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Karen Elliott House, who has reported extensively from Saudi Arabia for a long time, says the Saudi succession to a younger generation is established, yet the different strains on the fabric of Saudi society continue. The parts of the society that are Islamic fundamentalist see the monarchy as too worldly compared to a militant Islamic State, and the western educated class sees the monarchy and religious clerics as not making enough room for modern ideas, for women and a free press. Inside the kingdom the very dichotomy that allowed the Saudi state to flourish from its beginnings in the feudal period of the late eighteenth century with Wahhabbi given the role of religious authority in exchange for guaranteeing political legitimacy of the monarchy now creates tensions in a modern state. Outside the kingdom Iran is seen as a rival state in the region, and the Saudi monarchy is seeking the support of the U.S. to fight Islamic State. Ibn Saud, described as a skilled statesman by John Foster Dulles, carefully strengthened the monarchy's role in the region for the first half of the twentieth century in his dealings with Britain and the U.S., and successors including King Abdullah continued his policies. Saudi Arabia now is in a new period of radicalism, and conflicts in the region, with an aging leadership in transition, a house divided against itself, as Karen Elliott House who as observed the kingdom for so long points out....

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In response to bellicose speeches by Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference on March 6, 2012, President Obama stated at a press conference: "This is not a game..The one thing we have not done is we have not launched a war.. If some of these folks think we should launch a war, let them say so, and explain to the American people." The U.S. president, advisors and intelligence officials believe that Iran has yet to acquire a nuclear weapon, that there is time for sanctions to work and make the Iranian government give up any weapons programs it is working on. Their view as stated by the U.S. President is that this time cannot be measured in two days or two months. Recent elections in Iran show divisions in the government between the Ayatollah Khamanei and premier Ahmadinejad, with the elections favoring candidates supporting Khamanei. There is also the dynamic of changing relations in the Middle East- between Iran and other countries such as Iraq, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, India- which have strong ties to the U.S., and Iran's relations with China and other countries which have close economic ties to the U.S. In addition in a country with a demographic skewed heavily towards younger people and a third of the people under 15, the democracy protests in 2011 about a flawed election in 2009 are supported largely by university and college students. That election may actually have been stolen by Ahmadinejad from Mr. Moussavi, who in an election eve television debate accused Ahmadinejad of "adventurism, illusionism, exhibitionism, extremism, and superficiality," (Nazila Fathi, NYT 6/4/2009). These factors are likely to be behind the Obama administration's sense of a "window of opportunity," to use Mr. Obama's words. Recent polls by the University of Maryland's Prof. Telhami show only 19% of Israelis favored a military strike without U.S. backing in Feb. 2012, and Israeli public opinion experts see Obama's position as reflecting a sound judgement. Research by Citigroup shows that at a price for Brent crude of $120 with an escalation in Iran, it would take 9% of the world's GDP to support the higher energy costs, hitting Europe especially hard (Liam Denning, WSJ 1/6/2012)....

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China says its students are subject to harsh questioning when coming to the US, and these students face racial discrimination in the US. 105,000 student visas for Chinese students were issued by the US embassy in Beijing and consulates in China in 2023 as the pandemic recedes and normal exchange relations resume. About 50,000 exchange program participants in the US are expected to visit China over 5 years. Nicholas Burns, 68 years, is the new US ambassador to China in April 2022. As the mood changes in the US with both presidential candidates ramping up their stand on trade with China and tariffs, US China relations face headwinds after the normalization of US-China relations following the pandemic, when Xi and Biden met in San Francisco in 2023. Chinese student facing racial discrimination in the US and the difficulties with learning English pose serious problems for Chinese students which Nicholas Burns in a diplomat sheltered world may have no idea of. This applies to students from mainland China and Taiwan alike. Burns may have too hastily dismissed this side of the perspective from Xi Jinping. ...

