LyrArc Article Gist
The Federal Railroad Administration and the DOT agencies now require that there be 2 person crew on all freight trains to ensure railway safety. Accidents have taken place in recent years requiring action. Over 50 years we have observed that cost cutting that undermines safety, costcutting that forgets or ignores the process needed for quality, only leads to higher costs sometimes in the billions of dollars and loss of public goodwill. A freight train with toxic materials derailed in Ohio last year causing much loss of goodwill with local communities and impacting the health of residents. Workers form a key part of the processes that generate products not just machines, respecting the dignity and health of workers, providing the training and work hours that improve quality and concentration are essential. Companies and executives do well only when this is made to happen.

LyrArc Article Gist
Since the beginning of the $9 euros ticket for travel on the German rail system Deutsche Bahn on June 1, 2022 52 million tickets were sold. The ticket allows anyone to travel for 1 month in the months of June, July and August. It has saved 1.8 million tons of emissions because 20% of ticket users do not normally use public transport. A similar result in emissions savings can be achieved by lowering the speed limit on highways. A typical passenger emits about 4.6 tons of carbon a year in automobiles.

Also popular is the simplicity of the scheme. It also brings more people from different regions together in Germany by encouraging travel and relieves some of the stress of the pandemic. Overall it has an effect in lowering inflation and making travel easily accessible to all people in the country.

LyrArc Article Gist
This DW.com report on Lebaon describes the launch of ration card program to help Lebanese families caught in poverty with the economic collapse there. Families will receive $126  per month  for one year in $556 million economic package to benefit 700,000 families. The funding backing for this project is needed from the World Bank. This report says about half of the people in Lebanon now live in poverty in one of the Middle East's once affluent regions. Since the economic crisis in 2019 DW.com says poverty levels have increased by 80%, local currency lost 90% of its value, and foreign exchange reserves decreased by $15 billion. 

Lebanon is a clear example of how mismanagement of the economy and political conflicts can ruin a country's prospects, with the sudden economic collapse bringing poverty and severe distress.

LyrArc Article Gist
Enlargement of the prostate is a condition that affects many men as they age. The diagnosis of this condition for Britain's King Charles III gives an opportunity to explain to people what this condition is and how men can manage it proactively with lifestyle changes and modern medicine. The prostate is a walnut size gland which sits below the bladder and surrounds the urethra, a tube that empties urine from the bladder and carries sperm out of the body. It affects as many as half of all men starting in their 50's. When the prostate enlarges it compresses on the urethra, leading to making it more difficult to urinate or ejaculate. The enlargement says an expert at John Hopkins is a result of less cell death and more cell proliferation, two processes that cause prostate growth in size. 

LyrArc Article Gist
Germany's EVG transport workers union reached an agreement with Deutsche Bahn on wage increases. EVG asked for 650 euros a month. After months of 1 day strikes both sides agreed to arbitration in June. The new agreement gives workers wage increases of 410 euros ($443) a month in 2 stages over 25 months, 200 euros in December and 210 euros in August 2024. And a tax free one off payment of 2850 euros in October. Negotiations of DB with the train drivers union GDL lie ahead with GDL asking for increase of 550 euros a month and one time payment of 3000 euros. For the first time as in the US with president Biden the German government of SDP and Greens of Scholz supports agreements that provide workers with wages adequate to meet the cost of living and dignity of living.

LyrArc Article Gist
BYD is China's largest EV automaker. It boosted employment by 50% to 630,000 in 2023, with growth of 73%. This WSJ report shows how the Chinese government is now favoring EV automakers and the EV industry over Chinese internet companies such as Alibaba and Tencent that once played a large part in the economy.  $72 billion in tax breaks are provided by the government to EV automakers. Jobs have shrunk in internet companies during the pandemic with the Xi Jinping government moving away from housing and internet industries creating higher unemployment. Youth unemployment had reached 21%. The growth of BYD by 73% in the 8 months of 2023 shows how the EV industry will play a larger role in the economy, along with other new industries and technologies. It will also become an export leader with domestic innovation in technologies.

