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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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Tata has a couple of things going for it to make a car at a price under $2500- a different vision behind it and a longer term idea of the market and its opportunities for Tata Motors. This is a personal vision of Ratan Tata, the last in the series of Tata family members who have run a company that was at the leading edge of industrialization in India since British times in the closing years of the 19th century. He sees this as a way to bring a car that is affordable to millions of Indians, the average Indian, just as his father and great grand father were pioneers in India's early steps towards industrialization. This also will serve another purpose. It will provide momentum to India's manufacturing base by putting India's auto industry on its way to sell cars by the millions in the next ten years. The cost was a challenge to Indian engineers ingenuity. It would help them develop something from scratch from a clean slate, and as he hoped reinvent the car if possible. The cost also was doable in India because of the wages paid to Indian engineers and workers are different. The entire cost structure with suppliers like Bosch providing the engine also and internet purchases of parts coming under a completely different way of doing business, again a reinvent of things. And the skimping on a lot of basics like a radio is possible in the Indian context where the inital target market is the scooter family of which in India there are millions. People who would simply be waiting for such a bare bones car, not see it as such because it is a great advance over a scooter even in terms of safety. What most people who have never been to India would not be able to grasp is that a whole family of four can be seen riding on a scooter or motorbike in India on weekends in Indian urban areas. Tata's idea of the market potential is the way it can ride the next stages of increasing incomes in India. Once it has come up with this car it can come up with enhanced versions with an airconditioning and radio and so on, and still price it way below competitors with Tata's quality and brand name and innovative design. As long as Tata can sell all the cars it makes it can expand production rapidly. Tata's costs for engineering a top selling model may be only 20% of the $350 million it costs western companies, according to Alix Partners, with savings of $300 to $1000 per car right there. Labor costs are about $1.20 per hour in India, less than what auto workers make in China, this provides more cost savings. Tata plans to supply kits to dealers who will do the final assembly in small workshops. This distribution strategy will save Tata another chunk of costs, as about 20% of the car's cost is in distribution in the USA. ...

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An assessment of Brazil compared to the other leading emergig market countries Russia, China and India, shows that Brazil has a lot going for it. Compared to Russia and China, Brazil has a stable multiparty democracy. And the differences between the countryside and the urban areas is not quite as large as it is in China and India. Surprising as it may appear about 83% of Brazilians now live in cities. And the process of urbanization that is taking place in China and India took place much earlier in Brazil. Between 1940 to 1980 industrialization and a growth rate that averaged 7% for most of that period brough large numbers of people from rural to urban areas. And the problem of inflation which wracked the economy from 1986 to 1994 before being brought under control is now well under control at about 4.7%. Debt problems from the Asian crisis contagion effects are now behind it as Brazil is a big exporter of commodities from coffee, soyabeans, orange juice to iron ore, with the real strengthening from 68 as measured in the currencies of its trading partners in 2001 to 100 today. Brazil's growth rate has reached 5.4%. and has been at an average of 4.5% since 2004. Between 1980 and 2000 Brazil's growth was in a slump so this has been a period of great changes in Brazil. Brazil is importing more plant and equipment with a stronger currency and booming exports. Brazil invests 19% of GDP according to Vale of MB Associados and that number should reach 25% of GDP at which point it would be easier to maintain a growth rate of 5% a year. With consumer credit growing at 25% each year for the last 2 years consumption is growing. And Brazilian companies were the second largest source of foreign direct investment in developing countries after China, according to the Fundacao Dom Cabral, a business school, and Columbia University, with the stronger real helping the balance sheets of Brazilian companies. The big change is that under the Lula government Brazil has done much better for the working classes and the rural poor. The Bolsa Familias is a program of cash transfers to poor people under the poverty line but which has strings attached so that they are required to send their children to school and have them vaccinated. It reaches 11 million families and is considered a major success in reducing poverty and in helping to see that poverty is not passed on from generation to generation. A program that may be copied in India. Acccording to the Observador Brasil/ Ipsos survey 23 million Brazilians have left social classes D and E and joined class C which means that they can have a rented apartment, a car and some gadgets. This give more confidence in Brazilian democracy and capitalism as more of society's diverse groups have a stake in the future....

