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With the 15% mandated cuts to energy use in the European Union countries and the shutoff of Russian gas supplies, three remaining German nuclear plants can be run for an extended period to take off some of the strain on the German economy. Sentiment for nuclear power is changing in Germany. A Spiegel opinion poll is cited in this WSJ editorial that shows 78% of Germans favor keeping the three remaining nuclear plants operating till summer 2023, and 67% say it is a good idea to keep them running for 5 years.  The issues of nuclear vs solar, or coal and gas vs solar is not a yes or no proposition anymore as shown in the negotiated measures to allow some coal and gas operations in the US in the Biden Climate Change bill that passed the US Senate on August 7, 2022. This is not merely a concession to a fossil fuel dependent state (West Virginia) and Senator Manchin, this is a realization that the transition can be better managed economically and the same results for renewable energy and climate change emissions goals can be met with a carefully planned  strategy that allows for LNG exports to Europe, and fossil fuel production flexibility in the face of the embargo on Russian fossil fuel supplies. ...

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French president Macron fails to get president Xi of China to commit to changes in its policies towards Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Macron's visit as seen by the NYT only undermines the US policy and European Union policy that opposes the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. EU's Leyen also visits China at this time.  The relations between the US and European business with China expanded for two decades between 2000-2020. All three regions are heavily invested in each other. Decoupling is a gradual process and China sees the EU as an access point for technology and investment. The US has not decoupled from China even after moves in semiconductors and electric vehicles were made by president Biden. Apple and other American companies are heavily invested in China. The US and the EU are committed to building new supply chains. Their policies are intended to do this in a way that reduces the effect on their economies. The European Union depended on the US for its response to the Russian invasion and to protect freedom in Europe through NATO. By 2024 the European Union policies will be integrated with policy of the US. China is also trying to reduce the effect on its economy by decoupling in a way that maintains growth. ...

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GST is to India what land sales were for China in its phase of rapid development and accelerated growth. It consolidated capital that could be then invested at the national and state levels on infrastructure, logistics for exports growth, creating a virtuous cycle of capital growth that could finance ever widening scale of development projects from metros, subways, rail, roads, bridges, airports, ports, logistics, tech related improvements. This was done in 2017 through a midnight session of parliament that passed the legislation needed. Years of endless discussion were turned into one session of implementing a single major tax system for India, transparent, digitized with new IT  Infosys playing a key role, and providing the pool of capital that has financed 5 years of development to take India past Britain as the fifth largest economy. Its pace of growth over 11% and accelerating with Maharashtra's GST growing at 24% in 2022-2023 over the prior year suggest that this will play a critical role in giving India a large pool of capital for growth. To be supplemented with foreign investment to make New India as a modernized nation. With an economy that will be exceeded only by the US and should catch up to China over the next 10 years. ...

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Oxford University Wellbeing Research Center has developed Happiness score using Gallup surveys. US score No.10 ranking among 143 countries for older adults over 60 years. Yet it drops off steeply for young people to 62nd of 143 countries. The situation is the same in Canada and to a lesser extent in the European Union. Overall the US dropped out of the top 20 countries  falling from 15th to 23rd. The report is based on Gallup World poll surveys from 2021 to 2023. Young females recording even lower. Normally it starts with youth doing better and higher then in a U curve dropping all the way down during a midlife crisis in 30's and 40's age before rising again for older adults wi have experienced the vicissitudes of life. The US data contradicts this. Why? Jan De Neve of Oxford Wellbeing Center says it could be from social media use and growing health and income disparities. The pandemic also played a role- beginning college or a career in a pandemic was just not the way to start. Housing prices, cost of living, loneliness epidemic, misinformation and social media negative effects add to this. At the same time there is an increase in benevolence among younger people aware of the situation they face and looking for ways to mitigate this. ...

