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The first rally for Harris in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The road to the presidency goes through Wisconsin and Harris received enthusiastic support with Governor Tony Evers putting it this way-On the Tony Evers excitement scale that goes from ‘holy mackerel’ and maxes out at ‘heck yes,’ I am jazzed as hell to be welcoming our next presidential nominee to Wisconsin: Vice President Kamala Harris.” Harris used the same lines she used in Wilmington at her first rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In her legal career, Harris said, she “took on perpetrators of all kinds. Predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain.” “So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type”  On project 2025, the blueprint for the first 100 days in office of a Trump second term, the action items are ones that would jeopardize the safety of American institutions that were set up with so much care by Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and nurtured by the first president George Washington with little attention to himself, and protected by president after president through civil war under Abraham Lincoln, through 2 World Wars and The Great Depression under Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, through recovery under Harry Truman and Ike, only to falter under a series of mediocre presidents Reagan, Clinton, Bush, Obama and be endangered by a NBC television show and construction business person with support from new social media networks that were unknown throughout America history till 2010 and television networks that had degenerated into recklessly divisive behaviours to win silo audiences. ...

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Actas or slips like receipts from every time a voter votes are generated from voting machines in Venezuela. Enough actas were collected in the Venezuela elections that show a landslide win with a 38% margin for Gonzalez over Maduro. The Maduro government has not accepted the result. It shows 7.3 million votes for Gonzalez, a former diplomat, to 3.3 million for Maduro the successor of Chavez, says the Wall Street Journal. For president Biden it was the surge in Venezuelan migrants flow and the refusal of Maduro government to take back migrants making deportation difficult, that precipitated the immigration crisis as an issue in the 2024 elections. The problem was tackled by closing the border with Biden taking executive action, after the law closing the border cleared the Senate in February but was held up in the House by Mr. Trump. Trump hoped to benefit from the Border issue to get elected in November 2024 held it up. That law was negotiated by Republicans McConnell and Lankford and Biden. Kamala Harris says the first thing she will do if elected is to pass that law. Republicans like the Tories in the UK are now seen as pandering on the issue to keep power, not keen on resolving it once and for all. As we show from the example of Mette Frederiksen in Denmark and her far sighted thinking it is possible to be good for workers and families, and tough on immigration that hurts workers by creating like foreign wars a huge and unnecessary distraction. Why for instance must workers and families live from paycheck to paycheck because of misgovernance in Asia or Africa or Arab world ,or deliberately created wars to empty countries of population as in Arab lands. Taking the issue up in the countries themselves with whatever action is needed was the right answer from the beginning, and lost on Merkel and other leaders in the US and Europe. Lessons are learned and now action must be taken. ...

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Much of the inflation reduction actions were taken by the US Federal Reserve as the central bank of the Nation and by president Biden in passing the Inflation Reduction Act and investing in growing the economy. All this may be jeopardized by the action of a Trump administration limiting the independence of the central bank. The support for crypto currency by Trump creates more risks to the economy. Additional risks are posed by the views expressed in Project 2025 on the US central bank. It is stated that the financial stability mandate be removed, that employment stability be removed and its regulatory role be effectively taken out. A commission to be appointed to look at alternatives to the central banking role of the US Fed. There are inflationary episodes and banking crises yet they stem from poor behaviour of banks as private players (2009 financial crisis) and price gouging by companies and firms and are not because of the central bank. There are also episodes of poor management  which reflected the culture of that period such as Libertarian culture under Greenspan. As in management in private industry firms good or poor managers make adifference. The institution created of the central bank around 1910 comes from the crises that happened in the period before that  and how it evolved into its postwar role. This includes the Great Depression when it did not have its regulatory, financial stability and employment role. Tampering with the basic structure that has evolved over 100 years of experience would cause lasting damage to the US economy and expose it to hidden risks. This would put a severe burden on the Nation after the loss of one million lives in the pandemic that just happened, the cost of living crisis, and the severe impact that decades of loss of local manufacturing have placed on communities across America- which both the US Federal Reserve under Jerome Powell and president Biden have fought so hard to tackle. ...