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The median net worth of Hispanic and Black families has been severely affected by the recession. Because minorities hold a much larger part of their assets in household equity the foreclosure crisis and the recession have had a devastaing impact on both minority groups. The median net worth of Hispanic families dropped by two thirds and black families by half after the 2008 recession from the 2005 figures, and was around $6000 for 2009 for both groups, according to data from the Pew Research Center. The Pew report shows median net worth of a white family is 20 times that of a black family, and 18 times that of a Hispanic family, with the gap between these minorities and whites twice as large in 2009 compared to the period before the recession in 2005. This was even true for Asian American families, whose median net worth dropped by half from 2005 to 2009, to $78,000. The figure for whites dropped much less from $135,000 to $113,000 during the same period. Another significant finding is that within each group the share of the wealthiest 10% of the people increased between 2005 and 2009, for all households this went up from 49% to 56%, for Hispanics from 56% to 72%, for Blacks from 59% to 67%....

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Two Syrian cities are among the oldest in the world going back to 3000 BC. They are Aleppo and Damascus. This is close to when Varanasi on the Ganges in India was settled. Aleppo is older than Damascus.  The only European city that comes close is Plovdiv, Bulgaria, says this report in The Guardian. Most of the Syrian region is populated by Syrian Sunnis about 75% and there are Christian, 10%, Shia Alawite 11%, and other minorities in Syria.  The Syrian Civil War 2011-2024 destroyed most of the old city of Aleppo. Syria has 110 miles of Mediterranean coastline, mountains along the coastline and and area inland of wheat cultivation along the Euphrates river and the Syrian desert near Iraq in the east, Turkey to the north with Kurds in that area, and Jordan in the south. The Ottoman Turks ruled from 1516 to 1918. In 1920 a French Mandate was setup in Syria till 1943. Following the Second World War Syria was an independent nation and briefly joined Egypt in the UAR United Arab Republic.  ...

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Only upto a point does money make a difference and only in an highly unequal society that comes around every 100 years at times like this. This comparison here is with top 10% and bottom 10% when cost of things have gone up tremendously. It is a poor comparison and validates a society that does not value health and character over money. In a more normal situation where incomes are better laid out across the population for decent access to a good life, public investment for health facilities in every town or section of large cities, and looking at people in the middle from 20% to 80% in the income distribution -it is the choices made how much to spend on fruits,  vegetables, ancient grains, and the educational access in a fair deal society that teaches one to make good food choices, avoiding processed foods and eating less meat and poultry, exercizing, and avoiding alcohol and tobacco, meditation, yoga and spiritual life, and use of public health facilities for exercise, can gradually add up to better healthier living at moderate incomes.  ...

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In his commencement address to to 1000 cadets graduating from the US Military Academy at West Point, NY, DJT tells graduates to think big, take risks and hold on to the culture. He says president Dwight D. Eisenhower who graduated from West Point believed that it was important to think big the harder the challenge, as problems sometimes difficult to solve become easier to tackle when one thinks big at the larger problem. Other advice was to hold on to the momentum achieved in any task to move on to the next step which may lead to big results. And always living with thrifty habits and hard work that pays of with perseverance. A certain CEO of a large bank who has been around almost forever says most important in life is to go out and listen to people, talk to people, the only way to find out what is happening. He also says courtesy and humility are very important. These are not habits DJT mentioned at West Point but are very important in real life along with hard work and perseverance to achieve lasting results. ...