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US and UK complete a trade agreement, the first of its kind with major trading partners. US has a $11 billion surplus in $148 billion two way trade with UK which is just ahead of India and behind Vietnam in trade with the US. Vietnam has acted as aproxy for Chinese exports to US something the DJT administration is taking action to correct. UK first 100,000 cars exported to US will not face a 25% levy, and UK exports will only face the 10% levy on all countries, including on British aluminium and steel. This agreement happened Thursday May 8 after a night call from Trump to Starmer moving up the negotiations to get awin for the US and the UK, that will also act as a model for other countries to reach trade agreements with the US. India, Japan, South Korea, could be next followed by EU. It also opens up engagement with China on a trade agreement. UK's Starmer thanked president Trump. The agreement was a first and it boosts stock markets in the US, shows the US can do this. ...

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After Agriculture Secretary Rollins lobbies for easing the effect on agriculture, and efforts to ease effects on hotels and restaurants, the DJT administration reverses course to go back to its commitment to enforce the law on illegal migrants. The agriculture industry and farms have even going back to the Eisenhower deportation program Operation Wetback of 1954 been the main reason migrants have come to the US across the border from Mexico. A surge during the WWII of illegal migrants coming from Mexico to farms in the US led to popular support for returning illegal migrants to their home country in the 1950's. The illegal migrant flow to the US at the time was given support by US agriculture businesses and opposed by the Mexican government and agribusiness in the 1940's in contrast to the situation that prevailed in North America since 2000.

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How AI is costing America a lot in 2025-2026. $400 billion in investment in 2025 alone that is diverted from essential infrastructure repair and renovation in the US and for investing in making pharmaceuticals in the US, housing, and education, childcare, investing in the future in renewable energy.

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A Trump ally, Senator Graham says president Trump is going to slow the withdrawal from Syria that was planned. He says the president learned from his trip to Iraq first hand about conditions in the region. He is now consulting allies about how best to accomplish the withdrawal gradually without the risks involved for the Kurds, Turkey and problems in Syria and Iraq that the U.S. has experienced.

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Opening windows and doors to let in fresh air is as important as wearing masks and social distancing to prevent coronavirus. In places where people gather and in homes it is important to let in fresh air so that there is new fresh air circulating in rooms 3-4 times for every hour. It is being used as a strategy in schools in Germany to bring in fresh air. Putting MERV 13 type air filters in central air conditioning and heating systems is important in offices, shops and other spaces. A complete redesign of the systems that are old is needed. There are 36,000 schools in the U.S. that have old failing systems of heating and cooling. It would cost $360 billion to change these systems if each system cost $10,000 which is on the low side. This shows that good intentions are not enough, new priorities need to be set and the old priorities which misallocated funds through existing capital allocation structures in the West coasts and East coast cities no longer serve the purpose of the Renewal of America.  ...

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A lack of rules for children growing up has affected an entire generation in U.S. and Europe and other countries. Sociologists say rules are essential for children to grow up and develop the skills for living and the lack of boundaries and rules has taken away this essential component for this younger generation today. Sociologists call this "infantilizing." It has also led to  people living in their own space and not carrying on the conversations essential for young people to develop into responsible persons.  Experts say this process of responding to the rules and learning are essential developmental process to go from childhood to adolescence and adolescence to becoming developed adults. This has been compromised over the last 25 years so that the socialization process that enables transmission of values from parents to children has not been taking place. An unwillingness to have moral based judgements and tell children what is good or right has added to the weakening of this process by which children learn and develop into mature responsible adults. ...

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Admiral Mullen and General Petraeus have grown impatient with Pakistan's and the ISI's support for the Haqqani network, a Taliban ally that works as a proxy for Pakistan's military and intelligence services. Recent disclosure of Pakistan's military and civilian leadership's effort at a Kabul meeting to have the Afghanistan government distance itself from the U.S. have added to concerns. The appointment of Gen. Petraeus to lead the CIA, including direction of the drone campaign, is expected to continue the tension in the relationship.

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The Japan Automobile Dealer's Association says Toyota's Prius hybrid was No. 1 in sales in Japan in 2009 with 209,000 sales, three times the sales in 2008. This shows the high popularity of green cars in Japan and a sign of future trends. Hybrid sales made up 10% of new vehicle sales in Japan in 2009. By comparison hybrid sales in the U.S. were 2.8%. Second in car sales in Japan was the Honda Fit, third the Toyota Vitz, both small fuel efficient cars. About 1.6 million Prius cars were sold worldwide from 1997 to 2009, according to Toyota. Toyota has kept the price of the Prius affordable by pricing it at around $22,000.