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Biden gives a rousing call to the Nation, on what he has achieved for America and its workers and families, for the people of 51 states, and what the tasks are for the future to 2035. It surpasses the State of the Union address 2024 in the vigor and importance of his message, 76 days before a national election to decide the future of the Nation and the World. Key parts of the speech selected by Lyrarc, on Infrastructure above and Manufacturing here with 800,000 new Manufacturing jobs created. "Because of you and so many electeds out there, American manufacturing is back. Where the hell does it say we wouldn’t lead the world in manufacturing. Eight-hundred-thousand new manufacturing jobs. Our Republican friends and others made sure they’d go abroad to get the cheapest labor. We used to import products and export jobs. Now we export American products and create American jobs, right here in America, where jobs belong. With every new job, with every new factory, pride and hope is being brought back to communities throughout the country that were left behind. You know you’re from it, many of you. You know what it’s like when that factory closed where your mother, your father, your grandmother, grandfather worked. And now you’re back, providing once again, proving that Wall Street didn’t build America, the middle class built America, and unions—unions—built the middle class.  It’s been my view since I came to the Senate and that’s why I’m proud to have been the first President to walk a picket line and be labeled the most pro-union President in history. And I accept it. That’s a fact. Because when unions do well, we all do well.  ...

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This photos essay in The Guardian can be seen for pictures of US presidents since John Adams, at pivotal moments or moments that captured some symbolism of the times. John Kennedy is simply bending to look at a newspaper on the Oval office desk just  moments before meeting the French ambassador, yet the pressures of office show such as Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.  On November 22, 1963, Freedland says Kennedy warned against extreme groups. Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 had warned of radicalist groups if needed action for sharing the wealth and opportunity of the Nation were not taken. Kennedy said- "America’s leadership must be guided by learning and reason, or else those who confuse rhetoric with reality and the plausible with the possible will gain popular ascendancy, with their seemingly swift and simple solutions to every world problem.” Sometimes leaders are faced with difficult situations  “I want to tell you how grateful I am, and how worthy I’m going to try to be of all your hopes.”  a phone call to Martin Luther King Jr in 1963. Who was this US president? LBJ of Texas got it right for America, but lacked in international affairs knowledge of what John F. Kennedy had learned about aspirations in Asia and colonial rule during the war years in the Pacific. One president brought about 40 years experience in Congress to four major crises – the pandemic, crumbling infrastructure, loss of manufacturing in the US, and climate change– and passed the most far reaching legislation for trillions of dollars of investment since Franklin Roosevelt.  The most famous of these photos is the one showing Harry Truman holding the Chicago Tribune in 1948, which said "John Dewey Wins."   ...

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Boris Johnson was never for austerity and says this in his new book, yet he failed to make the major investments in the British economy in the way Biden has done in the US, and in some ways has left Labor's Starmer with difficult decisions with the strained budget finances of Britain. Of the investments he protected from John Osborne and his austerity plans as chancellor under Cameron Boris Johnson says- “Those big investments – Crossrail, the Olympic site, the Westfield Centre at Shepherd’s Bush – were fortuitously timed for London: vast counter-cyclical programmes that kept the spades going into the ground and people in work.” This was as Mayor of London in 2016. Of Osborne and Cameron so little is left, and so little came out of the period of austerity other than the failed investments Britain failed to make, simply a lost decade for Britain. And the diversion of Brexit under Johnson not taking Britain to a good place for the standard of living of the British people. Of the intraparty conflicts in the Tories he says Sunak's resignation as chancellor should never have happened calling it "worse than a crime," and a mistake for Sunak, the party, and the country. Johnson says that many days as PM he would come back to No.10 flat, exhausted and working into the evening when he should have been talking to colleagues, MP's to keep them all together. After Sunak's resignation from Boris Johnson's cabinet the Tory Conservatives split further apart, this time in the Boris Johnson faction of the party. Sunak's elevation to prime minister was short lived ending up with the Tories going downhill from there.  On the singular goal that led to the splits- that of Brexit- Johnson has little more to say than that in his travels he had found people wanted more Britain. ...

