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The WSJ Editorial Board speaking for the business community traditional Republican groups finally takes up the election on issues of policy difference between Trump run Republican party and Harris run Democratic Party which it should have from Day One. The former president says something that has never happened in the last hundred years- policy will be decided after the election depending on what he decides to do. Cost of Living action is No 1 on voter priorities. "Drill, Baby Drill," is the whole Republican party platform for cost of living action. What is the Harris Democrats policy plan for cost of living action? WSJ says it is spending blowouts that caused inflation, the Green New Deal, entitlement expansions and student loan forgiveness.The real reason for the increase in cost of living comes from the overconcentration of supply chain by American business in China, on which every president Bush, Obama, Trump, did little or nothing. The lack of an effective vaccination program and ineffective vaccines in China by 2021 and 2022 led to the loss of the supplies from China leading to shortages for automobiles parts and other supplies and surge in prices in 2021-2023. Powell and the US central bank correctly raised rates but cautiously and waited for this to correct, president Biden brought manufacturing home through huge investments called the "spending blowout" that brought down the inflation from 9% to 3%. Some of that "spending blowout" went to chips and science to correct the errors of American Business and Reagan-Friedman theory of the Republican party that created this problem with a culture of utter  indifference to the ultimate costs of who makes what and where. The Inflation Reduction Act also tackled higher health and other costs paid by American workers and families, and invested in public services and in repairing the dilapidated crumbling American infrastructure. Are Republicans saying let the roads, bridges, airports, built in the 1940-1960's heyday of American industrialization as China and India's is now, let them crumble? What do the educated minds of the WSJ Board say about coal in China and India and their effects on their massive use multiple times that of US and EU in history, is it not damaging to the environment and why the Chinese realized the health in North China with coal winter use was worse than in South China cut their coal use. Are they saying lets burn fossil fuels and ignore, and if investment has to be made in solar who is going to do it? Is it Ok for Republicans thet we just import from China all our solar panels indefinitely into the future. "Green New Deal" is just a perjorative term, policy has to be made thoughtfully and without prejudice or bias of any sort for the best that we can do for the American people, ignoring so called "right" or "left." Doing what is right, what makes sense, is a lot harder.     ...

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The problems of vaccine access in Africa affect us all - this is the simple truth. Here the NYT gives letters from people on the frontlines, healthcare workers in Africa who in one situation in the Sudan had over 4000 people arrive some by canoe through floods and had only 545 vaccines. Africa Centers for CDC show 79% of people in Africa will take the vaccination. Vaccine access for Africa is something that should be on the top of the list for Biden in the US, Johnson in UK, Modi in India, Scholz in Germany, and for all world leaders.

 

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In a couple of weeks one can expect a digital Covid certificate that allows freedom of travel within the European Union countries. The European parliament and member states have agreed on setting this up. The travel pass will be a QR code on a smartphone or printed on paper. By accepting the travel pass EU states will drop travel restrictions such as further testing and quarantines unless necessary. With only 10% of EU citizens fully vaccinated there was concern about fairness but as vaccination speeds up in Germany, France and other EU states, this is giving way to the need to make travel easier during the summer.

