LyrArc Article Gist
Western nations including Europe, Canada, Japan and South Korea, are members of the International Enerrgy Agency, which has 1.5 billion barrels in reserve. The IEA will release oil from its reserves to support president Biden's plan to release 180 million barrels over the next 6 months. OPEC that includes Russia plans to increase production by only about 432,000 barrels a day.  During the Trump administration Saudi Arabia and Russia were at odds on production levels leading to Russia increasing production to higher levels than OPEC would allow. This led to a temporary collapse of oil prices to levels as low as $30. To help the US oil fracking industry which could not operate at these low prices president Trump brought the two sides together into what is now OPEC+. The Biden administration has ties with both Iran and Saudis, and aims to revive the Iran nuclear deal, withdrew support for Saudi air strikes on Yemeni Iran backed Huthi rebels. In this geopolitical situation Saudis are reluctant to respond to US calls to increase production as they have done in the past. With climate change and the COP26 agenda in Glasgow there is a plan to shift away from fossil fuels such as coal and oil that are supplied by OPEC and Australia. This means that a shift away from Russian or Saudi oil is also a shift towards renewable energy such as wind and solar which is needed to combat climate change. The Ukraine war and efforts to wean Europe away from Russia sourced energy will accelerate the changes needed to tackle climate change, even though the US fracking industry will step in to increase production at oil prices at $100+ in 2022. After 2023-2024 the push for conservation and renewable energy from today's crisis and Glasgow COP26 commitments, sharp slowdown in China and renewable focused India is likely to bring down oil prices to reasonable levels for a transition period to renewable energy. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
This article in the Economist provides a detailed account on women in the U.S. armed forces. France, the Netherlands, Australia and Canada exceed the U.S. in the percentage of women in the armed forces. The U.S. is at about 15%. This is a good time for women to join the armed forces as rules are being put in place to protect women from sexual assault, women are increasingly accepted in combat units and are accepted for training in the U.S. Army's elite ranger school. Women are in senior positions in the Navy and Air Force. Getting the best people, intellectually capable as well as pysically capable is a challenge for the new forces. Technology has changed the nature of war, and intelligence, preparation, strategy are critical elements for success. Much needs to be done, as the article at about the same time in the NYT about Lieutenant Courtney shows to get intellectually capable women to stay and invigorate the forces. As this article does to some degree the emphasis on physical prowess, and the lack of enough women in the forces to create pressure to create a better environment for women, act as inhibiting factors. The rules are still set in a way that provides less psychic support for women than they do for men. Some of the psychic stress shows up in the higher rate of single parents for female service members, with 12% of active duty women bringing up children on their own compared to 4% for men, and the failure of marraiges of female service members 3 times the rate for male service members....

LyrArc Article Gist
As the founder's daughter Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, is a high profile figure arrested in Canada from U.S. request for extradition in the ongoing U.S. - China tech rivalry.Ren Zhengfei, 74 years old, a former military engineer built Huawei over 3 decades into a leading telecom company.  The CFO was in line to succeed her father as CEO.

LyrArc Article Gist
Even China has not campaigned the way Canada, Mexico and British, American media have against DJT Tariffs because China knows it is basically about getting an even playing field when it is the only country with $1 trillion in trade in its favor in 2024, 12 times the Japanese high of $82 billion trade surplus in 2007. But why should China campaign when the American and British, German media are going to do the job for China? A simple quiz to K-12 would ask school children when is the last time a country has a $1 trillion trade surplus? Answer: Never. Greg Ip has written a few years back that the devastation of China outshoring of American factories and jobs was unlike the 1980's Japan trade invasion because of first China's size, second by the speed with which it happened at 10-14% Chinese GDP growth. There is a third Japan was an ally needing US for security and backed down, China's case is different it is challenging the US for control of the world economy and will fight this one over the long haul. Greg Ip of WSJ on the 53 countries asking to negotiate US Liberation Day April 2, 2025 Tariffs. These countries include Allies of the US in full support asking to negotiate Israel, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, India Allies of the US in partial support asking to negotiate Britain Allies of the US not in full support asking to negotiate Germany, France Allies of the US in the past campaigning against the US, asking to negotiate Canada, Mexico Not Allies of the US, not in full support, not campaigning against the US China A look at his list tells one only one thing, mostly all trading partners except for the $146 billion exports of the US which represents exports to China are the exports that are at risk if things don't work out on tariffs. This is what the media today WSJ added this last week to the NYT, Wash. Post and the BBC, Guardian of UK, German media will not tell the reader.  The DJT Tariffs and Tariff negotiations are Lighthizer Tariff negotiations which won the fight with Japan in the 1980's over unfair trade and gaining a level playing field. Lighthizer as Deputy US Trade Representative conducted the tough negotiations with Japan. He was USTR in 2016-2020 and his Deputy Jamieson is now USTR in 2025       ...

