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Biden will visit France for D-day and Italy for G-7 meetings in June, followed by a television debate in Atlanta. The concern about families struggling to make a living with high housing costs and grocery bills continues at the White House and president Biden says he is concerned telling one Congressman- "I care. I know people are hurting."  The Biden policies have worked for unemployment and for economic growth as the US is the only advanced economy in the world to return to pre-pandemic growth. Economic growth is now forecast at 1.7% for 2024 says WSJ, higher than the 1% forecast in January. Younger people in particular and newer voters who did not vote in 2020 are not informed about the economy and only see the difficulty making ends meet in living costs. These are the young people president Biden is making an effort to reach.

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Anne Lukits brings this exceptional bit of evidence about improved parenting and family life. Only about 15% of families in a University of British Columbia research study had fathers who shared equally in household work with mothers. About 65% of fathers and 14% of mothers reported inconsistent behaviour about their beliefs in gender roles and how they acted at home. Girls were seen as more likely to pursue careers in science and nontraditional fields if fathers played out their beliefs in real life by taking active part in household work, from doing the laundry, washing dishes, vacuuming and cooking meals. The study is discussed in the August 2014 issue of Psychological Science. This means that only one in four fathers who believe women should not have to do all the household work and work outside in paid jobs, actually play their beliefs out in real life roles in the home by sharing in the household work. Other aspects of this that are still to be researched are how much an active role by fathers in the home can improve the number of meals that are home cooked with fresh ingredients, with fathers taking daughters or sons out to fresh food markets, which have a significant bearing on how families can eat healthy and pass this onto the next generation. An unnoticed aspect of this is that it improves the overall quality of life for families through healthy eating and healthy living. When companies recognize this and encourage their employees with some extra time for family acitivity and work the overall benefits would include- healthier employees able to do more productive work in shorter time, less paid for employee medical coverage, and healthier members of society....

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The U.S. Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit alleging price collusion by Apple and five publishers of books. The collusion was an effort by Apple and publishers to move to a higher price point of $12.99 or $14.99 from the Amazon set price point of $9.99.

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NYT says DJT ratings have been resilient and stable around 43% in September similar to April 2025. Shows slight improvement on the economy and slight drop on immigration. DJT gets higher approval in fighting crime 48% supporting, 51% saying government was deporting mostly those needing to be deported, and 54% favoring deporting of illegal migrants. On the major issues of the economy, illegal immigration, the support is fairly resilient and stable says the NYT. Even the groups that say the biggest problem is the other side Democrats saying that of Republicans and vice versa, is only about 15%, or what has been seen in polarized periods in American history such as with Jefferson and Adams, Andrew Jackson after British wars,  Abraham Lincoln and Southerners before Civil War, Hoover and FDR as Depression progressed, and Harry Truman and Wendell Wilkie/Eisenhower periods of this history. The current polarization is not something new even though it is seen as unsettling to an onlooker. On immigration Eisenhower led Operation Wetback in the 1950's similar to today's effort to reverse illegal migration. Efforts to bring Common Prayer or Christian prayer to schools is part of America's history and Prayer existed in American schools throughout most of America's history, so that this is also nothing new. ...

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How Northwestern University Kellogg School's Inaba Yoshimi is trying to turnaround Toyota's performance in China. Toyota is a latecomer in the China market and cultural hurdles hamper Japanese managers in China. Because Toyota dealerships in Japan use a salesforce that gets income from salary and does not depend on commissions, selling only Toyota cars, the Japanese experience seemed irrelevant to China. The experience of Toyota in China is more like the experience in the U.S. market with a sales force earning income from commissions and dealers selling many brands. In other respects China's market is different from the U.S. The Chinese market is growing very fast, and millions of cusomers are joining the carowning population, all first time buyers in an internet information intensive environment with savy informed customers. Keeping the salesforce motivated and interested in selling Toyota cars is a challenge in China. Also how to allocate cars to dealers based on how many cars move off their lots, and how to buildup a large network of Toyota dealerships and widen the range of product available in China. Management challenges have been tackled by bringing experienced veteran managers from the U.S. to China, who are culture neutral and are seen positively by the Chinese managers and staff. General Motors has a big headstart in China and is marketing to the younger demographic in China. Median age of Chinese buyers is 35 years age. See the related article on Chinese buyers and what drives their buying habits in article by Bremner in Business Week, May 17, 2006....