LyrArc Article Gist
Why are New York City hotel rooms costing $300 a night? This NYT report says there is a shortage of tourist lodging pushing prices up when 20% of hotel rooms go to asylum seekers and migrants. During 2022 hotels found the program of the city of New York at $185 a night to convert hotels to shelters for asylum seekers as away to remain in business during the pandemic. Since then 130 of 680 hotels in New York City have entered the shelter program. This presented a loss of 16,000 rooms leaving 121,000 rooms inventory for tourists, a shortage of about 3000 rooms as demand picked up after the pandemic.65,000 migrants are housed in hotels, tents and dormitories in New York City, as the city is obligated to find housing for people who need it, costing $10 billion over 3 years.

LyrArc Article Gist
Out of 50 economists in a WSJ Survey on inflation in the US, 28 economists say inflation will be higher under a president Trump. Only 8 economists say inflation will be higher under a president Biden. Trump's plan to crackdown on illegal immigration and to raise tariffs will put an upward pressure on prices say the economists in the WSJ Survey. This weeks inflation figure came out at 3%. Under president Biden inflation which reached 9% has come down to 3%, a remarkable achievement that the president alluded to in his press conference yesterday. This is a result of president Biden's cost of living actions on several fronts including housing, energy, retail prices, banking, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, childcare. Biden has made it his top priority. By raising tariffs across the board on imports Trump's actions would lead to higher prices.

LyrArc Article Gist
Germany's Europe Minister does some FACT CHECK on Trump's statements that German's shift from fossil fuels has failed.

The German Foreign Ministry stated-

"Like it or not: Germany’s energy system is fully operational, with more than 50 percent renewables,” the ministry wrote, “And we are shutting down — not building — coal and nuclear plants. Coal will be off the grid by 2038 at the latest.”

Anna Luhrmann, Europe minister said-

"As democrats, we can no longer allow false statements to stand uncommented.”

"We have stopped using nuclear power and are burning less coal than we have since the 1960s. And our energy supply is and will remain stable."

LyrArc Article Gist
The Voice of America has more impact than it's 2000 employees and $267 million budget suggests. Using the power of radio it reaches 326 million people weekly in 50 languages around the world. It provides comprehensive news coverage about the US and the World. It played amajor role during the World War II and in the Cold War. It was founded in 1942 and its congressional charter protects the editorial independence and integirty of its programming.

The agency that runs VOA is the Agency for Global Media. Under DJT first term Michael Pack ran the Global Media Agency. He was followed by Michael Abramovitz, a Washington Post correspondent and member of the Council of Foreign Relations.

Since the end of the Cold War VOA programming has declined in quality and effectiveness to communicate America's story to the world. 

