LyrArc Article Gist
What impresses most about Tuchel is his calmness and reassuring his players, taking the pressure off them so they can concentrate on the game on their skills and do better. In the half time talk for the game against Croatia he tells his players - “Even if we lost, it will not change my perception of you from the last 17 days, but let’s do it our way.” Players did not have to think of their self-worth, a load was taken off their backs, so they could concentrate on the task itself and use their skills effectively, says Cath Bishop in The Guardian. There are 10 articles on this German coach Tuchel one each for how he managed each game, with DRC, Croatia, Panama, and with Mexico, in The Guardian, and others on his approach, rare to find so many concentrating on the coach for England. Showing Tuchel has something of a rare quality- calmness plus confidence, and connection with his players.

LyrArc Article Gist
What is life like for millions of laborers in the construction industry in India, for migrant workers, for household help, for small electrical and bicycle shops, for security workers, as India gradually reopens and more people get back to work. The Hindustan Times provides this look at pictures of these workers, their earnings during lockdown and their return to work.

LyrArc Article Gist
Compare this fine of $100,000 for an interview with Tories Rishi Sunak by GB News Program, a British broadcaster, days before the election by British Broadcasting Regulatory Authority Ofcom, with the unregulated and free for all ways of PACS throwing their weight around days before the US election. The US democratic framework owes much for its origins in the British parliamentary democracy and its institutions and concepts, yet in the framework for parties vying for support there is a glaring missing element of restraint and rules, regulatory principle so that anyone can run for office. Under the current system which is not a given and which was written by human beings and can be corrected most people are not keen on raising huge amounts of money are excluded from public service, a great loss to the nation.

LyrArc Article Gist
In April 2012 the PBOC widened the trading range for the yuan to 1% from 0.5%. In Feb. 2014 the PBOC is expected to widen that trading range to 2%, as part of the PBOC's plan to gradually let the yuan trade freely. Increasing capital flows into China in 2013 and beginning of 2014 have led to appreciation of the yuan. To control one way appreciation the PBOC bought about $45 billion in foreign exchange in Dec. 2013, for the fifth month of net purchases. The yuan was at 6.1248 per dollar on Feb. 26, 2013. It has declined by 1.2% against the dollar from the beginning of 2014 to Feb 26. In 2013 the yuan gained 2.9%. The PBOC policy statements indicate that it sees the yuan at an "equilibrium level," or fair market value. The new policy to decrease its value slightly is designed to widen the trading range close to 2% and make trading a two way bet.

LyrArc Article Gist
Germany's goalie Neuer would stay outside his goal box so much of the time that it has become the norm for goalies to move out of their box to tackle incoming balls. In this World Cup Soccer the winning team goalies have stayed inside their box to make saves. Particularly true for France, Croatia's Subasic and goalies for Belgium and France. Most of the game depended on goalie saves for Croatia and France. Subasic and Lloris stayed inside the goalie's six yard box and made sensational saves. France's coach also wanted his goalie inside the box and to play the game the way it used to be played 20 years ago.