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India stands true to the principles of Mohandas Gandhi and joins Pope Francis in strongly condemning the killing of innocent civilians in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as Gandhi would have done in his own way when he even paused the nonviolent struggle against the British after the burning of police stations in British India. Of no less significance is the danger of food insecurity caused by the war in Asia, Africa and Latin America which India is meeting. India is America's true partner in the free world in a way that even Germany, France, even Britain fail to be now that we know Merkel's policy "errors" and Macron's lofty ambitions for Europe, emboldened Russia in its invasion of Ukraine. American and German business integration of the American and German economies with China may also have emboldened Russia and China in their perceptions of world affairs that directly conflict with China's Buddhist history, Gandhi's view of the world, and India as the land of the Buddha.  Mr. Biden will talk with Modi about the invasion of Ukraine , the Indo-Pacific, and the building of strong India-US partnership. A major issue that has not been discussed at this level is the challenge India is facing and meeting of food security after the war in Ukraine. Pakistan, Sri Lanka and many developing countries are feeling the effects of the war with soaring food prices denying access to basic necessities in these countries. This extends to countries from Asia to Africa and Latin America affecting hundreds of millions of people.  India is providing food assistance following its effort to share vaccines in a remarkable effort that has not received the world's attention. Vaccination for over a billion people in India has taken place in one of the significant achievements during the pandemic. This was combined with food security assistance to hundreds of millions of people in India in India's population of 1.2 billion people. India is now in a position to meet some of the world's food needs with its own efforts in agricultural production. In this way the role played by the US since World War II for peace and security is being met by India as a significant partner in the free world, and in a way this is returning the kind of help the US offered India during the period of famine in the sixties. US president Biden understands this as he will discuss "mitigating the destabilising impact on global food supply and commodity markets" of the war in Ukraine. These are the hidden costs of the war that are not less painful than the gory war scenes unfolding today in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and because they are about food they are of no less importance. ...

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Who is Nandalal Weerasinghe? This report in The Daily News gives some idea about the man chosen to help Sri Lanka negotiate a deal with the IMF.  Dr. Nandalal Weerasinghe was an alternate executive director at the International Monetary Fund before being appointed deputy governor of the Ceylon Central Bank in 2012. Before this he managed several macroeconomic departments at the central bank and was assistant governor of the central bank from 2007 to 2009, He has spent the large part of his career in economic positions at the Central Bank of Ceylon after getting his PhD in economics from the Australian National University. Weerasinghe is the leading expert in macroeconomics from Sri Lanka who has IMF experience. He says "things will get worse before they get better." He retired early from the central bank with a change in government in 2019. He was reappointed as Sri Lanka faced a debt crisis in March 2022 following the two year long pandemic, and the Ukraine war in 2022 that was bad for emerging market economies. Weerasinghe says about the crisis facing Sri Lanka- Recent decisons followed Modern Monetary Theory. This has dire consequences. In recent times the savings brought about by the low tax and interest rate regime passed savings on to the corporate sector and took away spending power from savers and pensioners. Surging inflation made things even worse for the lower income middle class and older parts of society. Years of accumulated debt have brought Ceylon to this point. In Ceylon one is seeing the effects of savings being passed on to the corporate sector in an economy dependent on tourism and remittances from overseas workers, both hit by the two year long pandemic. This is part of  a trend that has hurt emerging market economies from Argentina and Pakistan which also turned to the IMF to Turkey.  In other countries in the European Union savings also passed on to the corporate sector with low tax and low interest rate regime. With high inflation resulting in the cost of living crisis seen today in France and Germany. This type of policy that Weerasinghe calls 'Modern Monetary Theory' is not healthy for the European Union and the US, as these policies led to the neglect of much needed and vital investments in infrastructure, health and education. Only now are these effects being corrected by new administrations of Biden in the US and Scholz in Germany, with Biden's 2 trillion plan for workers and families, and a similar plan from chancellor Scholz. With this come needed investments to tackle climate change, all of which was neglected before. India has taken a different approach. By following good governance, managing vaccination effectively during the pandemic, social emphasis for food, water, electricity, cooking gas, medicine for the vast population of 1.2 billion, and a Master plan for building Made in India manufacturing,  India has avoided such crises and maintained strong economic growth. In this sense it is a model for South Asian, South East Asian, African, and Latin American emerging market economies that face a difficult situation today. Good governance is critical.   ...

