would go through a vast expansion creating room for more players even though the per unit margin from products would go down. Experts say the infusion of new technologies and investment in India's supply chain and cold storage setup would help reduce food prices and inflation. Basu made the comments at the launching of the New Oxford Companion to Economics in India in Feb 2012. Basu is co-editor and it has contributions from Ratan Tata, Pranab Mukherjee, and Nandan Nilekhani.

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The large 11 point margin for State Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz, a Democrat, shows the effect of the issues of women's rights to abortion and of democracy are having in the state. She promised to use the new 4-3 majority in the Wisconsin State Supreme Court to nullify Wisconsin's 1849 abortion ban and overturn the state's gerrymandered Republican friendly legislative maps. It also shows the changes in the midwestern states. In Chicago Brandon Johnson came from behind to win the Mayoral election calling for new taxes and a vast program of social programs, in addition to a community involvement effort to fight crime over a candidate that focussed on the crime issue and policing. Happening in the same week these two elections give president Biden  more confidence going into the 2024 campaign that people in the midwestern states understand Mr. Biden's approach of investing in people and infrastructure with higher taxes, and rebuilding American manufacturing and technology, protecting worker rights and incomes. ...

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US secretary of state Anthony Blinken meets Indian foreign minister Jaishankar, and prime minister Modi in New Delhi. India and the US are working together on how to make vaccine supplies accessible and affordable in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. To promote the vaccination drive in India the US announced an additional $25 million to the $200 million announced earlier, during Anthony Blinken's visit to New Delhi. Post pandemic economic recovery was also a subject of discussions. Blinken thanked Jaishankar for collaborative discussion on many points, including security in the Indo-Pacific region. He went on to say that "the US welcomes India's emergence as a leading global power." Blinken also said that the future in the 21st century will be written in the Indo-Pacific region.  Blinken thanked Jaishankar for the collaborative discussions on many topics, including trade and economy, and how to promote greater bilateral investments to deepen commercial ties. ...

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Britain will offer a pathway to citizenship to 3 million Chinese in Hong Kong, British Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab confirmed an earlier statement. This applies to British National Overseas status (BNO) and their dependents upto 3 million. He stated that the new security law to control protests in Hong Kong were a "flagrant" violation of the agreement made with China 23 years ago.  He called it a "clear and serious breach of the joint declaration" of the two countries in 1997. The new arrivals from Hong Kong and their dependents will be given 5 years limited leave to stay and work in the country, at that point they can apply for settled status and after 1 year of settled status they can apply for British citizenship. The Foreign Office expressed alarm at one provision article 38 of the security law that seeks jurisdiction over anyone who criticizes China wherever they are in the world, putting them at risk if they travel to Hong Kong or China. ...

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The new administration of Francois Hollande in France includes Pierre Moscovici, as Finance Minister. Moscovici was European Affairs minister in 1997-2002 during the formative period of the European Union, served in the European parliament and wrote a book on economics with Hollande. This brings someone with deep EU experience in a critical role of shaping EU policies. Laurent Fabius, is Foreign Minister. Fabius was prime minister in the 1980's. Michel Sapin, a former finance minister is minister for Employment, Labor, and Social Dialogue. The credibility, talent and experience of this team will be critical as the EU enters a difficult phase in 2012-2013.

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Shigeu Ishiba is elected the new LDP leader and prime minister of Japan. He is 67 years and was defense minister. This means the replacement for Fumio Kishida is not a younger leader with new ideas as was said to be the intent behind Kishida stepping aside. Ishiba is a son of a former cabinet minister, something too common in Japan. He was a critic of Abe and Kishida, and is depended upon to clean up corruption in the LDP. Other than that this is still an LDP that has no new solutions, the same old ideas for improving the economic future of the Japanese people, not the kind of fresh thinking that Harris is bringing to the US and which some expected would come from Kishida stepping aside for a younger person with new ideas.