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Tether is a cryptocurrency based out of the Virgin Islands that is pegged to the dollar 1:1. It has $120 billion in assets mostly safe US Treasury bills, and gold, bitcoin. It made $6.2 billion in profit for its owners more than Black Rock largest American asset manager fund. What does this mean? It offers an outlet for trade in oil for Russia and other countries such as Venezuela. At the same time it is useful to people in countries with high inflation such as Argentina and Turkey  where people use it to protect their assets from inflation erosion. When its use is widespread this also results in diversion of funds away from the Treasury as in Venezuela where an oil minister was toppled, says this WSJ report. And at the same time it gives protection to Venezuelans from extreme inflation. How it works- Tether Holdings issues virtual coins to a select number of direct customers, mostly trading firms, who wire real world dollars in exchange for Tether.  Tether buys US Treasury bills with these dollars to back Tether's value. Who runs Tether? Tether's cofounders included a plastic surgeon Giancarlo Devasini. All co-founders sold out to Devasini, who runs it from an enclave in southern coast of France. The company was founded in 2014. Interest was slim in a stable token backed by US Treasury bills. Then in 2020-21 bull run in the stock market traders started using it to buy and sell out of risky bets. It's market capitalization exploded from $4 billion to about $80 billion.  Tether says it avoids illicit transactions. WSJ report says 2713 wallets or about $1.2 billion were blacklisted, this out of $153 billion provided by Tether to its 2 popular blockchains. Rest of the funds already sent on, says WSJ. ...

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Simon Jenkins of The Guardian says it is time to clear some of the myths around migrants, tariffs, and NATO and in this way action by the current Republican administration can be a positive step. Jenkins says DJT is moving quickly in the first 100 Days because most presidents get only 2 years to make changes before losing the House or the Senate making legislation difficult to pass. If it appears that things are happening on many fronts too quickly that is just the nature of things under a democratic process where checks and balances mean all three parts of government- executive powers of the president are balanced by powers of Congress and of the Supreme Court. Jenkins points out that action on migrants with the unease about millions of migrants coming in illegally, putting tariff barriers to bring manufacturing back and rebuilding America's forgotten middle class, cutting the bureaucracy and misuse of funds, sending education back to the states, and rethinking NATO bringing Russia back into the community of nations, will have long term positive effects long after the chaotic nature that they appear in the news cycle and the media presentation has passed. He cites China being invited back into the community of nations under Nixon. And today disarmament possible only by working with Russia, when China is moving in the direction of increasing nuclear missiles with trouble spots in Taiwan. He does not mention the sending back of about 1 million people back to Mexico under President Eisenhower in Operation Wetback in 1954, Harry Truman a senator from Missouri who led the effort to cut waste and fraud in government spending in the Second World War, the ED Hirsch graph showing reading comprehension scores of American K-12 headed one way - straight down since the 1960's showing education is failing in the US and needs parents and states to come up with new solutions.   ...

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Senator Schumer calls it a "momentous 24 hours here in the US Congress, a legislative one two punch that you rarely see." Schumer negotiated a major climate change action bill for $369 billion in the Senate, that also covers tax changes to cover costs, and helps cut drug and health care expenses of Americans. The second quarter shows healthy job gains of average 375,000 a month and unemployment at 3.6%. The economy declined by 1.1% but much of this was from a slowdown in home and business construction sectors sensitive to higher interest rates and from higher inventory. Consumer spending increased by 1% during the quarter. The Fed's series of 0.75 percentage points interest rate increases had softened inflation expectations before they get entrenched in the economy. This makes it possible for Democrats to present a message to ordinary Americans that president Biden is getting things done with 2 legislative achievements. A $280 billion bill for investment in the semiconductor industry in the US. And a huge win on climate change with the $269 billion Schumer is negotiating in the US Congress. It is the opposite of what Republicans are saying is Biden's failure to tackle inflation. Appropriately Biden and Schumer are calling this the bill the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. How did Schumer get this done? After the Ukraine war and EU decision to shut down Russian oil supplies, cut oil and gas use by 15%, and the climate change action inducing fires and floods, there is increasing awareness about climate change action as vital for our future all over the world. This gives more confidence to Democrats to negotiate a temporary continuation of oil and gas, with increased exports of US LNG to Europe. Senator Manchin from an energy producing state of West Virginia was brought over to Schumer's side with this idea. What Biden gets is a 40% reduction of US carbon emissions over 2005 levels, enough to get within reach of the 50% he promised at COP26 in Glasgow. It is a win-win for all sides and for the American people, and shows that patience and hard work, and persistence in the face of adversity can bring results. ...

