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Katy Balls of The Spectator looks at the stop Rishi Sunak, stop Liz Truss, Stop Penny Mordaunt groups forming in the Tory Party. Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary, is the candidate for groups not favoring Sunak including Boris Johnson supporters who see his withdrawal of support for Johnson leading to Johnson's resignation. Mordaunt does not support Liz Truss and is expected to shift to Sunak if Liz and Sunak are in the final two. Penny Mordaunt is seen as having a good chance against Sunak if Penny and Sunak are the final two, yet her inexperience could also be a problem. Sunak had questions about his own tax payment and is opposed to cutting taxes, making it harder to get support across the party. 

This Tory leadership election in which 200,000 party members vote for a leader is taking place too quickly and too often. Johnson was elected in 2019, only three years later he is out. Before Johnson, Cameron was out and Theresa May was elected in 2016.

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With 9.5 million barrels a day cut for U.S. G20 and OPEC+ negotiated by president Trump many Texas oil wells will be shut in. Even with these cuts price is sensitive after dropping to $22 by April 12, 2020. The cuts averted a complete collapse in oil prices when markets opened on April 13. By April 12 oil demand worldwide had fallen by 30 million barrels a day. That is how grave the situation was. By doing so the U.S. protected its oil industry. There was complete lack of leadership from Russia, Saudis, Mexico and other countries until president Trump intervened with strong action. Trump threatened tariffs on imported oil to protect the U.S. oil industry if other nations did not come to terms, including calls from U.S. senators telling prince Abdulaziz the Saudi oil minister the U.S. Saudi relationship could not be salvaged if the Saudis did not come to an agreement. Once again president Trump's tariff moves worked, this time to save the world oil industry and oil producing economies such as Russia from severe hardship. ...

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India is building roads and facilities to match China's in the border between Ladakh and China particularly in the finger area. This is resulting in increased clashes between Indian and Chinese patrols. India's view of the territory on its side does not coincide with China's. India has seen borders such as the McMahon Line set during the British period as the border, China has a different perception since its takeover of Tibet of what constitutes Tibetan territory.  As a result any true border line depends on the strength of bases of each side on the high altitude border at over 4000 or 5000 meters. China had built infrastructure in the region much earlier and India is merely catching up to keep the current line of control as the border. The Indian perception is that China sees as a way to change the status quo building bases and capabilities in the region, making it necessary for India to match these capabilities by roads and bases of its own.   ...

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The secret say Dr. McGeverly an astonishing 104 years, as do others is to find things to do that make life meaningful and important and "our hearts sing." A daughter of missionary parents spent her childhood in India and is shown in an old photo carried in a basket. She studied medicine and had a holistic medicine practice in Arizona. She lives in a small home next to her daughter and is shown with her grandchildren. This last month we profiled Sandra Day O'Connor who created iCivics to spread civics knowledge in America for children after retiring from the Supreme Court at age 75. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter were also profiled in Lyrarc.com for their resilience. In Virtues of Aging Carter says it is the action that is beneficial to others that is also beneficial to oneself that is the secret to aging right. This is also the concept we see common to the holy Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Buddhist texts that define right living in this way.

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Krugman points out that in American history even presidents who did not read much and were not very qualified were able to perform well in office because of very qualified people in the cabinet positions. Reagan was not a avid reader yet he had Shultz at State and James Baker at Treasury. Mnuchin is not anywhere near being qualified as James Baker. Tillerson may be qualified as a CEO of a large energy company, but lacks the experience of Shultz. During the last years of his presidency Reagan may have felt the effects of early Alzheimers. Checks and balances also helped to make the system work under presidents so that they did not overreach their powers.  Krugman is skeptical of the way checks and balances would work under president Trump and sees some second rate appointments in the administration. He points to the departure of Mike Flynn and the controversies surrounding the Russian meddling as very different from the situations faced by other presidents with weak qualifications.     ...

