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Wide gaps in learning persist for the British population. This analysis of GCSE, General Certificate of Secondary Education results in The Guardian shows 28% of grades awarded to students in London were at Grade 7 or above, in the northeast of England this drops to 18%, with gaps widening in 2023. GCSE is the part of the National Curriculum taught to students ages 14 to 16 years in years 10 and 11. The Grading system gives more attention to A's with three Grade 9,8 and 7 for A's and only Grade 6 for B's, and in this way puts more emphasis on one extreme top section of students than the middle to upper, which may be a mistake.

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After two decades of missteps by management and workers in the auto industry that led to worker concessions on wages to revive the US auto industry the labor movement in the US was weakened. Workers wages have fallen behind with tiered wages offering new workers even less per hour, loss of cost of living adjustments during a period of high inflation. Shawn Fain won the election at the UAW in March 2023 following a direct vote of the leadership by every member of the UAW under a government supervised arrangement. He is now shaking things up at the auto workers union in Detroit and midwestern states asking autoworkers to end the tiered wages, return cost of living adjustments and a 46% wage increase.

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At a time when multilateral financial and other institutions are not working properly on behalf of countries in the Global South, the G20 is seen as the place where the poor countries can find a voice. The African Union was admitted to the G20 nations with the support of India and the US at the New Delhi Summit. Before this the only nation from Africa was South Africa. The other countries are the original G8- US, Canada, Germany, France, European Union, Britain, Italy, Japan. These countries represented the already advanced economies. To these nations were added the newly advanced economies of Russia, South Korea and China, Australia for 11 economies. The 7 rapidly developing nations added are India, Indonesia, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, South Africa.

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A new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows an alarming and unsettling gap in the life expectancy of men vs. women in the US. The JAMA study shows life expectancy of women at 79 years, and of men dropping down to 73 years. Combined with lower educational opportunities for men to go to college compared to women these numbers are difficult to grapple with. The pandemic hit men harder, the opioid epidemic also hit men harder, men also have higher rates of suicide, heart disease and diabetes. Action is needed. Looking back at the turn of the century in 1900 the difference was 2 years. Decline of smoking has improved the life expectancy of men- action was taken for this to happen. 

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The Biden administration published an online security rule to strengthen its legal backing for restrictions on foreign based apps, including TikTok. It provides additional criteria the Commerce Secretary can use to restrict such apps that present "undue or unacceptable risks." Instead of the wording "subject to foreign coercion", there is the wording "subject to the jurisdiction or direction of a foreign adversary." WSJ throws light on the legal challenges called the Berman amendments. Berman's amendments took away the right of the president of the US to regulate or ban "informational materials" from adversarial nations. It was written at the end of the Cold War and is seen as needing to be completely rewritten.

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Indian prime minister says on the lawn of the White House that India does not want to replace China in manufacturing, it wants to see India as the world's manufacturing centre in diversified supply chains where there is no overconcentration in one country which happened before the pandemic. Biden does not favor free trade agreements because in addition to undermining American workers and the environment, it also has the effect of shifting manufacturing to China because of loose agreement clauses about sources of manufacture and because many of the countries in the free trade agreements depend on China for manufacturing. India and the US are at a unique inflection point because both countries are gearing up for  new relationships in manufacturing and in the supply chains.

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Tim Cook is interviewed by Jenna McGregor of The Washington Post. He describes the problems he faces running Apple. He had expected Jobs to stay on as  chairman to continue leading the company even after the illness. Cook thought Jobs would "bounce" back. The death of Jobs was a big blow for Cook. Cook describes taking advice from Jobs's wife Lucerne at key moments. For tax issues before Congress he talked to Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, on political issues with Bill Clinton, and on personal issues with Anderson Cooper of CNN. The books he is reading include Mohandas Gandhi's "The Story of My Experiments with Truth," that he found at the Gandhi Ashram in Gujarat, India, on a recent visit. 

