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German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock says Germany will not be blackmailed. She rejected the idea that Russia is expanding its attacks on Ukraine in response to supply of longer range artillery from the US and Germany saying this was just "new propaganda from the Russian side."

Baerbock also said Germany needs to avoid a situation of being dependent on an aggressor for gas supply. Germany is now "very intensively" looking at its dependencies on China, said Baerbock. This is going to be  for "a sovereign European strategy of independence in critical infrastructure."

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From Kansas to Southern Spain, pictures from The Guardian show the great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the night skies looking out into The Milky Way in December 2020. At the time of the pandemic understanding how small our world is on this planet as light travels at 300,000 kilometres per second and it takes 2 seconds to reach earth from the moon, thousands of years for light to reach earth from distant stars of which scientists say there are 200 billion. A British scientist and astronomer says there are 200 billion in a new book "The History of the Universe in 21 Stars."

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California is looking at population decline as it becomes a less attractive place to live with housing increasingly inaffordable, a split between low and high income population and fewer middle class, wildfires. As rents jump the median sale price of a single family home reaches an astounding $830,000.Corina Knoll of the NYT looks at the problems facing California as more people decide to leave the state and population drops to 39 million. California lost a Congressional district in the 2020 census and more could be lost in future. The swing in conditions between floods and wildfires has affected the environment.

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Judge Ergoron is shown here taking on the issues raised in the New York Attorney General's case on Mr. Trump for inflated asset values and loans. Judge Ergoron and Judge Chutkan in the other NY case on Mr. Trump are very much their own inimitable selves as they tackle the difficult cases involving the former president. At one point in the Trump testimony in the courtroom Judge Ergoron asks Mr. Trump's lawyer to explain the rules in the courtroom to Mr. Trump, that this was not a political rally, that he was only looking for answers to questions.

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A passion for doing something that interests you can be constructive or destructive both for satisfaction, rewards and health. It is destructive when it is obsessive, based purely on external rewards and recognition. It is constructive when it is based on well being, living productively, doing something harmoniously, absorbed in it because of how the activity itself makes you feel.

Its important not to judge yourself looking at others, but setting your own pace, on your own efforts. Focus on a lifetime of excellence, on a process, not a point in time result. Even embracing some failure for the opportunity to grow. 

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The head of South Korea's Disease Control committee says that patients with coronavirus can't relapse. About 277 patients tested positive after recovery. Looking at this the scientists found that there were harmless traces that were incorrectly detected by the RNA test which are not live so that patients are still in good health with no relapse. This is a very important bit of information for reopening different countries to modified normal life.

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British prime minister Boris Johnson is looking at options to increase investment by Britain in domestic telecom companies so that they can  compete in the 5G technology market. The idea is to create a new international alliance of partners including South Korea, the U.S., India. This is part of a wider effort to regain leadership in this area for an alliance of western companies partnering with some Asian countries. It is also intended to reduce reliance on Huawei.

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The Trump administration is looking at proposal to stop deliveries of new jet engines from the U.S. by General Electric Company for a new airliner being developed in China. There is concern that China may reverse engineer the CFM engines if sent to China for the Comac C919 jetliner. The administration may decide to not issue the license letting CFM International a joint venture of GE and France's Safran SA, to export the LEAP 1C jet engines to China.

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In the focus on a dazzling IPO in this report one finds no mention of what this company does at all much less its meaning in people's lives in proportion to the size of the investment. Looking up Figma one finds it enables collaboration for designing digital products. The company raised $1.3 billion for 9% of the company sold to investors making it get a value of $13 billion.

At such moments much of the razzle dazzle of IPO's raising huge tons of money for anything but kids education, and healthcare, lifestyle education, better community infrastructure including sports that directly impacts the quality of life in America, needs necessary skepticism and new vigor for a new path to be forged for the years ahead in our investment making structures and decisions.

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The Affordable Care Act subsidies are basically a band aid approach to a fundamentally broken health care system in the US, says Washington Post Editorial Board on Nov. 1, 2025. The 22 million ACA subsidies will cost $350 billion over 10 years. Democrats have the government shutdown over this issue of extending Obama ACA subsidies where enrolment increased in the covid and Biden years with generous subsidies. The Washington Post looks at how we got here since 1945, decisions made about employer insurance plans that created a patchwork of plans from private sector and other plans outside it with perverse incentives and inefficient subsidies. It calls the system stupid, and politicians looking to the next 2 year midterm elections wary of addressing the whole problem in the proper way for a system that will benefit all the people of the US.