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This piece in the WSJ misses a deep understanding of India just as the US media failed to understand China in the years of Japanese imperialism in Asia. India with 1.4 billion people and Indonesia with over 300 million people form 1.7 billion people moving towards modernization by 2047. Much of this will accelerate and be achieved by 2037 by which time India will have the third largest economy in the world and have one that is likely to surpass China in its dynamism and youthful energies. DJT's first responsibility was to America and the World- to bring a quick end to the war in South Asia, and the presence of nuclear weapons is a factor too important for the president to not take this responsibility seriously. DJT also made it clear that the economy is where it is all going to happen- the modernization of India and Indonesia in the way the US had helped each of these nations modernize- Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China, and now India over 1900-2037. The people of South Asia fully support the US president in this endeavor. ...

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Kessler point to fears of a decline in real estate values, as the reason behind the Fed's $600 billion easing decision in 2010. He sees the Fed's move as not being effective in moving stock market value. And he says, the bad loans on the books of the banks pose a new crisis. The only solution he says is tackling the issue head-on by taking these bad loans off the books of the banks and recapitalizing the banks. This includes firing management and starting with a fresh slate.

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After the surge in illegal migration, concerns about crime, concerns about integrating newcomers, cost and strain on social and public services, homelessness in cities, there is a sense that the pause will be a good thing to give the US an opportunity to reevaluate how it manages entry and integration of newcomers. Theodore Roosevelt's remarks in 1904 Message to Congress come to mind when he said about citizenship in the US- "The citizenship of this country should not be debased. It is vital that we kep high the standard of living of our wage workers, and therefore we should not admit masses of men whose standards of living, customs and habits are such that they tend to lower the level of the American wage worker. Above all we should not admit any man of an unworthy type, any man of whom we can say that he will be a bad citizen, or that his children will detract from instead of adding to the sum of the good citizenship of this country." This is not something new. Operation Wetback was conducted by no less than president Dwight Eisenhower in 1954 after the surge in illegal migration during the Truman administration during WW II. There was a similar sense then that the administration had taken up removal of migrants seriously and there were situations where illegal  migrants were loaded onto trucks, yet there was also a sense that there were problems with illegal migration surge that needed to be fixed including homelessness, strain on services, safety on the streets, lack of integration in culture and language. A pause means less population growth with declining population growth in the US. The natural population growth from births/deaths was 1.9 million in 2000, down to 1.1 million in 2017 and in 2025 was 519,000. At some point it will be declining, yet a pause is needed to get the citizenship education, the integration, the economic participation, the cultural side, strain on public services, to get this right. Another facet of this is its political context but all sides should think about the Nation and not politicize the issue. Outmigration to southern states and mountain states from California was 230,00, from New York 137,000, from 3 states, New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts about 30,000-40,000 in 2025. As a result the southern and mountain states mostly Republican may add 6-8 Congressional seats by 2028 or 2030.   ...

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Steven Press of the Stanford History Department says "buying Greenland is not a new idea."  Actually Denmark sold hubs in India to the British Empire, offered Greenland for sale to US in 1900's,  and US president Harry Truman offered $100 million in 1946 for Greenland because of it's strategic value in the Cold War. Then why are the EU countries sounding indignation. Denmark was a colonial power in India in the 19th century. Denmark was explored in its widest extent by Robert Peary in the 1880's who proved it was an island by reaching it's northernmost side. Peary advocated for Greenland to be part of the US and the Commanders in Chief all agreed in 1946 the island "was completely worthless to Denmark," yet was vital to the United States, to protect its eastern seaboard. DJT is hardly the first to say this even though the Europeans want to excoriate hime for doing so. In fact it was Secretary of State William Seward in 1867 who looked at acquiring Greenland, when he negotiated the purchase of Alaska from the Russian Empire. Alaska is a lot ,a lot better for natives compared to it being under Russia, and this would be true for Greenland than being under Denmark. Denmark's claim was not even accepted till 1921 with Norway disputing it.  Denmark had not explored the northern part of the country when Robert Peary reached it for the US Navy and claimed it for the US inthe 1880's. It can be said that for these reasons Denmark has little reason to be in Greenland except as a colonial power. Its claims are from 1814 Treaty of Kiel with Prussia. Denmark can hardly protect Greenland's vast shoreline with 6 dogsleds, and security less than the New York Police Department, from Russian and Chinese submarines and ships in the Arctic. The native Inuit population of Greenland has little in common with Denmark as a colonial power. About 60,000 Inuit origin native residents, in the whole island, most of them would fit into one or several American bases, Okinawa alone has 80,000 people. Who would have per capita incomes many times what they are today with better living conditions and standards of health and education, security and air transport under the US.    ...