LyrArc Article Gist
Comparative effectiveness research will be conducted to evaluate what is the best treatment for any ailment or disease or health problem under the $1.1 billion allocated for this in the Stimulus Plan. What are the alternative methods of treatment, what is the effectiveness of each treatment, what are the comparative costs and so on. Is it better to treat neck pain with surgery or acombination ofphysical therapy, exercize and medications? If there is ablockage of arteries in the lower leg and leg pain, how does drugs and watchful waiting compare with surgery? For chronic heart failure how does home monitoring of blood pressure and weight and exercise in addition to medications provide an alternative route as opposed to just medications. Dr Fisher of Dartmouth Medical School cites these as examples of questions that can be asked in comparitive effectiveness research. The money will be available to the Health and Human Services Department and will be used over several years. About 15 federal employees will form a council to coordinate the research and advise President Obama and Congress on how to use the money. In 2007 the US spent $2.2 trillion, or 16% of GDP, on health care, and the Congressional Budget Office says it will grow to 25% of GDP at the rate its growing by 2025 if left to its own devices. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Some countries such as France are increasing kilometres of bike lanes in Paris and suburbs. Traffic has dropped in Paris and other cities to a point where people living in cities are looking for ways to preserve some of the good things from the public health crisis such as the quieter streets, less or no pollution, less traffic congestion. Some cities are closing areas on their rever fronts so that people have more room to walk and exercize. Cities doing this are Oakland, Denver, Minneapolis, Chicago and Philadelphia in the U.S., and Calgary, Winnipeg, Vancouver in Canada. Cycling and walking is becoming popular.  In Berlin motor vehicle lanes are being replaced with bicycle lanes in many streets. In Bogota 35 kms. of auto traffic laneshave been converted using cones into bicycle lanes. In March the mayor of Mexico City suggested 130 kms of temporary bicycle lanes. This report in the Guardian says London is one of the cities that have not acted quickly to make these changes for larger bike use. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
James Pressley, in this review of Joseph Stiglitz's new book- "Freefall: America, Free Markets and the Sinking of the World Economy," says Stiglitz's advice should be taken into account by the new administration. Stiglitz, says, the Obama administration has so far offered no alternative vision of capitalism and is only "mudddling through." It is simply following the course the Bush administration had taken. And has retained as key economic advisors, Geithner, Ben Bernanke and Summers, all from previous administration's economic teams, thus largely removing the possibillity of serious change. And by doing so, says Stiglitz, the Obama administration has "squandered the opportunity," to fix things that needed to be fixed in the economy. Stiglitz, says Pressley, urges Americans to think what kind of America they want to see, what kind of society they want to make, and then what kind of economy will get them there. Stiglitz wants to see banks back to where they they only make loans, and act as an efficient payments system, and not engaged in risk taking. At a meeting of the American Economic Association, Stiglitz, presented a paper that suggested that between globalization for integrating world financial markets and keeping them separate, the latter is the better course. Financial markets he believes, need circuit breakers to not bring down the whole system....

LyrArc Article Gist
By preventing serious illness in patients two pills for coronavirus from Pfizer and Merck can change the course of this pandemic. Pfizer will give a royalty free license to Medicines Patent Pool, an organization backed by the United Nations for its coronavirus pill. Merck has also given a royalty free license to Medicines Patent Pool for it pill. This organization will then grant a license for the manufacture of the coronavirus pills to poor developing countries. India is included in the list of countries yet China, Russia and Brazil are excluded for the Pfizer license.  Merck has given Indian generics manufacturers approval to make the pill. This will provide supplies of the pill to 105 developing countries, South Africa will also make the pill to provide it at $10 a course in Africa. Pfizer will begin manufacturing of large quantities in 2022 with 50 million planned for 2022 and 21 million in the first half of 2022. Pfizer pill will be made available in 95 countries. The Merck pill is called Molnupiravir. Pfizer pill is called Paxlovid with 30 pills taken over the course of 5 days. Pfizer pill is effective in studies when given to people who had not been vaccinated. It has to be given within 3-4 days of getting coronavirus confirmed through a test which makes testing critical for its use. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
WSJ provides a look into the electric vehicle manufacturing plants of Rivian and Ford Motor in the US as they scale up quickly to increase production.

LyrArc Article Gist
43% of Germans are willing to fly less often and 40% willing to use less heat to combat climate change, according to a YouGov survey for Welt am Sonntag. Only 13% willing to give up private transport.

LyrArc Article Gist
South Korea will share an increased part of the cost of stationing US troops and bases in the country. This was a key demand of the Trump administration as it sought to reach agreement on fair shared cost of the defense costs. South Korea paid $913 million a year and the new amount is likely to be at least over 15% higher.

LyrArc Article Gist
A ZDF poll in Dec. 2016 shows 64% of the German people support chancellor Merkel's decision to run for fourth term. Of CDU supporters 89% support Merkel. If the election were held today CDU/CSU would win 36%, SPD 21%, Greens 11% and FDP 5%. Schulz is a lot more popular than Sigmar Gabriel in the SPD. About 51% of the German people support Martin Schulz, current head of the European parliament, Gabriel gets only 29%. With SPD supporters Schulz has 64%. Merkel could form a government with Greens and FDP support. See the related article on Greens and CDU positions coming closer.

LyrArc Article Gist
An appeal to the progressive coalition of the 30's, 60's and 90's in the FDR, Kennedy, and Clinton years, by U.S. president Obama in his second inaugual address, could be described as conservative. Yet it presents challenges in the post-boomer period of today with slower growth and an aging population.