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This report in the WSJ points to president Biden's speech to a joint session of the US Congress that providing two years of free community college would "change the dynamic" for education in America taking the first step to correct a dangerous drop in college enrollment for young men in America and ensuring working class families have access to college education. The last thirty years of skewed wealth distribution, loss of manufacturing in America, have created alarming distortions in  the access to college education for working class families. Mrs. Biden is a fervent advocate for community college access in today's America, as a community college teacher for 30 years. Biden's $45.5 billion 5 year plan would waive tution for 2 years of public community college. States would have to opt-in to participate, and federal government would provide 100% funding in the first year, decreasing contribution by 5% each subsequent year, with states picking up rest of the cost. It is quite shocking that this is being dropped from the Biden $3.6 trillion Families and Workers Plan that is now being whittled down to $2 trillion. Not because it is not badly needed for American economic competitiveness, and helping workers and families. But because following narrow parochial interests the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities opposes it. And because the US Congress is evenly split between Democrats and Republicans 50-50 in the Senate. The Association of Independent Colleges sees a shift to community colleges and a sharp drop in its enrollment. Community colleges saw a dangerous drop in enrollment of 12% to 4.5 million students in 2020 from the spring of 2019, according to National Student Research Center. Never was a program more badly needed, as American men are alarmingly falling behind in enrollment. Here are some responses to the failure to take even the first steps to broaden college access so that America can return to economic competitiveness. "What kind of world do we want to live in?" Martha Kanter, College Promise. "That's kind of a devil's choice, isn't it? The whole system has to work from infant care all the way through." Senator Tina Smith, Democrat of Minnesota. This is because child care and children's education will be funded yet a struggling generation of college students will be left out. US Chamber of Commerce opposes a $45 billion program that is critical to American competitiveness with China and other countries. US Congress drops a program that at $45 billion is only about 2% of the $2 trillion package and which is critical to economic competitiveness. Former Republican Governor Bill Haslam of Tennessee supports community college access as a pillar of economic development and it passed the supermajority in 2014. Mike Krause, Republican former director of the state higher education commission says- "I have been surprised by the lack of enthusiasm for what is really a massive workforce development concept that also provides a path to the middle class. You'd think that would hold some appeal for Republicans and Democrats." The lack of clarity and concentration, lack of unity of purpose to get all vaccinated,  is visible in America's vaccination drive. That same lack of clarity and concentration, lack of unity of purpose, is visible in America's faltering efforts at correcting serious and alarming problems for access to college and American competitiveness in the world. Julie Bykowicz and Douglas Belkins wrote this article in the WSJ.   ...

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Tokyo Olympics will be held starting July 23, but no spectators at all. In March decision to keep out foreign spectators was made. Japan declared a new state of emergency for coronavirus after rising infections from new variants which will continue till the end of the games to August 22. This means no local spectators. The 3.5 million tickets sold for people inside Japan will now remain unused. 

Japan was slow with its vaccination drive which makes it even more difficult to sustain the initial idea to allow stadiums and arenas fill with half capacity. Opinion polls show the Japanese public skeptical about the value of the games during the pandemic, and concerned that the Olympics will lead to spread of the more transmissible new variant.

