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Gretchen Peters, a journalist who has followed the drug trade in Afghanistan and visited some of the locations where drug smullgling is taking place from Afghanistan to the southern coastline of Pakistan to be shipped to Europe and the USA. HE says its not enough to go after the poppy farms, its important to go after the whole network from drug refineries, drug storage places, and drug convoys that take the drugs into Pakistan to be shipped. Its important to catch drug smugglers like Mr Khan who is in jail in NEw York for running alarge smuggling operation. Only in this way can they interrupt and stop the flow of some $400 million that is going from the drug trade into Taliban hands.

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The travails of Mexican legal and illegal immigrants . During 2006 and 2007 about 300,000 Hispanic immigrants legal and illegal joined the work force each year, and worked in jobs in meatpacking, construction and agriculture. Many came from poorer parts of Mexico and were thankful for these jobs that locals did not want to do. These are the stories of many of these immigrants, who were now to be found in the Northern Plains and the Deep South, in addition to places like CalifornIA. Illegal immigrants had to deal with immigration agents, where asimple stop at atraffic light could lead to deportation proceedings. Others who lost jobs had to find some other kind of work, some were able to others were not so lucky.

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Calls for GM CEO Wagoner's resignation by Senator Dodd, and Obama's statement on "Meet the Press" that if the management team thats currently in place is not willing to make the tough choices and adapt to the new circumstances then it should go. Obama described the approach of current management as a head in the sand approach thats been prevalent for decades now. Jerome York, an expert on the auto industry, called for the resignation of Wagoner and 5 members of the board who have participated in the disastrous decisionmaking and have been there for over 10 years. Austin Ligon, who retired as head of CarMax, also called for the resignation of Wagoner and the board members calling them a disaster.

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Over 50% of Israelis support Iran war, only 30% oppose. As Israelis see it Iran under religious clerics is the only real threat to Israel in 2025 because of Iran's policy of proxies for attacking Israel in Lebanon and in Gaza, and because of it's development of nuclear weapons and openly threatening Israel. The US involvement in Iranian politics dates from the Dulles and Eisenhower era with the CIA's involvement in the overthrow of the democratically elected Iranian prime minister Mossadegh in 1953. Working with British intelligence and for British oil interests, US oil interests, the US made a serious mistake as seen from today's perspective. The moral is British or French colonial policy stay from it America- George Washington himself would advise. Israel is paying the price and is asked to correct what was done by the British in Iran since 1850's- to bring back a peaceful democracy with the kind of struggles even Greece experienced. The unelected wholly unrepresentative government of the Shah who was put in the place of a democratically elected government was a serious mistake. The British and French colonialism and oil interests of Britain plus American oil companies have led to US getting on the wrong side of the Vietnamese people in the war in Vietnam against the French that ended at the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. It had repercussions in the Vietnam war under Kennedy and Johnson. This has happened in the case of Iran where the US has gained so little and lost so much in lives and resources sunk in the ensuing was in Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Yemen. The European Union suffered from the huge migrant flow from Syria with splits in its ranks. The distractions of these 30 years through Reagan and Rumsfeld who supported Hussein in Iraq against Iran in a balancing act is now foolishness, of elder Bush as he diverted attention to a long desert war in Kuwait, of Bush and then Obama in Afghanistan, who wasted enormous resources and impoverished the American people. Leaving legacy wars for Trump and Biden to handle. After Vietnam another failed chapter of Iran in the US for the American people by incompetent leaders who were taken in by French and British colonial and oil interests in wrong directions.   ...

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Non farm payrolls are up by 261,000 and the U..S. unemployment rate drops to 4.1% for October 2017, according to the Labor Department. A broader measure that takes into account Americans who are in part time work having difficulty finding full time work was at 7.9%. Yet wage growth remains sluggish. Inflation with food and energy cost inflation after the hurricanes taken out remains at less than 2% below the Fed target, to the surprise of Fed chairwoman Yellen and new chairman Powell.

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As the U.S. economy continues to gain in job growth with unemployment at 3.8% in May 2018, wage gains remain low. Wage growth over the past year is about 2.7%. Labor participation rate is at 62.7%. Reasons given for low wage growth are the lack of wage increases for people who stay at their current jobs, the digital disruption lowering wages, decline of union bargaining, and low productivity growth. This gives the Federal Reserve more room to increase interest rates gradually.