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WSJ and NYT, Wash.Post exaggerated defense of Denmark's claims to Greenland. DJT says there is nothing in writing that says Denmark owns Greenland. The NYT, WSJ cite 1916 Treaty that transferred Danish West Indies to US for $25 million.  The agreement in 1916 said Denmark would extend its economic and political arrangements across Greenland, which was the status quo, but this did not give ownership of the island to Greenland. In 1947 US president Harry Truman offered $100 million for Greenland. This was a generous offer and would be around $1.5 billion in today's terms. The agreement of 1916 is superseded by Admiral Perry leading the US Navy's exploration of Greenland all the way to the north of Greenland at the Arctic northern most points in Greenland. The US planted its flag on Greenland at the time. DJT on Truth Social planting the flag is nothing new. Admiral Perry is never mentioned by NYT, Wash Post and WSJ, the television media and Google internet other AI, which gives the Denmark government an opportunity to misrepresent US claims to Greenland since 1890's and leave out Adm. Perry's discoveries in Greenland. By comparison a few Danish boats and Norwegian boats landed in Greenland. Worse it sets up the Europeans for actions that Scott Bessent says are "unwise". It is mainly Denmark and the Nordics who are in opposition, the rest of Europe has no stake in Greenland and would be better off with the US owning Greenland. Danes were a colonial power and cannot bring up the Greenland Inuit population of 50,000 smaller that what would fit into a baseball stadium as they had never sought to help the Inuits. As recently as 1803-1848 Denmark was struggling to abolish the slave trade in its colonies in the West Indies- it is something that can easily be looked up. It was the US with it's Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson that laid out the vision of a free people which also fought the Civil War under Lincoln by the 1860's with loss of millions of lives for a free and fair society, something the European colonial powers failed to do. Denmark should accept the offer of $1.5 billion from the US consistent with the US offer from Harry Truman in 1947, and not use the European Union to create dissension within Europe as it has done so far in a misleading effort that does not serve the interests of Europe. ...

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Spain's construction industry is hit hard and half of immigrants who make up 11% of the workforce have lost their jobs. Spain is hoping to give them alump sum payment to induce them to return home. Economic growth will be below 2% in 2008. Zapatero pledged to return 400 euro from the budget surplus and this helped him get reelected at a time in March when the economy was looking a lot better. Zapatero has no control over interest rates which the ECB raised on July 3, 2008 and no control over commodity prices, and the housing downturn in Spain will continue.

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The Dow Jones Average is outdated says the WSJ, and belongs to the age of slide rule, human stock selection, and does not belong in an age of automated index tracking.The 7 large Tech stocks make up 13.9% of the Dow Jones Average and 33% of the S&P 500. And Alphabet, Meta and Tesla are not part of the Dow Jones Average. As a result Dow Jones was outperformed by S&P 500 by 10 percentage points in 2023 and 2024.

Just 5 stocks United Health, Goldman Sachs, Home Depot, Caterpillar and Sherwin Williams make up 32% of the Dow Jones Average.

