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The healthcare reform bill has lost the support of the SEIU (the Service Employees International Union) , and the AFL-CIO union. Its also lost the support od Howard Dean and of his Democracy for America. Voters aged 18-34 and Hispanics are much less enthusuastic for he party. And only 23% of blue collar workers in December 2009 express positive feelings about the Democratic party in a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, a 30 point drop from February 2009. And the same poll showed that there just isn't the same level of interest in voters who back Democrats or Obama.

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Brad Guzan, 40 years, reflects on age and playing soccer, as his crucial saves helps Atlanta beat Lionel Messi's team Miami in the first round of the MLS playoffs in 2024. Next he will face Orlando on Nov 24. He says "40 is the new 21." Guzan says age brings experience- “It’s not about feeling younger. It’s about using my experience. It’s about using moments that I’ve been in before in terms of games and situations I’ve faced, and within a millisecond trying to analyze the situation that I’m currently in, and how to use my experience to help me make a save in that moment.” Guzan's two seasons in 2021 and 2022 were not promising. He could not stop Messi in the 2016 Copa America which US lost to Argentina 4-0. He worked hard throughout till the results in stopping Inter Miami's Messi in three games this season. His son idolizes not Messi but Aston Villa (Birmingham club) goalie Argentina's Emiliano Martinez. Guzan gained his early experience playing in the Premier League for Aston Villa. ...

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Theresa May becomes the only candidate for leadership of the Conservative Party after Ms Leadsom withdraws from the race. No leadership vote will no take place with Conservative Party members and no early general election is planned. May is expected to become prime minister of Britain by July 12, replacing David Cameron. Her theme is for "one Britain" and to do away with the rising inequality and gap between London and the rest of the country, which was part of the anxiety of voters who voted 52% for Brexit on issues of immigration burden on social and health services, national sovereignty, and a sense of ordinary people being neglected by elites in both parties. May will invoke Article 50 to leave the European Union and begin a 2 year period of negotiations only after she has developed a clear negotiating strategy. Kenneth Clarke, a Conservative Party cabinet minister called May a "bloody difficult woman," but this did not affect May, who said Mr Juncker of the EU was the one who would find this out in negotiations.  What is significant for Britain is May's moderate position coupled with a clear goal for removing some of the causes of the inequity in British society, which is needed for Britain to remain united. She called on companies like Amazon, Google and others to pay their fair share of taxes, and made clear her intent to strengthen the mechanisms for controlling executive pay. Also part of this strategy will be a more effective immigration control policy, which she did not implement vigorously as Home Secretary in the Cameron government, partly because of constraints set by EU membership. May made clear her agenda going forward by saying: "There is a growing divide between a more prosperous older generation and a struggling younger generation. And there is a gaping chasm between wealthy London and the rest of the country."  Changes May is supporting are to make executive pay rules to become binding not just advisory, and for employees and consumers to gain seats on company boards.  ...

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Only 27 of 249 Republicans in the House of Representatives have accepted that Mr. Biden won the presidential election, the rest refused to answer. And only 32 of these Republicans in the House say they will accept if this is certified by the Electoral College. The Senate is split 50 Republicans to 48 Democrats with 2 runoff elections in Georgia. In one Senate seat a Libertarian candidate too a slice of the vote denying a clear victory to the Republican Perdue for that seat. In the other election for Senate seat with  about 20 candidates running no one could secure a clear win. Mr. Biden with a very thin margin of 13,000 votes in Georgia over Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump contested the election because of the unprecedented nature of the 2020 election with mail in votes allowed in a way and in huge numbers that was not always well organized to be fault proof. With federal elections being run by state officials in 51 states and not by a national election commission as in India, and each state improvising its way of handling mail in ballots there was not a fault proof way of knowing if everything was 100% unquestionably correctly done. A national federal election commission not belonging to any party and unrelated to state or federal authority can ensure an election is free and fair better than the way it is organized in the U.S. Use of electronic machines for over 1 billion voters also ensures consistent way of doing it in India compared to the haphazard nature of the American process of vote ballots and separate counting in each state. This is the second election in which both parties differed on the election and disputed the result. The earlier one was Bush vs. Gore when Mr. Clinton was outgoing president following 2 terms in office. Yet surprisingly there are no calls for setting up a structure like that in India that would organize the vote collection under the authority of a national election commission and the use of modern technology consistently across the nation. ...

