LyrArc Article Gist
Finance ministries around the world are looking for ways to save their economies after the impact of coronavirus and economic aid packages in trillions of dollars have diminished finances. France says now more than ever a digital tax makes sense. An EU wide tax is unlikely because of Ireland where the low tax location is provided. Earlier attempts for equitable tax sharing have failed. One of the principal reasons may be that the U.S. does not get the taxes because of European offshore location.

LyrArc Article Gist
President Trump wins two victories in his efforts to build a border wall on the southern border with Mexico and control the flow of migrants which he has called a national security crisis. The Supreme Court votes 5 to 4 to allow president Trump to use $2.5 billion in Pentagon funds to proceed building the wall. Mr. Trump also made an agreement with Guatemala where that nation will act a a gate keeper for people seeking to get asylum in the U.S. from economic problems in Central America.

LyrArc Article Gist
China's Delete America campaign as China seeks to direct business to its Chinese tech companies in an effort for self-reliance, is leading to decline in revenues for American companies. IBM revenues are down 20% this year. IBM will close its China R&D operations and some of the 1000 of these employees may be hired by Chinese tech companies. IBM will increase R&D operations in India. A gradual shift is taking place towards India, the only advanced large industrial base country in Asia with potential for growth.

LyrArc Article Gist
Google's operating profit margin on the Moto G smartphone is about 5%, according to analyst Newman at Sanford Bernstein & Co. By comparison Samsung gets a 28% operating profit margin on the Galaxy S4, and Apple gets a 30-35% margin on the iPhone 5S and 5C. Apple and Samsung have a little over $200 in parts and components in the iPhone 5S and the the Galaxy S4, and price their smartphones at about $640, according to TechInsights. Moto X premium smartphone from Google sells for $350 without a contract. Moto G for price sensitive customers has $123 in parts and components and is priced starting at $199. For about $90 in additional circuitry Apple and Samsung are able to command an additional $440 in price level, say experts. Google's Motorola Mobility head, Dennis Woodside, says Apple and Samsung premium smartphone and lower end smartphone prices are too high, without starting a price war Google is lowering prices gradually.

LyrArc Article Gist
The runup to Intenational Yoga Day on June 21, 2021.  Pictures of Yoga Practice in wonderful outdoor settings in places all over the world from the Ministry of External Affairs, India. India Post issues a cancellation stamp for Yoga Day. The United Nations supports yoga practice as a way to promote physical health and mental health during the pandemic. Much remains to be done to bring yoga practice to people in India and around the world. The tremendous neglect of physical and mental health during the last three decades, in nutrition, eating habits, in exercize, has led to rising obesity and resulting diseases. The benfits of modern medicine and technological advances in medicine have largely been lost due to  poor habits of nutrition and exercize. Yoga and other forms of exercize including walking and cycling are an excellent way to get back to living in the proper way.

LyrArc Article Gist
The draft of the new constitution in Chile is rejected by voters in September 2022 with only 38% voting For and 62% Against, a much larger margin Against than previously expected. The new constitution was drafted by a Constitutional body specially elected for the purpose, As a result Chileans will have to go back and draft one that is more likely to pass. Unlike previous votes voting was mandatory for 15 million eligible voters. Clauses on environment, abortion, and the indigenous tribal people are seen as controversial as well as a tendency to put every conceivable right into the constitution and not thinking enough about how these rights may be secured, and focusing on basic rights. The protests were about the unequal access to healthcare, education, and services, weakness in the pension system, and lack of protections for the elderly and pensioners. Income inequality was also an issue in the protests. 

LyrArc Article Gist
Karl Lauterbach, a popular physician, is the SPD's and Olaf Scholz's choice for Health Minister in Germany. Lauterbach says he will strengthen Germany's health care system and its vaccination drive. Klara Geywitz will head the new ministry of Construction and Housing setup by the SPD and Scholz, one of 2 East Germans in the new Cabinet. The new government plans to build 400,000 new apartments every year to ease a massive affordable housing shortage. Hubertus Heil will remain Labor and Social Affairs Minister to reorganize the unemployment benefits system and raise pay of care home workers. SPD will take 8 of 17 Cabinet positions, with the other nine going to Greens and FDP. There will be an equal number of male and female ministers- one of Scholz's promises. Germany moves in a new direction with new hope for the future.