LyrArc Article Gist
US president DJT meets Indian PM Modi on the first day of his visit to the US. PBS shows the joint press conference of the two leaders as India and the US embark on a new journey. India to reach out for 1.4 billion people- and as a model for 1.7 billion people including Indonesia- reach out for Developed modern India by 2047, the 100th anniversary of India's independence from the British Empire. The US as the leading western economy meeting new challenges from China as it partners with India for 2.4 billion people living in South Asian and North American democracies and the UK/Canada/Australia/Japan the largest group of people with a common history and institutions of government based on a shared history with Britain and the Modern World it created by pioneering the Scientific and Industrial Revolution. And a shared civilization where the Bhagavad Gita meets the Authorized Version of the Bible in the religion and civilizations that provide a common heritage of the spirit. To conduct the affairs of man in ways that provide good honest governance and a shared interest in peaceful development for the welfare of humanity. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Le Monde publishes the speech JD Vance gave at the Munich Security Conference with it says added context and explanation. It is useful because it is easy to make hasty judgements in one direction or another. The focus here is on immigration to EU and to the US, a sore point. Vance does not mention a bigger sore point - the lack of recognition worldwide to the 490,000 American lives lost in the illegal flow of fentanyl into the US without needed action from CMC Canada, Mexico and China. And business as usual carried on by these countries and the European Union, and a failure to act by the US.  JD Vance said- "And of all the pressings—challenges that the nations represented here face, I believe there is nothing more urgent than mass migration. Today, almost one in five people living in this country moved here from abroad. That is, of course, an all-time high. It’s a similar number, by the way, in the United States—also an all-time high. The number of immigrants who entered the EU from non-EU countries doubled between 2021 and 2022 alone. And, of course, it’s gotten much higher since.And we know the situation, it didn’t materialize in a vacuum. It’s the result of a series of conscious decisions made by politicians all over the continent, and others across the world, over the span of a decade." Fact Check- About 14 million of Germany's 84.5 million people are foreign nationals according to Destatis. This is 16.6% of Germany's population. Vance rounds it off to 20% not 17%. In the US there are 47.8 million people who are foreign born or 14.3% of the population in 2023. It increased by 1.6 million from 2022 to 2023, much of it coming from Venezuela and Central American failed states from left parties mismanaging the economy for hyperinflation and from gang violence. In 2022 EU member states welcomed 1.8 million Ukrainian nationals that was only 100,000 in 2021, which is two thirds of the increase. The reason for Vance's doubling. A similar situation happened in the US with Venezuela as a failed state with hyper inflation into 1000 percent inflation leading to migration to other Latin American countries and into the US during the Biden administration. Some of this happened because sanctions made things worse, mismanagement of the economy. A similar migration happened from Syria into the EU member states as a result of the civil war.     ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Xi Jinping is seen in this WSJ report as putting China on a course as a competitor of the US compared to other leaders such as Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin, yet these prior leaders faced a enoromous gap in technology and capital to make it ludicrous. The shrinking of this gap is a result of free markets theory that took no account of the national interests of the US or of the European Union in shifting manufacturing lock stock and barrel to China.  A deeper look at China requires looking at it from putting oneself in China's situation since the period of the 1912 revolution and the 1919 May 4th movement for Science, Modernization and Democracy, to better understand its motives and realities. Jiang Zemin could not pose the question of competing with the US at the time because China's per capita GDP was less than $100 in 1990 and by 2000 during Hu Jintao's term still about a tenth of American per capita GDP.  