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The team of 5 engineers decided they would produce the first Vande Bharat train in 18 months- Project 18. The Indian Express talks to the team of original engineers who were on Project 18.  They are all part of Chennai Integral Coach Factory, setup with Swiss collaboration in 1955. By 2019 the first train was operational at speeds of 180 km per hour, semi-high speed and setting the transition to high speed trains developed entirely within India. Sudanshu Mani, General Manager of ICF, headed this effort and set the target of 18 months. He says China used to import all its trains and one day just decided to make its own- he asked himself the same question, why don't we make our own? Mani was in Berlin for 3 years on an earlier collaboration for train technology in the 1980's. By the 1990's this technology was 20 years old he says. That's how long it took to get anything done in those days, by the time it got started the technology would be obsolete. By 2018 just 2 years before retirement Sudanshu set up the Project 18 team convinced that this was the only way to get it done- to beat the odds. Devi Prasad Dash heads electrical engineering. Srinivas heads mechanical engineering. Pradhan is Chief Design Engineer. They did everything from scratch. There are 5000 others who worked on the project. Dash says it was like T20 cricket, just that they decided to do it in 18 overs. Ever wonder why the train is all white and with blue stripe? Subranshu who was chief mechanical engineer at the time says they tried other colors. Manish Pradhan says they decided on white after one thought that Indian trains are never white because we had that belief that anything white would get dirty faster. That is when we decided to make it all white and it will not look dirty, he says. Sudanshu Mani says he would close his eyes and he would see always the old Indian trains that one would see from the 1960's from Ahmedabad to Rameswaram, and onto Colombo after the ferry. At that time Colombo had Canadian coaches and locomotives under a Canadian aid plan from Talaimannar to Colombo which were like American trains, looked miles into the future.The same thing must have happened to Chinese engineers because Chinese premier Chou-en-lai visited the ICF in Chennai in the 1950's and wrote that Chinese engineers could learn about the new Swiss technologies from ICF Chennai. That is when the Swiss were building their own trains with European technology of that time. China and India, and Japan had no idea about the high speed trains that were in the future. This is how technology advances. This is how people build better lives and how the aspirations and hopes of younger generations become a reality. Somewhere in the dim light of the past there is a Chinese engineer with the undaunted courage, concentration and determination to "Just Do It," and before that a Japanese engineer, and before that a Swiss engineer designing a train for the Swiss Alps, a Canadian or American engineer designing newer trains for the Prairies all the way to British Columbia and California. All dreaming Big and executing Well, with the resources of each country there to aid them each step of the way. ...

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One of the problems facing the Republican People's Party, the CHP, is how to connect with religious voters. CHP is the party that is most closely associated with modern Turkey's founder, Kemal Ataturk. CHP was the main party in Turkey till the recent dominance of the AKP Party in elections. AKP drew support from the more religious and rural population in the parts of Turkey outside cities such as Ankara and Istanbul. CHP rarely identified itself with street protest and remained aloof from ordinary people making it hard for it to contest elections against the AKP - winning Ankara and Istanbul but losing the elections in the last decade. The AKP also allied itself with Turkey's Ottoman heritage and appealed to nationalist sentiment against a conservative aloof CHP leading to a split in Turkey between the secular urban and the religious minded more rural people. CHP also did not work with minorities such as the Kurds to build a broader coalition. This is changing with the march from Ankara to Istanbul led by CHP leader Kilicdaroglu. The march came after the justice system appeared to be allied with president Erdogan, and a 25 year sentence was given to one of Kilicdaroglu's deputies. Erdogan now appoints the judges in the judiciary and the crackdown on the opposition since the failed coup of 2016, has led to a sense that Turkey is now run as a one party state. An estimated 1.5 million Turks participated in the rally in Istanbul, according to DW, showing that the opposition is forming to the arbitrary rule since the emergency powers assumed by the president. For the last decade Erdogan and the AKP Party formed the government. What changed since 2016 is the new constitution that gives new powers to the president and the arbitrary rule since the crackdown on the opposition that intensified after 2014, and which has increased since the failed coup in 2016.  ...

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This WSJ story shows how China started its steel industry from small beginnings when Chinese leader Deng visited a Nippon Steel plant in 1978. He made the decision to go big with Baosteel, with an investment of $6 billion, with the words- "if we do it lets do it big." This was 36 times the Chinese foreign exchange reserves at the time. From 4% of steel production, this went up and up, passing the U.S. in 1993, past Japan in 1996, and in 2018 producing three times the steel of U.S., Russia and China combined, producing 923 million metric tons of steel in 2018, or more than half of world production of steel. With steel China was able to build its automobile industry, shipbuilding, bridges, infrastructure, high speed rail network. This was done using global demand, subsidies from the government, cheap loans and tax breaks. Markets worldwide were affected by substantial excess production in China. From Baosteel the spread of the steel industry to all 23 Chinese provinces led to China accounting for 25% of world exports. By 2016 5 million workers mostly from the agrarian countryside were employed in the steel industry, helping China transform itself into an rapidly urbanizing and modern economy. It was a period when the rail network was tripled between 1975-2017, with shipping companies that ensured access to Australian coal and Brazilian iron ore. From 2011 to 2017 Chinese steel dropped global prices by 57% triggering closure of steel mills in EUrope and the U.S. About a third of trade complaints since 2001 by G20 countries against China are about steel. After entry into the WOrld Trade Organization Chinese steel exports rose to 8% of GDP from 2%. Subsidies, cheap energy, and shift of agrarian workers to cities. U.S. investigations around 2006 showed Chinese steelmakers subsidies covered 30% to 45% of the subsidized value of steel pipes exported overseas. China's steel prices were set 20-40% lower than the U.S. China responded to complaints saying it was trade protectionism. The WTO rules call for full disclosing of all subsidies. This was disclosed 5 years after joining WTO in 2001, and only for central subsidies. Local government subsidies were not disclosed till 2016- the U.S. says 15 years late. Still the Bush and Obama administrations failed to take action. In 2018 Mr. Trump seized on this as a campaign issue that resonated with American workers in manufacturing communities across the U.S. In 2018 November president Trump announced a 25% tariff on imports of Chinese steel. A six month probe by U.S. officials had already shown 40% of sales value came from subsidies for corrosion resistant steel from China. The U.S. Trade Commission imposed tariffs of its own from 39% to 241%, with the Trump tariffs of 25% coming as an additional tariff to tackle the trade surplus with China. Meanwhile in China the government is closing uncompetitive smaller steel mills and in 2016 it combined baosteel with Wuhan Steel to create a larger company, and consolidate remaining companies. Baosteel now provides the steel for CIMC to dominate the steel container business, and to make ship to shore cranes, and make the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.  It also goes to show what can be accomplished from small beginnings for countries in the developing world from Asia to Africa and Latin America, with government and industry focussed on development and growth.   ...