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About a quarter of renter households in America spend about 50% of income on housing, according to Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies.The availability of apartments for rent less than $1000 in the Phoenix region of Arizona is nonexistent says this report in WSJ. It forces renters into apartments that are more expensive than they can afford. Rents are up over 30% in recent years. A temporary loss of job or a medical emergency can lead to back rent accumulating and an eviction notice. Eviction notices are rising in sunbelt cities such as Phoenix, Las Vegas. Also in cities such as Minneapolis and Columbus. Higher rents lead to more evictions as tenants fail to ride it out with a job loss or medical emergency.

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Many of the News properties of Rupert Murdoch take positions that negatively affect women, inequality and mobility, cost of living, income and wages fairness, climate change action, government investment in infrastructure, healthcare, and education, childcare. After Rupert the media properties go to the 4 children  Lachlan, James, Elisabeth and Prudence with each getting one vote under a irrevocable trust set up in 1999 in Reno, Nevada. Rupert and James says this story in NYT are making efforts to amend this trust to change governance provisions for the news properties so that Lachlan has majority voting rights. This is now opposed by James, Elisabeth and Prudence with courts in Nevada asked to see if this is in good faith and in the interests of all 4 children.

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The British Energy Institute shows how countries are doing in fighting climate change by reducing fossil fuel use. 

Poland is poor at 88% fossil fuels in energy mix. Algeria, Singapore, Bangladesh, Oman at 98%.

In Europe Norway leads at 72% for renewqble energy in the mix. Brazil at 50% keads SOuth America, Nw Zealand 43% and Vietnam at 23% in Asia Pacific. 

Of 6525 coal fired power plants China has 3168, India 845 plants and US 408. Older plants are being retired.

Planned construction of new coal power plants 707 in China, 165 in India, 2 in the US, 23 in eastern Europe, 0 in Northern Europe and 4 in Southern Europe, 0 in Western Europe, Latin America is 6.

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It shows the need for government and the need for regulation if we are to have safety in food. Just look at China's experience with inadequate regulation and the dangers to the health safety of the Chinese people with so many chemicals in the air and water that contaminate food supplies. The chemical DCPA or dacthal regulated here is described in this report as used on broccoli, cabbage and onions.

 “DCPA is so dangerous that it needs to be removed from the market immediately.”  

“In this case, pregnant women who may never even know they were exposed could give birth to babies that experience irreversible lifelong health problems.” -Michal Freedhoff, the E.P.A. assistant administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety

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WSJ report on Robert Kennedy Jr's efforts to remove artificial dyes in cereals used by Kellogg, General Mills, that are harmful to health and wellbeing of children and adults. RFK Jr is the nominee for Secretary Health and Human Services. Cereal made in Canada for Fruit Loops uses natural ingredients juice from carrots, water melon and blueberries to get the same colors. In the US artificial dyes are still used. When General Mills stopped using artificial dyes in Trix it changed the color and tasted bland according to food scientists in the company, leading to consumers not supporting the change. Large cereal companies are not taking the action needed when it comes to educating the public about the need for the change and making changes for healthy cereals.

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What is it like in Fushun, China? A city of 1.7 million in northern China it was a city that led in China's revolution against feudal regime and colonial occupation, and in cutting the birth rate. It is similar in size to Detroit, yet has only 5000 births compared to 20,000 in Detroit. Signs of aging are everywhere in Fushun as China's birthrate drops below 1.  For population to remain stable birthrate has to be 2.1. It is 0.7 in Fushun.

In Fushun most refineries and coal mines are closed. A third of the population is over 60 years old and half of the young people have left the city. In 10 years half of the population will be 60 years old. 