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This Editorial Board article of the WSJ says the EU's embargo on Russian oil raise the cost for Putin's invasion of Ukraine and demonstrate Europe's resolve. The new round of sanctions by EU will ban the imports of Russian oil by sea as well as insurance for shipping companies that transport it globally. About two thirds of Russian oil comes by tanker. Germany and Poland will also stop pipeline oil imports from Russia, only Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia will continue with Russian pipeline oil. The result- an effective embargo on 90% of Russian oil imports by the end of 2022. How effective is this if Russian oil is rerouted through other countries to reach China, Western Europe and the US? The WSJ says don't underestimate the impact especially when it is combined with the ban on insuring ships that carry Russian oil. The higher insurance rates and costs of shipping will limit Russian oil exports. Europe makes up half of Russian oil exports and WSJ says the rest of the world can't use up all that oil. Russia exported $180 billion of oil in 2021, a large amount of this will no longer be available to Russia to finance the war. ...

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Joe Biden's efforts to rebuild the American economy are getting so little mention in either the NYT or WSJ or elsewhere that Biden writes this article in the WSJ to share what he has done for the American economy, workers and families in the US since 2020. It comes at a time when the US is being challenged in not only chips, science, defense, but also at amore basic level as education and healthcare, public services. Only one third of American children in 8th grade can pass NAEP test reading comprehension yet much of $346 billion going into ventures in 2021 is being wasted as America's capital allocation system and capital markets fail to serve the American people is shown in today's WSJ pages. The scale of what can be done with the right amount of capital going into the right places and not the wrong places and with determination to rebuild can only be imagined- Mr. Biden says here that additional $2.5 trillion can be reduced in the deficit by "cutting the wasteful spending on special interests and ensuring the wealthiest Americans and corporations pay their fair share of taxes." It also means vital investments can then be made in education, in infrastructure, science and technologies, and other areas where it is missing today through planned misallocation. ...

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Zoom calls in the wee hours of the morning or night, and emails at all hours, the scrambling that happened during 2020 and 2021 during work needs some structuring and laying down of boundaries. The work day got kind of crazy. Here Rachel Feintzberg offers tips on getting back to a healthier and more productive worklife by setting clear work boundaries and hours. The key experts say is to be respectful but resolute. Some tips are to follow boundaries such as a 6.00 pm for last calls you take- to do this 80% of the time and compromise on remainder. If pandemic habits are hard to break try innovative ways, like getting out on sports, cycling or gym routines at 6.00 pm. Its alway good to remember and articulate to peers and bosses that you will be most productive and producing higher quality work when you have time for taking care of your health and healthy living. Its hard depending on the boss but over 6 months it gets you to a better place. German practice of Feierabend actually refers to when you stop working for the rest of the day and is done in Germany. It sets a clear demarcation or boundary between work and leisure hours needed for healthy living. ...

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As Kamala Harris offers $25,000 to home buyers to make it more affordable and sets up a $40 million Innovation fund to build more homes, sets a target of 3 million homes to be built, housing and cost of renting or owning is front and center of attention in 2024. Dougherty and Davis of NYT look at the US housing shortage and rising rents for apartments and homes. A look at Kalamazoo, Michigan, as a sort of microcosm of the US housing situation. Around the time of the 2009 financial crisis and aftermath when vacant homes on streets in many cities were being bulldozed and when there was more housing than people needed the seeds were being planted for today's shortage of homes. There was less interest from builders, there were restrictions on mortgages and higher down payments, capital was harder to get for builders, adding up to fewer homes being built. US demand was for 1.6 million units of housing, the supply was about 1.1 million over the next decade after 2009 leading to the buildup of a shortage of 5 million home supply. Covid changed some patters of housing behaviour. More people work from home with remote work. Then by 2022 mortgage rates were up making housing less affordable just when owners of apartments raised rents by 20-30 percent. In Kalamazoo up by 40%. ...

