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On April 21, 2022, US president Biden talks to Americans in a live television address and says US will send an additional $800 million in military assistance to Ukraine. And an additional $500 million in economic assistance that takes the total economic assistance to $1 billion. He asks Congress to approve additional requests so that an uninterrupted flow of aid to Ukraine can be maintained to deter Russian aggression. He also opens up a path for direct entry into the US for some of the 5 million Ukrainian refugees. He calls attention to the 5 million refugees and to the millions of displaced children. He says about two thirds of the children in Ukraine are displaced by the war which he found to be shocking.

Biden said "you've got to admit- be amazed at the courage of the country, and of the young men and the young women." 

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In a Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted June 2-5, Republican presidential candidate Romney receives more support than President Obama. Among all Americans Romney and Obama receive 47% each, among registered voters Romney leads 49% to 46%. Independent voters gave Romney 50% to 43% for Obama. The poll shows Obama is being viewed with increasing skepticism because of the economy. By 2 to 1, Americans say the U.S. economy is on the wrong track, and 9 in 10 see the economy as doing poorly. The poll also show a significant shift to Republicans being seen favorably for running the economy, 45% now see Republicans as being better able to tackle the economy, a 11 point increase from a March poll.

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Dilma Rousseff's experiences as a student under the military dictatorship in Brazil in 1970. The years of the military dictatorship span 1964 to 1985. Other leaders who suffered detention and torture include Bachelet of Chile and Mujica of Uruguay. These leaders rarely talk about their experiences as they have changed from their years as students and Latin America has been transformed in the last two decades by democratic governments. The economic goals have now been achieved in a peaceful way.

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The Wall Street Journal's editorial columns have followed closely the working of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the years. Especially during the last decade, when most of the excesses, missteps and failures in the operations of the two companies occurred at huge cost to the US economy and to taxpayers. The Journal quotes from the recent Treasury report on the planned winding down of the two agencies. And focusses attention on the question of what will replace Fannie and Freddie. Only the first of three options looks viable considering the goals of reducing misallocation of national resources, and winding down the federal government's role in housing, says the Journal. With this Option the federal government guarantees are limited to Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans to low income buyers and VA assistance for veterans and farm programs- narrow segments that limits the guarantee strictly to 10-15% of the mortgage market. The Journal says that the conclusions of the Treasury report are what WSJ has been saying for 20 years: " The strength of this option is that it would minimize distortions in capital allocation across sectors, reduce moral hazard in mortgage lending and drastically reduce direct taxpayer exposure to private lender's losses." And the points about the benefits: " With less incentive to invest in housing, more capital will flow into other areas of the economy, potentially leading to more long-run economic growth and reducing the inflationary pressure on housing assets. Risk throughout the system may also be reduced, as private actors will not be as inclined to take on excessive risk without the assurance of a government guarantee behind them. And finally, direct taxpayer risk exposure to private losses in the mortgage market would be limited to the loans guaranteed by FHA and other narrowly targeted government loan programs: no longer would taxpayers be at direct risk for guarantees covering most of the nation's mortgages." This bit of wisdom is especially significant, as misallocation of capital that went on in housing for the better part of the last decade has hurt America and the American people. It makes sense to have explicit money allocated by Congress for housing help to the poor and have no housing guarantees that have hurt the economy....

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The famous Chilean author of books including: A Long Petal of the Sea, talks to the BBC about her life and travels, about her home country Chile. She left Chile in 1975, spent 13 years in Venezuela and three decades in California. Here she talks about Chile as Pablo Neruda describes it as that long petal on the sea, a country with an insular mentality surrounded by high Andes range, Patagonia, and the Atacama desert. She is not entirely critical of Chile's development under the administrations that came after the dictatorship years. Chile has some upward mobility, the economic conditions have improved compared to the rest of Latin America even though a lot remains to be done. The events in Venezuela show the limits of regimes that have attempted change. Even with administrations from both ends of the spectrum Argentina has turned to the IMF in economic crisis the last in 2018. Brazil has seen a commodities boom followed by a severe bust, and the lack of funding for basic services including sanitation and health. This gives a sobering view of the economic situation in Latin America. Allende says Chile has modernized and created prosperity though at some social cost.  Isabel Allende is still nostalgic about her home country and still calls it home as she reaches 75 years, with a world wide audience for her books in 42 languages, 70 million copies sold. ...