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Mr Greenspan's libertarian views influenced by a novelist of all people, who is frail just like all of us however intelligent her views may seem, when taken as dogma. Taking his cue from Ayn Rand, who presented collective power as evil force set against the enlightened self-interest of individuals, he proceeded to let this enlightened self-interest run free in an ambitious American experiment devoid of all restraints and common sense. He came in in the days of Reagan and "the evil empire " and the philosophy of Milton Friedman of minimal government intervention in markets, and the view presented by Europeans like Hayek about the economy and freedom. But views become dogma and then defeat common sense. Buffett used common sense and always considered human beings and their frailties as part of the problem as well as the opportunity. Greenspan let these views of his defeat plain common sense and excluded the role of human beings and their weaknesses, in any scheme of things. This undid him and his reputation in the end as far as derivatives like mortgage securities are concerned. Plain common sense required as Buffett did- that as the risks of derivative contracts increased as they practically became the way risk was managed and distributed throughout the economy- to consider their opaqueness, and the way risk was distributed with the failure of one financial firm bringing down the others and the whole economy; with the way each were interdependent and tied up in the risk distribution for the capital that helped run the whole economy. Derivatives were created to soften risk or hedge against investment losses. For example some of the contracts protect debt holders against investment losses on mortgage securites. Their name comes from the fact that their value derives from underlying assets like stocks, bonds and commodities. What they allow to happen is the increase in leveraging and the taking on of more risk as for instance issuing more mortgage debt or corporate debt. As these contracts can be traded they enable companies to take on more risk by spreading the risk among more and more parties. The original issuer of this debt has the sense that somehow, as one expert put it, that by tossing this packaged as a complex derivative type security into outer space this risk would somehow disappear in that cosmos, so that more of the same could be done into infinity. Plain common sense like Buffett's would say otherwise and point to the danger when the whole scheme would get undone by the failure of some big financial firms, as the scheme becomes huge enveloping the economy, the very interdependence would bring down the whole economy. The very complexity of opaquenes of this way of dealing would make it impossible or difficult in the extreme to identify where the risk was lying, and take it out by firm governmental measures in an environment of fear. Requiring days not months for actions to work. This is what has happened. And the crucial weakness of overleveraged investment banking firms which depend on rollng over short term debt was not understood by any of the players, Congress, Greenspan, Summers, Rubin, Cox or Levitt or the quants on Wall Street with their elaborate models. All of these people worked to prevent Congress passing legislation regulating derivatives, or to silence the skeptics in Congress or government agencies as documented by Peter Goodman of the NYT. It was Chase's demand for more collateral of $5 billion to roll over short term debt of Lehman Brothers to pay for the perceived additional risk of overleveraged Lehman at 1:30 ratio of debt to capital, in an extreme risk averse environment, that led to the unraveling of that firm in a matter of days. Good common sense like Buffetts- who described dervatives like the mortgage securities as weapons of mass destruction, that were issued en masse and sent to remote corners of the world including a small town near the North Pole in Scandinavia- considered that this environment of fear of the unknown that brought down the investment banking firms in a matter of days, was also one face of the market. This had to be included in the arithmetic and understanding of the market. He also understood as plain common sense that there are no extraordinary theories and nothing extraterrestrial that will dispense with the basics and exercise of good sense That no matter what fancy name you put on it derivatives derived their strength from being less and less transparent and distribution and interdependence across a vast financial spectrum with higher and higher tight interlinking of financial firms to each other, with all their consequences in an unraveling making the ride down as painful and mass destructive as the joy ride on the way up. ...

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Joanna Stern in the WSJ says the iPhone X at $1000 is worth it. She details all the new things you can do with the iPhone X. Stern calls it a bridge between the older iPhones and a new type of iPhone. In a separate review in the Washington Post the value proposition of the iPhone X is questioned- the iPhone 7 at $550 and the iphone 8 at $800 are considered just as powerful and get most of what you want done without the fancy features. The iPhone X packs the features of larger phones like the Plus into a smaller phone, yet is it worth paying the price of about 2 iPhone 7s. If you want the excitement of trying something new like Stern then go ahead, for value and performance the iPhone 8 or the iPhone 7 are seen as sufficient.