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It took a week longer for each country to impose a lockdown. In China first Wuhan then the whole country went into lockdown and quarantine. The same process is repeated in Europe and in America as authorites see numbers of infections increasing rapidly without strict controls. First the Lombardy region in Italy around Milan, then the provinces in Northern Italy, followed by a complete lockdown in the country on March 10 as infection spread faster without lockdown and enforcement of lockdowns. Germany and Britain follow Spain and Italy on March 20. France followed Spain in the days after Italy's complete lockdown. Macron ordered the lockdown on March 16 with stringent enforcement. Infectious Disease specialists at Imperial College warned of "unintended consequences for the entire nation" if a lockdown of Britain did not take place. The goal is to limit the spread of infections from rapid to slow as public health systems and economic measures are ramped up in preparation for the crisis. Most countries were lacking the preparatory steps having lost time waiting to see what happens next or analyzing data in the vain hope the virus does not spread.  Bad economic results of lockdowns were initially a concern, but this concern became less important as the coronavirus spread rapidly in Europe. Decision makers in Europe decided that not acting forcefully would lead to equally or worse economic outcomes. Public health systems overwhelmed would diminish public confidence rapidly and lead to equally bad or much worse economic outcomes. The European Union executive body has supported state aid, stimulus action and border controls in this crisis. In America and in Europe the hope is that shoring up the safety net with massive aid to businesses and households would buy time to tackle and overcome the coronavirus through a combination of lockdowns, quarantines, contact tracing, large scale testing and medical technology measures. The examples of China, South Korea, Taiwan showed this pathway exists for phased control and reducing fatalities to zero. ...

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This report in WSJ says Fox News took issue with Tucker Carlson host of the FNN network prime time TV show for remarks he made about colleagues on the network.  Before FNN Carlson worked for MSNBC,CNN and Arkansas Gazette newspaper. He was co-host of CNN show "Crossfire." Mr. Carlson is paid $20 million a year. Since the days of president Lincoln and the Douglas debates political debate has created new audiences. In their current form they bring advertising revenues for networks on the right and the left and skilled practitioners of the art are in demand at television networks. What is new is that this discourse has gradually deteriorated to where it has broken down in some ways.

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The Biden administration sanctions 24 Chinese officials for their role in reducing the autonomous status of Hong Kong. Most of them are connected with Hong Kong, one of them is on the Politburo in the central government in Beijing. The action takes place ahead of a meeting between the US and Chinese representatives in Alaska. China's recent actions to ensure that only those deemed as "patriots" could govern in legislative assembly in Hong Kong have added to the already existing tensions between the UK, US, and China. Earlier the Trump administration had put sanctions on 10 government officials in Hong Kong for eroding Hong Kong' autonomy. This adds to the already existing trade tensions, and protecting US technology tensions with China.

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Former employees of Google and Facebook have joined together to form The Center for Humane Technology. It plans to fight tech addiction in schools. A ad campaign is planned with $7 million from Common Sense, capital it has raised, and $50 million in donated media and airtime by DirecTV and Comcast. The idea is to educate students, teachers and parents about overuse of tech media leading to depression, other dysfunctional health issues. 

In one report even Tim Cook, Apple CEO says he realizes the dangers and is trying to discourage such use by his nephew. Some early investors such as Roger McNamee say they are horrified at what has happened with overuse of social media, especially health effects for a generation of school children and young adults. 