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Pressure from the American Bankers Association and Barney Frank, House Finance Committee chairman, to have the uptick rule reinstated. SEC is considering reinstating the uptick rule that would put adamper on the shortselling of stocks.

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A short video showing how the Sustainable Development Goal of Clean Water for every rural household brings Swaraj to India's villages. Clean safe and easily accessible through home tap water for all rural households is the goal of the Har Ghar Jal Mission with target date of 2024. India will have modernized by 2035 as a nation but never could one forget the humble beginnings with Har Ghar Jal and Swacch Bharat- of clean drinking water and sanitation as basic human rights. Setting the pace for all of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Japan has embraced the UN's 17 SDG's, so has India in its own way, both setting an example for the rest of the world.

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 High school geography teacher Tim Walz says of actions taken such as the universal school meals signed into Minnesota law earlier this year, as simple common sense. “What a monster! Kids are eating and having full bellies so they can go learn and women are making their own healthcare decisions,” Walz says. Walz has the common sense that is lacking  when a failed cultural mindset puts everything into neatly labeled boxes such as "liberal" and "progressive." It took 50 yeas to get to this point after Reagan and four southern politicians two from Texas and two from Georgia and Arkansas left America in this mess where school meals vs going hungry is debated in political terms.

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At the gathering in the White House with the Los Angeles Dodgers the president DJT says-

"The scouting report at the start of the series said that the Dodgers could win by focusing on the fundamentals, and that’s exactly what they did.” There was the 5 run comeback in Game 5.

“You showed America that it’s not about individual glory. It’s about the team digging deep and sprinting right through first base."

Lighthizer, Jamieson and Bessent on the economic team at the administration need the same skills and digging deep for a just cause of a level playing field in world trade.

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Food insecurity is a major issue for countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa, as this DW.com report from Bogota, Colombia shows. A big problem is that the informal economy is a big part of the economies of these countries, and governments try as they do, have difficulty tackling the income and other issues facing workers in the informal economy- street vendors, migrant workers, and others.

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Seib cites a career foreign service officer, William Burns, who says that China is offering its model of government as a competing model to that of the U.S. and Western Europe for Asian countries. He says he cannot recall a time in the last 40 years when China was doing what it is now in showing China as role model. Here Seib also mentions the Electoral College and the shift in demographics as creating strains for American democracy. The electoral college does not give enough weight to the largest states in deciding who wins the presidential election as happened in 2017- which gets worse in future years as people move to the west and southern states.

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Paul Krugman says in the long run Brexit is not catastrophic for Britain with a loss of 2-4% of GDP and affecting incomes. He compares it to Canada and the U.S. before the North American trade agreement, Canada's economy still functioned decently.  The problem is more in the short run as no border infrastructure is in place and this is where a bigger hit is feared in the disruption of the flow of goods.

Krugman also cautions people in the European Union who do not see the impact on the EU even though it is relatively smaller than the larger impact on Britain.

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The head of Oxfam International shows how tackling problems such as clean water, health, daycare, can improve participation of women and generate additional employment. A major problem worldwide particularly in the developing world is the lack of enough good jobs. Investing 2% of GDP in healthcare in African, Asian and Latin American countries can generate additional 1-3%  employment. Higher levels of investment are needed in health and other services that improve the quality of life.

About $170 billion in taxes not paid to governments of developing countries because of tax dodging leaves governments short of the funds needed to invest in public services, schools and hospitals.