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What was established in Alaska meeting in Anchorage was the necessary rapport between two world powers. During the Bush, Obama, Biden administrations Russia was treated as a secondary economic power on Wall Street, with the focus shifted to China, which damaged relations with Russia which has always seen itself as a Northern European economic power. Some of the roots of the conflict go back to this period. In a nuclear world the size and historical relation in Northern Europe of Russia cannot be ignored purely on economic grounds about the size of it's economy in the way China could not be ignored in the 60's and 70's when it's economy was not what it is today. History and culture are not in Wall Street or Silicon Valley's understanding or grasp of international relations which go beyond economic and business considerations. On DJT and the first term, the survival of the US president- “When I came out of the plane and I said, ‘Good afternoon, dear neighbor. Good to see you in good health and to see you alive. I think that’s very neighborly and I think that’s some kind words that say to each other.” On Ukraine- “We have always considered and continue to consider the Ukrainian people our brothers and sisters. We share the same roots, and everything that is happening is a tragedy and a source of pain for us. Our country is interested in putting an end to this. But at the same time, we are convinced that for the settlement to be long-term, all the causes of the crisis must be eliminated." On DJT's assertion that if he was president there would have been no Ukraine war- Putin says "I can confirm that." “Today, we hear President Trump say that if he had been president, there would have been no war. I think that would have been the case. I can confirm that. Because, overall, President Trump and I had established a very good working relationship based on trust.”     ...

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The Trump Accounts for children born 2025-2028 and the Dell $6.5 billion expansion to include earlier born children may be one of the single biggest actions to rebuild the bank accounts of the next generation. It looks at the shrivelled bank accounts of today's older generation with lack of enough savings for a medical crisis and says it has got to be different from now on. The median bank account of Americans over 65 and over is $13400 which means there is little for medical health emergencies and little for needs of older Americans. Median means half have less and half have more than $13400. This is astounding for the wealthiest nation at a time when the total wealth is the highest ever in history. This report by WSJ unfortunately does not mention this at all and dwells on how this is an opportunity for banks and investment companies to get in the door to get your business. DJT as US president with a mandate from lower income Americans has designed this so that it shows the value of careful investments of small seed money. With $1000 to begin with from the government, added amounts from parents and grandparents and invested in a mutual fund that tracks the S&P 500 it will grow with the economy for 18 years, doubling two to three times on the way. It would provide funds for education increasing enrollment in higher education, increase financial literacy by showing how money grows in broad S&P 500 type index funds such as Vanguard type funds. Much of the shriveling of bank accounts for the shocking figure of $13400 median for American 65+ year olds is a result of job losses, high health care costs, wage decline  with factories outshored, hits from 2009 financial crisis caused by bank irresponsible behaviour, drug epidemics and fentanyl allowed to pour into the country, covid pandemic and stock bubbles, decline in higher education enrollment, other. The US president DJT is seeing his mandate as one that reverses these adverse situations one by one to take America back to post war prosperity and rising incomes, rising bank acocunt savings and rising hopes and aspirations for the next generation. ...

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Walt Mossberg, who writes the Wall Street Journal's consumer technology review section, watched Steve Jobs up-close over the years since 1997. They met one-on-one for product introductions, long discussions about the industry, and recently after Jobs illness, at his home in Palo Alto. Mossberg describes a long walk to a nearby park after Jobs had undergone a liver transplant. It provided an insight into the man Steve Jobs was. Persistent- he called Mossberg for 4-5 straight weekends during the dark days of 1997-1998 to convey his vision of Apple products or discuss aspects of reviews. Patience and optimism about the future- Jobs always maintained a positive tone and a vision of what could be in the digital revolution, and Apple's role in it in these discussions. There is the opening of the first retail store in the Washington D.C. area, and Jobs patiently handles Mossberg's incredulity about Apple and its inexperience with retail stores. And Jobs saying that he had taken a serious interest in the details- down to the translucency of the glass. There is the meeting with Bill Gates at the fifth All Things Digital Conference, when both made their appearance together for the first time and Jobs hands a cold bottle of water to Gates. By this time Jobs had already come to the conclusion- as he once said after accepting a $150 millon investment from Gates in 1997-1998- that it was no longer true that Microsoft had to lose for Apple to succeed....

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U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff was critical of the S.E.C.'s practice of entering into consent judgements which allowed defendents to not admit to wrongdoing. In his order Judge Rakoff rejected a $285 million settlement with Citigroup for a mortgage-bond deal. In his order he said such settlements are viewed by the business community as "a cost of doing business." He found it hard to discern what the S.E.C. would be getting out of such a settlement "except a quick headline." Rakoff summarized the problem with such settlements and the S.E.C.'s practices when it comes to the public's interest: "In any case like this that touches on the transparency of financial markets whose gyrations have so depressed our economy and debilitated our lives, there is an overriding public interest in knowing the truth. In much of the world, propaganda reigns, and truth is confined to secretive, fearful whispers. Even in our nation, apologists for suppressing or obscuring the truth can always be found. But the S.E.C., of all agencies, has a duty, inherent in its statutory mission, to see that the truth emerges; and if it fails to do so, this Court must not, in the name of deference or convenience, grant judicial enforcement to the agency's contrivances."...