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Soren Skou, the head of the container division of Demark shipping line A.P. Moller Maersk A/S, says the volumes worldwide are expected to increase by 4% in 2012 over the prior year, compared to the 7% increase in 2011. This reflects the deteriorating conditions especially in Europe for goods from China. China is also losing competitiveness in relation to countries like Vietnam and Bangladesh for shoes, toys and labor intensive goods. Tim Smith, Maersk's head for the North Asian region, says the container shipping industry will see annual growth slow from double digit increases to somewhere between 5 to 7%.

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The U.S. Labor Department report shows 156,000 jobs added in September 2016. The unemployment rate increased by a tenth of a percentage point to 5.0%, because of the increase in the total pool of workers, The labor force increased by 3 million workers over the first 9 months of 2016. The labor force participation rate was up by half a percentage point to 62.9% for the year 2016, as it drew more workers who were earlier discouraged to look for work. Wages grew by 2.6% over the year.

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A wind farm out at sea to start in 3 years, small renovation projects across France and Germany, a couple of billion dollars from the French government for home renovations- this kind of approach is considered completely unrealistic say EU legislators. One Danish legislator asks what is more unrealistic? Setting serious targets for conversion to renewable energy or depending on Putin's gas and oil?  These EU legislators are calling for aggressive action now. The European Commission set a 9% goal for energy savings by 2030, this has now been moved up to 13%. EU legislators are calling for 23% in savings by 2030. And even this may not be enough to meet the goals for climate change to prevent the disaster from climate change with fires and floods and heat waves that hurt agriculture and food supplies. A savings target of 19% is about the gas that runs 40% of the cars and trucks on American roads in 2021 or 214 million metric tons of oil. The French government has set aside 3 billion euros for comprehensive renovations of homes to save energy with a target of 300,000 homes in 2022. This is completely inadequate as it will cost 23 billion euros say experts on the Paris city council. Renovations are only running at 60,000 a year. A big part of the conversion in Europe is converting from gas heating to electric heating. France is boosting subsidies for new electric heat pump installations.   ...

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The 2016 election will be decided by changing demographics and shifting coalitions between Democrats and Republicans. The changing demographics mean that a higher Latino vote in states such as Nevada, Colorado and Florida could bring these states to Democrats. And the working class vote in the industrial midwest in Ohio and the vote in some farm rural states such as Iowa could bring these states to Republicans. Michigan is another industrial midwest state which is uncertain as the older industrial centres such as Youngstown, Ohio, Scranton, Pennsylvania, and parts of Michigan- a big change from when unionized workers voted Democratic. The millenials, college educated women, and suburban voters in cities such as Denver, Miami, Las Vegas and Washington are now part of a new Democratic coalition. Most striking is the way the electorate is divided between better educated and less educated, between men and women, and between young and older voters. In fact with the conservative cultural emphasis in the Republican platform older voters are looking back to bringing back the 50's, while Democrats and the younger generation are looking forward to the future in this election. This is not an accurate characterization though because in 1948 with Harry Truman and in 1952 and 1956 with Dwight Eisenhower America was changing rapidly and looking to the future, so that by 1960 the civil rights movement was already established, and women were making the transition to being college educated and working in business and government.   ...

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The youth wing of the Social Democratic Party of Switzerland, the Young Socialists, have collected 100,000 signatures for getting a referendum to limit executive salaries to 12 times the pay of the lowest paid company employee. The initiative is based on the idea that the highest paid person should not earn more in one month than an employee at the lowest level earns in 12 months. The initiative is called the "1:12 Initiative for Fair Pay." At the large Swiss companies top salaries are at 93 times that of the lowest paid workers for 2011, according to the Swiss Federation of Trade Unions. This ratio has gone up from 14 times in 1998, showing the sharp increase in the last 15 years leading to greater inequality in society. By comparison the situation has been stable in smaller and midsize companies, where the ratio of the median wages of highest earning employees to lowest paid increased slightly from 7.6 times to 8.5 times between 1996 and 2010. A poll in early March 2013 showed 49.5% of those polled in favor of the 1:12 iniitiative, 40.5% opposed, and 10% undecided....