Even today with population in North America of about 500 million in the economies of US, Canada and Mexico, China lags far behind in technology and capital resources. The Biden administration does not believe in this idea of free markets theory, wrong from the beginning that prevailed incredibly and puzzingly for too long, that it does not matter where you make as long as it is made at the least cost anywhere. It ignored what China and the US under Biden both believe for the US or China that the US is its people and the people is the country. For the US the Civil war itself as Lincoln said in rallying people to the Union, was fought because labor was more important than capital. When looked at the situation in China as stated by Xi at the party congress recently is for having made progress for the overriding goal of Modernization to build a moderately prosperous socialist economy. Huge problems in China remain hidden- ensuring self governance that is honest and accountable to the people, creating jobs and opportunities for hundreds of millions of young people even as supply chains shift after the pandemic in Europe and the US, India and other countries to their home countries for Made In USA, Made in Europe, and Made in India. China is not such a believer in the flawed free markets theory of the non existence of national interest to not grasp the natural aspects of the US and EU, India wanting to build their own manufacturing up again to the fullest. In this situation it also probably realizes the need for a pause to the rampant free markets type of growth that has damaged China's water, air and environment as much as it has damaged the world through climate change. Quality of growth is the new ethos and this gives the US and China, India, the EU and other countries a common frontier to shoot for. The nuclear aspect is also there and managing this well is a common interest for all countries exercizing responsible leadership. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
What a change DJT's first 100 Days and actions on immigration and tariffs , Ukraine and Russia, have made in China's and World relations in Asia, and in Europe - all for the better, significantly better relations worldwide.  China has worked out a peace settlement in Ladakh frontier with India. It has come together in Tokyo with Japanese prime minister Ishiba and China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi holding hands, and South Korea joining, all three nations vowing to remember history and work together. In Europe Russia is being brought back into the community of nations for big power cooperation with the US after 3 years of war in Ukraine. And Germany has removed its constitutional brake on spending that frees up $1 trillion in funding for infrastructure to replace much of its rail and other infrastructure built in 1900. One would not know this reading the NYT on democracy or the WSJ on tariffs or the Washington Post on assault on federal workforce, or the Atlantic, Politico, DW.com or FR24, Der Spiegel, nor Le Monde, much of the world media slanted on way or another. One does not hear about military exercises so often as the world realizes that so called large economies China, Germany, Japan and India all depend on American goodwill and willingness to give rather than take for most of the post war period since 1950. For the last 6 years in the latter half of the Trump administration and the 4 years of the Biden administration during the pandemic relations between China and the US deteriorated and China first retreated into its own then opened up a bit. The initial idea that it could manage the DJT trade actions evaporated as Biden continued the DJT first round of tariffs. Now Navarro, Lighhizer, and his deputy Jamieson are all back advising DJT for anew round of reciprocal tariffs and tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China for not stopping fentanyl flows.  In 2022 in eastern Ladakh China's PLA had a big standoff with Indian forces in eastern Ladakh at Galwan and Pangong Lake. The Quad was active with Australia India and the US in Indo Pacific and China conducted military exercises close to Taiwan.      ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Mark Carney's program for Canada is based on 5 Actions-