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Lizette Alvarez and Manny Fernandez provide this rivetting account of two Hispanic Senators in the U.S., both with Cuban backgrounds, one growing up in the Miami area around Cuban Americans, and the other in all white communities in Texas. Marco Rubio identifies with his Cuban background, but has distanced himself from immigration reforms he advocated that would provide undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship. Cruz does not identify with his Cuban American story, as much as he identifies with an immigrant story- his father left the Cuba of dictator Fulgencio Batista when he fled to the U.S. in 1956- and would tighten immigration enforcement and controls. Hispanics in Texas say they do not identify with Ted Cruz, who even changed his Spanish sounding name to Ted follwoing the advice of his Irish American mother. Cruz also attended Ivy league schools- Princeton and Harvard Law School, while Rubio took on large student loans to finish his law degree. Hispanics across the U.S. are shown as distancing themselves from the 2 candidates, expecially the large Mexican American community which has traditionally voted for Democrats....

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Wael Ghonim of Google, created the Facebook page for Khaled Said, the 28 year old Egyptian man who died after allegedly being beaten by police. The page was a rallying point for the Jan 25th protests in Egypt.

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A sense that Putin takes office for this third term as president at a time when younger urban educated people in Russia, who have no memory of Putin's experiences in the postwar period, do not share his ideas.

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Disappointment for those who had high expectations for the Obama Presidency. The slog of daily governance proves too much. Attempting too much in too short a time. Polarization in Congress. And the person Obama is -transformative but cautious.

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Russia's parliament voted to ratify Russia's entry into the World Trade Organization by a vote of 238 to 208. Opposition was led by the Communist party. The head of the Economic Expert Group in Moscow, Evsey Gurvich, says the new rules are important for Russia as Russia has no rules of the game today, the new rules will enhance competition. President Putin described the change in this way: "We joined the WTO because our economy is highly dependent on the external market in terms of both production and consumption. Excessive protectionism invariably leads to stagnation, low quality and high prices." The result from loss of revenue with lower tariffs is a loss of revenue of $5.7 billion in 2013, and $7.8 billion in 2014, according to Economic Development minister Belousov. The financial crisis of 2008-2009 convinced Putin that Russia had to participate in the decisions about the world economy because of the direct impact this has on Russia.

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Article about what should the Fed do by Robert Lucas, Jr, who was given the 1995 Nobel Prize in Economics, and is a Professor at the University of Chicago. He thinks inflation targeting is where the Fed should be, and lender of last resort is a qualification of this role in exceptional times when there is a bank run type phenomena in the market. However he argues caution in the role of lender of last resort so that it does not become automatic based on questionable economic forecasting as this part of economic forecasting can be fuzzy, for example who knows with reasonable certainty that something bad is going to happen. So a good case has to be made for lowering rates and a cautious approach like the one Ben Bernanke took is not at all a bad one. he did lower rates the day prior to this article appearing, by half a point.

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The suicide of celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain who had a popular television program, brings new attention to the increase in middle age suicides ages 45 to 64 in the U.S.  The CDC figures show a 60% increase for women and 37% for men between 2000 and 2016. A clinical instructor in psychiatry and medicine at Cornell, Ms. Boardman says life satisfaction is low at this age,a dip in satisfaction called the U curve. A 2016 study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine  shows stress factors as problems with intimate partners job/finances, health, family, and criminal/legal problems.  The demographic group driving suicide rates up is mainly white people without a 4 year college degree, who have done poorly compared to that group in a previous generation, say experts at Columbia University. 

Generally isolation and loneliness is also a factor, and social connections a big antidote to depression type stress.

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The leading Democrat on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, Elizabeth Warren, says she is eager to work with DJT, Tim Scott and Republicans in Congress to make life affordable for working families and to rebuild the middle class. She says Republicans and Democrats have thir reasons for th housing shortages and hgih costs of housing, and both are right. Republicans pointing to the supply shortage and Democrats pointing to the price fixing and corporate landlords.

On DJT proposing to cap credit card interest rates at 10% Warren says she will work with Republicans to make it happen.

Warren cites personal experience as reason she is at her job. Her dad lost his job and almost lost his home. This is why in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis caused by banks engaging in speculation she says she became Senator and why she is fighting to make life affordable for all Americans.