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Alan Meltzer is a respected voice on US Federal Reserve policies since the time Paul Volcker was Fed chairman He says the Bernanke Fed is making some serious policy mistakes. The first is concentrating on near term events, such as business response to Obama administration policies, over which it has little influence, while neglecting the long term consequences of its policies. The second is its effort to tackle unemployment by interpreting its mandate as a dual mandate of tackling both unemployment and inflation. By tackling one at a time, he says, the Fed is likely to fail totally. The US is unlikely to not feel the inflation that is going on around the world. By ignoring the changes in money supply growth the Fed is making another mistake. His advice is for the Fed to increase interest rates it controls to 1%, to signal that it is aware of inflation risks. Second, the Fed should annonce a specific, detailed plan explaining how it will reduce $900 billon of the $1 trillion banks continue to hold in excess of the legally required reserves. Third, the Fed should end QE II, the most recent round of treasury bond purchases. Meltzer says if the Fed waited for two more months in Nov 2010, it would have found that a double dip recession was not about to occcur and it could have held off from pursuing QE II. Meltzer emphasizes that slow growth and unemployment is not a monetary problem, because of the ample liquidity already in the financial system. Uncertainty about government policy and the future direction has been clarified by the election which will help put the economy back on track. Philadelphia Fed chairman expresses similiar views in other articles and an interview with O'Grady of WSJ....

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Surges in capital value can be wildly misleading. Nvidia a rapid computing company propelled in stock value. From the growth of crypto currency that led to losses and was perceived as a danger to the financial system by central banks and governments. This is happening when capital investment is a dire need in education and schools, good teachers and good classrooms, when only a third of American students pass NAEP tests on reading comprehension. Today's capital allocation system was never designed to accomplish this even as it sends hundreds of billions of dollars in one single day to a single company. Nvidia is now seeing a surge from chatbots computing coming out of ChatGPT,  leading to $184 billion change in its market value on May 25, 2023.  Nvidia was mostly a graphics processing company setup to make graphics on PC's look better. In 2006 Jensen Huang made the decision to open it up to developers to tinker with it and develop more computing capabilities. This has led to Nvidia designing much more powerful computing chips that perform thousands of calculations at the same time.   Nvidia designs the chips and sends production out to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. Suddenly Nvidia sees its share price surge and it joins companies such as Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Tesla that have seen one day surge in the value of the companies by over $100 billion shown in this WSJ graph by date. Huang says he thinks that this is the beginning of a ten year period in which companies will redo their data centers to build them up with AI computing capabilities. WSJ also says China's top nuclear weapons research institute has bought these advanced chips even though it is on a US export blacklist since 1997. In 2022 the Biden administration imposed new licensing requirements on export of the most advanced chips. Since then Nvidia is following specifications for chips that allow it to export to China, says the WSJ.     ...

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From north east Indiana and Indiana University SVB CEO Becker works his way up to a bank in Detroit with offices in California, and joins SVB in his twenties. He opened SVB's office in Boulder in 1996 and became president in 2008. Two things made SVB different. It seemed like the 2008 crisis had never happened. The management at the company Becker, Beck, and another executive Descheneaux hired from Bancwest, acted more like tech entrepreneurs and much less like bankers. They seemed to have mastered the way of optimistic talk to tech entrepreneurs, the language the culture, and did not share the same grasp of the economic environment of others who had weathered the 2008 crisis. For most of 2021 the company did not have a risk officer, according to the WSJ. And did not see the aspects of duration risk in having assets invested in long term Treasury's when interest rates were increased by the Fed rapidly to fight inflation decreasing the value of bonds. Startups and SVB management in their optimism both ignored the risk of not having the backing of FDIC insurance as insurance is limited to $250,000 in deposits, and most of the SVB's deposits were much larger. The US government wary of criticism of a bailout insists the FDIC backing provided to prevent systemic risk will not cost the taxpayers as it will come from a special assessment on banks. Nothing better explains the collapse than a look at the graphs of SVB's deposits in this WSJ report, in 2019 deposits and financial assets increase at about 50%, at about 100% doubling in 2020. Stock performance mirrored this.  By 2020 the supply chain disruptions were real and inflation was taking off, the Fed under Jay Powell was taking up the fight against inflation with sharp rise in interest rates. SVB did not grasp the seriousness of the situation. Venture capital gleaned the risks as they mounted and a bank run with withdrawals of as much of $42 billion led to the collapse.   ...