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In a response to Mark Cuban about intelligent women around DJT Susie Wiles his co-campaign manager shares that she and Linda McMahon are two she can think of "Well, here we are." Very disciplined and to the point using just the right words, and getting her message across, Susie Wiles is a remarkable addition to DJT's team from the outset. She once worked for Reagan's political campaigns. Susie Wiles says- "You don’t have to shout to get noticed. I don’t want to be in the spotlight. I think it hampers your ability to be effective.” She comes from Florida and was introduced to DJT by a Republican lobbyist in 2015. She has handled Rick Scott's transition with Matt Gaetz, and also worked on the De Santis campaign in Florida. In 2016 and 2020 she has the remarkable achievement of turning Florida once a swing state into a core part of the Republican states in the southern US. Susie Wiles says- "You don’t have to shout to get noticed. I don’t want to be in the spotlight. I think it hampers your ability to be effective.” ...

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The First Letter to the Editor in Lyrarc.com July 27, 2016 more true in 2024- "What is missing today is a sense of hope and optimism about the future compared to the early postwar period. There was much less - no ipads or iphones, just radio - much less of everything we take for granted, but there was hope, optimism about the future, a sense of can do and endless possibilities... A singular feature was the broader consensus to do good and to do right, a larger sense of public spiritedness in politics and society." To restore hope, optimism, one must judge our actions by words of George Washington in a letter to Thomas Jefferson Feb. 1783-  "To merit the approbation of good and virtuous men  is the height of my ambition, and will be a full compensation for all my toils and sufferings in the long and painful contest in which we have been engaged." Without this Jeffersons words about "holding these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with some inalienable rights," that inspired the world for 250 years would have come to nought.   ...

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A fellow Christian of Pope Francis who distributed food and blankets to remote villages in the Andean mountains of Peru driving his white pickup truck is the man chosen to lead the Catholic Church in the third decade of the 21st century. He is Robert Francis of Chicago, an American who first came to an Augustinian mission in Peru near the Ecuador border in 1985. In 1988 he returned to Peru, this time to the Augustinian seminary in Trujillo, Peru, where he taught canon law and was a judge in the regional ecclesiastical court. He spent 13 years in Peru before returning to the US in 1998. He was appointed by Pope Francis of Buenos Aires, Argentina, as apostolic administrator of Chiclayo in 1998, then Bishop in 2023 and Cardinal in 2024. In his speech from the Vatican Pope Leo XIV- Robert Francis- switched to Spanish in the middle of his speech. We now have not one but two popes from different parts of Latin America from the Atlantic coast Buenos Aires to the Andes mountains of Peru, knowing that Mexico, Chile, Argentina and Brazil ar Catholic countries, so is Central America and part of the US that is Irish and Italian, Spanish and French. It includes Spanish colonies in Asia such as the Philippines, and Portuguese settlements in Africa. ...

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A Lebanese shopkeeper's son who is a lawyer, did his Masters degree in Economics at the University of Sao Paulo. In this interview he is shown as a tucano, a member of the white, college educated, wealthy and male group in Brazil, also the name of the centre right Social Democracy party of Cardozo since the 1994 elections. PT's Lula da Silva elected as president in 2002 turned to Haddad to run the Education ministry in 2005. Since then Haddad has mediated between worker's factions and the moderate elements in the PT Party of Trabajadores or Workers Party, the party Lula founded with others in 1980 during the redemocratization period. During the period when Lula was in prison in 2018- after the election in which Haddad lost 45% to 55% to a representative of the military and centre far right parties Captain Jair Bolsanaro- Haddad visited Lula in prison.  Haddad is now Finance Minister in Brazil with inflation at 4.5%, unemployment at 7.5%, and GDP growth of 1.5% following 3% growth in GDP in 2023. Haddad says in this interview that he is seen as austerica within the PT because of his economic policies. Popularity of PT has dropped with Lula's approval at a low of 28 percent in June 2025. ...

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Hungary's Orban meets DJT at White House Nov. 10, 2025 and gets a 1 year exemption for buying Russian oil. Hungary is landlocked and gets 86% of its oil from Russia through pipelines.

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Kiruna, Sweden -Arctic town that sits on top of vast amounts of rare earth and mineral wealth in 2025. The whole town is being relocated to get to the rare earth needed in industrial development.