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One fifth of Kviv's population of 3 million has left the city, 4000 apartment buildings are without electricity in Kviv, this winter January 2026. This is the worst of the last couple of winters of the war, as Russia attacks energy infrastructure in Kviv on a large scale even as peace talks continue. Russia insists on control of Donbas region. Much of Ukraine today remembers a famine from the Soviet period, Russia remembers its proud history, language and culture from its beginnings in the Kviv region around the 14th century, that is the what this conflict is about. On one dimension it is about NATO and European Union expansion on another about the history and culture, language in a Russian language part of the world and the effort of Ukraine in the 21st century to seek a new identity. It is a struggle between fraternal people in the Russian region and in that sense a tragedy. It doesn't have to be one for Europe, for Germany. NATO was created when the Soviet Union expanded after 1948 and Britain was a key protagonist of NATO. Would its disbanding after Soviet Union disbanded leaving Russia as a country with centuries of its own history, would this have been the right action. If needed a new organization with a new name and Russia invited to join, would this have helped? Could this have focused attention on a new power as chancellor Merz has said, the new power being China being something requiring attention. The US is beginning to have new thoughts in this winter on 2026. The northern European nations (Britain, Poland, Finland and the Nordic countries, Baltics) have historical conflicts for centuries among themselves, they appear to be using NATO for their own historical conflicts. The US understands this, it is looking for a way to get a peace settlement so it can focus on the western hemisphere and not entangle itself in northern European conflicts that have been happening since 1600 with changing actors. The Republican have taken the lead under DJT for a new approach to put American people and their wellbeing, their right to live free of drugs(Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia), to live free of illegal migrants (Guatemala, Mexico, Venezuela), and improve on the shaky supply chains that were concentrated in China to bring jobs home that were lost by the millions (tariff policy), and to make living affordable (energy, agriculture).  ...

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In the first week of the his administration DJT plans to end birthright citizenship by executive order. He will work with Democrats to protect Dreamers who he says are middle aged people by now and do not even speak the language of their country, as children brought to the US by their parents. He will pardon Jan. 6 defendents in the attack on the Capitol on the first day.

DJT says he will not act to replace the head of the US Federal Reserve Bank, though he plans to replace FBI Director Wray, who he says "invaded my home." 

DJT says-

“I’m really looking to make our country successful. I’m not looking to go back into the past. I’m looking to make our country successful. Retribution will be through success.”

 

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Dutch farmers protest a plan by the government to cut nitrogen emissions in line with EU laws by half by 2030, by cutting dairy farms by a third. Recently the Dutch Citizens Movement, a farmer protest party called BBB, won provincial elections. The government is now looking at how to meet protester demands and lower the goals away from dairy farming. The agricultural sector is large in Netherlands and it's agricultural exports are next to only the US, says NYT.

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China is moving to shift its economy in a new direction of self-reliance on domestic consumers and local investors. Mr. Xi calls it "domestic circulation." This also means less dependence on imported technologies and inward looking policies. As the pandemic has reduced demand in other countries and as the U.S. and West tighten controls on imports and introduce new restrictions, there is the sense that the entire policy has to shift quickly to dependence on domestic consumers and investors.

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Mortimer Zuckerman, publisher of U.S. News and World Report, looks behind the unemployment numbers and points to U-6 the real measure of under utilized labor and of workers working part time because of a lack of full time work, and says this is at about 15%. Add the eight million who quit looking and it is 19%, says Zuckerman The unemployment rate of 8.1% does not reflect the eight million workers who have quit looking. The long term unemployed, workers unemployed for more than 27 weeks is at 40.7%, or 5.2 million workers. Fewer Americans work today than in 2000, even though the population has increased by 31 million. Only 96,000 jobs were generated in August 2012. Something is seriously wrong and the right steps have not been taken.

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On October 2, birthday of Mohandas Gandhi and Lal Bahadur Shastri, looking back and looking forward- the connection Gandhi placed to cleanliness at Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad.  Gandhi made the clear connection of cleanliness to Independence. Cleanliness as indispensable and first condition for the path to Independence. In the same way Cleanliness has an indispensable connection to New India, the first step to New India.  For years the Sabarmati remained dry for 8 months in the year. Through improvements the entire river is regenerated and connection to the Narmada river ensures a flowing river all year long just as it once was in the 1950's, a river that we have seen, one that brought serenity to the mind walking on the old span Ellis Bridge.  Clean rIvers, and an environment that is clean so that we can maintain health and wellbeing. A river in Thiruvannamalai and Vellore districts in Tamilnadu, the Naagnadi river, is revived through the action of women villagers digging up canals, restoring not just the river but mental health that comes with seeing rivers flow. Every generation doing its work for cleanliness, for Clean India, for Clean India in all ways. This idea is taken forward with Economic Cleanliness as an indispensable condition for economic freedom, for development and modernization. Hundreds of millions of bank accounts for rural farmers and villagers and urban residents is part of this effort. So is the digital transformation of India with 3.5 billion transactions made over digital system UPI in August 2021. ...

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Labour in Britain is looking to Biden and Democrats to plan the phased introduction of a $28 billion Green Initiative.

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Some of the gentlemanly aspects of the game going back to the 50's and 60's, and 70's, including courtesy and sportsmanship are lost as media hypes winning and losing at the US Open Tennis at Forest Hills. Always looking for television moments and attention getting the media enlarges the slightest faults of players, much more than players themselves who go through the game focused on their game skills. A game between Bonzi of a France and Medvedev of Russia in 5 sets which Bonzi won is yet another example. Late night games with crowds are not new to the game. Ilie Nastase and Rod Laver played many late night games with crowds keen to see the skills of the players not focused on winners and losers in the 1970's.