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China chooses periodic blockades or air-sea coordinated exercizes around Taiwan's 12 mile waters as a strategy to respond to US Indo-Pacific strategy of keeping lanes of sea traffic and navigation on oceans open to all nations. This is seen as less risky than an outright invasion. Military exercises in August 2022 are seen as preparing for such a strategy.  The US is the destination for $541 billion and Europe $521 billion in products Made in China in 2021, which make China the manufacturing powerhouse in the world. Without the export of $1 trillion in Chinese products thousands of factories and millions of Chinese workers would remain idle. It is unbelievable that China is risking so much with its Taiwan policy with no idea of what the consequences would be years from now. It took China three decades after the gradual opening by 1990 and a willingness on the part of American and European governments and business to give up much of their own manufacturing leading to loss of jobs in communities across both America and Europe and much pain from this loss, for China to get to $1 trillion in exports. This situation may never come back as the supply chains shift and jobs return home and to countries that are becoming competitive in infrastructure and capabilities in Asia. Such competition between nations is not unknown as it was with Imperial Japan in the Pacific just 100 years back. The US maintains its position as keeping navigation on the oceans of the world open and rule of law, and it is on these foundations that China was able to get the strong manufacturing and exporting position it has now that no nation has enjoyed in history to this extent. Only the British come close in the nineteenth century. So much of China's progress in the twentieth century was a result of cooperation and support from America, from the first university Tsinghua in Beiijing, to the war against imperialist forces of Japan, to the rebuilding of China's manufacturing and technological competitiveness with American business cooperation. ...

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Germany faces serious problems in its vaccination drive and efforts to control the pandemic in November 2021. The rate at which people are getting vaccinated has slowed to 150,000 a day and the percentage of the population that is vaccinated is stuck at 67%. This percentage of 67% fully vaccinated in Germany as of November 3 is much lower than that in Spain, France and Italy.  Spain is at 78%, France at 69% and Italy at 72%. (Data from NYT) This report in the Guardian points out that most of the remaining one third of the population is not eager to get vaccinated as surveys show that the those who have refused to get a jab are unlikely to change their minds.There is also the problem of booster shots. Germany's 16 regions conduct the vaccination drives and with many of the vaccination centers not active since September staff has to be retrained or rehired. This makes it harder to give booster shots to everyone that was vaccinated early by the start of winter. Why is it that Germany lags behind Spain in vaccination? There is a great deal of trust in Spain and Portugal in the health service and people are 100% behind their health system. The other countries that have a low rate of fully vaccinated are the US at 58%, Brazil 57%, Russia at 33%. Even the UK with its well respected National Health Service remains at 68% fully vaccinated. Today the US, Russia, Brazil, European Union countries and India have many of the 5 million deaths from coronavirus. India's vaccination drive is approaching 1100 million vaccinated, yet there is along way to go in getting most of the population fully vaccinated because of the large population of 1.3 billion. This is why the Indian prime minister on the first day of returning from the COP26 climate summit devoted his time to meeting with leaders of different states and heads of districts with low vaccination rates to press home the idea that the effort had to be taken up vigorously in the coming months. ...