1. Double the rate of home building to get 500,000 additional homes a year.

2. Ease Cost of living pressures. Reduce the lowest tax bracket rate to 14% from 15%. Scrap the sales tax on buying the first home for homes less than C$ 1 million about $720,000. Make dental care available for low income Canadians adding 4.5 million Canadioans to the national insurance program.

3. Build a national electricity grid east to west, reducing dependence on the US.  Invest in both clean energy and fossil energy.

4. Increase defense spending to 2% of the budget with $18 billion in additional spending over 4 years.

5. Invest $5 billion in ports, rail, and infrastructure to create new trade corridors.

 

 

 

LyrArc Article Gist
This report in WSJ looks at the impact of the 2018 Trump tariffs retained by president Biden as the US seeks to reduce its overdependence on Chinese imports and bring back American manufacturing. This followed misguided policies of previous administrations since Clinton that weakened American manufacturing strengths. Have the US tariffs on Chinese goods worked? The WSJ graph with information from US Census Bureau shows that imports from China in 2022 going down to the levels in 2007 of about 16-17% as a share of US imports, down from a high of 21% before the Trump tariffs halted a rapidly rising curve. Imports from Germany, South Korea and Japan in 2022 were down slightly hovering around 4.5%. Imports increased from Canada and Mexico, the US's traditional partners in North America, around 13.5% as a share of US imports for each country. Also increasing were imports from Vietnam. Some of the imports from Vietnam are Chinese products shipped through Vietnam to evade tariffs, and it is not clear whether the figures from Vietnam have been adjusted for this. President Biden is looking at different scenarios in an effort to tackle inflation. One supported by Janet Yellen, an economist at US Treasury is for the US to relax some of the China tariffs. Most economists in previous administrations including Yellen failed to understand what surrendering American manufacturing to China on the scale and speed that happened would do to communities across America that depended on factory jobs. The devastation of these communities has led to increased divisions in America, weakened American manufacturing, and led to outflow of technologies vital for national security and national well being.  Republican senators, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan are opposed to any relaxation of tariffs. Studies show the removal of the tariffs would have only a small impact on the consumer price inflation index reducing inflation by 0.26%. Lifting some tariffs on school supplies and summer bicycles as proposed by the US Chamber of Commerce would have little or no impact on the consumer price index for inflation. This is because the inflation is triggered by oil and gas price increases stemming from the Russian policies and invasion of Ukraine. This has also aggravated food and grocery costs  through blocking of agricultural imports from Ukraine. An additional factor was the increased demand after the pandemic easing in 2022, but that demand is already easing in July with glut in inventories at Walmart and Target, and excess warehouse capacity at Amazon. It would also send the wrong signal to China that the tariffs imposed by president Trump after a Section 301 trade investigation and based on improper loss of technologies to China are not being taken seriously by the US, says Republican Senator Hagerty of Tennessee. The Labor advisory committee to the US Trade Representative Katherine Tai also opposes any such move after the serious damage done to US workers and to US national well being and security. This happened under the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations with failed trade policies that ceded manufacturing to China. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The WSJ's Latour, Browne, Tejada and Wei interview Lou Jiwei, chief executive of the China Investment Corporation (CIC), China's sovereign wealth fund. He says it is too early to talk about eurobonds as the financial arrangements necessary have still to be put in place. CIC is reducing its exposure to Europe. CIC is interested in infrastructure investments and sees infrastructure investment as the way out of the economic crisis for the U.S. and Europe. He has the most confidence in investing in China. Other locations are in emerging markets Brazil, S. Africa, Latin America. CIC's target is to have 50% of the assets in long term investments in infrastructure investments, commodities, real estate and direct investment and private equity, etc. and the other half in public securities. But this will pose challenges and CIC has not reached this level. It is learning from ATP, the Danish pension fund, Calpers, TRS, and CPP, the Canada pension fund. The portfolio is mark to market which creates pressures to reduce short term volatilities....