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The Biden administration has set new rules for restricting leading edge chip manufacturing in China. The policy is intended to prevent military use of advanced chip technologies by China, a policy adopted by Xi Jinping in China. US and China have differences on Taiwan and the Asia-Pacific region. Companies making chips will have to decide if they will invest in the US or China. Any leading edge manufacturing in China of chips over $100,000 or increasing manufacturing capacity by 5% will lead to restrictions being placed on these manufacturers for working with the US. This sends a clear message about US policy for leading edge chip technologies that the US seeks to protect from misuse by other countries.

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Shabana Mahmood, Labour MP, is Keir Starmer's campaign chief for the Labour party. She describes how she struggled over the years to bring the party to where it is now- having a new level of support from the British people. She is Labour MP for Birmingham Ladywood. Her first experience with Labour comes from being with her father who was chairman of the Labour party in the area she represents in parliament. Her father was an engineer who came from Kashmir, had been to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and had a great deal of reverence for the British system of parliamentary government. Mahmood met Sunak at Lincoln's College, Oxford, in her junior year. 

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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell offered a way out of the stalemate in talks between the Obama White House and Republican leaders Boehner and Cantor. McConnell's proposal designed to meet the August 2nd 2011 deadlinefor raising the U.S. debt limit is to give the President new authority to raise the federal debt limit. It would place the entire responsibility for raising the debt limit on the President. Under this proposal Republicans would not have to vote to raise the debt limit. Republicans can then shift the effort for large spending cuts to the congressional appropriations process.

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Modi's success in tackling problems of electricity development in Gujarat state and the model for India, as a new Modi administration is elected for India in 2014. Other areas that are the focus for development include high speed rail and transportation, other infrastructure development, creating new jobs in manufacturing. Modi made three trips to China in the last decade as a four term chief minister of Gujarat state (similiar to a governor of a U.S. state), and has adopted a China type focus on infrastructure development and manufacturing for the western state of Gujarat, which was part of the old Bombay state in British times. Mumbai, the new name for the old British settlement of Bombay on the west coast, is about 300 miles south of the major Gujarat city of Ahmedabad, at one time a major textile manufacturing center. Mumbai and commercial minded people from Gujarat occupy a role similiar to Shanghai in India's economic development. Under British times trading minded Gujaratis settled on the east and southern coast of Africa, in the Persian Gulf, with retail businesses. Of India's two largest companies the Reliance Group made its early start in textiles in Gujarat in the seventies, set up by a young emigrant who returned from the Persian Gulf. The Tata Group which owns Land Rover was set up by a Parsi immigrant community in Gujarat. Its founder Jamshedji Tata set up India's steel industry under the British at the turn of the century. The Parsis settled in Navsari, Gujarat, immigrating from Iran and other parts of the Persian Gulf centuries ago. When the media talks of Modi's origins as a tea seller's son, one has to take this in the context of the origins of people such as Reliance founder Ambani who was the son of a schoolteacher from a rural village in Gujarat. With about a 1000 mile coastline facing the Persian Gulf, Gujarat has been known to engage in the textile trade long before the arrival of the Portuguese and the British in the 1600's, and before the Muslim period from the 1300's. Many Gujaratis settled in Mumbai and are a key part of the commercial, financial center in the city. Just as Britain with its commercial centre of London evolved over centuries with commerce affecting attitudes towards democracy, free media and capitalism compared to more feudal France, Gujarat and Mumbai has evolved in a similiar manner compared to other states in the north of India. With all the media infomation and misinformation on Modi's mishandling of communal riots little has been said of the unique position of Gujarat and Gujaratis in the industrial development and modernization of India. Compared to other parts of India historically there is a greater degree of tolerance in Gujarat for other communities, similiar to Britain's compared to France and Spain, because of this commercial outward looking orientation for new ideas. ...