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Unemployment in Spain among people ages 16-24 is 42.9%. This is the highest rate in Europe, and it is double the overall rate of 19.3% for Spain. By comparison the overall jobless rate in the USA for workers ages 16-24 is up to 19.1%. Why this high an unemployment rate for young workers? Greece has youth unemployment rate of 25%, while Ireland has a youth unemployment rate of 28.%, and Italy 26.9%. The rate in Poland is 21.2%, down from 35% a few years ago. In Eastern Europe overall the rate is 27.9%. This puts Spain at a level higher than Eastern European countries where youth unemployment has traditionally been higher. Worse, this is a result of a spike in unemployment from 17% at the height of the boom three years ago, to the currrent 43%. Alfonso Prieto, deputy secretary general of employment studies at the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, says this high rate in Spain is a result of a disproportionate share of Spanish youth employed on temporary contracts. During the boom years a large number of young workers joined a culture of temporary work, with the term "mil euristas," used for workers on 1000 euros a month. With the economy in trouble these were the first people laid off. Low skilled and immigrant workers who lost jobs are also reflected in the statistics, as Spain witnessed an influx of millions of immigrants during the boom. Still worse the government is under tremendous pressure from the EU and bond markets because its budget deficit reached 11% of GDP in 2011, and austerity measures are being adopted. Spain is spending 30 billion euros in unemployment benefits, but the money is not doing much to prepare workers for jobs in new industries or new vocations for the future. ...

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Young people are having higher cancer rates by 2024 and this is linked to the higher use of alcohol and less fruits and vegetables more processed meat in their diets. Older people are seen as having lower cancer rates by comparison. Rates of gastrointestinal cancer for young people are increasing all over the world. Each generation of young people under 50 has a higher risk than the one before.

Light pollution from cell phones laptops and other devices is also suspected as it disturbs the body's internal clock, the circadian rhythm. Plastics small particles that get into water and air are also suspected.

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The unemployment rate drops to 6.3% in April 2014, as a significant number of Americans stop looking for jobs they cannot find. 288,000 new jobs were created in April 2014, according to the Labor Department. Yet the participation rate has declined to 62.8%, the lowest in three decades, and wages are up only about 1.9% from the prior year month. The unemployment rate which counts involuntary part-time workers and workers discouraged and not looking for a job was 12.3% for April 2014.

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The most striking aspect about Pew Research on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion practices and DEI in companies in Nov 2024 compared to early 2023 is the shift in sentiment about how much it hurts White Men. 36% of Americans now think it hurts White Men compared to 14% a shift of 22%. Among Republicans also there is a striking shift of 10% in just over a year. Asians no longer see it improving their situation. It comes also at a time when White Men are going through an unprecedented drop in college enrollment compared to women after financial crises and surging college costs, the kind of trend that is seen as unhealthy for the Nation.  Overall the shift shows says PEW Research that workers are more likely to believe that focussing on DEI is a bad thing and too much attention is going into doing this at companies. Reports in WSJ on Jan 10, 2025 say CEO's are making a shift away from DEI in 2025 consistent with the change in sentiment nationally.  ...

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The Economist magazine says the difficult process of Brexit is now being put by Theresa May into the hands of the pro-Brexit ministers, Liam Fox, David Davis and Boris Johnson. Just staffing the Department for Exiting the EU under Davis, and the Department for International Trade under Liam Fox is taking a lot of time. And the differences between Fox and Davis also figure into the time it will take to invoke Article 50. It says the points put forward by Brexiters that Britain could revert to WTO rules do not work so well in practice, and it takes years to negotiate new trade agreements with other countries. It sees many problems, and says it is no wonder that Theresa May has told the Brexiter ministers to come up with answers as they are the ones who have sold this idea to the country.

