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Medicaid Cuts - cutting costs for a program that went from $20 billion in 1980 to 918 billion in 2025, went up 45 times in 45 years. Projecting it out at this rate would leave little for other priorities for the Nation. Hence the need to set priorities- helping one means not helping the other in need. Helping a able bodied person means not helping the elderly who need help as by eliminating Social Security tax for about 90% of recipients over 65 years for instance. Medicaid was originally intended for able bodied. Critics of the plan say there is a lot of red tape and reporting at state levels. The correct solution would be to cut the stringent reporting requirements, cut the bureaucratic reporting, make it simple easy to report and not frequent. California, New York and other states will likely make the reporting easier. For impact on rural hospitals Collins and Murkowski have setup a $25 billion fund in this Big Beautiful Act to support rural hospitals. ...

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Rate cuts won't do much for housing affordability in the US as house prices are so high and property taxes are rising.

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Senators approved the U.S. Republican tax bill 51 to 49 votes on December 1, 2017. The 500 page bill was approved with arewritten version containing more changes made at the last minute to get it passed in the early morning hours. It was passed along party lines with all Democrats opposing. The last minute changes were made to get Collins of Maine and Johnson of Wisconsin on board. A concession was made on DACA young undocumented immigrants for Flake of Arizona. In this way its passage was ensured after failure to repeal Obama health legislation. The Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation report says the bill would increase the deficit by $1 trillion over a decade. Corker of Tennessee opposed the bill for this reason, but failed to convince other senators who believe the bill will generate robust growth and the deficit report is too pessimistic. The tax cut bill helps 70% of middle class families and may not help others because of removal of deductions such as the one for state and local income taxes. Business gets a permanent tax rate of 20 percent instead of 35 percent which is made permanent. Owners of small business not set up as corporations also get a tax break for small business. To offset the cost of the changes the Alternative Minimum Tax for corporations is retained and a tax on corporations with assets held overseas was increased. ...

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Trade deal with India for $190 billion two way trade to double to $500 billion still on in November 2025. DJT says India has cut purchases of Russian energy and Russian oil trades at a large discount from Brent crude. The discount is $20 compared to $13 before Indian and Chinese refiners cut their purchases of Russian crude showing that US strategy was the right one.

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Krugman points out the major problem in the Republican tax cut legislation in 2017- not enough to help the middle class and adding 1 trillion dollars to the deficit. Krugman says even the Bush tax cuts had enough broad public approval because of help to the middle class. So what is the Republican message and rationale for taking this action? This is that the tax cuts will generate an economic boom . Yet the tax cuts in other countries including Britain, as Greg Ip pointed out in the Wall Street Journal recently, have shown that this does not lead to the boost in economic growth that is expected. Krugman agrees that this is unlikely to happen. There is another rational explanation and this is Republican need for a legislative victory heading into next years midterm elections. In which case the decision for tax cuts was not really based on the deep sense and conviction after much debate that this will inevitably create a surge in economic  growth. ...

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India will allow automobile imports at 10% duty instead of 110%, allowing 250,000 EU automobiles into the Indian market, as part of the deal that benefits Germany. Tariff on European wines will go down from 150% to 20-40%. Duties on olive oil and processed food such as pasta and chocolates will go down to zero, which will benefit Italy, and Switzerland. A labor mobility agreement will let professional workers and seasonal workers from India into EU and EU to India. New talks will bring India into the EU's Horizon Research Programme.

It will double EU exports to India by 2032 over 6 years when it is implemented starting in 2027. An astonishing 97% of traded goods are included for cutting or eliminating tariffs. It will save EU 4 billion euros in duties, says the EU. Tariffs are cut on a vast arrayof industrial products- iron and steel (India benefits) chemicals, plastics, pharmaceuticals (India benefits) and machinery (Germany benefits).

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Congestion pricing has cut vehicles in central Manhattan (NY) district by 11% in 2025. One benefit it has made finding parking space easier. Peopel avoid taking the car if they can. Fee is $9 below 60th Street. It means safer quieter streets, easier walks, less traffic, and revenue for public transportation projects. 27 million fewer car trips say NY authorites were made compared to before the pricing was introduced. Traffic moves at speeds faster by about 4-5%, yet in the tunnels and bridges in NYC the morning commute traffic moves from 15% to 30% faster so it eases up a lot of traffic movement.  $550 million from revenue generated from the pricing can now be invested in the rail and subway transit with additional investments to upgrade it to make life easier for transit riders. This is improving quality of life for New Yorkers not just in the city district but in the outlying areas of NY state and NJ where 73,000 fewer cars leave every day for the commute into NY City. ...

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India and the race in Himalayas road buildup on both sides with China and India responding to each other's efforts on ground that is 11,000 to 14,000 feet high. In the latest buildup India in 2026-2028 is building the Zojila Tunnel in Ladakh to cut travel to 20 minutes across mountainous terrain for supplies to frontier outposts in some of the most forbidding terrain on earth. Much of this region of Ladakh and Kashmir is tens of thousands of miles from Shanghai and Beijing, Tibet is far far from China proper, yet the experience of the Sino-Japanese war in the 1930's and the attempted colonization of China by Japan is alive in the minds of the PRC's leaders, see Tibet as a buffer region. Who see India not as as the land of Gandhi and the Buddha Land that has remained that way since the year 1000, see instead a legacy regime of the British Empire of the 1800's that attempted partial colonization of China.

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France produced 3.1 million tons of plastic waste, with 2.1 million tons being in packaging. A new environment protection law by president Macron requires supermarkets and other stores to use refill stations for packaging so that unpackaged goods can be sold. This is a legal obligation under the law to cut plastic waste.

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Budget pressures have taken an inordinate toll on the army, bringing troop levels and modernization below the levels needed for the U.S. Army to act in concert with its partners in the Armed Forces to maintain readiness and act as a deterrent. This is the conclusion of retiring Army Chief Gen. Raymond T. Odierno. It is now falling to 450,000 in Army forces. By reducing deterrance the cuts cost ultimately in American leves as new conflicts arise. He cites the example of losses in 1943 in North Africa and at the beginning of the Korean War. It is not enough to wish the world as we would wish it to be, says Odierno, we have to accept it the way it is, says Odierno.

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Wal-Mart's second quarter 2015 earnings decline by 15% over the prior year. Wage increases with minimum wage raised to $10 by Feb 2016. Wal-Mart is making investments in more employees per store, adding people at checkout lines to improve service, improving the look and feel of stores to get shoppers back and reverse earlier declines in per store sales. Per store sales increasd by 1.5% for the second quarter 2015, the fourth quarter of increases before a period of falling per store sales. Competing for sales are Amazon and dollar stores. Wal-Mart is also investing in online sales with the lower margins in this field. Wal-Mart's profit for the second quarter was $3.48 billion compared to $4.08 billion the prior year. Total revenue of $120.8 billion was close to what it was in 2014. Wal-Mart's strategies include asking suppliers to offer more price cuts and to put less into marketing, asking suppliers to pay additional fees for warehousing, and stocking from the shop floor for retail shelves instead of going to the backroom storage. Forecasts for online sales are lowered to reflect weaker international sales in UK, Brazil, with overall online sales growth now at high teens instead of the 20% range. The Chinese e-commerce site Yihaodian was acquired for $760 million for full ownership....