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Major policy changes for Wen Biao's second term as Prime Minister with the reorganization of government ministries to streamline them to focus on new policy priorities of reducing pollution, becoming energy efficient, improving the environment, and providing better housing and health care services to migrants and the poorer sections of society. How will this work in execution and in practice remains a question. there will be a new cabinet level Ministry for the Environment. Previous agency for environmental protection had only 300 employees compared to 18,000 for the EPA in the USA so it was woefully inadequate to the task and there was lax enforcement. The budget for environmental protection increased by 31% to $14.47 billion, the size of the new ministry is not disclosed. After the recent snowstorms disrupted energy supplies and infrastructure a new Ministry has been formed to for Transport.

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Feldstein points out that other recent recessions were of short duration because the the Fed tightenend monetary policy to get back to price stability so that the Fed had some control over duration. This time the six years of steady house price increases has created a bubble which is the cause of this recession, and to make things worse it has affected the creditworthiness of institutions, as a cloud hangs over the assets carried by financial institutions because complex securities were created with risky mortgages and dispersed throughout assets of these financial institutions. So there is only so much the Fed can do. Feldstein is pessimistic about how long this recession could last. Feldstein faults the poor supervision and bank examinations of the Fed over banks and institutions they lend to such as nonbank financial institutions.

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The ECB's executive board's proposal is for 50 billion euros ($58 billion) in bond buying each month for the next 12 months. The ECB's executive board meets on Jan 20, 2015, to discuss the proposal.

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This NYT report by Thrush, Shear and Sullivan, looks at retired Marine general John Kelly, the head of Homeland Security till he was made the new chief of staff at the White House. He replaces Vince Priebus, who was the Republican National Party chairman during the 2016 election, becoming the new White House chief of Staff in January 2017. Priebus lasted only 6 months. This report points out that presidential family members Kushner and Ivanka Trump now report to Kelly, as part of the new discipline imposed by Kelly in an effort to reverse the chaotic situation in the White House with different quarreling factions. Kelly made this a condition for his taking the position, which Trump accepted as he was keen on firing Vince Priebus and had asked Kelly to take the job since May. Kelly is shown here as monitoring the contacts of Cabinet secretaries with the president. Who sees the president and for how long is now determined by Kelly to impose rigorous discipline. Kelly supported McMaster in the dismissal of a National Security Council member supported by Bannon and Kushner, in an effort to bring discipline. There is one area Kelly does not get into- the tweeting and personal affairs of the president. His job as he sees it is to put some bureaucratic competence around the president. In doing this he takes a tough approach that so far is respected by president Trump, as the presidency suffered from repeated setbacks from infighting and leaks. Will Kelly last where others have failed is a question posed in this report. Two people who were superiors of Kelly give their opinions. Kelly reported to Leon Panetta, a former chief of staff under Bill Clinton who was Defense Secretary, and to Robert Gates,  a Republican who was Defense Secretary. Panetta may know him closely as Kelly was his chief military aide as Defense Secretary. Panetta says of Kelly, that Kelly never minced words, said what he thought looking at you in the eye- if he thought a proposal was nuts he would say it right out. The big question Panetta says is whether president Trump will give him the authority for long. Also stated in this report is that Kelly called Comey when he was fired as FBI Director, and that Kelly even considered resigning in protest.  Less noticed even in this report is the way in which a team of experienced politicians and the senior most officials in defense and national security are working together in August 2017. In an interview with Washington Post editor Ignatius broadcast on PBS, Republican Senator Corker described how he works closely with them, and how the key people in defense and national security work together before they see the president. The appointment of Kelly helps to create a core independent group of advisors around the president, which is positive in the event the U.S. has to respond to a crisis. ...