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States in America's Deep South have a much lower rate of people having taken one shot of vaccination, in the 30-40% range by May 2021. This report says states such as Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, and others in the South are at risk of seeing a new wave of the coronavirus  because people will spend more time in airconditioned spaces in the summer. In contrast to the north with cold winters and indoor heated spaces people in the southern states can spend more time outdoors because of the warmer weather in winter. This may have protected southerners during the winter and spring months. This may reverse with more time spent in airconditioned indoor spaces in close proximity where the coronavirus infections can increase. This report comes as new reports show the Indian coronavirus variant becoming more prevalent in the UK and other countries. This variant spreads about 50% more rapidly than an earlier UK variant, say experts. Another analysis in The Times of London shows that the imperceptible rise phase of the new coronavirus variants is the most dangerous part of the coronavirus as it dulls the sense of danger in the population that makes it take notice and prepare countermeasures early enough. India is an example of how this can happen as the sudden rise actually started with a first imperceptible increase in March and early April 2021 that changed into a rapid escalation of the virus in the population by May 2021. The vaccinations give a strong sense of confidence, however the vaccination rates vary widely state by state in the US. ...

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Slowing car sales are expected for Detroit auto manufacturers as Japanese sales recover after the tsunami and earthquake. A major reason for higher sales was pentup demand. Sales reached an annualized 14 million level for 2012. Research firm Polk says the average time a new car was owned went up to 71.4 months, and used cars 49.9 months, in Feb 2012. This is 23% above the level of the third quarter of 2008.

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Fisher the lead director on the GM Board never wavers in his support for CEO Wagoner but his response to any criticisms has been to brush them off. Typical response to questions about GM's decissionmaking errors, was to say that this was obvious and that one cannot imagine GM making all the right decisions all of the time because it was too big and complex.

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The German company Bayer faces an unusual situation trying to settle all lawsuits for Roundup weed killer that claim it causes cancer. It is settling lawsuits even while the product remains on the shelves at retailers. Bayer is not allowed to put warning labels by the EPA and regulators on Roundup that is on the shelves, because the EPA says glyphosate is not a chemical that causes cancer.  Bayer has already lost in three jury trials and faces the unusual predicament of not being able to remove the ingredient or put a warning label to avert future litigation. Bayer had lost a third of its stock value as the legal situation worsened. Investors are very critical of the acquisition of Monsanto for $63 billion by CEO Mr. Baumann in June 2018. Monsanto sold Roundup and this is how it ended up in Bayer's products with sales of $200 million. The legal settlements plan is 50 times this. $8 billion for current lawsuits and $2 billion for future lawsuits. And future lawsuits are unpredictable creating uncertainty for Bayer. Investors question whether such an acquisition was a good idea in the first place. ...

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Simon Nixon points out that most of the 490 billion in euros borrowed by European banks under the Long Term Refinancing Operation of the ECB in Dec. 2011 is for rolling over maturing debt, rather than buying of government bonds. European banks financing needs based on figures from Barclay's Capital are over 300 billion euros for the 1st quarter of 2012. This suggests huge demand for the Long Term Financing Operation in the next quarter. For Spain and Italy the newly created lending facility should lead to higher bond buying by small and midsized Spanish banks and Italian banks, as this will boost their profitability. Spanish bonds yield 5% and Italian bonds yield 6.5% and loans from the ECB using the bonds as collateral are available at 1% for three years, which makes this an opportunity for these banks to boost profitability. The proportion of government bonds of Spain of Spanish banks bank assets is 7% and the figure for Italian banks is 9%. Nixon says an increase of this ratio by three percentage points by Spanish banks would created additional demand for Spanish government bonds of 45 billion euros, which is a third of the issuance for 2012....

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Lisbon tram from an earlier era when it was electrified in 1915, falls apart in 2025. Reports say a cable broke and the brakes failed. It is a funicular tram that goes down 850 feet a steep hill and connects downtown to the Bairro Alto neighborhood. Many comments refer to overcrowding of this tram and the trams being used as part of the city's public transit system. Much of the older infrastructure in Europe needs updating.

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Failure to invest in housing and transport leading to this becoming an issue in the 2024 Irish elections. Ireland has a surplus of $25 billion.