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David Brooks of NYT povides this exceptional essay on a long neglected question. If so much of the politics today is about different communities that are alienated from each  other, what is it about these communities that makes this happen, and how did this come about? After decades of integrating communities and building the economy after the second world war through a strong middle class, what has happened now to see all that progress reverse itself. Rural America and the less educated voted in one way and the urban areas voted in the opposite way, one feeling neglected and the other becoming more segregated in cultural outlook, education, and work. Brooks cites a new book by Richard Reeves of the Brookings Institution called the "Dream Hoarders." The book shows two structural barriers that divide America. One is the residential zoning restrictions, housing and construction rules that keep the less educated away from the opportunities and schools in cities such as Portland, San Francisco and New York. The second structural barrier is the college admissions game that favors the parents and children of the better educated classes. The immigrant communities who come from families that are struggling hard to get into the middle class and upper class work hard to get an edge. As a result about 70 percent of the students in the top 200 competitive schools in America are from the top 25% in the income distribution.  Other barriers are formed by the extent of investment parents in one group put into their children, estimated at 300% by Brooks compared to a flat line for the other group. This accelerated investment leaves the other group far behind. Social barriers form to prevent the kind of interactions one would find normal in an open democratic society. Brooks say the cultural differences show up in the language and product selections, in food and other choices. Just take a typical Brooklyite and someone from western New York state. It is not the intent of one group to look upon this as a desired result. It is their indifference to what is happening that is alarming for a free, open and democratic society. It is their lack of understanding about the implications for life in a free, open, democratic society, of segregating themselves from the vast expanse of humanity around them. It is their lack of knowledge of the history of this continent built on the idea of education and opportunities for all from the time of Benjamin Franklin in Pennsylvania and the early settlers, the idea of out of many one- E Pluribus Unum. Yet out of this crisis something good can emerge if a way is found, and leadership is needed in the right direction with the right ideas, consistent with the ideals that guided the best leaders from its past. What resentment, alienation and wrong direction cannot do, courage, perseverance and right direction can do.     ...

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Amazon is tackling the Indian market by addressing the need of rural shoppers in all parts of India- home to nearly 800 million people. Here WSJ shows how this works with a customer in Dhowachal, in the northeastern state of Assam, who had no access to stores except by travelling for hours to the nearest town.  The customer is a teacher who received an Amazon delivery of pairs of jeans, socks, curtains, glasses and other items. Rural shoppers in India spent about $400 billion in 2017. Barclays estimates Amazon had $7 billion in gross merchandise sales volume in India in 2017, about 2% of what it does worldwide. More than 80% of customers in 2018 are from outside India's largest cities.  To do this Amazon has changed its app to work on cheaper smartphones and patchy cellular networks, added hundreds of thousands of Indian language descriptions of products and videos. It has also opened physical Amazon stores to teach people how to order online. Tens of thousands of distributors were added to deliver packages and take cash or digital payment. Amazon is spending $5 billion in India to set up a logistics network and warehouses, including staff and content development for Amazon Prime. In doing this Amazon has learned from China where Alibaba and other online retailers have grown seven fold by reaching rural areas. Amazon could not compete with Alibaba in China. In India Amazon has no strong local competitors like Alibaba. It is learning how to operate in India. The app offer tips on how to order, no email is needed, only a phone number, machine learning translates all descriptions into Hindi. Icons work well. A digital wallet lets customers without bank accounts or cards to pay or get money back. Amazon is investing aggressively using an advertising campaign and discounts to pass Flipkart which WalMart bought for $16 billion in 2018. Amazon is trying new ideas in India's situation where small stores often closet sized sell a limited number of products often going through multiple middlemen resulting in high prices. Amazon is now enlisting these small stores as package depots in its own unique distribution network. The small store gets an 8-10% commission on sales for helping guide shoppers make a purchase. In Amazon's unique "I Have Space" program 20,000 mom and pop stores in remote areas of India offer to take packages and deliver in neighborhoods for a commission. They get a uniform, a bag and a week of training. Many of these store owners know the addresses in their neighborhood having lived there a long time. The entire effort shows Amazon has adapted its delivery effort, logistics and payment systems to Indian conditions in a well planned way. Compare this to the failed effort by Apple in India, with high management turnover and lack of understanding of Indian conditions and pricing, and no real plan to tackle the Indian market.     ...