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In the end only concerted pressure from the U.S. including the personal intervention of president Trump, calls from Republican senators to Prince Abdulaziz, Saudi energy minister, salvaged a deal for OPEC+ oil cuts. The Saudis insisted Mexico cut production by 300,000 barrels a day, Mexico stood firm at 100,000 barrels a day. As the Mexican energy negotiator Ms Nahle withdrew to call Mexican president Lopez Obrador, the Saudi energy minister called this "disrespectful." Then president Trump intervened with calls and offered to make up with additional 300,000 barrels a day of cuts from the U.S. North Dakota senator called Prince Abdulaziz and stated that it could affect the U.S.-Saudi relationship if the Saudis did not come to an agreement. The agreement is for 23 countries to in total withdraw 9.7 billion barrels a day from the market, or 13% of world production. Oil production is expected to fall by as much as 30 million barrels a day in April 2020 as a result of the pandemic so it is not clear how much this will raise oil prices, yet it averts a complete collapse of oil prices from the $22 today when markets open on Monday April 13, 2020.  The U.S. Canada, Brazil and G20 countries outside OPEC will make a combined 3.7 million barrels a day in cuts. Saudis, Kuwait and United Arab Emirates combined will cut 2 million barrels a day above their quota.  In addition to warning both sides Saudis and Russia to come to an agreement, president Trump threatened to retaliate to protect U.S. producers from very low oil prices sending many into bankruptcy. Prince Abdulaziz took a tough stand with Mexico and other OPEC countries to present a unified stand. He is the son of the Saudi king and took the energy ministry in fall 2019. He has had difficulty in managing OPEC plus Russia called OPEC+ as its new chief with divergent views from small producers such as Angola and large producers such as Russia. At a conference in February he continued the standoff with Russia saying Russia would regret not making the production cuts he was calling for. The split with Russia after a 3 year collaboration for cuts ended in an all out price war right in the middle of a pandemic.  The Russians underestimated the size and impact of the pandemic. The Saudis took a firm position. Only president Trump's swift and active intervention and offering to make up Mexico's share of cuts saved the day for all oil producing countries, who would all be severely hurt by sinking oil prices below $20 a barrel.     ...

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The critical variable in knowing whether lockdowns of cities and countries are working is called the coronavirus RO, or reproduction ratio. This ratio measures the average number of people infected by a carrier A. It could be that he infects 1 person at work and transport call it B people , or in large gatherings call it C people he infects 2 persons, or in other surroundings such as restaurants he infects 1 person call it D people. The people A has infected B+C+D are the ones now not infected by A with the lockdowns such as in New York, Italy, Germany, UK and France. It is determined by global health experts that the number of B+C+D is about an average of 4 persons infected by 1 person A with coronavirus, though it may be much higher in practice in some areas. The natural rate of RO or reproduction ratio is considered by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control to be 3.86 or about 4, if no lockdown or social distancing or other prevention is practiced. This in a situation where people behaved as before unaware that the virus was around them. Governments such as New York and France, UK, Germany are including this key variable in their determination of how long a lockdown lasts, and for determining if the reopening is not going the right way or failing. In such situations the lockdown would be reinstated, or if it is a phased reopening such as in the U.S. and other countries go back to the previous phase. In Italy and Germany the RO reproduction ratio for coronavirus is estimated by official experts at 0.8. Germany's RO estimated by the Robert Koch Institute and Italy's by Franco Locatelli, scientific advisor to the government. In New York the margin is thin- with RO of 0.9, estimate from the state's governor. In France which has one of the tightest lockdowns of all with a document required to go outside it is at 0.6, the figure coming from the prime minister Mr. Philippe. In the UK it is below 1.0 but no accurate figure is reported. As Dr. Birx- leading the coordinated response in the U.S. - emphasizes over and over again this is a very contagious virus, about which not much is known. Social distancing, wearing masks, basic prevention measures such as frequent handwashing, and not gathering in large numbers of people, is essential for defeating this virus. This has to be followed up with extensive testing and contact tracing to win this fight.   ...