LyrArc Article Gist
Chancellor Merkel's now widely quoted words were made in Munich on May 27, 2017, after a NATO summit meeting in Brussels and a Group of 7 meeting in Italy, in which she was disconcerted by U.S. president Trump's positions on NATO, Russia, climate change, and trade. These words "the times in which we could rely fully on others - they are somewhat over." Merkel added "This is what I experienced in the last few days." After the election of Emmanuel Macron in France, Merkel expressed great relief at the outcome of the French election with Macron winning about two thirds of the vote, setting the stage for the election in Germany after several months of difficult watching and waiting. Now there is new confidence in Germany shaping its own future, with France and the rest of the European Union without Britain. Merkel says she "experienced this" meaning that she had undergone a transformation in these few months, and visibly in the last few days. She was also sending a message to Germans and people of the European Union - "we have to know that we must fight for our future on our own, for our destiny as Europeans." This also complements tactically to form the approach of Germany and France at the leadership of the EU, as French president Macron said at the end of the Group of 7 conference that multilateralism was intact, and the U.S. and EU shared many common goals.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Even if a automobile part for assembly is manufactured in the U.S., the subparts may be sourced overseas. This makes it extremely difficult to pinpoint the country of manufacture. Toyota Siena is 90% sourced with US and Canadian parts according to the U.S. National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration. The Ford Mustang 2005 by contrast uses 65 %US and Canadian parts according to NHTSA. There is a publicity war between the US makers and the Japanese with commercials arguing about who is more American. According to the Japanese Automobile Manufacturers Association $28 billion is the amount of cumulative investment in N. America and $45 billion is the amount of annual purchases of parts, so that 67% of the Japanese brand cars sold in N. America are made there. A graph from National HighwayTraffic Safety Association shows the Average percentage of auto parts made in the US and Canada for cars sold in N. America. It shows 2 interesting things. 1. That the US makers GM and Ford are closer to 80% and the Japanese makers Toyota and Honda are about 70%. So American makers still have more American content. Note though that Nissan is only around 54 % domestic content, significantly lower. Its always been a much weaker competitor than Toyota, and its sales recently have been sluggish in the US. The Koreans are not shown here but its quite possible that their content is closer to Nissans than to Toyota or lower than Nissans. So all foreign plants may not be the same. Notice the change in Toyota from 52% domestic content to 70% domestic content, from 2000 to 2005,an 18% jump which could only result from a deliberate strategy anticipating the controversy of who is truly American and who isn't. 2. In contrast GM has definitely shifted from 92% to 80% and rapidly moving in the opposite direction than Toyota. The sea change currently underway in the American auto parts industry is in the background, with Delphi looking to increasing manufacture and sourcing overseas particularly Asia (China, India etc), to bring down costs and be competitive in a globalizing auto parts industry. In the future as Delphi shifts overseas and GM procures from China and India one could see a continuing rapid shift to higher overseas content to add the cost savings directly to GM and Ford's bottom line. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The treaty of handover by Britain of Hong Kong under one country, two systems was flawed in the way it was negotiated. French commentators looking at the problem say the city is caught between its past in the British Empire and the new monolithic state that China represents. Under the British French visitors looked at the city and wondered how there was freedom but no democracy, people were just selfishly just interested in making money. Chris Patten, Britain's administrator of the territory tried but failed to get democratic process, During the negotiations in 1984 for handover the chief British negotiator, Percy Cradock, a former ambassador to China, tells the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that - In Hong Kong where there is such a disparity in strength between the two sides, you go for the best you can get, I take the simple view that half a loaf is better than no bread." Britain had very little leverage to secure a separate future for Hong Kong because it was small compared to much larger China resulting unequal negotiations. The same is true today as the best Britain could do is to get out a joint declaration with Australia and Canada saying that it did not approve the new security law, that it violated the treaty signed by Britain and China. The French view expressed by the editor of La Croix is that hasty poorly planned British exits- as happened in British India -have led to crises and conflicts for postcolonial generations, a legacy of British colonial rule. India and Pakistan still sorting out Kashmir, and India and China still fighting about the McMahon Line border area. The situation is very different for the U.S. which now has to respond in some way, and this comes as trade tensions and coronavirus tensions about its origins in China and the failure of Beijing to allow quick entry for an American team into Wuhan. This being for 7 weeks between Jan 6 request and February 16 permission. America sees this as losing 7 precious weeks to make up its own determination of the dangers when every week health experts say means saving or losing tens of thousands of lives. With loss of 100,000 lives the Trump administration has a sense of being misled. This French report in FR24 points out that the lack of a strong response from the U.S. would be something similar to letting the Berlin Wall happen without a response. Both sides in a situation where the territory of Hong Kong remained mostly about money and with a disproportionate influence of business interests similar to its founding under the unequal treaties of the 1850's. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
In group cultural trends among younger buyers. How different trends in the culture get formed and how they shape the culture and the minds of diffrent demographics and especially younger buyers. Here its about a novel "Hotter than Hell" about a war between Canada and the US over fresh water after a global warming catatrophe.The book became popular after the new Canadian Conservative government minister of the environment's madennegative comments.The effort of the new Harper government to distance itself from the Kyoto protocolsalso helped the book.