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China's view on its new Air Defense Zone as expressed by the Foreign Ministry is that if European countries and Japan are entitled to set their own air defense zones then China should be able to set its own zone. The differences with Asian neigbors and the U.S. arises over the fact that this overlaps with the zones of S. Korea, Japan and Taiwan and also covers the area of the disputed Senkaku Islands. Other problems lie in the ambiguous wording and failure to share this information in advance with other countries. As it stands B-52's from the U.S. and Japanese planes entered the zone on Nov. 29, and Chinese fighter jets tracked the planes but there was no incident. U.S. civilian airlines have agreed to follow the rules set by China for the air defense zone, and the U.S. government says it will let the airlines make the decision to follow the zone. The EU protested the setting up of the new air defense zone.

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Kristof of the NYT says about American unions that the basic reality is that with the decline of trade unions in the last two decades workers got stiffed. The wages of new auto workers at $17 an hour dropped to levels close to the minimum wage of $16 in California in 2022. At $34,000 a year these workers were below the Federal Poverty Level for families of $35,000 to $40,000. Workers lost dignity and standards of living declined. After 15 years of covering the crisis of America's working class he says he lost his disdain for unions, and he has come to believe that unions are not just good for the workers but also for America itself. Unions he says are imperfect just as capitalism is imperfect, but essential for America.

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The pandemic exposed Germany's digitization infrastructure weaknesses. A lot will need to change in education in Germany to meet new upheavals as digitization changes the nature of work in the job market. Digitization, automation, and rise of electromobility, knowledge economy will change how the world and Germany works. More and more knowledge work means Germany will need to change its education in many fields. Some experts say it is the political failing of the state that digital education is not a subject in schools. In the car industry alone the rise of electromobility could cost 200,000 jobs a result of a study by Ifo for car industry association VDA. New jobs will be created in other professions and industries as many as 2.1 million jobs in health, training, teaching, management and administration.

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Boris Johnson, British prime minister has a close knit team in the new cabinet. The separate back office teams of the prime minister and the chancellor are now integrated so that there is a clear direction coming from 10 Downing Street. This was not happening when Mr. Javid was chancellor as there were wide differences on policy and compromises were being made. Mr. Javid was in the views of Mr. Johnson's team too focused on balancing the budget. Fiscal rules had to be relaxed if infrastructure promises are to be kept and action taken quickly. Mr. Johnson told his new cabinet at the first meeting- "we have to repay the trust of people who voted for us in huge numbers in December and who look forward to us delivering."

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Nagourney and Dougherty of the NYT give this report on the housing crisis in California by 2017 with the median cost of a home skyrocketing to twice the figure for the U.S. This price is now $500,000. The result is longer commutes even for people with incomes over $150,000 a year, stretching to as much as 2 hours one way. It means people lacking housing stay in vans with improvised kitchens and other sleeping arrangements. Not enough homes are being built because of strict zoning and planning regulations that are kept in place by neighborhood groups, effectively excluding outsiders. Now its not just the coastal areas that are affected but the whole state. Governor Brown of California tried to pass a measure in 2016 that would push communities to build more affordable housing, and ran into opposition from local officials and environmentalists. Now the opinion in the state is changing with younger people denied a chance at decent housing at the forefront and some elected officials such as the Mayor of Los Angeles, Mr. Eric Garcetti. A new bill in the state legislature would make it harder for cities that are falling behind in building housing to lose the right for City Council to hold back on approval of new construction, effectively bypassing it. California's law capping property taxes after Proposition 13 was passed in 1978 has also held back construction. Other factors are the building of new offices for  companies in the tech boom around San Francisco without a corresponding effort to build new homes for these new office workers. California was slow to respond to housing needs for young people, with only 311,000 housing units built since 2006. ...

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A WSJ study showing the plans offered under the new U.S. Health Care Law in the state of Oregon. For young people ages 18-34 earning about $17,000 and uninsured the law offers a bargain with insurance premiums monthly at about $52 and deductibles as low as $100, because of higher subsidies. The situation changes at incomes of $29,000 when the deductibles are about $6300 and the premiums per month at about $147 a month, because subsidies are much smaller, or deductibles dropping to $2500 at $172 in monthly premium. The federal subsidies disappear for single people under age 30 earning much more than $26,000 because of the way the law places them to specific plans on each state's exchange. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, there are 11.6 million people in the U.S. ages 18-34 who are uninsured. The federal government has to get as many of these people to get insurance so that the cost of medical care for the elderly can be supported.