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US president Trump, working through his Secretary of State Rubio and VP Vance sets up a immediate ceasefire in the war between Pakistan and India of May 7-10, 2025. Vance had cut short his trip to India in Jaipur on the day of the Pahalgam attack of April 22, 2025, by terrorists sponsored and supported by Pakistan.  In response India targeted missiles on 18 terrorist camps targets in Pakistan occupied Kashmir and Pakistan on May 7. Drone attacks followed on both sides followed by Indian missile attacks on 3 Pakistan airbases, An immediate ceasefire was accepted by both sides on May 10, 2025. After 75 years of such terrorist activity and militias from Pakistan since 1947 when partition of British Empire created Pakistan, 1.4 billion Indians have lost their patience. Especially because the attack was intended to cut short the revival of the Kashmir economy and modernization of India. In 2024 24 million tourists visited Kashmir reviving its economy. India has Vikshit Bharat 2047 modernization plan to make it an advanced economy, there is a feeling in India that modernization is essential no matter what the difficulties are, Pakistan essentially the Punjab, just one state as its economy stagnates and becomes a sponsor of terrorism. ...

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Trump rally for 100 Days in Warren, Michigan, at a community college gymnasium, April 29, 2025. DJT also visits Selfridge Air Force Base and says it will get 15 new F-16 jets to replace old jets.  DJT says we're "getting woke lunacy and transgender ideology the hell out of our government." Border crossings of 8400 in February 2025 and 7200 in March 2025 are the lowest since the 1960's, one of the lowest ever, compared to 140,000 in March 2024 under Biden. DJT says he is protecting the middle class and Main Street. The millions of jobs lost to China, DJT says he is bringing them back. He talks about creating manufacturing jobs and restoring the industrial base of America that was lost in the last 30 years.  Trump lists the cost of everything from eggs to gasoline at the pump. He says there are three states where gas at the pump is below $2.00 a gallon. He cites the 345,000 jobs created in 100 days and the lowering of inflation.   ...

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A recent survey by Der Spiegel shows three quarters of Germans want to continue operating the 3 remaining nuclear plants. 78% support keeping them running to 2023, and 67% support keeping them for 5 more years. The idea is that they can be used in this emergency. Even a majority of Green party support keeping them running to 2023. This is a profound change in German opinion.

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Sperling shows how Biden's economic plan rescued America and set the stage for America becoming the leader in the G7 economies. Gene Sperling is adviser to president Biden, coordinator of the America Rescue Plan, and had 8 years as adviser in 2000 and 2011 after the financial crisis to previous presidents. Here he says the arguments made that the trillion dollars investment spending Biden and a bipartisan group of senators have supported with legislation in Congress were causing inflation have proved not to be true. Inflation caused by bottlenecks in the supply chain, the pandemic shifts, and the Ukraine war, has come down to 3.4% in Dec 2023. By investing in the US economy, in US manufacturing and US jobs, the US under Biden now has the best economy of the 7 advanced economies with higher growth and unemployment below 4% for 24 straight months, lower inflation apples to apples. Sperling says there were 4 lessons learned during his work with the White House. The first to avoid harm to workers whose lives get scarred by loss of jobs. This happened in 1982 and again in 2008 after the financial crisis. Unemployment took 6 years to recover after 2008. And he says the unemployment rate was 15% for younger workers. For the first time economists like Sperling and Treasury Secretary Yellen have grasped what workers feel and have gone through. Sperling cites the devastation to people's lives - the mental health, the divorce, the loss of earnings and depression. The new policy after 2020 resulted in the fastest drop in longterm unemployment ever with black and hispanic unemployment reaching record lows by 2023. A first ever national eviction prevention policy led to 20% less evictions than prepandemic. Second Sperling says 650,000 jobs were lost by state and local governments in the three years after 2008 financial crisis. State and local budget cuts and mass layoffs seriously hit the economy. This time in after 2020 1.2 million jobs were added with the money in the Rescue Plan and lost jobs recovered in one third the time it took in 2008. Third state and local governments need to deal with the harm coming from the downturn and after 2008 the cupboard was empty. Whereas after 2008 only 154 cities and counties got help to tackle commericial blight, effects on communities, foreclosure and long term joblessness in 2020 Biden was able to send direct funding to all 20,000 local governments and 15,000 school districts. This helped tackle learning loss, crime, and address mental health needs. What a difference it made. Lastly one needed to anticipate something unexpected to happen that flattened projections of recovery. In 2011 3.7% growth projected was flattened when Sperling was senior adviser, and this was flattened by Fukushima nuclear disaster, Arab Spring spike in oil prices, and debt default negotiations. This time there was cushion in the plan so that when covid variants and unexpected Ukraine war happened the rescue could withstand and deliver with resilience. Growth was 3.4% average for the first 3 years of Biden's term and unemployment went down from 8% to 4% for 24 months. Coming from someone who had seen mistakes happen and corrected them, who had served three presidents and the last Biden ,this is a story of how Sperling, Yellen, with the help of Powell at the Federal Reserve, and the bipartisan support put together by a US president in Congress , one who has served the country in the Senate more than any other recent Senator and led the nation with courage, patience and determination. ...