LyrArc Article Gist
This editorial in the WSJ tells readers not to confuse the spirit of a pro-growth initiative in the CEO statement of Oct. 2012 with a simple tax increase. The CEO's are doing this as a part of a larger effort for a strong recovery in the U.S. economy and not simply to increase taxes. For the first time CEO's are backing tax increases to break the influence of what the Journal calls Republican deadenders who flatly oppose any tax increases period leading to unacceptable deadlock and uncertainty that prevents business from investing and hiring. This is part of a broader set of tax reforms to lower rates overall, reduce tax expenditures and support the Simpson-Bowles commission recommendations framework to reduce the deficit.

LyrArc Article Gist
Mira Patel provides this report in great detail on how Indians living in the UK have grown from a tiny minority of 30,000 before independence in 1947 with little recognition in the UK to a population of 250,000 by 1961. In the years after 1945 many of the Sikhs and Punjabis in the British Army stayed in the UK. Two more waves of migration followed one with the East African Indians coming to the UK and one with Sikhs going to the UK. Race Relations Act of 1968 and a bill in 1961 changed the nature of immigrants to more professional people and students to maintain racial balance. By 1971 there were 483,000 Indians in the UK. Even today with 1.4 million Indians in the UK this forms only 2.5% of the UK population. Rishi Sunak and Priti Patel have important positions in the 2 year old Boris Johnson government yet too much can be read into this. Both are not deeply popular among the British public. Penny Mordaunt is the favorite at the grassroots of the Conservative Party. When one looks at the immigrant communities of Indians in the UK at one time in the 1880's only one MP Dadabhai Naoroji was in the British parliament. Today there are several ministers but mostly in a collapsing Conservative party administration of Boris Johnson. By comparison most of the Indian community migration in America has developed deeper roots and merged with the consciousness of the American society and public. Sunak and Patel are seen by most of the Labour grassroots as elitist, a kind of Macaulay class that Mira Patel describes. Macaulay a Britisher of the period of the British East India Company described the need in 1800's for a class of Indians "Indian in blood and color, but English in taste, in opinion, in morals, and in intellect." This Indian diaspora is a distinct Indian entity which is why it is a class of Indians that Macaulay coveted says Mira Patel, but one that she says forms leaders in Britain not leaders in India. In some ways the US is different with less of the class society that the Empire and the Tory party represent. And in this way formed under a country that fought this very same Empire the Indian community in the US seems to have integrated into the vision of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln in ways that cannot be imagined in Britain or in Europe. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Agricultural experts say it would take 2 bumper harvests to restore stable food supplies in the world after the effects of drought on agriculture and the war in Ukraine.

LyrArc Article Gist
Salinas Pliego of TV Azteca and Banco Azteca says he opposes the $1 billion in back taxes in Mexico even after a $400 million concession by president Lopez Obrador.

LyrArc Article Gist
Close all asylum hotels in orderly way, says former Justice Secretary under Blair, Charlie Falconer Home Office minister Angela Eagle says: “We inherited a chaotic asylum accommodation system costing billions. This government will close all hotels by the end of this parliament and we appealed this judgment so hotels like the Bell can be exited in a controlled and orderly way that avoids the chaos of recent years that saw 400 hotels open at a cost of £9m a day.”

Labour has to act decisively to meet the shift in the views of people in the UK and because it is plain common sense- UK citizens have no place being in asylum hotels in China or India paid for by the government, it is not even thought of as an idea that makes any sense, and the reverse is also true. Asia has pulled itself up by its bootstraps, Japan Korea, China and India after centuries of colonialism for billions of people only by building up at home.

LyrArc Article Gist
As China shifts away from construction to support the economy no government support is given to real estate company Evergrande to reorganize it operations. Evergrande has $300 billion in debt and its sprawling operations all over China will now be dismantled. The decision is made in an Hong Kong courtroom on the 12th floor of the Hong Kong Court Building as reported by Alexandra Stevenson of the NYT. China is now moving away from the economic support of internet companies such as Tencent and Alibaba and construction firms such as Evergrande. More investment is going into renewable energy and companies that are leading in technologies such as BYD in electric cars worldwide. Investment is also being made in funding improvement in standards of living in the rural interior of the country that was neglected during the boom years and in tackling climate change. This is a very different China as president Jinping looks for other ways for economic development that fulfill the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN and the goals of building a better China for all its people in less developed rural areas and in urban areas.  ...