LyrArc Article Gist
Mexican president Nieto's poll numbers are at all time low of 24%, according to Reforma newspaper. He took office in late 2012 and has been hurt by human rights scandal of the murder of 43 students in the state of Guerrero, corruption issues, and failure to improve the economy. The invitation to Trump to visit Mexico left even people close to the president surprised, and was criticized widely inside Mexico. It is not clear what Trump or Nieto gained from the trip. As Trump continued his talk about building a wall on the Mexican border and having Mexico pay for the estimated $23 billion it would cost. He did this in a speech to supporters in Pheonix on the same day he met Nieto, showing the use of teleprompters and prepared script was not his way of campaigning. Just as the message to black people that Democrats take them for granted cannot resonate without the basic message delivered with compassion and understanding- such as done by the presidents Bush and Reagan- so also the message to Hispanic people is suffering from the same lack of empathy. Recent polls show only 3% of blacks support Trump. McCain and Romney gained only 4-6% in the U.S. presidential elections of 2008 and 2012. The message of the wall is also baffling as an election strategy. A Gallup poll in July 2016 shows only 15% of Americans opposing a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, and only 24% of Republicans. There is another problem in the strategy. The rhetoric about walls and mass deportations, and the Trump temperament combined with handling of nuclear weapons is not winning college educated women in the suburbs with polls showing Trump lagging behind Clinton by about 20 points or 4 million voters with this group. It is hard to undo the damage done by this kind of rhetoric used in the primary elections as it gains distrust of voters. It would require a bad economy with illegal immigrants taking local jobs, and handling of immigration seen as weak, for such a message to gain some national traction. Both are absent for the most part with a steadily improving economy since 2012, lower unemployment, a tough enforcement policy on deportatons under Obama that exceeded that under Geoge W. Bush, and the talk of a wall comes with illegal immigration having declined steeply since the 2008 financial crisis. The real culprit appears to be elsewhere, the triple hit taken from hollowing out of the manufacturing economy that hurt the Conservatives in Canada, the insecurity created for older whites from the job losses and hits to net worth from the 2008-2009 financial crisis, and the increasing loss of access to health care and educational opportunities with high  costs. About 62 million households or the bottom half of the distribution in the U.S. have a net worth of about $10,000, a quarter of this group having zero net worth, according to the Federal Reserve's Janet Yellen at an Inequality Conference in Oct 2014. Problems no wall is going to solve, problems that built up over 2 decades, problems that will take a generation to fix.  It shows the tech miracle of the last 2 decades as a mirage for quality of life of the middle and working class. Tech as a tool to a goal, not a goal in itself, is the better way forward. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The Arctic contains about a fifth of the world's undiscovered oil and natural gas, according to a report by the is US Geological Survey. It is about two thirds of the oil and gas reserves of the Middle East and 90 billion barrels of oil. It will come on stream only gradually because of the Arctic ice and difficult terrain, though climate change and melting ice makes it less formidable. Countries bordering the Arctic, Canada, Russia the USA, Denmark and Norway, will benefit with Russia holding most of the valuable natural gas resources.

LyrArc Article Gist
Compromise reached at the October 2010 G-20 meeting in S. Korea to reduce trade imbalances, and for countries with current account surplus exceeding 4% of GDP (China 4.7% and Germany 6.1%) to bring these balances down by 2015. Countries with large current account deficits, Turkey 5.2% and South Africa 4.3%, were expected to bring their deficits down and increase national savings. The US is at 3.2%. The US proposal for a target was accepted by Japan as long as it was not a fixed target but a reference point. Germany was opposed, saying it was a return to planned economy thinking. China did not comment on the issue. Canada, Australia and the UK supported the US position. The compromise was an effort to continue pressure on China to redirect its policies away from exports to increasing domestic consumption, while still refraining from a fixed target. It also takes some of the pressure off a fast track currency rebalancing, with China expected to increase the value of the yuan, but given more flexibility than the rhetoric would suggest....