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China's healthcare system is overburdened and overwhelmed, says this report in the NYT. The changes in living and investment in infrastructure and housing are not matched by similar investments in the health system. Shortages of hospital beds and doctors is making tackling the coronavirus in the Wuhan region more difficult. A new hospital is being built in 6 days in late January 2020 in Wuhan for the coronavirus patients, showing how severe the situation is. 

The lack of strict regulation and lack of enforcement at the local level is leading to the situation where the virus was detected in twice- in 2003 in wild animal meat and again in 2019. Public anger and call for a ban on wild animal meat is happening today.

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KP.2 is the new covid variant in May 2024.

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S&P 500 gains 15% in first half 2024.

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US policy is to end war as soon as nuclear threat is over- DJT on Iran war on March 31 2026. When the US feels Iran 'won't be able to come up with a nuclear weapon, then we'll leave,' says DJT. US is self sufficient and exports oil to Europe. It doesn't need Iranian oil. DJT makes that clear to allies in Europe who have not taken a stand in the war and limited access to their airbases, saying as Starmer did yesterday that Britain did not want to expand the war. Really, the US does not want to expand the war. DJT's MAGA base does not want this war, and Biden's base does not want this war. US does not need Straits of Hormuz- it is Britain, Italy and EU countries, mainly China, Japan, South Korea that need the Straits of Hormuz. Speaking for the US DJT tells these countries in Europe to get the oil themselves in the Straits. He also tells China to get the oil from the Straits- if they need it and are so complacent as to get 90% of their imports from Hormuz after 40 years of disruptions and wars, as China does. DJT said- "If France or some other country wants to get oil or gas, they'll go up through the Hormuz Strait, they'll go right up there, and they'll be able to fend for themselves. What happens with the strait we're not going to have anything to do with, because these countries, China, China will go up and they'll fuel up their beautiful ships... and they'll take care of themselves. There's no reason for us to do it." "The USA won't be there to help you anymore, just like you weren't there for us. Iran has been, essentially, decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil!" ...

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CSU faculty organized against OpenAI contract expiring June 2026 at a time when students/faculty worry about loss of critical thinking skills amid 40% unemployment of new graduates. This is the California State University System once a major national institution of education under Governor Edmund Brown Sr in the 1960's that powered the 60's middle class, now torn apart by mistakes in higher education. Imagine Teniente-Matson in an AI created form speaking in many languages not realizing that this has little to do with education, as shown here in the NYT- coming to San Jose State from Texas A&M San Antonio. Both Hispanic student dominated institutions of education that have first generation Hispanics entering college- the promise of this first generation finding opportunities in the US economy. It is already fading for new graduates with high unemployment of 40%. The AI Initiative pushed by Governor Newsom in the state has created confusion or chaos says the NYT. This is the biggest 4 year public higher educational system in the US with 22 campuses, with diversity in California about 50% Hispanic. This is what "great" looked like for America in the 1960's with Eisenhower and JFK. Today with such misplaced initiatives and lack of the same wisdom and dedication to knowledge from that in the 1950's and 60's it is a fraction of its former self. It was marketed at $16.9 million for 500,000 licenses by OpenAI as a way for these first generation Hispanic college students most working class people to move forward. But as every commencement speech and everyone from the president to business leaders can attest it is all about hard work, hard work, hard work, and focus on reading and math, on sound basic skills, with pen and paper not ipads and iphones and AI that this job will be done. AI can never teach someone to persevere, to overcome obstacles, to put in the hard work over and over again to accomplish great things or to develop the curiosity for knowledge, the sense of new discovery  for scientific knowledge and invention that has powered America and Europe for three centuries. ...