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Prime minister Modi's visit to the US comes at a time when US president Biden is eager to show the US is fully engaged in the Indo-Pacific region with its allies in the Quad 4 countries- Australia, Japan and India. The recently announced Aukus defense agreement brought together 2 members of the Quad 4 the US and Australia, plus the UK. Aukus is designed to strengthen US presence as a naval power in the Indo-Pacific region in the Indian and Pacific oceans around India, Southeast Asia, China, and across the Pacific. After a futile engagement in Afghanistan the US is reorganizing its presence where it is strongest- in the oceans. In a way that Britain once did in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, the US is dominant in the high seas. US naval power far exceeds that of all navies in the world combined. This is meant to reassure India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Australia and Japan, which together have close to twice the population of China, that the US has not diminished its presence in any way from that it had in the 1950's following the Second World War. With this new framework India enters discussions that will focus on health to deal with the pandemic and its after effects, with security and rule of law in the Indo-Pacific region, with trade, technology, new supply chain manufacturing structure in which India plays a key role. With this new focus and clearing past engagements made by other US  presidents, including some mistaken policies, the US emerges as a new force in the Indian ocean, China seas and Pacific ocean region.  On September 23 Modi meets Tim Cook for what could be new supply chain arrangements that Apple could be preparing as it and other US corporations build new supply chain structures to rebuild US manufacturing technologies capabilities that were lost to China over the period 2000-2020. During that period manufacturing technology knowhow was shifted out of the US in a mistaken policy that assumed design and invention were sufficient for the US to keep. The first step in this direction was a change of CEO's at Intel Corp with US president Biden pushing for new US technology reclaiming policy. Following that the new CEO at Intel Corp, Patrick Gelsinger, completely reassessed Intel's mistaken policies of ceding its entire semiconductor manufacturing technologies capabilities to Taiwan and China. Intel made a U turn and is now investing all or most of $50 billion in the US instead of in China or Taiwan.  On September 24 Modi meets Mr Biden to discuss trade, investment, defense, and security. On the same day the leaders of Japan, Australia, Mr. Suga and Mr. Morrison join Modi and Biden for the Quad 4 talks. Indian infrastructure capabilities and Indian economic growth would be key goals to strengthen India along its land borders along Tibet occupied region and Himalayas as part of the overall effort to build a new US and allied presence in Asia.  On September 21 Modi attends a Covid Summit that will look at the way forward in the aftermath of the pandemic and ways to vaccinate the remaining unvaccinated population in the world, as well as vaccination passports.  ...

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The Times of India looks at four decades of the BJP party's presence in India's largest state Uttar Pradesh. The first BJP prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee is from this Hindi speaking region.

In the 2022 Uttar Pradesh elections the BJP party increased its vote percentage from 39% to 42%. The BJP plans for rapid economic development in the state were affected by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 and 2021, as resources were diverted to tackle vaccination and healthcare priorities. Uttar Pradesh is India's largest state with a population of 250 million. Much of India's development agenda is being shaped by the state's leadership and the federal government with the Master Plan of Gati Shakti and development from the grassroots to new airports, logistics for export markets and Made in India, new highways and modernized rail networks, infrastructure development, and industry.

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This WSJ Investigation shows Facebook is aware of the acute flaws in its product, that the product is riddled with flaws that only Facebook fully understands. Yet it says the company has not acted in a way that correct these flaws. Some of the flaws of how this app affects teenage girls was a subject of one part of this report. In other parts it looked at how the Facebook app in social media use could increase the level of division in society, and affect the achievement of public interest goals, as users make use of the app and apps like Facebook such as Twitter to increase discord. This is becoming an issue as public interest goals are now seen as critical for recovery. Vaccination for coronavirus in US and Europe, national infrastructure development in India and developing nations, effects of social media on women's health, are critical areas in which social media may have failed to deliver constructive results, and actually gone the other way to make things worse for all. This may also be why leaders of large nations including Mr. Biden, and leaders in India and Europe, have lost patience with social media. ...

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Greg Ip of the WSJ looks at the experience of states such as Illinois and California with lower economic growth than Florida and Texas during the pandemic because of increased restrictions and lockdowns or partial lockdowns. The Biden administration's approach in winter 2021 is to vaccinate as many people as possible, including use of vaccine mandates so that there is less need for the lockdowns that restrict economic activity and growth. In states such as Michigan which are evenly divided between the two parties Republican and Democrat, there is a sense of fatigue with lockdowns. Even with the recent surge in cases putting Michigan in November 2021 at the top of states with the highest number of cases, the state government and local governments sought help from the Biden administration with health teams dispatched from Washington, yet avoided restrictions to economic activity. Greg Ip says of the 10 states with worst job performance 8 had Democratic governors and voted for Biden. The new approach of president Biden is to keep economic activity and push vaccination and booster shots as quickly as can be done. Investments in infrastructure and other action is planned for rapid infusion of needed roads, bridges, with attention to local needs, and broadband to help generate economic growth.  ...