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Reports of ATM's running out of cash in India in 8 states. The government says this is a result of a spurt in demand and will ease in a few days. The government's policies are to increase the number of debit card and digital transactions to shift more of the transactions in an underground economy into the formal economy so that tax revenues to fund infrastructure can be generated. As a result fewer currency notes of Rs. 2000 or about $30 are being printed. This is aggravated by black market hoarders of 2000 rupee notes. Public confidence in the banks was shaken by some high profile scandals leading to people keeping extra cash at home increasing the demand. The government plans a bailout of $32 billion for bad loans at banks.

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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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Alan Mulally focussed attention on Ford brands such as the Taurus, and the Fusion, to improve quality and fuel efficiency. To do this he sold brands acquired earlier- Land Rover to Tata Motors and Volvo to Geely. Under his management Ford pushed ahead with globalized product development and building a presence in the small car market. Ford still has weakness in the European and Asian markets. In Europe a large number of manufacturers are competing for a slow growing market and price competition has cut into profits. In Asia, Ford was slow to enter the Chinese market. As a result its sales in China lag far behind VW and GM, with only 2.7% market share. Mullaly is investing $1.5 billion on new factories in China, including two assembly plants and an engine plant. One of the plants in the southern city of Chongquing will produce an SUV and a luxury car. Mulally wants to see 70% of Ford's growth in this decade from Asia. The other problem facing Mulally is reviving the Lincoln brand which has seen a sales decline of 63% since 1990. Ford has hired a designer who worked on the Cadillac to redo the Lincoln's design. Mulally plans to cut the 900 Lincoln dealers to 600, to reduce the price competition for smaller sales volume. He is asking the remaining dealers to invest $2 million for new showrooms that will compete with Lexus in their look and feel. Asessing what has been achieved at Ford so far one sees the progress in pushing up quality. Ford now ranks above Toyota in J.D. Power quality surveys with its cars getting higher resale prices than some Toyota models. Ford cars are also being well received by new car buyers with market share up for the second consecutive year. This would have been unthinkable only a few years ago. Also significant is how Ford under Mulally's direction managed to make good use of the $23 billion loan secured in 2006, avoiding bankruptcy and turning the corner to profitable operations. Ford earned $6.6 billion in 2010, after losing $30 billion from 2006 to 2008. Ford's challenges going forward are how to sustain profitable growth, manage $19.1 billion in debt and a junk-bond credit rating, and maintain the momentum without reverting to a dependence solely on SUV's and larger vehicles for profits. Chairman Bill Ford is forthright about Ford's history of wasting opportunities during the good times- of "losing the plot in the good times." Mulally makes the same assessment at a November town hall meeting of 200 employees - Ford is good at crisis managment he says but then "forgets why we're here." For Mulally a bit of inspiration from Heny Ford himself counts, this being a poster from 1925 that hangs on the office walls, a Saturday Evening Post cover with the slogan: "Opening the highways to all mankind." Mullaly says looking at this makes him cry....

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Climate protection goals require rail to get its standards up and modernize quickly in Germany. Deutsche Bahn, the German Rail Network accepts that it needs radical changes. It is important to attract more people to urban transit and rail to promote climate change initiatives and to reduce gas consumption in Germany.  The head of the Deutsche Bahn Richard Lutz says the German Rail has been neglected for years and pushed to its "absolute limit."  Many rail points and signal boxes are obsolete and highly prone to failure.  About 51,000 passenger and goods trains travel through Germany every day going up to 59,000 in 2030.  Lutz says it cannot stay this way- "Increasing demand, combined with aging infrastructure and construction work, is leading to traffic jams and delays with a massive impact on all customers." More than this there is the the question how do you attract more people to not drive but take the train to save gas consumption and reduce the impact on the environment when things are so bad in the rail network? The dilemma says Lutz is "how to grow and modernize at the same time?" Under Lutz and Transport ministry plans high performance corridors are to receive a first class quality standard. More customer friendly construction should be used. And planned construction done in such a way that some sections are construction free sites for several years. Heavily used sections make up 10% of the network or 3500 kilometres and operate at 125% of capacity. By 2030 these sections will be 9000 kilometres or triple that now. Climate protection goals require getting rail up to speed.  ...