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Much of India's relations with Britain as a colonial power, and the US as the first real democracy (defined in a new way without colonial interests) after Britain in the modern world, were set in the period when Gandhi mentored by Gokhale and Tilak in 1900 set the independence struggle of the 1930's and 1940's. Modi merely restored the Gandhian spirit with a development focus and honest administration. This enormous contribution of Gandhi revered by all leaders including Modi is a benevolent one recognizing the important and one might say virtuous role played by the US under Wilson and Roosevelt to colonized nations such as China and India as can be seen in the personal letter to FDR written in the 1940's by Gandhi. There are two defining relations of the US, the first related to its founding as a British colony and a war of independence fought with the help of the French. And the other related to Asia, to Japan, China, and India as they modernized in 1900-2000. Of this the relationship with the most ancient of ancient civilizations in India is the dominant US relationship in 2025, because it unlocks the mysteries of westernization without the religious ethos of Buddhism in an imperialist Japan and now expanding Communist China. This religious ethos of China, Japan and Vietnam lies in Indian soil and in the ethos of the Indian people, and where Gandhi drew his inspiration. From this ethos comes the idea that India as a true friend of America and a Europe (that includes Russia) cannot ignore the devastation of Ukraine and inadvertently find itself a participant through its purchase of Russian oil at $119 billion a year (even when China under a expanding Communist government purchases Russian oil at $136 billion a year). The cost of the war is about $213 billion in a Russian wartime economy which also hurts the Russian economy and the cost of living through inflation for the Russian people. India will seek to do some soul searching and find the right path Gandhi would hold on to for Britain, America, and rest of Europe including the Russian people. ...

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Julie Creswell and Graham Bowley look at the history of setting ratings for Greece at Moody's credit rating agency. Greece always had a history of problems with its credit standing including two defaults in its history. In 2004 Greece admitted to providing false statistics to enter the eurozone, saying that it had run deficits for each year since 1997. Before joining the eurozone Greece was assessed an interest rate of 15% on Greek bonds, after joining the eurozone borrowing rates dropped to 5%. Was such a large differential justified purely on the basis of the assumption that the eurozone would back Greece. Moody's held onto its A rating on Greek debt right upto December 2009, two years before the country faced certain default. Pierre Cailletau, Moody's head of sovereign debt ratings till the spring of 2010 admits that Moody's assessment was "mediocre" and that this is a very, very steep fall to see in a ratings- something had gone very, very wrong. The ratings agencies say bankers were selling the idea that the Greek growth story was real. This suggests bankers did not read Greece's financial history of defaults, did not understand the lessons of the recurring Latin American debt crises that countries such as Argentina could only absorb capital upto the point of productive capabilities. And the euro currency founders had left a weak gap - the perception through an implied guarantee that the whole eurozone would ante up the money for the failings of individual countries- into which bankers and Greece's political class rushed in. ...

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Lulu Garcia-Navarro interviews Homeland Security head Alejandro Mayorkas and asks him direct questions about the border with Mexico, published Feb 2, 2024 in NYT. Why the surge in migrants asks Navarro. Mayorkas is himself a Cuban born immigrant. Republicans in the House are impeaching Mayorkas. Navarro asks can you clearly say what has gotten us to this place and what went wrong? Clearly something had happened in Latin America. Central America drove migrants north after conflicts in Salvador, in Nicaragua and drought affecting Guatemala's agriculture for over 2 decades under different administrations. Mayorkas says in response to the question that the world is experiencing the largest level of human displacement that it has seen since World War II. He says the entire hemisphere is experiencing the enormous displacement in Venezuela as its economy collapsed. During the nineteenth century after president Monroe put forward the Monroe Doctrine that created a uniquely American sphere that asked European powers to stay away from the Americas north and south, any attempt by European powers was seen as an hostile act. It was American opposition to European colonialism. By the time of the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations this policy was not followed with the intervention of the Soviet Union in Cuba leading to a a wave of refugees from Cuba in the sixties. In the last decade the situation in Venezuela has worsened to the point that 8 million people have left Venezuela for neighboring nations, 2 million to Colombia alone, destabilizing the southern hemisphere. Venezuelans many from the educated middle class form the bulk of the surge in migrants across the US border with Mexico in 2022 and 2023. The problems were actually exacerbated under the Republican administration as the Venezuelan inflation spiralled after 2016 skyrocketing into hyper inflation by 2018 leading to the flow of immigrants outward that reached 8 million. This kind of hyperinflation the worst in the history of Latin America need not have happened with better managing of the crisis at that time. Mayorkas says the problem is that America's system of asylum is broken and both parties need to fix it. This is proposed by Tillis-Graham and Lankford all Republicans in the US Senate with president Biden's support. When he joined the Department of Homeland Security in 2009 Mayorkas says, US Border Patrol chief told him the real problem was that from the moment a migrant claims asylum at the border under US law and the adjudication of that claim it takes several years. This is the root of the problem the law can be fixed with the will of enlightened persons in both parties by simply passing a new law. Immigrants from Latin America are just as likely to vote Republican as Democratic and this may be particularly true for Venezuela's middle class that left the country as the economy collapsed with policies that led to inflation not seen in this hemisphere.  The other alternative is for the US and both parties to agree to what would be today's version of the Monroe doctrine- then opposing European colonialism, now opposing the breakup from within of Democratic countries in Latin America leading to waves of migration north of the border and causing upheavals all over the western hemisphere. Much less a policy of such resolution both parties have failed to fix basic policies of asylum and parole that today are being addressed by legislation being put together by Senator Lankford of Oklahoma, Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, Senator Tillis of North Carolina, three core states that are Republican since the Civil War, with the help of the White House and Senator Schumer. Yet in the House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson calls it dead on arrival simply refusing to break the status quo. ...