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White House Correspondents Dinner shooting on April 25 2026 at Washington Hilton, the scene of the shooting of Ronald Reagan decades earlier. It is unbelievable that over 2000 guests including the US president and important members of his cabinet would be assembled in a hotel in Washington DC that is not designed for this type of event security. The Washington Post raises questions about the security as the assailant stayed in the hotel. The president DJT says this shows why the White House should have a ballroom or hall that can hold such an event that is designed with security in mind. A 31 year old graduate in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology who worked as a tutor in science subjects was the assailant who was apprehended. Secret Service agents acted quickly to clear the podium where the president and vice president were seated. Most of the people in the hotel ballroom were in complete shock. DJT has not attended previous correspondents dinners saying the media has fake news- much of the press in the US tends to have political leanings that slant the news in one direction or the other and television channels exaggerate the divisions for profit by supplying information tailored to what audiences in their political spectrum want. That may be seen as a clever business strategy when it really hurts the  democratic process that has been nurtured for 250 years. It could be said that young people in particular believe what they are told by media run for profit, opinion created for profit, and this leads to violent behaviour. A robust debate has always taken place in the US- on Iran compare that with the Mexican War under president Polk in the 1850's, before the civil war when Lincoln debated Douglas, under Democrat Harry Truman when he did a whistlestop rail campaign after the war against Republican Wendell Wilkie, yet the fragmentation of rural-urban, white male and white female, within minorities today is excessively and without remorse stoked by the television channels and the newspapers.  ...

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US and Iran accept Pakistan's mediation of the war with a 2 week ceasefire and opening of Straits of Hormuz- April 7 2026. The mediation by prime minister Sharif of Pakistan gave both sides in the war a way to back down. Both sides agreed to talks in Islamabad, Pakistan. As a partner of Pakistan, China may also have a role in setting up a settlement as China and Japan have the most to lose from the Straits of Hormuz being closed, oil prices rocketing up to $115 and higher, and even a prolonged shutdown of Hormuz Straits. Both China and Japan get 90% of their imports from Hormuz Straits. Oil prices drop to the $100 level from $115 after the announcement of talks in Islamabad. This is not a long term settlement. After the two weeks US president meets president Xi of China in Beijing shortly afterwards on May 14-15. It is likely that preparations for that trip will involve China and Pakistan working together to get the US and Iran to agree to an extension of the ceasefire. One outcome of this war is as Le Monde has noted- the unreliability of Hormuz supplies and shift to imports from US and Venezuela and other parts of the world for fossil fuels. And with this a renewed effort to reduce the fossil fuels needed by accelerating renewable energy supplies in Europe, India and China. More attention will also be focused on reducing the proliferation of nuclear weapons by all major powers. Removing US involvement in NATO may also turn out to be positive in some ways to bring Russia and US as nuclear powers to better working relationships, and reduce the nuclear arms race and weapons race. For Europe it means meeting needs of Ukraine and improving military capabilities. The overall result may be positive for all countries. The Middle East region will be seen as one in which no powers should get involved in and the Middle East will also find it has squandered its valuable oil dividend in five decades of wars and mismanagement and fall behind the rest of Asia and Europe, the US in economic progress and development. ...