LyrArc Article Gist
How redtape and regulation is making it hard to get anything built in America including the housing needed, and increasing costs of production, are topics raised by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson in a new book with title Abundance. It is giving Democrats including governors Kathy Hochul of NY and Wes Moore of Maryland, and others an opportunity to join the discussion about new ways to get making stuff the business of America that is behind the tariffs and other policy of the DJT administration to change world trade. 

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Most small legal provisions with no fiscal impact will be left out of US Mega Bill 2024 to comply with Byrd rule in Senate to get the Mega DJT Bill passed with 51 votes. Many of them are insignificant and some of little value.

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A 20% drop in Canadian tourists but European tourism is holding up decently considering the steps needed to control the migration problems at the American borders. Most of this is affecting border regions with Canada not the rest of the nation.

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Solar energy production continues to grow in the US South in states like Georgia, Tennessee, Florida and Texas. In Georgia and Tennessee pine trees were planted in large numbers to replace crops with lumber when crop prices were low. With low prices for logs University of Georgia research shows 10X income even for a few acres for landowners in the South when they shift from pine trees to solar panels.

Timber Company Rayonier's CEO says for an acre of timberland income is $80 compared to $800 or $1200  for solar farms. When solar companies buy timberland they pay 5 times timberland value. Weyerhaeuser alone has 130,000 acres with 70 options to build solar farms. US needs 250,000 acres a year for solar farms to generate needed solar energy.

When land is near a wildlife preserve and bear territory it should rightly be preserved from solar farms which is happening in this case cited by WSJ in Tennessee. 

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Its called the most one side win in Champion League's history, the win of PSG Paris over Inter Milan May 31, 2025.

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Noise at 90 decibels at 2 Taylor Swift concerts at Real's Bernabeu stadium in Madrid, Spain, and complaints in 2024 led to action to stop the noise. Above 55 decibels is considered not safe.

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Backward looking behaviours of Norwegian teenagers and educational trends in Europe in 2025.

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A bill passed in the House and now going to the Senate in the US will put a tax on remittances of 3.5% for people who are not US citizens or nationals. It was at 5% but lowered to 3.5% just before the vote. 

Total remittances from the US in 2023 are  $656 billion, according to the World Bank. Total remittances to Africa from US $12 billion of $92 billion total. DW.com shows a family outside Accra, Ghana depending on these remittances for food, medicine and education.

An out of control migrant problem with tens of millions of migrants flooding the US and Europe became a major issue in the 2024 US election. Voters clearly supported strong action to control migration and human smuggling across borders.

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Chase Banks' Jamie Dimon says he worries about China as a competitor and an adversary, but his real worry is that we in the United States can "get our act together."

“If we are not the pre-eminent military and the pre-eminent economy in 40 years, we will not be the reserve currency. People tell me we are enormously resilient. I agree with that. I think this time is different. This time we have to get our act together and do it very quickly.” 

“What I really worry about is us,” he said. “Can we get our own act together—our own values, our own capabilities, our own management?”

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What is the role of a small wine importer of European wines who supplies local stores in NY city, and other similar business, in a issue of $1 trillion trade imbalances that destroyed American manufacturing and millions of jobs as large US business corporations shipped manufacturing to China? The trade deficit with China has led to loss of 3.8 million jobs, 75% of them or 2.9 million in manufacturing.  Go back to 1990 and Beijing was a city of bicycles not cars. If Beijing shifted to a open economy and simply imported products from the US and Europe as it had done since 1700 it would have remained a backward agricultural economy. It took 20 years of focused effort after 2000 for China with US technological assistance to excel in manufacturing, as the US had done after 1920. Can or cannot the US excel in Manufacturing with its own focused effort and restore jobs and decent wages to the American people, that is the question. That a $1 trillion deficit that has already destroyed the US manufacturing and its capacity to defend itself by rapidly building up the US Navy, is that not an emergency, then what is, is also the question, and the role, the duty, of the president of the US in such a situation. The federal appeals court has allowed the DJT Tariffs to remain in place till it goes to the US Supreme Court. Today May 30 the WSJ in a front page article shown here says the one California shipyard could assemble a supply ship in 5 days in 1942. China's independence in the fight against Imperial Japan and the Kwantung Army's adventures, and the independence of Europe in the 1940's depended on this vital US capacity. Is this forgotten? FDR acted step by step by 1938 to restore the US lost capacity at that time, what is the role of the president today? ...

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For Deere 80% of production of farm tractors is in US and 75% of suppliers in US. It is working on ways to tackle tariffs impact which is about $500 million. Its plan is to raise prices 2-4%. Deere has to tackle the imports from Germany of midsize tractors and its exports to Europe which also face tariffs. Other production is in Mexico and China.