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For the first time in decades the U.S. trade deficit with China is falling significantly. China's exports to the U.S. dropped 12.5% to $296 billion in 2019 from $323 billion in 2018, according to Chinese customs data. Actually China's trade surplus with the U.S would have fallen even more had not the U.S. exports to China declined by 21%. With the Phase 1 trade deal negotiated recently U.S. exports to China will increase significantly, while 25% tariff on $250 billion in Chinese goods still in place limits China's exports. This means in 2021 and 2022 and years ahead China's surplus should shrink much faster achieving one of the principal goals of Mr. Trump and his trade negotiator Mr. Lighthizer. Mr. Lighthizer was chosen by Mr. Trump for having accomplished a similar goal decades back in the eighties with Japan's surplus. Even though China has not stated this in writing, American officials have said China will increase purchases of American goods and services by at least $200 billion over the next 2 years from 2017 levels. China and the U.S. have essentially agreed that the two economies so tightly intertwined works to the detriment of the U.S. with the Chinese surplus creating tensions. China will now have the European Union as the largest trading partner followed by south east Asian countries, and other regions. China decided that its priority is technological development and was unwilling to meet U.S. demands to reduce its efforts for technological competition and access to western technologies. Instead opting for shifting it economy away from dependence on exports to the U.S. in a gradual way. The other demand of the U.S. for stopping state subsidies is also a concession China is not willing to make as it sees it as an economic feature of its business model that is working and a competitive advantage.  This leaves the U.S. with a limited win so that trade and resulting jobs can be brought into favoring the U.S. a key Trump goal, and not a win in the technological competition with China which will continue. ...

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Public health experts warn that it is essential that countries reopening their economy have a reproduction ratio of much less than 1.0 so that the rate of increase is under control. Germany's Robert Koch Institute which advises the German government says the reproduction ratio which was 0.70 in mid April is now up to 0.96 after creeping back up. This is based on a mathematical model and extrapolated from infection numbers several weeks back.  It doesn't reflect the change by recent easing of lockdown measures starting with reopening smaller stores. This validates the careful approach adopted by France which was put forward by prime minister Edouard Philippe in his address to the National Assembly. The Assembly approved the plan 368 to 100. More legislation will back up the French government's authority to ban non essential travel between French departments and the creation of a large brigade to perform contract tracing. That involves finding testing and isolating everyone potentially infected, using dedicated locations. Detailed restrictions on travel, work and gatherings will take effect when France reopens partially on May 11.  France is also putting resources behind its testing program to test every person having coronavirus symptoms, and all they are in contact with. That means about 700,000 tests a week. Officials will generate a color coded map from this with red areas facing more restrictions than green areas. Student size is capped at 115 per class. Cafes, restaurants, movie theatres and large museums will remain closed. Gatherings of more than 10 banned. Those who can work from home asked to do so. Public transit users will be required to use masks, and marks on platforms will indicate the social distance required. Only essential travel is allowed more than 62 miles from home. These rules remain till June 2, when new ones will be set. Large music festivals and sporting events are canceled till the fall. Mr. Philippe says "these efforts will not be in vain and should allow us to arrange for a better summer season." ...

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Between 2016 and 2019 Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado had 40% increase in visitors. It has only 4 toilets in at Longs Peak 14,000 feet high, a frequently visited spot by hikers, each miles apart. The park is itself 265,000 acres and with Denali, Alaska, Mt. Rainier, Washington state, one of the top frequently visited park areas in America. Some of the worst work in the world is getting the waste in these older abandoned toilets which don't work anymore out of there as this can breed some of the bacteria that could harm people, animals and vegetation.  TecToilet at $4000 a piece has provided a temporary solution being used at some parks. This is to separate the urine from the waste which proves to be a breeding ground for bacteria, and sent the waste separately to a deposit container, which is taken out by helicopter. This solution is very costly. The parks not well funded and having faced cutbacks from a bad staffing situation to begin with end up being behind on needed facilities and maintenance. The 3 decade waste of capital led by Silicon Valley and Wall Street, and cheered by official media, has to take responsibility for this deplorable and absolutely crazy situation in America. More people are visiting national parks and national forests, and open backcountry in the mountains, especially after the pandemic, yet the jewels of America have to justify essential funding?  India is tackling the situation of toilets in a big way for sanitation in the country after centuries of neglect. Millions of toilets are being built at low cost. What is needed is for Indian engineers to come up with a design for India's own national parks, including the parks in the Himalayan regions, which have the same problems facing the national parks of America for toilet waste. Other countries in Europe need to be researched for solutions that may already exist and new designs made at lower cost in India that can tackle the decontamination and disposal of the waste on site without the cost of helicopters taking it out.      ...