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Janet Yellen is nominee to be Treasury secretary in the new administration of Joe Biden. The economic rebound from the pandemic that started in the summer is faltering without additional stimulus and help to businesses and people affected by the pandemic. She is the former chairman of the U.S. central bank the Federal Reserve.  Yellen faces a divided country and likely a divided Congress on many issues facing the country. She says of these divisions and the challenging task she faces of forging compromises- "Right now we live in a country where people look at the same set of facts and come to diametrically opposite conclusions, so that is a big challenge to anyone who takes that job, to build support for your policy outcomes." Yellen believes that the slow recovery after the 2009 financial crisis was because of a lack of a big enough stimulus and policy consensus across parties and with public opinion backing this up. During the pandemic in March 2020 the first stimulus was passed for $3.3 trillion  with support from the Congress and the Trump administration. Today Congress is split on the second stimulus with Democrats pushing for about $2.2 trillion for aid to state and local governments, jobless workers virus testing strategy. Republicans calling for about one third of this or $650 billion to help small businesses and industries such as tourism, retail and airlines. Because  interest rates are near zero much depends on getting an effective stimulus for speedy economic recovery. Conversations between the Treasury Secretary and the Federal Reserve, America's central bank, are critical to getting things done. A lot also depends on how Democrats and Republicans can put aside differences for the sake of getting the recovery back in place where it was during the summer. The media has a role to play in not stoking differences in public opinion which was the case close to the election to an unprecedented degree. One critical aspect of American process in getting things done is to bring Congress and the public with an elected president. Without a conciliatory approach and humility few presidents have succeeded as Congress and public opinion is also critical to getting things done. The House changes every 2 years so that even with  majorities- made transient by the founders of the constitution- nothing is certain without getting the other political party on your side. For the sake of the country and the people devastated by the pandemic, the professional class, media and politicians, Congress and the president need to bring a clear and transparent willingness to look at the national interest going forward.  ...

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Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, in meetings with bankers and business leaders says Britain should remain in the single market 2 years after exit from the European Union, according to the Sunday Times. Theresa May plans for Britain to exit the EU in 2019. The reason is that this would protect business as it adjusts to leaving the single market, a kind of transition or Brexit buffer period. This period "really informs what businesses need to do because you transition and restructure during that window," Carney told a House of Commons Treasury Committee. About the changes in the politics in the U.S. and Europe Carney has said about basic fairness in bankers language- "market fundamentalism can devour the social capital needed for capitalism" to work, referring to the moral failures in operations of the banks by 2009 and how it hit the middle and working class incomes and wealth.

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Bernie Sanders points out in this NYT op-ed the idea that Donald Trump could benefit from the same discontent among working class voters that helped the Leave campaign is a wake up call for the Democratic Party. He calls for global trade and a global economy that works for working class, middle class Americans.  Sanders is pushing for a Democratic Party that embraces the concerns of working class Americans, that understands the impact of factory closings and loss of jobs, of economic uncertainty, of declining incomes and shrinking opportunities.