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The $369 billion climate and tax package that is coming out of a deal arranged by Schumer in the US Senate could be a path breaking action. It would enable president Biden to get close to the climate goals he promised last year of cutting US carbon emissions by 50% by 2030 over 2005 levels to combat effects of climate change. The $369 billion package would get the US to reduce carbon emissions by 40% in 2030 over 2005 levels.  Severe effects of climate change with fires and floods in the US, Europe, and Asia have brought a new spotlight to the issues facing the world and the fact that something needs to be done quickly with the US leading the way. Senator Manchin a holdout because he comes from a coal mining state was a holdout. He was persuaded to join as the new legislation provides for support for transmission lines and other investment during a transition period so that it does not affect the economy in his state. The transition period is now accepted as Europe now looks at gas and coal as a temporary resource following the cutoff of Russian supplies and the US will be shipping more LNG to Europe during this period. The vote for this legislation is planned under reconciliation so that the vice president MS. Harris can cast the deciding vote for Democrats in a 50-50 split Senate. Republicans oppose the legislation. Manchin now says it will reduce inflation. Briefly it will give $7500 to every buyer of an electric vehicle EV, and $4000 for a used EV. It would give rebates for heat pumps that increase home energy efficiency. Billions of dollars would be spent for clean energy industries, and for solar, wind, geothermal, other renewable energy projects. Democrats want to get the legislation through the Senate quickly by next week, and so secret were Schumer's negotiations that most Democrats did not know about it. Coming on the heels of the $280 billion CHIPS and Science bill for $280 billion investment in US semiconductor industry, this will be a big win for president Biden and shows the persistence and patience of Mr. Biden is paying off.   ...

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Pharmaceutical companies in the US will be required to provide rebates to buyers if they increase prices above the inflation rate. This is one of the provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 also called the Climate and Tax bill. Medicare recipients total out of pocket costs for drugs will be capped at $2000 under the Biden bill.

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"This is a very, very, very, big deal," says Chuck Schumer about the Climate Change bill that is expected to pass in the Senate of the US this weekend August 6-7, 2022. This is the biggest climate bill in history, and may also be called the Schumer-Manchin bill after the compromise reached to give oil and gas some support with big moves for climate change action between now and 2030. It gets Biden and the US to within 40% reduction of carbon emissions over 2005 emissions by 2030, when the commitment by the US at COP26 Glasgow is for 50% reduction over 2005 emissions by 2030.

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Bill Gates of Microsoft calls the Biden climate change bill the single most important legislation in US history. He says only America can offer the vision for climate change action, and make it happen. Gates says he has talked to corporate leaders in America and most of them say they are ready to act once the climate change bill is passed. Many of the industries that need to be created are in the early stages and the climate change bill will create the right atmosphere for sustained innovation.

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The US has 124,000 charging stations for electric vehicles. The Biden administration wants to see that go up to 500,000 by 2030. For this to happen $7.5 billion is already going to states under the $1 trillion infrastructure bill of 2021. The Biden $369 Climate bill that passed the Senate last week will give companies that build each charging station 30% tax credit for maximum of $100,000, up from $30,000 earlier, to build one charging station. It costs about $100,000 to tear up pavement and build a conduit for a charging station.

Supply chain issues will linger for 2022 and 2023 with shortage of chips after which it will move much faster says this report in WSJ. For EV's to go mainstream charging stations are a priority.

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What is in the biggest climate bill in history, the Biden $369 billion Climate Bill, also called the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022? The WSJ looks at the bill that passed the US Senate and now heads for passage in the House of Representatives this weekend. 

LyrArc Article Gist
President Biden signs the $379 billion Climate bill and tax legislation into law. Mr. Biden told a White House crowd to standing ovation "This is the biggest Climate Bill ever." At the signing event Mr. Biden tells Senator Manchin  "Joe, I never had a doubt." Senator Schumer quietly negotiated the final bill with Senator Manchin in one crucial week just recently to get it through a 50-50 split US Senate.