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Douglas Wilson was born in Annapolis, Maryland, before his father, a Baptist pastor, moved the family to Idaho in the American West.  Wilson started a Christian revival movement from Christ Church, Idaho, which is based on his views of Calvinism and the original teachings of Christianity dating back to the Mayflower Compact of 1602 set in Geneva, which outlined the vision of the early colonists to America of the relations between the church and the government, setting forth their vision. This is America going back to the earliest days in 1600, of Britain and Northern Europe, and the settlement of a vast continent 185 years before the drafting at a convention for the new Republic, of the United States of America the 13 original colonies in 1787. The original roots of the Nation in the Geneva Compact of 1602 can still be seen in Geneva, Switzerland, near the Calvinist cathedral in the center of the French Swiss town of Geneva, that acted as a crossroads for the prominent ideas on Christian thought at the time. From it's earliest days for the colonists since 1602, the Tynsdale Bible of the 16th century that brought it into the English language from Latin and Greek, and its offshoot the Authorized King James Version of the Bible of 1611 formed the basis of civilized life in the American colonies, and helped the colonists seek a new world in the wilderness that was the North American continent in the years 1600 to 1780. In the early years of the 13 colonies on the Atlantic seaboard, and further west into Ohio and Michigan- vast untamed forests, mountains, lakes and rivers. From 1780 to the 1880 this wilderness extended into the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and Wyoming upto the Pacific. Ideas of Common Prayer in schools and in everyday life informed the society of the time and was integrated in all parts of life. Only after 1780 were the ideas of separation of church and state developed by Madison and Jefferson for the constitutional framework of orderly government and respect for rights of citizens to practice their faith. At no point was it intended to take the Common Prayer out of schools, which is essentially a new idea from the 19th century. There is mention of Asian religions Buddhism and the religion of the Upanishads in India in the argument against prayer in schools,  yet it is a fact that this is only a theory as immigration from China, Japan, and India was actively discouraged, and also banned in many ways, till the Irish Kennedy administration in 1960. And it is also a fact that Mohandas Gandhi the leader of India drew great inspiration from the King James 1611 version of the Bible, and it helped him deepen his religious beliefs in the Upanishads to create the modern Indian state for 1.4 billion people in Asia. Most of the hymns of the Christian faith were known to Gandhi and formed part of his beliefs, when the Common Prayer itself started disappearing from American schools in a post war reaction to colonialism, imperialism and racial discrimination, such that it depleted the very reserves of civilization, of wisdom and thought, of science and technology, that helped create America out of the wilderness. ...

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The BBC looks at the conflicting agendas when it comes to China of Rubio at State and Tulsi Gabbard at Intelligence. Lighthizer is the positive in correcting the trade imbalance with China because he served as US Trade Representative in the first DJT term and has experience going back to negotiating with Japan under Reagan as Deputy Trade Representative.  Controversial are the appointment of a Fox news person Hegeth as Defense Secretary, as he has no experience running an agency, and this one employs 3 million people. Gaetz as Attorney General is being questioned by many Republicans, and in the Senate by Cornyn (R). On spending the Office of Government Efficiency is not a department and Vivek Ramaswamy age 39 years lacks experience in administration, cost cutting. Elon Musk has cut costs at Tesla and Twitter but has no experience handling budgets of agencies. Trump has promised more spending. The cost cuts would be the opposite of what he promised if it cuts essential programs not for efficiency but for viewpoint.   ...