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Vauban is a "car- free" upscale communitynear Freiburg, Germany, close to the German-Swiss border. Except for the main street where atram to Freiburg runs, and two parking lots outside the community, there is no place to park cars. About 70% of the people there do not have cars and 57% sold their cars to come here. There are no car garages or parking places with each home. Bicycles are hte main means of transport. Vauban hasd 5500 residents in one square mile. The basic concept of having stores placed only awalk away is being followed more and more as America and Europe shifts away from intensive auto based use of space for living. The whole post war location of housing and stores and community activities was based on large use of the automobile. This is now going through big changes. David Goldberg, of Transportation of America says " how much you drive is as important as whether you have ahybrid." A fast growing coalition of hundreds of groups is advancing the cause of building communities with stores only a walk away and less need for the automobile to get around. Outside Hayward, California, Quarry Village is anew development that is trying to reduce autos to one per home. So car based is American culture that most zoning laws require 2 parking spaces per residential unit, and in the federal transportation bill 80% of appropriations in prior years used to go by law to highways and only 20% to other transport. This even though passenger cars are responsible for 12 percent of greenhouse emissions in Europe , and upto 50% in some car-intensive areas of the USA. One solution to the problem is to use smart planning to avoid the suburban sprawl, and shift to smaller more fuel efficient automobiles, and build better mass transit and rapid transit and fast rail linking most towns and cities, that will moderate all the excess that took place after the war. This may be the direction smart planning is taking us, and places like Vauban remaining niche communities for green advocates and a sort of reminder that its possible to go in this direction....

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GM' second largest market is China where it sold more than a million cars in 2007 and sales growth was 21%. Brazil is the third largest market. Russia is the fastest growing market with sales growing 75%, and it has a favorable pricing environment in Russia with growing class of more affluent buyers as Russian economy grows quickly. And India is a market that GM is trying to buildup sales with the introduction of GM's Spark car. Overall this should enable GM to maintain momentum even as sales in N. America declined 6%. Toyota's N. American sales declined 4% so it is seeing a slowdown there also. But compared to GM which has 65% of revenues from N. America, Toyota has 40% of revenues from N. America and 30% of global profit.

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Poland and the USA agree on the stationing of missile defenses in Poland by 2012. An American Patriot battery would be transferred from Germany to Poland and operated by a crew of about 100 military personnel.

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Keir Starmer of Labour  in Britain says "From 20 points behind to 20 points ahead in the polls." As Lincoln said you can fool some of the people all the time or all of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time." This has relevance also for America in 2024 as president Biden in his transformative work for America faces the same kind of rumor and doubt Keir Starmer faced for the last two years, much of it pushed by the Tories. Lincoln said this in Clinton, Illinois, in the Lincoln- Douglas debates, September 2, 1858.

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Jerry Muller, professor of history at the Catholic University of America, offers some useful insights into the nature of inequality in advanced capitalist societies and other parts of the world, and a clear eyed way to tackle the problem of inequality. Tackling the problem should be done in a way that preserves the economic protections for the middle class and the poor which are needed for capitalism to work- unemployment insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Earned Income Credit, and the Affordable Care Act. Much of this system is already in place in advanced capitalist societies. Incremental gains in this area will be much smaller and it is important to recognize the need for strengthening the economic engine that supports these benefits, says Muller. Economic dynamism has to be preserved and nurtured with human capital deployed in the best possible way, and competitiveness of countries increased. Each country and society has to find its own way of achieving this. The family matters, and matters a lot in taking advantage of educational opportunity, says Muller. The culture of different ethnic, immigrant groups, also matter. These differences were present in earlier periods in the nineteenth and twentieth century and are likely to remain. Strengthening the pool of human capital and deploying it is essential to progress. In an earlier book "Adam Smith In His Time and Ours- Designing a Decent Society," Muller emphasized the importance Smith placed on the civic duty of citizens to promote the welfare of the whole society, and the importance of education, family and moral character, with no substitute for the "general prevalence of wisdom and virtue." ...

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Prime minister Johnson of Britain blames his coronavirus on being overweight. He can now be seen playing tennis at Winfield House, the residence of the American Ambassador. He can also be seen in the Queen's Lambeth Gardens taking a run. Both have been offered to him for use after the prime minister ran into someone at St. James Park. Boris Johnson now says as  word of advice to many middle aged people "Don't be a fatty in your fifties." Take up exercize he says to a generation of men that have just become lazy when it comes to exercize. Other things to be stronger with the virus are healthy eating habits, lots of ancient grains, lentils, fruits and vegetables. Add  yoga, meditation, call it mindfulness if you like, it works, and it is never too late. 