LyrArc Article Gist
Microsoft is calling for governments worldwide to enact regulation of facial recognition technology in 2019 so that it requires independent assessment of accuracy and prevents ongoing surveillance of specific individuals without a court order. Facebook and Google face questions on respect of privacy. Microsoft's president and chief legal officer, Mr. Smith, says delays could "exacerbate social issues" and stated that society is badly served by "a commercial race to the bottom."  Smith cited George Orwell's novel, "1984," in which a government tracks citizen's movements. China is using mass surveillance technologies. Smith says three areas of concern are racial and gender bias, privacy and mass government surveillance. Export of these technologies is also an issue being raised by many people. AI Now co-founders from Microsoft and Google are also raising questions about harmful effects of AI and its use by tech companies without regulation. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
 Mayor Reiter of Munich, Christian Kern, head of Austrian railway OBB, say here that the actions of Viktor Orban of Hungary gave the German government very little time, only a few hours, to act. The first motivation was to act in a humanitarian way, which is what happened. The German government had asked Orban to register and handle immigrants in an orderly way. In the end with the failure of Orban to do this, the immigrants who would have come north anyway, streamed into Germany and Austria in buses and trains. Clearly Hungary and Germany could have handled this better. The German public provided support with a large number of volunteers helping. One German minister is cited here as saying that if Orban wanted to build a fence he should have done it in a quiet way, as there are fences between Bulgaria and Turkey, and Turkey and Greece and it has not bothered anyone.

LyrArc Article Gist
Geopolitical problems and installation of US air defense systems in South Korea led to Chinese restrictions on South Korea. This led Samsung to reduce its labor force in China from 60,000 to 18,000 in 2023. It shifted operations to India and Vietnam. It is Vietnam's largest exporter and makes 20-30% of its global smartphones in India. Apple is only now beginning to shift to India. This is called decoupling or de-risking after an excessive concentration of manufacturing by companies like Apple in China.

Xiaomi took a large share of the local market in China from Samsung, another reason Samsung reduced presence in China. It still gets advanced components from China. In India Samsung has a dominant market presence. Because India is a price conscious market Apple has only a small market share in India.

LyrArc Article Gist
The Oxford vaccine is to be combined with a dose of Russia's Sputnik vaccine in a study to determine if this will provide improved results. The idea is to test whether two doses combined of Oxford and Sputnik vaccine can provide better protection than two doses of the same vaccine. Trials will begin by the end of 2020. This is being done under the concept of heterologous prime boost which has been adopted in  vaccination programmes against other diseases.

,Both the Russian and the Oxford vaccine use a modified version of adenovirus, a common cold virus. This is stripped of disease causing genes and given genetic instructions that make the coronavirus cause a spike in the protein when it passes it to the human cells. This then triggers an immune response.

LyrArc Article Gist
A key part of Modi's address was about meeting the needs of 1.4 billion people in a way that was never met before for hundreds of years. Providing health coverage to something like the whole population of South America. Putting money directly in the bank accounts of something like the whole population of North America. How do you govern a country with 2500 parties and 22 parties governing in different states of the Union? How do you deal with a country with 13 major languages? The challenges are unprecedented and even more to ensure proper delivery of services to the entire population, that has never happened before. It truly is an astounding democracy and has been for 75 years- the only way to know is to go travel throughout India.

LyrArc Article Gist
After the Biden executive order closing the Mexico Border following 2500 illegal border crossings a day there remains the challenge of increased funding for DHS Border Control for Asylum processing officers and immigration judges, so that the intent of the executive order can be implemented effectively. Making the claim of asylum requires being in the country, a process that provides an incentive to cross the border from Mexico. Bipartisan legislation is required as the duty of Congress to address these immigration problems so that the Border issue does not become one on which all other problems facing the US can be put on hold and not tackled making the US fall behind in development, infrastructure, climate change action, education, supply chain, and health care, resulting in reducing the standard of living in the US.

LyrArc Article Gist
The Fed's Jerome Powell makes a half percentage point rate cut that takes the federal funds rate to between 4.75% and 5.00%.  11 of 12 Fed governors supported the decision for a half percentage point rate cut.

Powell said:

"We are committed to maintaining our economy’s strength. This decision reflects our growing confidence that with an appropriate recalibration of our policy stance, strength in the labor market can be maintained.”

This is the US central bank's, the Fed's response to high cost of living concerns in the US. It provides relief to households with credit card balances, and business with variable rate debt. Rates for corporate debt and mortgages had started declining in anticipation of rate cuts.

LyrArc Article Gist
This analysis from The Times of London provides critical information on the strategy for successfully tackling the coronavirus following the example of South Korea and progress in Britain.