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Lt. General Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, the new defense minister appointed by President Morsi in Egypt, has close ties with U.S. officials. His ties to the U.S. go back to the basic infantry training course he took at Fort Benning, Georgia, in 1981. This marks a shift to a younger generation in the military from the aging military leaders of the Mubarak period, and was achieved by consensus so that the military could continue to maintain its privileges and the elected President Morsi could assume control of running the country. This was peceded by the visit of U.S. Defense Secretary Panetta to Cairo, in which he mediated between the different factions to ensure a peaceful and normal transition to democratically elected leaders. It also comes as the U.S. and European allies and Sunni nations in the Middle East are focussing their attention on Iran and the civil war in Syria. For the military in Egypt the situation in Syria could be one more reason to arrive at a rapprochement with the elected civilian government, and Secretary Panetta is likely to have pointed this out to Gen. Tantawi and leaders in the SCAF military body. It shows the considerable diplomatic and leadership skills of Secretary Panetta in helping to bring all sides together on a mutually agreed arrangement. The initiative was left to President Morsi because it was important that this be seen as a return to normal democratic processes by an elected president....

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Krugman on taxes, Simpson Bowles and "low rates." He describes the U.S. under Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican president and war hero. A period which he describes in which unions had bargaining power, a third of workers were union members, and in contrast to to the 1920 business executives lived modestly and paid higher taxes. And yet the U.S. registered high rates of growth. There are several aspects to this period in contrast to the present that also need to be kept in mind. The post war booming economy after two decades of slow growth and war. Much of the present infrastructure in the U.S. was built during this period including the interstate highway system started under Eisenhower. The workers of developing countries of China, India and other parts of the world were not a part of the global labor force till the 1990's, with technology and transportation making global manufacturing a reality. The major factor in lowering wages and creating lower levels of unionized workers in the automobile as in other industries is the competition from lower wage labor in China and other Asian countries, and the presence of non unionized plants in the U.S. The choices made by economic decisionmakers of both parties in the last two decades, say experts including Fed chairman Bernanke, created a huge inflow of capital from Asia that led to housing and other bubbles, creating economic crises such as the one in 2008 and aggravating economic inequality. ...

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Experts in the U.S. say the U.S. made a mistake in not supporting the idea of a new financial institution to meet the urgent needs of development and infrastructure financing of Asia's developing countries. India, Australia, S. Korea, Britain, Germany, France and Italy are joining as founding members in 2015. China has offered leadership in providing resources for the new bank. Jane Perlez says China is looking for the best talent worldwide to help write the charter for the bank and to run it. It is a project pushed forward by China's president Jinping, and was discussed at the 2013 G-20 meeeting in Moscow as a critical part of the agenda. Laurence Brahm, who supported Chinese premier Zhu Rongji in 2001 for entry into the WTO, says it is natural for China to look for ways to use its extra capacity in steel, concrete and pipes to build projects in other parts of Asia, which would mutually benefit China and the region. Paul Haenle of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center in Beijing, says the U.S. lack of support is shortsighted, as the existing U.S. sponsored institutions World Bank and the Asian Development Bank are sorely lacking the resources to deal with the huge infrastructure challenges in Asia. China's Finance Ministry is looking for the best talent worldwide to write the charter and run the bank. Natalie Lichtenstein, a lawyer with 30 years experience working at the World Bank will write the bank's founding charter. ...

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People from academia meeting at Howard University's African American Economic Summit see a disturbing picture for improving the economic condition for black people in the U.S. Black unemployment at 13.8% is almost twice the rate for whites of 7%, according to government figures. Estimates of wealth disparity between whites and blacks of 20 to 1, declining black homeownership after the surge in foreclosures which hurt minorities badly, and lower savings after the 2008 financial crisis paint a bleak picture The outlook says participants is a bigger concern, not only have disparities widened, the future looks uncertain at best with further widening of the disparities a serious possibility.

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Micron Technology, GlobalFoundaries, Intel, Samsung are planning large investments with the assistance of governments in US, and Japan. Taiwan Semiconductor plans to build a chip plant in Japan. US has allocated $52 billion for domestic investments by chip companies. In recent decades bad policy has led to chip making demise in the US which the Biden administration is determined to reverse by boosting US chip production. Intel Corp has announced large investments in US and Europe, Micron is expected to follow in this direction.