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China has seen novel uses of the internet. Pinduoduo is one of them. It brings people together on the internet to socialize and shop together. Purchases are small compared to Alibaba- $324 a year on average. By  bringing people in large numbers it has brought in about 788 million users in 2020.  One of the attractions is an orchard game where people tend to their digital orchards to earn shopping vouchers and prizes such as boxes of mangoes.The founder Mr. Huang studied computer science at the University of Wisconsin- Madison where he met Chen who now runs the company. Huang's first effort as recently as 2015 was to sell lychees and fruit from their sole warehouse in Shanghai on WeChat platform. This failed when the computer systems of the website could not handle the large number of orders. Lychees then rotted at the warehouse. From that first effort he realized the way social and browsing platforms could work with shopping. To build up large number of buyers who could be served advertising he came up with subsidies to buyers that are financed from the advertising. Money from advertising is put back into the subsidies. The buyers get discount on purchases and the browsing social platform builds large number of users in a short time. In this way it has as many users as Alibaba but purchases are small.  As in these types of startups with huge valuations and fast growth no profits were made in 2020. The loss is $1.1 billion in 2020. It has put $13 billion of the ad revenues into subsidizing the products on the site. Investors have given the company $6 billion for an agriculture program to sell fresh food and produce.  The Chinese government sees the company subsidies as having an effect of distorting the market prices. Regulators have fined the company for its practices. The company's working culture has some aspects that come under criticism with deaths of two employees.  This offers a glimpse of China's internet culture. How much of it is real constructive development of the internet is always a question. Is investor capital productively invested is also a question. Like Japan in the late 1980's few questions are asked by investors about productive uses of capital. As growth slows as it did in Japan by 2000 a lot of these questions are likely to come back.   ...

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Italy's prime minister, Mario Monti, in an interview with Britain's Guardian newspaper, June 22, 2012, says the detailed blueprint for action will not come out of the meetings in Rome of European leaders at the end of June. But he added: "there will be some strong elements and a short road, I hope, short, a few months, to get from there to the overall project." Separately Christine Lagarde, head of the IMF, said after meeting European financial leaders in Luxembourg: "A determined and forceful move towards complete European monetary union should be reaffirmed in order to restore faith. At the moment, the viability of the European monetary system is questioned." Monti is a former senior EU official, and Christine Lagarde was France's finance minister under president Sarkozy. The difference now compared to meetings in 2010, is the changes in France, Italy, and Spain, and at the IMF, with new leaders Hollande in France, Monti in Italy, and Rajoy in Spain, and Lagarde at the IMF, and a new context in that the austerity policies by themselves are seen as failing to produce the desired results. A further change in the dynamic is the win by Social Democrats in regional elections in Germany and Hollande opening a dialogue with the German Social Democrats. The dialogue with Merkel has been enhanced by appointing seasoned EU officials in key positions in the Hollande administration in anticipation of a tighter fiscal union in the EU....

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Instead of the long process of negotiating trade deals with individual countries the US negotiates specific agreement designed to include friendly nations in the provisions of the EV manufacturing subsidies for making in America. This type of agreement lets EU and separately Japan benefit from subsidies offered to EV manufacturers in the US. The agreement with Japan is designed to get larger access to EV battery minerals for US and Japan in which China has an early lead. Under the agreement minerals sourced from Japan qualify for the $7500 subsidy for EV vehicles made in the US provided under the Inflation Reduction Act.