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Izzo looks at the diverging picture presented by two Labor Department surveys of unemployment in the U.S. for July 2012- an increase of 163,000 jobs or 195,000 fewer people working. One, the Household Survey is based on survey of individual households counts people and the other the Establishment Survey based on a survey of employers counts jobs. If one person holds two jobs he would be counted twice in the Establishment Survey and once in the Household Survey. If a person is a unincorporated self employed person, a family employee who isn't paid, a farm worker who is employed but not paid he is counted in the Household Survey, but left out in the Establishment Survey. The Labor Department prepares a third measure of the number of people working by adjusting for multple jobholders and for workers not counted in the survey of businesses. By this third measure the U.S. economy added 108,000 jobs in July, which is far less than the 163,000 jobs shown added in the Establishment Survey. Because of the increase in parttime work it is likely that more people are doing multiple jobs which may explain some of this difference. Another reason could be the severe drought in the U.S. that may be reducing the opportunities for work for freelance construction maintenance and day laborers because of restrictions on water use. This shows that it takes several months of data to get some sense of where unemployment is headed, adjusting the numbers for unusual events or weather, and looking behind the numbers to the sectors generating jobs. In the first quarter of 2012 more jobs were generated in the U.S. because of a mild winter, followed by fewer jobs in the second quarter, which required looking at the two quarters together to get a better picture. Adjusting for the long term unemployed who have quit looking is also necessary to get a correct reading of U.S. unemployment levels....

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The strong U.S. job gains of 243,000, according to the Labor Department for January 2012, is a result of unusual factors and is not likely to last. Warmer than usual winter has permitted more construction activity and construction payrolls increased in Dec. and Jan. Another factor is that businesses are making up for labor requirements after the pause during the middle of 2011 from the tsunami and earthquake in Japan, and the uncertainty created by the debt ceiling crisis. The eurozone crisis, and weakness in housing will continue to affect the economy and hiring. The average for jobs created in the last 12 months was 163,000 each month. This rate of growth in jobs will reduce the unemployment rate in 2012, with fluctuations as an improved job market will bring more discouraged workers back looking for work.

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The failure of the SEC under Gary Gensler to protect ordinary Americans who are mistakenly trusting their savings to cryptocurrency firms is seen as a major flaw in his running of the agency by former SEC officials and other SEC experts. The gaps in SEC enforcement and this weakness is the subject of this report in the WSJ. The cryptocurrency firms are not registered with the SEC and do not follow SEC rules hurting ordinary Americans putting money there. Mr. Gensler was made head of the SEC in 2021, and the SEC has been looking at crypto firms since 2017 but failed to come up with a regulatory model in 5 years.

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France plans to increase military spending from 295 billion euros to 400 billion euros for 2024 to 2030. Some of this will come from reform of the pension system that takes up 13.1% of economic output by raising the retirement age from 62 to 64 years. A million people protest in Paris on Jan 20. One of the problems in implementing this is that in France there is significant age discrimination for jobs compared to Germany and other countries. This means workers would have to wait longer for pensions even workers with good qualifications looking for work. Efforts to tackle this cultural issue with companies biased against older workers are lacking.

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With profits of $11-12 billion at GM and Ford Motor in 2022 and $11 billion at Stellantis for the first half of the year there is sentiment among union workers that workers wages should be raised. Ford Motor says profits go into huge investments in the electric car industry transformation. Wages suffered from the collapse of the auto industry in the 2009 period and have only gradually recovered since, falling to $16 per hour as an entry point wage going up to $32 an hour. Unions are looking for wage increases of up to 40%. A 25% wage increase was negotiated recently for an electric car plant run by GM and its partner.

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Caste discrimination laws passed in the California legislature with little opposition. Opponents lobbied the governor to veto the legislation as state law already prohibits discrimination in California. Bharat (India) perspective on caste is for integration of the country and looking back at the lessons of colonization by the British. Caste divided the country and made it easier to colonize for Europeans who extracted capital for the East India Company and later Britain and creating backwardness and poverty. Bharat (India) goal was to create opportunities for integration of tribal communities lower castes Dalits and tribal Santhals into education economic mainstream. A Santhal from Jharkhand/Orissa was made president of India by PM Modi.

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Michigan has three highest elected officials who are women Gretchen Whitmer Governor, Benson Secretary of State, and Nessel as Attorney General. The former Governor was Jennifer Granholm who is now in the cabinet of president Biden as Secretary of Energy.  Harris has moved up by 5 percentage points in Michigan and has the support of people across all communities in the state. Even though Michigan and Wisconsin are shown as states similar to Kansas and Iowa, they have in Michigan a strong manufacturing worker base, and in Wisconsin the influence of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, that make the state very different and forward looking in its thinking.