LyrArc Article Gist
How is the push by Toyota to hybrids making up 50% of its cars- including shift of RAV4 and Camry entirely to hybrid cars- affecting revival of US manufacturing and advanced technologies for electrification of cars? Toyota will invest $14 billion in a battery plant site in North Carolina, at a site located between Greensboro and Raleigh.The plant will make batteries for EV's and hybrids so that Toyota can respond to market demand and regulatory changes. This North Carolina plant will supply factories assembling cars, hybrids, plug ins that travel short distances before switching to gas. Hybrids including plug in hybrids make about 15% of US sales, a sector Toyota dominates. How does it affect tariffs risk? Currently Toyota plays a 15% tariff to import plug-in hybrids. The North Carolina plant will build capacity for batteries to put in 74,000 plug in cars, 45,000 EV's, 600,000 hybrid cars. How will it fight climate change? Toyota has always believed that hybrids with twice the mileage of gas cars are a good way to fight climate change, even when EV's were the rage in the days of the Biden administration. Hybrid Camry at $25,000 and RAV4 at $29,000 give 51 and 41 mpg. This strategy is now turning out to be the right one because of cost of living concerns balancing climate change concerns as priorities. It was alone in this view and took a lot of criticism for this. Now that rare earth metals that are hard to access from China are needed for EV's it is proving doubly right- giving Toyota the opportunity to double down on hybrids and also move into EV's with short range distances using gas after that. Future design of cities that are self sustaining in smaller distances, eliminating long commutes, could make this an interesting option, a style of living being tried out in Nordic countries and in Germany, France. With India and China burning coal and investing in renewables at the same time this was overlooked by the climate change planners in US and EU- the solution being natural gas and renewables including hybrids for the US and EU/ Japan advanced nations.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
How opinion has changed in France since the time of British and Allied bombing of France's rail and other infrastructure that the Germans used in World War II occupation of France. By the end of the war 50,000 French people had been killed in the bombings and large parts of some smaller cities destroyed. The story of these bombings and the survivors has not been told. Churchill was warned about the risk of turning the French away from the Allies and to favor the Soviets as the bombing progressed. By 1964 De Gaulle chose another landing in Provence that the Free French Army had actively taken part in for celebrations instead of D-Day. About 60% of French at the time in 1964 were favorable to the Soviets. Today this has changed as Biden visits Normandy for D-Day and the EU's future is intertwined with that of the US.

LyrArc Article Gist
India is expected to become more urbanized by 2030 with people living in cities growing from 285 million in 2001 census up to 590 milion, producing 70% of national income. This means issues of climate change are not just about the environment- they are development issues and how to find better ways to plan future low-carbon infrastructure from the early stage. Also learning lessons from the chaotic development in China that in the rush for development allowed the air, water and environment to be hugely polluted.

LyrArc Article Gist
The closing of the 850 worker manufacturing plant in Salo Finland, as Nokia moves manufacturing overseas to compete with lower priced Chinese made phones.

LyrArc Article Gist
How oil impacts countries with high demand, India and China, and how it helps Russia. China imports 50% of its oil, with Angola as the largest supplier. India imports 70% of its oil though it has a third of the demand that China has. India and China subsidize oil. China raised retail prices for fuel by 10% on Nov. 1, 2007.

LyrArc Article Gist
The economics situation in Eastern Europe is looking much better now after the recovery of confidence in the USA and Western Europe with stimulus measures and other steps to ease credit, and the decision at the G20 summit in London in early 2009 to provide a strong line of credit to emerging market economies struggling in this crisis. The European Bank for Reconstruction ad Development sees a 5.2% drop in GDP in 2009 over 2008, and the IMF 4.9% for Eastern European economies. The region varies country by country, with GDP decline forecast for 2009 over the prior year by the IMF showing a modest decline of 0.7% for Poland which is doing well, Czech Republic 3.5%, Hungary 3.3%, Bulgaria 2%. Other countries Lithuania 10%, Ukraine 8% and Russia at 6% decline in GDP for 2009 are hit hardest but thing there are also improving compared to last quarter. The stock market in Poland went up by 40% since the low in February 2009, Hungary by 50%, and Russia by nearly 90%, reflecting this increased confidence. A big difference is in the way the IMF under Dominique Strauss Kahn is operating. WIth the new mandate to help emerging market countries and the new funds from western countries, China and Japan, the IMF is working in cooperation with the European COmmission, the banks, and the national governments in Eastern Europe, to lessen the effects of this crisis. This is afirst for the IMF and aremarkable change. In May 2009 the IMF gave a$21 billion credit line to Poland with no strings attached , the kind of loan it made to Mexico, as aproactive measure to restore confidence. IMF told the Ukraine that a deficit of 4% of GDP was realistic when it released a $2.8 billion tranche recently. Latvia was allowed to run adeficit of 7% for 2009, with a committment to bring this down to 4% in 2010. Another change is that more aid is now given to western banks with souring loans in eastern Europe, so that these banks do not cut back severely or pull out of Eastern European economies. The EBRD has raised $24.5billion to lend to banks and other companies in the region. And $590 million went to UniCredit Italia, an Italina bank heavily exposed to Eastern Europe. Ther EBRD is looking at investing in 12 other western European banks. The Swedes have national schemes too to help the Baltic countries. The political situation is improving also, as the transition to new administration as aresult of voter discontent is being managed wisely. In the Czech Republic acompetent tranisiton government is headed by Jan Fischer, chief statistician, till elections in October 2009. In Hungary the transition government is run by an economist Gordon Bajnai, till an election next spring....