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Greg Ip says all the data show the economy is much stronger with low unemployment and inflation coming down, yet for the nation people are not so upbeat, and for their own state really upbeat. He attributes it to the general mood of uncertainty of people, and the negativity with which the media presents news. Some clues to what they actually believe can be seen below the superficial look at the data. For instance as people surveyed say they feel the economy is much worse today by a significant margin for the whole nation they say just the opposite for their own state by an equally significant margin. Listen to this- the WSJ poll Greg Ip cites shows US economy is getting worse or better in the graph. For the US it shows 31% think it is getting worse. The opposite for Arizona 30% and Pennsylvania 25% think it is getting better. In other states people say it is about 18% better- the states are Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina and Nevada. This suggests that the surveys have to be looked at from the perspective of their own state which reflect the data which clearly shows a big improvement. Greg Ip says the WSJ has seen this in another place, when people are about Congress they say its looking worse, when asked about their own state Congressman they say just the opposite and quite favorable. It is something that is important to bear in mind in 2024 and for the future, the American people are still rational and science based in their thinking, as they have been throughout the nation's history pioneering in the Industrial Revolution. ...

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Its clear from the task force's rejection of the plan GM submitted in March 2009, that the restructuring at GM was moving too slowly, too many brands, too many dealerships, no clear idea of what the new GM should look like. And a wistful look back to the past that clouded every decision. Wagoner and his team could not leave the old GM behind and clung onto too many brands, plants, dealerships, and sales numbers that were too optimistic at every turn of the economy, even as they were lowered. The task force said GM was "far too slow" to adapt and that "a substantially mmore aggressive restructuring plan" was required. That GM was just a year ago 2008 about this time still thinking in terms of sales numbers that would match Toyota's, as the largest carmaker in the world, shows how this wistful looking back at the past may have blinded GM to all the potentially dangerous bets that it was making, wihtout realizing it. Bets that the huge gap between the US carmakers and the Japanese and the Europeans in fuel efficiency and the technologies that went with it, would not someday come to hurt GM. Bets that the numbers game could be played without huge risks, that incentives related sales couild simply be inflating the market now with bigger risks ahead. That simply relying on sales revenue to support unsustainable retiree and union costs would be another dangerous bet on unsustainable sales numbers of a16 million market. The other large industrialized societies were seeing shrinking car sales, Japan, Germany, are prime examples, where sales are nowhere what they were at the peak in the postwar recovery of these industrialized countries. See the links/groups to these two countries car markets. Had GM considered the prospect of similiar declines in the US? Even if the car sales had remained at levels much lower than 16 million without the consumer buying spree and incentives, the market would be shrinking, the sales inflation simply made the sales fall that much steeper, hitting the 40% range. ...

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The OECD countries in Europe including Germany, France, Denmark, Italy, spend on average $14,000 on childcare. The US spends astonishingly only $500 per toddler, about 4% of what advanced countries in Europe spend.The Biden plan is to change that. On the floor of the US Congress Senate minority leader McConnell protests against what he calls extravagant spending by the US in the Biden plan for families and workers.

In our selection of reports in world media we show the effect on women during the pandemic taking on childcare responsibilities with schools closed because of coronavirus. The impact has been a catastrophe for women leading to increase in mental health problems as culture and other reasons lead to women taking on 60-70% of child care and household chores. Women with careers are not able to join the workforce because of childcare shortages, losing income and feeling overburdened.