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This podcast in the WSJ takes up a Chinese startup Luckin Coffee that had major investors in the U.S. and China, including big banks in the U.S. and Europe.  The idea is simple- sell coffee in China to aspirational coffee drinkers following western lifestyles using mobile app. It is the story of huge investments and losses, and collapse of a NASDAQ listed company with what the WSJ investigation calls fabricated sales. Why are infrastructure and health, education products starved of capital left high and dry, while billions are poured into such investments with huge losses. All you need is this article in the WSJ of Sept 16, 2015, shown in today's articles. Showing forecasts of rapid growth of coffee consumption for an aspirational western lifestyle consumer in China, and a small mobile app investment to attract investors in a startup -if you refashion the coffee retail outlets as a tech company by selling coffee for delivery/takeout by mobile app. Luckin Coffee in China shown in the podcast in today's articles did this and attracted billions of dollars in investment from investors, including large banks and financial companies in Europe, U.S. and China, only to collapse in 2 years with losses and investigations in China and the U.S. Luckin Coffee soared after its NASDAQ stock exchange listing in 2018 only 1 year after its founding. WSJ calls it "brazen" the effort to add tech hype to a coffee company and have it listed on NASDAQ in just over a year, only to see its sales and value collapse just as quickly. $400 million in convertible bonds losing 90% of their value, the stock losing most of its value and NASDAQ delisting the stock after $311 million in fabricated sales were found as reported in the South China Morning Post. For U.S. investors the problem is that Chinese companies can list on the NASDAQ or other stock exchanges in the U.S., but U.S. investors cannot look at financial records of companies in China. Yet there are basic questions- why is it a tech company? Why are investors like big banks and other large financial investors pushing so much money into such places when there is so much that needs to be done in health and infrastructure investment, and real tech investment? 5G or 6G? Health systems? Ocean Grounds has a coffee store in Shanghai, Pacific Store has coffee retail outlets in China, and Starbucks is still in the business with retail outlets - remember none of these companies are tech companies. In 2017 Luckin Coffee started by making it look techy with a mobile app and refashioned itself as a tech company.  What is so big about a mobile app as there are hundreds of millions of apps. The rest came from making it look like Starbucks, right down to baristas, fancy coffee machines, and opening stores near Starbucks, according to the Podcast in the WSJ.The difference between Starbucks and Luckin Coffee - the price Luckin Coffee would sell for about $2 compared to about $4 for a Starbucks latte. Yet do this by pricing at closer to Starbucks and issuing promotions discounts constantly on the mobile app, that would bring the price to about $2. That is all it takes to make a tech company nowadays. No scientific research, no science and technology, no technical experience, nothing of the kind that led to the invention of the computer chip or the vaccines that are now being developed, or research activity of any sort. Banks, financial companies are willing to channel huge amounts of money into these places and lose it, as they did in We Work, and are doing at companies such as ride sharing app companies, as well as other app companies without any core technological component or value added such as infrastructure or health products. Only it is not the bank's money but the people's money and savings that are deposited at banks and channeled into investments. At the same time as investments in much needed infrastructure and health, education, services that really matter to us as a society, are neglected and starved of capital.     ...

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President Trump faces criticism for allowing the trade deficit to grow and following tax policies that have aggravated the fiscal deficit.  

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A sharp drop in men's college enrollment of 62% between 1959 and 2021 has led to women catching up from being way behind which is a good thing, yet the sheer size of this drop has created a new problem for both men and women as Americans. The college enrollment now is 60% women, 40% men- not a good one by any stretch of the imagination.  It is bound to have serious negative effects on women being able to find college educated men to share life's experiences. Yet more profound and insidious is the danger it poses for America's economic prospects and its leadership role in the world. The Biden administration seeks to correct one part of the problem which is the declining access to a college education because of cost. It wants to provide access to  college education at no cost through community colleges. This is only the first step and is part of the $3.5 trillion dollar plan for workers and families in America. A national consensus is needed on such an important issue before the American people- to make America a place of opportunity for all its people.  ...

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Donald Trump's campaign and the Republican National Committee raises $64 million in July 2016 through a digital and mailing effort that helps to bring in a large number of small donations- about two thirds of it. The fund raising effort for Trump brings a total of $82 million in July, just short of the $90 million raised by Hillary Clinton that month. Much of the digital fund raising effort was made possible by efforts made by the RNC to improve its mailing lists since the last presidential campaign. Many of the Trump donations are made from the Trump website buttons of $10, $25, $50, and by an offer to match this with Trump's own personal finances. Hillary Clinton is also ramping up her fund raising. Trump now has $74 million on hand, up from $1.5 million at one point, and Hillary Clinton has $102 million. For the Trump campaign that was far less organized than the Clinton campaign, this is an effort to catch up, though this comes quite late in the campaign with only 3 months left; with advertising rates higher, and not enough time to invest in digital and campaign infrastructure.  ...