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This important WSJ report shows how the CDC labs failed to come with the test after contamination of a component and failure of the third part of the three part test components. In the absence of a working test from CDC where delays cost three weeks of February the private labs all over the country and state labs could have developed their own test, yet HHS and FDA required approval for these labs to develop their own test and use it. From Feb. 8 when state and city public health labs detected problems with the CDC test to Feb 29 when solutions were developed including simply excluding the third part of the three component test, and letting labs around the country do their own test, were 3 crucial weeks that let the virus spread out of control. The CDC, HHHS, and the FDA and their managers and heads of departments bear responsibility for these errors. Week after week the delays continued, instead the two component test which detects if the genetic material in the sample is coronavirus material, could simply have been approved at the outset instead of the approval for this given weeks later. The third component of the test checks if the virus mutated, according to this report. There is no explanation why the labs all over the U.S. were not allowed to go ahead on February 9 itself or within a few days after that to develop their own tests once it was clear the CDC test did not work on that day. CDC officials failed to recognize that there was a possibility that they may not be able to fix the faulty third component of the test and the risks if they gave false reassurances. There is also no explanation of why a German designed test was not used once the CDC test failed on Feb. 9, which would be a proper way for action considering that this pandemic had already shutdown parts of China by this time. Alarming also is the mention in this report that on Feb. 22 a FDA official in charge of lab diagnostics  flies to Atlanta where the CDC Respiratory Diagnostic lab which developed the test is located. His boss FDA medical device center director is cited from later information as describing the lab as "filthy" meaning the lab had the potential to contaminate, and going so far as saying that if it had been any other lab it would have been shut down. Considering that investment in public health has deteriorated over the last two decades and that there has been a massive misallocation of capital in the country away from public infrastructure this is appalling. The thought of critical labs for emergency health needs as not being up to high quality standards in the U.S. as a result of two decades of misspending, that this shows, is very disturbing.  This WSJ report is based on interviews with people who know about the testing crisis, and undisclosed emails, correspondence on the issues involved. Community transmission began in January 2020 in the U.S. These delays were costly in February and could have been prevented either by going with the German design on Feb 10 or asking labs across the U.S. to develop their own test, and letting other labs immediately use the modified 2 component test of CDC that worked instead of doing this action weeks later. Mardi Gras on Feb 25 and other places where large crowds gathered in sports stadiums could have been stopped had testing gone forward and shown the true extent of the community transmission in these critical weeks.  First China delayed a U.S. team of experts coming into the country for weeks, and then the CDC, FDA, HHS, failed to get testing started, creating  a false sense of complacency. Two crucial errors outside and inside the country that caused so much damage to America and the world.   ...

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Before Silicon Valley Bank failed it was missing a Risk Manager for 8 months. This is incomprehensible considering that the San Francisco Fed had flagged risks at the bank in 2022. It is still not known why the bank had no Risk Manager and how risk management was conducted at the bank.

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There is increasing migration to the south in the US because of young people moving to the south to be clsoe to their parents and for less costly housing, cheaper childcare because  grandparents do the child care. Texas has the largest domestic migration by age group 25-44 years of young people who want to be close to their parents who have moved to the southern states for weather and other reasons. The grandparents help raise he children at a time when cost of child care can be $1500 a month. Georgetown is a suburb of Austin, Texas, that has a  large community of older people, and is the fastest growing city in the country. When children in their thirties and forties move south to be close to their parents they have less costly housing, more space, than in northeastern states. It does not always work out because the joke is that grandparents need PTO for a vacation. Also moving from Detroit to a northeastern state makes no sense financially because of high housing costs. ...

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Calin Georgescu of Romania who won the first round of the Romania election is interviewed by The Times of London.  An advocate of life lived close to Nature and religion,  who agrees with RFK Jr., and a skeptic of UN and NATO wins the first round of the Romanian election in 2024 with 23% of the vote. Social media Tik Tok videos helped Georgescu come out of obscurity into a lead in the election. This interview was conducted in darkness after a blackout at a friend's home outside Bucharest.  He says of the war in Ukraine that it is not our business, we are interested only in Romanians. His main concern agricultural independence for Romania as sovereignty, which means food water and energy. He wants respect, health and sovereignty for Romanians.  Georgescu is not sold on the British/French/German/Japanese narrative of the Ukraine war, as he sees Putin (and DJT) as patriotic in sentiment. He says Romania is fine in the EU and NATO but will negotiate what is in the interest of Romanians. ...