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Marie Le Pen and the National Front performed very poorly in French elections. Perceptions of voters are changing. The efforts in tackling the coronavirus, effective vaccination drives, public health protection, and building access to vaccine supplies, have shown the need for good leadership that believes in a science driven direction. Immigration is no longer the issue it once was and in some polls it is seventh on the list after climate change, economy,  education, pensions. The National Front in France and AfD are losing regional elections and popularity is dropping to about 10%. The Greens party in Germany and the Gaullist Republicans in France are being revitalized. Other factors are also present. The search for authenticity and effectiveness. After dismissing a popular prime minister who tackled the health crisis in 2020 France's president Macron fared badly in recent regional elections. His party En Marche was hastily put together in the last year of the administration of Mr. Hollande, the predecessor from the Socialist party. Its initial popularity has not turned into grassroots support. Mr. Hollande, Mr. Macron, are now seen as one term presidents. It is not so much that the centrist parties are gaining as a search for parties that can provide effective alternatives in the face of the challenges placed on the world by the pandemic- renewal of supply chains. climate change, public services, infrastructure, health, education, lives of the elderly. In the US, Europe, and India, countries in Latin America, there is a growing awareness of the need to rebuild with the people in mind, the people who have suffered badly in this health crisis and the financial crisis that preceded it in 2009. ...

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Most American large companies support president Biden's decision to mandate vaccinations for all employers with more than 100 employees. Smaller business also supports the decision as it makes this decision for them. The US Business Roundtable of the largest US companies issued a statement saying it "welcomes the Biden Administration's continued vigilance in the fight against Covid." It went on to applaud the decision of some companies to implement a vaccine mandate before the president's decision. Companies would like to see a rapid ramp up in testing capacity as they see testing capacity levels not the vaccine mandate as the real problem today with the surge in Delta variant. These companies such as Target, Nike, and retailers see testing capacity as "stressed" and say "testing capacity must be scaled immensely to meet the new requirements." Labor unions clearly support president Biden's decision including teachers associations, and the AFL-CIO. Some companies including Delta Airlines are imposed health surcharges for unvaccinated employees, and United Airlines has brought in its own vaccine mandate. The president's vaccine mandate has broad and deep support of the American people and business, according to this WSJ report, with recognition of the huge risks posed by the transmission rates of the Delta variant in the surge of coronavirus in September 2021. However companies say the Biden Administration has to scale up testing capacity quickly to make it work. ...