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Paul McCartney of the original Beatles group does a new solo impromptu effort that ends up as an album. It was done in a very casual manner with no intention of producing work that does a job. During the lockdown period McCartney experimented with unfinished work on the musical instrument that he had used for the work. Each day he would decamp to his studio to relax and have fun. He says it was all about making music for yourself and having a lot of fun not doing a job or work. The album is called McCartney III to be released in December.

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Huawei and Xiaomi have grown quickly to take about 30% of the world's smartphone market. Xiaomi uses American technology in its smartphones. Chinese court granted an anti-suit injunction to Xiaomi against InterDigital a Delaware based American company, when it sued Xiaomi for patent infringement. The anti-suit injunctions issued by the Chinese court block foreign companies from taking legal action for patent infringement anywhere in the world. Three such rulings have been given protecting Huawei, Xiaomi and BBK Electronics. The fourth protects Samsung in its dispute with Sweden's Ericsson AB. Xiaomi has sold millions of phones using InterDigital patents since 2013.

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Th Labour party of Mr. Anthony Albanese promised a referendum on its "voice" plan to give aboriginals separate representation. It would have created an advisory body to the government for indigenous people related to issues such as health and education.The referendum failed by a wide margin in the vote across Australia. Some opposed it as not doing enough for reconciliation with the indigenous people who make up 4% of the Australian population, the opposition Liberal party opposed it as being too vague, and others felt the government was not doing enough for major issues such as cost of living.

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Most newspapers in Britain talked about the need for unity of the Conservatives if they are to survive the failure of three prime ministers May, Johnson and Truss, and the complexities of Brexit. The Daily Mirror is skeptical and asks "Who Voted for You" in its headline. Brexit brings working class supporters who favor government support and higher spending in an alliance with  traditional Conservative party policies of cutting taxes and austerity cuts in spending. The result as Gerard Baker points out in the WSJ today is one of abject chaos ,as happened in the undoing of Liz Truss with her tax cuts for the rich, financial market chaos, and immediate resignation.

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Friedman on the ouster of president Morsi after only one year in office following large scale protests. He sees this as the beginning of a fallback of political Islam, with the protests of secularists in Turkey, the shift to a moderate candidate Rouhani in Iran's presidential election, the shift of the Emhada Islamist party in Tunisia to work with center-left parties in writing the constitution, and the election of a western educated political scientist to lead a coalition government in Libya. In each country the secular and liberal leaders and the young people felt the revolution was being stolen from them by Islamist parties and are asserting themselves to gain a voice in government. The Islamist party in Egypt has older leaders, an authoritarian structure and hierarchy, which failed to incorporate liberal and other opinion in writing the constitution and in forming the government. A more tolerant and open Islamist party needs to be part of a broad based government with other parties, which can focus on the economy, unemployment, infrastructure and public services....

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The conditions of Iraqi industry, mostly state run industries, hobbled by corruption, poor infrastructure, poor roads , sporadic electricity, and bound by bureaucracy and central planning. This makes it hard to compete with cheap imports fromIran, Turkey and other countries. Iraq's chairman of the national investment commission, Sami-al-Araji, says he is after gradual change to an open economy.Currently Iraqi law forbids foreign company participation through owning equity. And $60 million investment deal from an Egyptian consortium for an electirical products factory here fell apart after the global crisis. The US stepped in with agrant to keep it running and its 3400 workers employed and not turning to the insurgency.

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Different visions of primary education, one from the Cambridge Primary Review, and the other from Sir Jim Rose, for children in the UK. Sir Jim Rose thinks there is a lot of overcrowding of subjects in primary education or curriculum overload, and wants to go back to a core curriculum, computer skills, a foreign language, and replace the 12 subjects taught with 6 crosscutting areas of learning. Cambridge Review doesn't see overcrowding as the problem but the lack of good quality teaching of subjects outside the narrow diet of numeracy and literacy. They don't like the dumbing down to core subjects and want to see a broad, rich and balanced curriculum. The Government is following Sir Jim Roses's report as it has been commissioned by the government and is written by one government report writer. By contrast the Cambridge Primary review is independently conceived and has been years in its preparation and draws on international experience and many experts. They are both very different in their perspectives. This is too important an issue, the educational upbringing of a whole new generation of children, to be left to a kind of random selection without discussion of the different views and their merits. ...