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Some of the crude rhetoric at Donald Trump rallies, and use of coarse language, according to the NYT. Working class and older Americans show their anger at a system that appears to have left them behind with slogans, stickers, T-Shirts. The idea of the wall figures in much of this and shows that the wall has become not jut about Mexico but a metaphor that captures this anger, that reflects this anger. Another aspect of the 2016 campaign is that those most vulnerable and most in need of help have not sought the comfort of knowing about programs to improve middle class and working class wages, incomes, to build infrastructure, create jobs, stop companies from shifting jobs overseas, plans for improving accesss to health care and education, to ask for specifics and delivery. This is the supreme irony of the 2016 election campaign that not enough attention is going to what will be done for the middle and working class, and what specifics will be delivered, in what time frame- which is essential for restoring the condition of the American middle and working class to where it was in the 2 decades after the Second World War. ...

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The new prime minister and government ministers put together by Macron in France look more like something from former president Nicholas Sarkozy. Two ministers close to Sarkozy are now Minister for the Interior and Minister for Culture. Macron is veering to the right in an effort to court voters on the right, as his best chance for reelection in 2022. With drop in GDP of 12.5% now predicted in France for 2020 by the IMF, high unemployment of 11.5% for 2021, and job redundancies, Macron faces a tough time as shown in this analysis. Details of the backgrounds of ministers and the way Macron is responding are covered in this  Analysis in the Times. He is less popular today- than the rising star he appeared as in 2017, with only 35% of voters now supporting him. 

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Seen in a larger context, the Biden tax pledge seen from the southern and midwestern and less well off states is not about taxes, it is about federal revenues that build the infrastructure and services in these states that increase the standard of living. This happened in the 1930's and 1940's under FDR and Truman, in the 1950's under Eisenhower, in the 1960's under Kennedy/LBJ. And is happening again under Biden today. Lets not forget that president John F. Kennedy says in his speeches that these regions in America in the 1860's under Lincoln were in development close to what prevailed in the 1960's in India, Ceylon, Chile, Turkey or China. The Biden pledge not to increase taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 is significant because it grasps the situation in America where extraordinary gains in wealth since 1980 have gone only some of it to the top 1-2% in midwestern states and southern states, and most of it to the top 3-5% in coastal states population in the east and west, New York and California, where the finance and tech industry are based. In Michigan and Wisconsin only 2% of households make more than $400,000, in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona and Florida 3%. WSJ shows a map of the US showing this for individual states. The core southern states have 2% of households with incomes over $400,000- including Arkansas, Tennessee, South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, Oklahoma, with Mississippi less than 1%. It is only segregation in the late 1960's and culture issues such as abortion that have turned them from Democratic states to Republican states as they were the largest beneficiaries of taxes diverted into investment in these places since FDR/Truman and John Kennedy/LBJ. It was JFK who came up with the phrase "a rising tide lifts all boats" when he opened federally funded projects in Arkansas. Seen objectively the large investments made under Lincoln, FDR/Truman, Kennedy/LBJ from tax revenues are what changed this region from conditions that prevailed in less developed countries that John Kennedy points out in his speeches, true for the midwest, parts of the west, and the southern states alike.  President Kennedy said on Feb. 25, 1963 to the American Bankers Association Symposium on Economic Growth: "Today, many Americans tend to think of developing underdeveloped countries in terms only of faraway nations. But in 1863, even measured by 1963 dollars, our own per capita income--and this should be a source of encouragement to many who are laboring with the problem of underdevelopment in far-off countries--our own per capita income was less than $1 a day, approximately the same as Chile's. Nearly 60 percent of our labor force was engaged in agriculture, the same percentage as is today engaged in the Philippines. An estimated 20 percent of our population was illiterate, the same percentage of the population of Ceylon. Only one-fifth of our 34 million people lived in towns or cities of over 5,000 in population, as is roughly true now of Turkey. In 1863, this Nation had fewer railroad tracks laid than India has today, and its children had a shorter life expectancy than a child born this year in Thailand or Zanzibar."   ...