LyrArc Article Gist
India recorded 100,000 cases in one day on April 5, 2021. About half of these cases are in one state Maharashtra. Most of the cases are in about 6 states. Super spreader events such as cricket matches, weddings and social gatherings, political rallies with elections in states of Tamilnadu, Kerala, West Bengal, and Holi festival, are increasing the rate of infection. People have become lax in wearing masks and following the safety protocol after cases dropped to less than 15,000 for the whole country in February. This report says variants also are playing apart. Google Mobility Reports have shown that movements around retail areas dropped to about 80% below regular levels in the middle of the national lockdown in spring of 2020, and have come back up to about 20% below normal levels. When the winter surge did not happen, and the vaccination drive started in January in India people became less vigilant, allowing infections to increase. The vaccination drive is accelerating and open to everyone over 45 years. About 80 million doses have been given and the target is still for 300 million doses by August.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
New rules by the Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB) and Moody's would show U.S. public pension funds as about 57% funded instead of 75% funded under earlier rules. This will open up an even wider gap in how much they have in the funds and their promises to retirees to about an estimated $2.2 trillion. This puts pressure on state and local governments to either reduce benefits for new hires, have workers increase contributions, or set aside more money from the budget. Local governments face the risk of credit downgrades and higher borrowing costs if no action is taken and finances are worsening. An example is Illinois retired teachers who earn annual pensions of about $46,000 on average, and do not participate in Social Security under state opt-out. Even under old accounting rules this pension fund had $37 billion of assets and $81 in future liabilities. Under the new rules the unfunded liabilities could jump to 83% by one estimate, from over 50%.

LyrArc Article Gist
A number of factors hitting at the same time Chinese factories in the south, in Guangdong province and the Pearl River delta. Currency exchange rates, stricter labor laws, eliminated government tax benefits and incentives, stricter pollution laws, high oilprices, and higher wages, all have combined to make the apparel and footwear factories in the south less profitable and harder to run. In recent years about 10% of the footwear makers in the province have closed operations. Manuy are smaller operations. About 10% of the 60,000 to 70,000 HongKong owned factories in the delta region will close in 2008. Not just apparel companies making products for HP and Apple have longer term plans to shift production to othcountries. Hon Hai Precision Manufacturing Company has said it will quintuple its planned investment in Vietnam to $5 billion. Apparel makers VF corporation which owns labels like North Face and Nautica says it takes 30 days from Cambodia compared to 20-25 days from China to get product on retail shlves so the advantage of China in this respect is also diminishing...

LyrArc Article Gist
Andrew Hall of trading firm Phibro, which traces its roots to the Phipps Brothers a German scrapmetal and raw materials dealer from 1900, and is now a part of Citigroup. He started making big bets after 2004 that futures in oil prices would instead of the then prevailing 20% discount to current prices be priced higher than current prices because of the rising demand from China and India and shortage of supplies. Once he had locked in on this idea and had researched the facts he got the agreement of the head of Ciigroups trading group to place large bets such as buying a lot of oil futures at the prevailing prices. As oil prices shot up this paid off and Phibro kept 20-30%of the profits. Hall made about $250 million dollars and put $100 million into his art collection of new artists. At a time when speculative buying by investors has pushed up oil prices this is a story of one person who made big bets and thrived.

