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After 80 years of ownership the Graham family will sell The Washington Post to Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, for $250 million in cash. Post publisher, Katherine Weymouth, says the main reason the paper agreed to sell to Bezos is the way he has patiently prepared and nurtured his business enterprises for the long term. Donald Graham said The Washington Post could have survived on its own, but could not have made the investments that Bezos could now make to strengthen the newspaper. Graham said: "The Post could have survived under the company's ownership and been profitable for the forseeable future. But we wanted to do more than survive."

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This editorial in the Washington Post describes joining Russia in joint action in Syria and Iraq as a dangerous policy for the U.S., for several reasons. The main being that Russia has been the obstacle to peace in the region because of the way all Sunnis in the Muslim world now see Russian actions as leading to millions of refugees and the prolonged war. It also says Russian forces are not effective in the current campaign. It cites Secretary of State Kerry's comments about Sunni perceptions of Russia's role.

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This article in the Atlantic Council September 17, 2024, shows that the world may be fixating on the Straits of Hormuz when it should really be focusing on the Red Sea shipping for the Suez Canal. The Iranians ship 1.5 million barrels a day of oil through the Straits of Hormuz, and closing it off would close off the oil revenues that sustain its economy. Wald writes that even if the Iranians in a crisis would clsoe off its waters to shipping another route exists in the Straits of Hormuz through UAE waters when needed by oil shipping and it has been used by British ships. The Red Sea and Suez presents risks coming from Houthi rebels supported by Iran, who have attacked the US Navy ships in the region.

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Let sleeping tariffs lie is the approach of S. Korea, Taiwan, Japan, China, India, European Union, Germany, UK-  expect all trade agreements with the US to remain in place after Supreme Court decision as no country wants to go through the intensely difficult process of renegotiating on tariffs. It is also the case that DJT can replace these same tariffs using other tools and different legislation passed by Congress to stop unfair trading practices by other nations. The president is also appealing to the public, some of the tariffs are about fentanyl flows into the US, the unfair trade practices and subsidies were a problem for the Biden administration and rebuilding manufacturing was the goal of both DJT and Biden, and will be for future administrations.  When the media NYT, Washington Post respond they are following the editorial line taken that opposes the DJT administration on all issues, when WSJ respond it takes the textbook approach of economists and finance people that free markets are best without considering the real life issues. This is why the president said at his press conference after the Supreme Court decision that 22 Nobel Prize economists had said the economy could not be turned around for growth and low inflation in 1 year, and were proved wrong after the experience of 2025 with low inflation at 2.8%, low unemployment 4.3%, and growth of 2.2% in real GDP (with strong growth in quarters 2&3 of 3.8% and 4.4%). Expect all tariffs to be in place under other legislation to be in place in coming months. ...

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There are about the same number of borrowers 3.6 million instead of 3.4 million yet over 10 years Parent Plus Loans have grown by 61% or $44 billion to a whopping $115 billion burdening parents and students. Yet no one mentions that it is the colleges that are causing much of this increase with their failure to control costs. The government is now stepping in and it is up to parents to do their homework on school value so that this overburdening with debt that colleges take for granted becomes a thing of the past. If colleges cannot control costs they should feel public dissatisfaction and be ruled out. Colleges and Universities act as if they are not in a market system economy where costs cannot be simply passed on, costs have to be managed or consumers of a service will turn down that product.

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Fed Governor Kevin Warsh who is an investment banker and was an important participant in shaping the Fed's response to the credit market crises commented about the crisis and what lies ahead at a New York University conference. The credit crisis poses meaningful downside risks to the econmy and especially now as the crisis developes to small businesses and consumers he said suggesting that consumption spending is likely to take the next big hit. He sees credit replacing liquidity as the primary antagonist. For financial markets the curative process is unlikely to be swift or curative. Underscoring the problems ahead- he said we are fighting against the wind. The Fed does not know what to expect whats the next crisis around the corner, as each time things settled down in the last 6 months something else developed because of the crisis in confidence, the perception that the financial architecture itself is not working, and fragility of credit markets. Telling is his remark that a new financial architecture born of the forces of creative destruction is in the early stages of construction. More creative destruction lies ahead before all participants, the mortgage industry, political parties and poiliticians, lenders and financial institutions, homeowners, and the public can be persuaded that some sacrifice will be required of all and things that normally would not be palatable will have to be swallowed to help forge a solution that avoids a downward spiral....

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The Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 was a pivotal battle in the American Civil War and the Gettysburg address was conceived in prayer by Abraham Lincoln. There were times when Lincoln felt that he needed to pray for God's help in these crucial weeks of the Civil War when it would be decided through divine intervention whether a nation so conceived ("that all men are create equal and are endowed by theit Creator with some inalienable rights") can long endure. "That this Nation under God, shall have a new birth of freedom." The act of Prayer when it matters most is now lost on a new generation.

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This piece by Marty Bernstein shows how the modern marketing machine of the decade to 2010 operates to sell cars to the new generation of car buyers thats just emerging- the generation of ipods and digital cameras and trendy cell phone, and dowloaded music. This target customer is nonconformist and the term "metro-funky", a demographic/psychographic term is used for these new buyers. RPA is Honda's advertising agency. The tag line for the Fit is - "The Fit is Go". The campaign is very creative and over 1000 Honda dealers have prepared to sell 50,000 Fits the first year. The Fit is already a bestseller in Europe and Asia.