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WSJ poll in January 2025 shows DJT has the support of the American people to make changes and at the same time not enough support for major changes the president elect has promised to make. Deport all migrants with criminal records 75% support. On large scale deportation of migrants 70% disapprove deporting long time residents who have no criminal records. Does this long time resident mean people who are here before 2021 when for the first time migrants reached 200,000 in mid year 2021 exceeding the 150,000 peak in DJT's first term, is not made clear by this report on the WSJ poll. This is the point mid 2021 when Biden was supposed to have removed Mayorkas as Homeland Secretary and come up with new legislation with Republicans to close the border before a surge.  Ending birthright citizenship- 64% disapprove 31% approve. Set tariffs on all foreign goods- 48% approve 46% disapprove Eliminating programs for healthcare, education, social safety net- 60% disapprove 34% approve. Eliminate the Department of Education, and eliminate replace career civil service officers- 60% disapprove. ...

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In his commencement address to to 1000 cadets graduating from the US Military Academy at West Point, NY, DJT tells graduates to think big, take risks and hold on to the culture. He says president Dwight D. Eisenhower who graduated from West Point believed that it was important to think big the harder the challenge, as problems sometimes difficult to solve become easier to tackle when one thinks big at the larger problem. Other advice was to hold on to the momentum achieved in any task to move on to the next step which may lead to big results. And always living with thrifty habits and hard work that pays of with perseverance. A certain CEO of a large bank who has been around almost forever says most important in life is to go out and listen to people, talk to people, the only way to find out what is happening. He also says courtesy and humility are very important. These are not habits DJT mentioned at West Point but are very important in real life along with hard work and perseverance to achieve lasting results. ...

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Stanley Fischer author of 1978 textbook on Macroeconomics with Dornbusch was vice chair of the Fed under Janet Yellen after the financial criis of 2009, and was governor of the Bank of Israel. Both are from the Department of Economics of MIT.  What makes the book and Fischer interesting and unique is that they "do not emphasize the debate but go into more substantive matters," looking at points where the different schools of thought have agreement and at economic matters on an individual basis. Another unique aspect is that it uses lots of graphs but very little math, and focuses on reasoning as the way to tackle economic issues of inflation and unemployment. This is the approach one sees from men in finance and industry who are not economists, including Fed chair Powell who have taken this reasoning approach with no preconceived idea, to get the best results in each individual economic situation such as the one the US faced with the covid pandemic and now faces with resetting world trade for equal opportunities to all nations in manufacturing. ...

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European leaders knowing Putin and Russia were not ready for a ceasefire opted for a strategy to get Ukraine to offer an unconditional ceasefire to see if there was any change. Trump who had earlier called for an unconditional ceasefire by both sides, initially felt Ukraine was not moving ahead to support a deal. During May 2025 the EU leaders following Merz forming a coalition government in Germany joined together (Starmer, Macron and Merz) to make one more effort. Trump offered to call Putin. Yet this has not worked, except that now Trump is coming around to the view of the EU leaders that Russia is not joining the peace initiative as it sees that Russia is winning the war. Meantime two new developments took place. Germany's coalition government under Merz passed legislation so that it could build the German defense forces. Merz openly talks about making the Budeswehr the best defense force in Europe in contrast to Scholz who had resisted German involvement. Trump says it is not his war and it would not have happened under his presidency. ...

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Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia may be the two justices on the Supeme Court who might vote either way. Justice Scalia voted for states ability to enforce consumer protection laws in the recent 5-4 Supreme Court decision.

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Streiff was asked to resign at Peugeot Citroen. The new CEO will be Philippe Varin, who did the turnaround at Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus. Peugeot is Europe's second largest carmaker. Peugeot has been slow to expand outside of Europe.

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The latest news from Catalonia ahead of the Dec. 21, 2017 election shows a hugely divided region in Catalonia, as prime minister Rajoy of Spain campaigns in Barcelona. The head of the left wing ERC party which is likely to win the largest share of the vote according to a poll in newspaper La Vanguardia was arrested along with fired ministers in the Puigdemont government. This time unlike the 2015 election ERC party says it will not join Mr. Puigdemont in a single pro independence bloc. Mr. Puigdemont is in exile in Brussels after declaring independence for Catalonia. Barcelona's mayor Ada Palau who won in 2015 on a platform showing support for people who suffered after the financial crisis and real estate meltdown, says she does not support the independence movement. Palau says Mr. Puigedemont and others "tricked the population for their own interests." She is critical of the way prime minister Rajoy handled the crisis including invoking Article 155 to dismiss the elected government for new elections. Palau has broken the pact with the Socialist Party. This shows a fragmented and divided population when it comes to independence. This BBC report says about half of Catalans today do not support independence for a complete break with Spain. ...