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Only 8 months into office, the leader of the Democratic party in Japan, resigns as Prime Minister. After perceived indecisiveness by the Japanese public on the Okinawa base change issue and on issues related to cutting wasteful spending. The base issue related to a campaign promse to move the American base out of Okinawa and even out of Japan. The North Korean government's aggressive behaviour led to a changing perception of the base issue, with a lengthy disagreement with Washington and eventual reneging on the campaign promise. By this time Hatoyama's popularity dropped to 25% and he resigned. Also resigning is Mr Ozawa, the Democratic Party's secretary-general. The indecisiveness and lack of leadership on issues made it difficult to sustain the electoral support which led to the Democratic party winning an overall majority, mainly to bring change for the post Liberal Democrat era.

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Kevin Maurer looks back at 15 years of covering Afghanistan since 2004, and asks was it worth it.  The conflict has cost 145,000 lives for the U.S. period of the war alone. Not counting the war in which the Russians were involved in the decade before the U.S. involvement. In fact the Russian involvement in Afghanistan was costly enough to hasten the collapse of the Soviet Union and bring Gorbachev to power to unwind the war and make the changes that led to the collapse of the Berlin Wall.  2400 U.S. servicemen dead and 20,000 Americans wounded. The cost to the U.S. is $737 billion for this war, according to a report in 2018 from Brown University's Costs of War Project. Just as the Soviet Union showed the damage from this war the U.S. has seen the cost of this war and foreign entanglement in another war that started accidentally with international interventions in the Iran-Iraq region as a cost that was borne with consequences. This includes the neglect of infrastructure and the damage to the middle class prosperity built up in the 1950's and 1960's after the Second World War. The U.S. got into this war with 9/11 attacks on New York City. By 2010 what began as a war fought by a few Special Operations teams turned into a war with troop levels reaching 100,000. Presidents Bush and Obama both failed to end the war by winning it. In 2014 finally combat operations stopped and American troops mainly conducted anti-terrorism operations and trained Afghan forces. In recent years the war has gradually disappeared from the national discussion in the U.S. and is barely talked about. President Trump wants to end the war even if it means talking to the Taliban and negotiations directly with the Taliban are ongoing.  One result of this war is the aversion to costly international entanglements and the highly unpopular nature of the conflicts. There are serious costs of the conflict in terms of neglected domestic priorities including infrastructure, loss of U.S. technological edge in key industries, and the competition from China, an the investments in health, education, services that were not made, the increase in inequalities and the diminishing of the middle class. The global financial crisis of 2008, the result of faulty banking, added an economic dimension through the loss of middle class savings in the U.S., worsening the financial situation of the middle class in the U.S.    ...

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A U.S. banker's brush with death and the period leading up to the rush in a cab to the hospital. A tear in the inner wall of the essential artery to the heart led to the rush to the hospital. This was Dimon's 15th year as head of Chase Bank. The pressures of running a bank for so long added up- it was March 5, 2020. Only weeks after the rush to the hospital America was bracing for a complete lockdown. The story is told by the WSJ's David Benoit. 

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How artists, musicians are doing in Germany vs. the USA is shown here. In Germany funding for arts continues and a musician shown here continues as before with the same income and benefits. In the U.S. a musician with the same background has no work and has no health insurance for years. The contrast between two societies and cultures, between European concern for social cohesion and sense of sharing vs. a culture in America that helps some in society, and leaves out others. Where government of the people, by the people misses something called for all the people.

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Procter & Gamble, America's largest maker of soaps and detergent increased sales during 2020 by meeting demand for higher priced soap and electric tooth brush costing $300. P&G also makes diapers and Gillette razors. The company is making more high end products to boost sales. Consumers stuck in their homes are willing to spend more to keep themselves and their homes clean. This is also a requirement during the pandemic and considered a wise consumer spending item. P&G generated $3.9 billion in net income for 2020 fiscal 2nd quarter, with sales of about $20 billion.