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Peter Coy of Bloomberg Business Week points out that the debt ceiling and proposed deficit reductions in the range of $4 trillion really obscure the real size of the problem which is much larger. The real problems hit when the U.S. faces a larger graying population by 2020 with sharply higher per capita health care spending; and at the same time workers from this generation retire and become beneficiaries of Social Security and Medicare with fewer younger workers to support the system with tax revenues. Another problem is that older Americans are likely as a voting bloc to vote themselves benefits that will cost the younger generation, benefits that the younger generation will not be able to enjoy. Even the Paul Ryan plan with its cuts to Medicare insulated todays seniors from the sharp cuts, as it becomes political necessity for both Republicans and Democrats to shy away from touching the current beneficiaries.

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The authors, Becker, Davis and Murphy, are from the University of Chicago. They point out that the uncertainty created by the Obama administration's programs including healthcare and social investments in education, energy conservation, and the desire to reduce carbon emissions, all tend to slow business expansion and investments to create jobs by putting additional costs on business. The expanding federal deficit and national debt also create additional uncertainty. Their point is that it was a mistake to start making major changes to transform the U.S. economy at this time, and that it would have been wiser to do these changes after the economy had recovered completely from the crisis. All efforts they say should have been concentrated on establishing conditions for a strong recovery. When combined with the lack of regulatory reforms to fix problems left behind from the crisis, and other failures, serious questions arise about how things will turn out in coming years. See Krugman- The Feeling of 1937, where Krugman takes this up from another angle, again with concerns about the future....

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DJT Executive Order for Maritime Revival,  Bipartisan effort for US Maritime Revival by Senators Todd Young (R) and Mark Kelly (D). If not much is done it will put the US behind in maritime shipping by a generation. The US and India are both starting from a low point but accelerating their effort. India's effort to connect the Arabian Sea with the Mediterranean is India's plan with Italy and other countries. The US is recalibrating the US ports by bringing them back under the US such as the Panama Canal ports, and imposing costs on competitors so that it can compete on a level playing field. Mike Waltz in the DJT administration was pushing maritime infrastructure  development during his time in the US Congress.

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The OECD forecast is for close to 3% U.S. annualized growth in the first and second quarters of 2012, and a mild contraction in Europe.

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Analysts say expect some defaults of banks and financial institutions especially in U.S. oil producing states with oil prices below $50 a barrel in 2015.

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The ECB stands ready to act with the unanimous support of its 25 member governing policy, says Mario Draghi, president of the ECB. Draghi said that "if oil feeds into other prices, that could generate exactly what we want to avoid, namely a spiralling downward phenomenon" for wages and prices. Mark Carney of the Bank of England, says he will see "how things evolve." The U.S. Federal Reserve might slow planned rate increases in 2016, if inflation remains well below the target of 2%, and conditions indicate adverse effect on the economy.

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The US Federal Reserve's interest rate increases are having an effect in cooling inflation in the US. The inflation report for May shows US inflation at 4%, half the inflation at its peak in 2022. The policies of the Biden administration are leading to increased investment in infrastructure and manufacturing in the US. This combined with lower inflation, assistance to the needy for the increases in cost of living, are helping boost the US economy in 2023. This is also setting the foundation for the kind of growth and confidence that the US has not seen since its recovery from World War II in the nineteen fifties and sixties.

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Russia's continued support for the Assad regime in Syria. Russian support is not because of arms sales, which are only only about 5% of total sales and which can find buyers in other countries. It is mainly because Russians prefer a secular regime to what they see as a spread of Islamist influence in the Middle East, especially considering the Russian experience in Chechnya. Another reason is its opposition to unilateral interventions by the U.S., France and the UK, and a sense of keeping Russia's voice as a superpower.

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US president Biden announces 100% tariff on China made EV's and 50% on solar panels. This is to prevent China from flooding the US market with highly subsidized products from China, give US manufacturers the opportunity to build a market in the US and develop new technologies. It also protects jobs in these industries for American workers.