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There is a sense of cognitive dissonance in the states of former East Germany, known as the GDR or German Democratic Republic in the Soviet Union period from 1950's to 1990. The 5 states that formed the GDR continued to build close ties with Russia after the fall of the Berlin Wall, in the perception that this would build good long term relations. The crisis in Ukraine with border states of the Soviet Union opting in favor of close ties with the European Union and not Russia have disrupted the economic relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and Russia. As long as Russia needed the economic ties to build its economy and standard of living the political issues posed by NATO expansion and EU expansion were set aside by Putin and political parties within Russia. The very ties that were supposed to usher in an era of peace in Europe helped strengthen the Russian and Chinese economies. Leading to a point where these two economies were strong enough by 2021 in the midst of the waning pandemic to  assert themselves on political issues where serious differences existed such as expansion of NATO and Taiwan. When the economic relations such as making China a manufacturing powerhouse  was the path taken by American and European business in 1990's, business interests were focused on the declining quality and high wages demanded by unions and workers in the US and Germany. This could be personally witnessed at Apple's factory in Colorado Springs where quality was failing badly in the 1990's. Apple when Steve Jobs returned in 1997 adopted a China manufacturing strategy when its manufacturing operations in the US failed to deliver the quality and cost structure needed for it to expand. The high margins with low costs of manufacturing in China was the strategy adopted by Steve Jobs to compete with Microsoft and turbocharge its expansion. Soon other companies followed. A similar process happened in economic ties with Russia on a smaller scale. Two decades of such expansion whittled down American manufacturing, hurt American workers, hurt European manufacturing and European workers.  This process could not continue- yellow vest protests in France, the protest vote in US midwestern states in recent elections, the protest votes in German elections and fragmentation of parties, made this clear. The US imposed trade tariffs on Chinese products and moved to restrict flow of technologies to China under the Trump administration, accelerated by the Biden administration. President Xi was once of the view that China's ties with the US were important "thousand fold" in the period as late as 2010. Yet this lopsided trade relationship was not beneficial to American workers or American interests as a technologically advanced leader. It is true that American workers and engineers at Apple had failed to ensure American quality competitiveness in the 1980's into 1990's, yet no advanced country or its business can come up with a false narrative that cedes its manufacturing leadership and jobs for the working class of its country. That false narrative is being challenged today by Mr. Biden, Mr. Scholz, and all American and German political parties, and by Mr. Modi with Atman Nirbhar Bharat for local manufacturing. The integration one sees of the port of Hamburg as Chinese export hub with China's economy is one aspect of what has happened. A new leadership is taking its place in Europe and in America that sees clearly the false narrative. The visit of the new Danish prime minister to India is the beginning of the effort to set up a new logistics relationship with South and South East Asia, as Denmark's Maersk is a world leader in shipping logistics for exports and manufacturing. The planned Noida logistics center outside of New Delhi under Gati Shakti integrated development is part of the change happening today as a new supply chain is being built. The unwinding of the one sided trade relationship with China, and its related relationship on energy with Russia, led to the changing perception in Russia and China of the value of the relationship. Political relations superseded economic and cultural relations during Putin's second phase and Xi's second phase with assertive attitudes on NATO, and on Hong Kong, Taiwan under Xi and Putin 2.0. As could be expected Germany and the US were caught flat footed as leaders who were cast in the mold of Putin as a Soviet representative in Dresden, and Xi with his father leading the Communist struggle in the 1930's and 1940's against Chiangkaishek, acted in ways that reflected the Soviet period. Chiang left for Taiwan in 1948 when Mao-tse-tung setup the People's Republic of China. Taiwan and Hong Kong remained important in the perceptions of Xi 2.0, in the effort to build "China Dream" and erase last vestiges of what in Soviet times were seen as western colonialism. US and EU particularly Business and the new IT telecom Business failed to grasp these matters, and historical events such as the opium wars of the 1850's. Business and cultural interests lacked both the inclination to learn and the knowledge of these events in Chinese history and its relations with colonial powers Britain and Japan, and also Russia. In 1900 the Boxer rebellion against ceding Chinese ports to colonial powers Britain, Japan, Russia, ended with permanent colonial settlements in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tsingtao, other Chinese ports. Chinese rejuvenation in the mind of leaders such as Xi from the second generation of Communist leadership, means putting this behind, leading to the action taken in Hong Kong. In some ways as some observers have commented it is as much a problem of the sluggishness of American and European thinking, particularly business interests including in Taiwan, post British Hong Kong, and ignorance of recent Chinese history which was mistakenly thought not to exist or forgotten. This is as much of a problem as the action taken by Putin and moves by Xi Jinping. The great democracies such as India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, were ignored as American and European business interests integrated the American and German economies with China's. In terms of population the population of these regions and related parts of South East Asia such as Malaysia and Vietnam which have a shared cultural history is about 1.5 times the population of China. Travelling through the parts of India's largest state Uttar Pradesh, an Madhya Pradesh one finds how much American and European business interests have failed both their own interests, their own workers and failed the great democracies of the world, by not only not investing in the democracies of Asia, and also of Africa and Latin America and bought into a narrative of China which no longer holds true and may never have been true all along. This is starkly evident in a once in a century pandemic in these great democracies of the world. These democracies have been left to fend for themselves during the pandemic and their leaders facing false narratives in the media such as the BBC and American media outlets even on issues such as vaccination of the largest part of the world's people.           ...