The random community testing is key to getting an idea of the scale of infections in the community at large. The critical ratio called reproduction ratio tell one if the virus is under control and how lockdowns can be lifted. For Britain this 0.7 estimated by Imperial College. It has a 2 week lag. 1.0 or close to 1.0 is not good. Germany after being at about 0.7 has moved up to 1.0 with 2 week lag in information says the Robert Koch Institute. This means a lot of work ahead, it won't be easy.

LyrArc Article Gist
The Observe Research Foundation looks at Sri Lankan debt crisis.Too much borrowing at high interest rates above 6%, without concessionary loans typical of what developing countries need, can create havoc for poor countries such as Sri Lanka. When macroeconomic factors collide with health and politics such as drop in remittances, global financial crisis of 2009, civil war, borrowing for unsustainable type of infrastructure such as ports and airports, the results can be disastrous. Sri Lanka is an example. Borrowing that is off the official record of loans such as to state owned companies can leave the country with higher debt load than even the Finance ministry has kept track of, a severe problem for small developing countries, including countries  in the Caribbean shown in recent NYT reports.

LyrArc Article Gist
An example of the insensitivity of tech manufacturers to needs of schools. Chromebooks that were once presented as a low cost option for PC's in schools at about $300 are no longer what they used to be. The expiration dates for hardware that may be working makes them useless in school districts that purchase them only a couple of years before the expiration. They are increasingly being founded in scrap or E-Waste, says this report in WSJ. Macbooks or PC's are a better option because after a few years they can still be worth hundreds of dollars and they can be used and are supported for many years. The cost of sending chromebooks to scrap heaps because of expiration dates could be costing school districts $1.8 billion.

LyrArc Article Gist
About a quarter of renter households in America spend about 50% of income on housing, according to Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies.The availability of apartments for rent less than $1000 in the Phoenix region of Arizona is nonexistent says this report in WSJ. It forces renters into apartments that are more expensive than they can afford. Rents are up over 30% in recent years. A temporary loss of job or a medical emergency can lead to back rent accumulating and an eviction notice. Eviction notices are rising in sunbelt cities such as Phoenix, Las Vegas. Also in cities such as Minneapolis and Columbus. Higher rents lead to more evictions as tenants fail to ride it out with a job loss or medical emergency.

LyrArc Article Gist
The $3 billion proposed by president Biden is the first time in history that money is being allocated to tackle elder homelessness. This WSJ report shows how older boomers holding onto larger homes for retirement and aging in these homes is worsening the supply of housing. Including for younger boomers who are in their 50's and who because housing is less affordable or because of a life event or healthcare costs are facing a high rate of homelessness. WSJ's report says $3 billion is unlikely to get thorough this Republican Congress but it is not enough to tackle the problem -because people should not be destitute in this way such as these younger boomers in America as an advanced developed Nation.