LyrArc Article Gist
Senator Daniel Inouye, Japanese American from Hawaii, is the second longest serving U.S. senator in its history. He came to Washington in 1959 as the first Japanese American elected to Congress. He was elected senator from Hawaii in 1962, and he has served over 50 years as U.S. senator. As a premedical student at the University of Hawaii, Inouye decided in 1943 to join a Japanese American regiment, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. He was wounded in Italy and received the Distinguished Service Cross, Bronze Star Medal and the Purple Heart for bravery. He met Bob Dole in a military hospital in Michigan and both senators followed a path of law school and service in the Senate. Inouye attended George Washington Law School graduating in 1952. In 1955 Democrats swept out the Republicans in Hawaii who controlled state politics and were tied to the sugar interests. Inouye was elected to the state legislature that year and went onto the U.S. Congress.

LyrArc Article Gist
A small tax on the $800 trillion foreign exchange industry of 0.005%- with the tax on currencies where the leaders of these countries approve like Merkel of Germany and Sarkozy of France- would generate much needed money to help the word's poorest, says Philippe Jouste-Blazy, a former foreign minister of France. For instance he says tuberculosis killed nearly 1.8 million people in 2007, and caused the GNP of some countries to fall as much as 7 %. THis would bring serious gains to economic growth in the poorest countries. Look at the $1 to $5 tax imposed on airline tickets in France and 10 other countries since 2005.It has raised $700 million and financed three quarters of the AIDS treatment now being received by the world's HIV positive children. Unitaid, is an organization Blazy leads. It manages the money from the airline tax, and has negotiated 50 to 60% reductions in the price of pediatric anti-retroviral drugs in low income countries. The reason why the banking community should support this tax. One it is tiny, 0.005% on a foreign exchange transaction, and should not affect the flow of transactions. It is done automatically by computer systems. The currency trading system right now is untaxed. More importantly the bankers says Blazy have been benficiaries of taxpayer money. Isn't it time to give back to those worst affected by the global crisis the bankers helped create? Does'nt it create more credibility for the global financial, monetary and trading systems? He says the tax money could be managed by the Global FUnd to fight AIDs Tuberculosis and Malaria, with upholds programs in 100 countries to high performance standards....

LyrArc Article Gist
The recent appointment of fast food executive Andrew Puzder as Labor Secretary has caused great concern among union leaders. Puzder supports a $9 minimum wage compared to $15 supported by Democrats. Unions now represent 7% of the labor force, down from a high of 20% during Reagan's time when Reagan appointed a construction company executive as Labor Secretary and cut regulations.  Globalization has thinned the ranks of workers in unions. And the failure of Democratic administrations to stem the shift of factories overseas to China, Mexico and other places, as part of global supply chains focussed on cost, has weakened Democratic support among workers since the period of Bill Clinton. It eroded to the point where Obama won 65% of support among unions and Hillary Clinton won 56% in 2016. Interestingly the Republican Romney gained 33% versus 37% for Trump, showing voters were more inclined to move away from Democrats and only a smaller number willing to support Republicans, but the shift enough to give Republicans a win in 2016 for the presidency. The figures are from a Election Day survey of trade union AFL-CIO, and a larger proportion in midwestern states showed disaffection with policies from Clinton to Obama. In fact Obama spent years promoting another free trade agreement TPP that favored tech more than auto and older industries, just as Bill Clinton had promoted NAFTA, without giving thought to what this was doing to its worker base of support. A similar situation happened with Social Democrats in Germany as a SPD administration moved to the centre and handed Christian Democrats led by Merkel a win in parliamentary elections. As Democrats such as former Labor Secretary Reich, a professor at UC Berkeley who served under Bill Clinton, describe the problems of working class people their is less reflection on the impact of the changes from globalization and how Democrats handled or mishandled it, and more on the politics between the two parties.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Oil prices are forecast to remain above $100 a barrel in 2012 because of higher social spending in Saudi Arabia, Iran and other countries after the democracy protests, and the threat of retaliation by Iran in the Straits of Hormuz. Iranian threats of retaliation for increased sanctions has embedded a $10-$20 premium in oil prices say some experts.