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Blackberry maker Research In Motion's will introduce new products to prevent further erosion of market share. Five new smartphones will be introduced, including an all touch screen phone to compete with the iPhone. Smartphones using its new QNX software will not be available till 2012. Meanwhile Apple is bringing out a new version of the iPhone and new smartphone are being released by competitors. RIM's share of global smartphones is down to 12.9% for the 1st quarter of 2011, compared to 19.7% the prior year. In the N. American market RIM's market share for smartphones is down to 16.5%, a big decline from 41.3% in the first quarter of 2010. Missed deadlines for new products are a major problem for RIM in the fast paced environment for new technologies and software with new competitors from related fields.

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The airlines are hit hard by the coronavirus crisis. Reservations have declined as fewer people travel. There is a sense that a recovery will take time, several months. Delta is cutting international capacity by about 25% and domestic flights by 15%. It is also offering voluntary leave options to employees.

Southwest CEO Kelly says the severity of the decline is being felt with loss of $300 million in revenue in March. One piece of good news for airlines that offsets the severe demand decline is the fall in oil prices. American Airlines estimates the cost savings as much as $3 billion. A decade of industry profits have put the airlines in a better position to tackle the crisis. Other cost savings moves are reducing capital expenditures and managing cash flows efficiently.

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Any idea that herd immunity is the way out is dispelled by a simple look at these pictures from the NYT showing what the level of infections are today and what they would have to be for "herd immunity." No Asian nation has even mentioned the word. Most Asian nations have the most experience with virus of all sorts. The only government that supported the idea without saying so openly is Sweden as indicated in a report in FR24 on the amplification of coronavirus in Sweden compared to neighboring Denmark, Norway, Finland. Imagine with a threshhold of 60% of people having antibodies provided by experts for herd immunity, the current New York level of about 20% would have to triple, and Sweden's 7% would have to grow seven fold. It is hard to imagine New York going through something of these proportions. Looking at what works now that other countries handling it have set examples of what works provides a better way- low tech contract tracing the German way, and one used in Asian countries, and the cluster isolation through testing and contact tracing adopted in many Asian countries as well as Germany. Strengthening public health systems, and working one's way out of the crisis where there are no easy answers offers real and realistic hope. ...

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BBC Transport correspondent Tom Edwards gives this report on the Elizabeth Line, the Crossrail project that connects London from east to west. He has seen the infrastructure project project from its inception in 2005, past the planned opening date of 2018, till today, through all the ups and downs for a project of this size and complexity. It is the largest infrastructure project in Europe. Most of the tunneling was actually done on time says Edwards, but signaling from stations, and software ran into problems along the way. There were some deaths inside the tunnels and some outside over ground with vehicle accidents. Edwards provides glimpses into the most advanced infrastructure project attempted in Britain for decades. Queen Elizabeth opened the Elizabeth Line at Paddington Station. Station ambient characteristics are also covered in the BBC in a separate article, each station having unique design from Berkshire to Essex. BBC videos and pictures show the evolution of the line, with new management team brought in after delays. At the end of May the new Elizabeth Line will be open to the public. It has been quite a journey says Edwards, with public skepticism over delays, and the pandemic's financial problems. It is surreal now says Edwards, to see trains whizzing through tunnels every 5 minutes. ...

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For Democrats to represent the working class their leaders have to come from these working class communities. This is not going to happens say people in this NYT Edsall report. Working class voters are about 60% of voters mostly not college educated, to 40% for non working class voters who are college educated. Biden was one of thse working class people who headed the Democrat party and stood on picket lines fro the UAW. Not Harris or Clinton. Democrats rail about billionaires but much of the multi billionaire community is in the Democrat party, much opf Silicon Valley and New York financial interests. Bush was not working class either yet there has been a unexpected transformation of the Republican party as trade, immigration, drug and migrant trafficking required non nonsense law and order, and strong action, based on common sense and stable values from the previous generation of Americans. This also applied to social issues such as LGBTQ and Transgender. This leaves one with the question will the Democrats be able to get rid of the Califonria Silicon Valley Techies, and New York financial interests, lobbying class,  within its ranks? Will it be able to transform itself by drawing from the working class communities working class leaders? ...