LyrArc Article Gist
Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple and its CEO, passed away on September 5, 2011. He helped create the Macintosh, the iPod, iTunes, the iPhone and the iPad, changing the way people work, listen to music, or work and communicate with portable handheld devices. He made significant contributions through the devices he helped create by making them easy to use, look and feel good. By making as he said "the whole widget," both the software, hardware and other design, and a relentless focus on how the products worked in the hands of consumers, Jobs was able to come up with unique products like the Mac, iPod, iphone, and the iPad. The pioneering work of Jobs began early, in 1977 with the first Macintosh computer, and continued through 2010 with the introduction of the iPad. Jobs first first period at Apple lasted from 1976 to 1985, closing when Jobs left the company after differences with then CEO John Sculley. He rejoined the company in 1996 when Apple acquired Next, the company founded by Jobs in the intervening period. The first period saw the emergence of Microsoft in the personal computer world. In 1997 Apple accepted an investment of $150 million from Microsoft and told Mac fans that "we want to let go off this notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to loose." Microsofts Office software could be used on Mac computers by this arrangement and helped Apple survive this period. Later in a 2005 address at Stanford University, Jobs told students about the first period: "The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life." Jobs personal story is of being college dropout from Reed College, Oregon, where he dropped out after one semester in 1972, because of financial issues. He then worked parttime at Atari, and in 1975 associated with the Homebrew Computer Club where he met Apple co-founder Wozniak. He was the son of unwed parents, University of Wisoconsin grad student Joanne Carole Schieble and a Syrian exchange student Abdulfattah Jandali. He was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs shortly after birth. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Boris Johnson wins an 80 seat majority for the Conservatives in parliament in the 2019 election. He gets a mandate for a quick exit from the European Union by the end of January 2020, and billions of dollars in public spending on infrastructure, the NHS, and public services. He gets an unexpected 364 seats in parliament after winning the support of working class voters hurt by the financial crisis and by industrial decline. Working class voters in the north of England and the Midlands decided to trust Mr. Johnson. The Labour party won 203 seats, its lowest total since 1935.  The British pound surged to its highest level since May 2018, and domestic stocks surged with their best day since 2010. Part of the optimism stems from the size of the win that gives Johnson more flexibility at home and more leverage with the European Union to negotiate Brexit that works best for Britain. Working class areas that suffered for decades with loss of heavy industry, decaying infrastructure and poorer public services put their trust in Johnson's pledge to spend more to revive these areas. Johnson called his government "The People's Government" in his victory speech and promised to spend $131 billion on infrastructure, the National Health Service, schools, and public services. Johnson said in the speech that working class families may- "only have lent us your vote. I am humbled that you have put your trust in me, and that you have put your trust in us. And I and we will never take your support for granted." The other big event in this election is the election win in Scotland of the Scottish National party winning 80% of the seats and seeking a referendum on independence. Mr. Johnson has stated that he clearly opposes this. In Northern Ireland a majority of legislators were elected who favor unity with Ireland. This sets up a constitutional struggle that Mr. Johnson faces in his first elected term in office.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Read the full speech of president Biden at an important time in the Nation's history, 76 days before a national election to decide the future of the Nation and the World. Excerpts from the speech selected by Lyrarc- "Look. Folks, how can we have the strongest economy in the world without the best infrastructure in the world? Donald Trump promised Infrastructure Week, every week for four years, and he never built a damn thing.  And now because of what Kamala and I have done—remember, we were told we couldn’t get it done? Remember, when we came into office, we couldn’t get anything passed?—but right now, we’re giving America an infrastructure decade not week. We’re modernizing our roads, our bridges, our ports, our airports, our trains, our buses, removing every lead pipe from schools and homes so every child could drink clean water. We’re providing affordable high speed internet for every American no matter where they live, unlike, not unlike what Roosevelt did with electricity. And so much more. We are uniting the country, we’re growing our economy, we’re improving our quality of life, and we’re building a better America. Because that’s who we are. How can we be the strongest nation in the world without leading the world in science and technology? After years of importing 90% of our semiconductor chips from abroad, which America invented those chips, our CHIPS and Science Act meant that private companies from around the world are now investing literally tens of billions of dollars to build new chip factories right here in America. And over that period, they’ll create tens of thousands of jobs. And many of those jobs in the so-called Fabs, the buildings that make the chips that are being constructed now. And guess what? The average salary in those fabs, size of a football field, will be over $100,000 a year, and you don’t need a college degree.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The government's rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has so far cost $145.9 billon. According to the Congressional Budget Office its eventual cost could reach $389 billion. The federal government has put the companies on conservatorship and has a 79.9% stake in the companies. The federal governmet also provides a guarantee that investors will be repaid. By buying loans from banks and other companies that originate loans, Fannie and Freddie were ostensibly in the business of promoting home ownership. The implicit governmet guarantee of Fannie and Freddie's activities in the housing market had the potential to create a huge government liability if the activities are not run well, and this is exactly what happened. By pushing hard for increasing home ownership to unsustainable levels - setting a target in 2001 of creating six million homeowners by 2014 for instance way beyond what was sustainable for the finances of prospective homeowners- it only fueled speculation, easy money and a bubble in housing in the U.S. As investors get paid with the government guarantee, it is Fannie and Freddie that is ending up with ownership of foreclosed homes- one every 90 seconds in the the first quarter of 2010, according to an estimate. The two companies owned 168,000 homes in March 2010....

LyrArc Article Gist
This NYT article by Tabuchi cites former Takata employees who revealed to the NYT that the Takata problems go back to 2004 when things were kept hush-hush and an investigation into a faulty airbag that exploded was closed down without informing safety regulators in Japan.  

LyrArc Article Gist
Meeting between prime minister Modi of India and prime minister Sharif of Pakistan is unlike anything that has happened between leaders in the region since independence in 1947. Sharif told NDTV: "I intend taking up threads from where Vajpayee and I left off in 1999." Modi says Sharif touched on some emotional things in his conversation. Sharif told Modi about his visits to his mother once a week, and how Modi's visit to his mother seen by Sharif when visiting his mother touched both of them deeply. Rarely has a visit been captured in poetry in the manner Sharif did in answering a question, when he recited an Urdu couplet: "cling to the tree and hope, for spring is in sight."