LyrArc Article Gist
The India-Pakistan-Afghanistan issues are still framed in the old way in terms of communalism, cold war then and the war on terrorism now. These policies were a legacy of the colonial policies of an earlier empire designed to preserve foreign rule, with a policy of perpetuating divisions between communties on religious and other lines. Modernization, the spread of mass communications that makes possible the reduction of prejudice and division by assimilating different values and beliefs into acommon aspiration for progress and better living standards, and the spread of education, commerce, and technological progress, create the conditions that should put this behind us. Put behind us communalism, and the political and military structures of communal states. Pakistan needs to be transformed from a communal state with a military structure designed to preserve that state - resulting in conflicts with its neighbors- into a state that represents a community and a religion, but in all other ways seeks peaceful coexistence and economic integration with the rest of South Asia. A good example of this is Mexico with its own culture, language and religion (Spanish Catholicism), and Canada with its own bilingual French-English heritage and British political structures and allegiances, both arriving at an arrangement of peaceful coexistence and economic integration with the USA with its different political structures and culture and sporadic conflicts with Canada and Mexico. This has promoted the peaceful development of the North American region. The US involvement in the region can then be seen as a misguided effort that continued framing the region's differences in the old British way or in a cold war stereotyping, first with John Foster Dulles in the India-Pakistan conflicts, and then with Reagan in the Afghan anti-Soviet war. This has worked to exacerbate the conditions that led to slow progress in the drive for economic development, infrastructure building and modernization in all of South Asia. Just as in Europe, as in North America, the processes of economic development work best when a policy of inclusiveness and integration of different communities and people is followed. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
G-7 nations reach agreement for a global minimum tax of 15% a floor for taxes that the Biden administration finds acceptable. This agreement was reached at a meeting of the Treasury chiefs of the 7 G-7 countries in London on June 5, 2021. The G-7 countries are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, and US. Next agreement from Russia, China, India and Brazil in the G-20 nations would establish new ground rules for the major economies. The G-20 meeting is in Venice July 9-10. The OECD is steering the international efforts to achieve that goal. For the agreement to be effective a number of small nations that use tax rates of below 15% to attract business have to be part of the new rules. One of these countries is Ireland with a tax rate of 12.5%. For the Biden administration in the US the goal is a significant one as president Biden seeks business to pay its fair share so that long neglected priorities for education, healthcare, infrastructure, post pandemic improvements can be met. France and other nations in the EU face similar needs in the post pandemic environment. By setting a floor the Biden administration is both creating a new cultural concept of fairness in taxation and making it possible to finance the $2 trillion spending programs for these priorities of president Biden. Behind this are important facts that have left the large tech businesses paying little or no tax depriving governments of the very revenues that are needed for infrastructure and services for a modern well run state. The Biden administration seeks to include the tech businesses as well as all businesses in the new tax rules so that a uniform idea of fair taxation applies across the whole economy for the first time in two decades. In this way it makes up for the missed opportunities in the OBC administrations of Obama, Bush, Clinton that have led to loss of faith in the state and institutions in the US. A similar situation prevails in the UK,  France and Germany where previous administrations failed to address this important issue of fair taxation and financing infrastructure and priorities in health, education, and critical needs of the people.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Financial markets and investors now see the uncertainties emanating from tariffs negotiations as temporary and unlikely to affect corporate profits and the US economy says this report in WSJ. When the EU requested an extension with EU president Leyen calling DJT on May 27th, Trump who had said the EU was dragging its feet on trade negotiations with the US, granted her request. Leyen promised to speed up the negotiations with the new deadline of Juy 9, 2025. Trump had called for an across the board 50% tariff on all EU products if the EU continued the lack of response. In this way DJT called the bluff the Europeans were playing seeking to portray the American tariffs negotiations in an unfavorable way.  How did markets respond? The S&P 500 increased by 2% on May 27th when it became clear that a trade settlement was likely to be reached in 6 weeks. Earlier DJT had met with Mark Carney of Canada another key trading partner and come up with an understanding on moving forward. DJT has shown flexibility with advice from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent who has experience with and carefully followed financial markets. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Germany's DW.com says in this report- "However, economists have pointed out that the US benefits from having large trade imbalances with the rest of the world, as the dollar is used in most trade, and offers major tailwind effects to the US economy." Which economists one must ask? Most of these economists had turned their back on the working people in factories in America, on their wages turned into a downward spiral, on their jobs, their factories lost for three decades. Today the American people have a sense of the true cost of this colossal failure to protect American workers and small towns across America depending on manufacturing. The pandemic exposed the risks of supply chain shocks and inflation by overly concentrating manufacturing in China.  The US has 1 trillion in trade deficits each year and it is completing the destruction of manufacturing in the US. Half of this is with China as China exports through Vietnam and Mexico, third countries, in addition to 295 billion dollars of trade imbalance the US has with China. China, Mexico, Canada and Vietnam are the largest offenders. No country can long endure with such a loss of its manufacturing base. The US Navy itself is in danger without the manufacturing to compete with China that has taken up over 50% of shipbuilding, and soon will not be able to protect the free world if these types of economists and self serving German or other foreign interests drive a false narrative. Without the US Navy in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans no one is safe, not Germany, not the EU, not India or the rest of the world. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
It makes for good political rhetoric, but in reality the flow of money goes both ways. A lot of investments are made by American companies overseas. This time the flow of oil money because of high oil prices, from the USA and Europe to the Middle East is being recycled back to the USA in the form of investments in the US through small equity stakes in companies and more so through purchases of capital equipment and services to build Saudi infrastructure projects. The $500 billion investment plan over several years in Saudi Arabia is to build everything from new cities, aluminium plants, electricity generation plants and chemicals and plastics plants. The fears and rhetoric are overblown, as the USA also invests overseas with holdings according to the Treasury department of $6 trillion of foreign stock and debt. The acceleration of foreign investment in the US is to be seen in the numbers, as the dollar gets weaker, and its more advantageous for Canadians and Euuropeans to invest here. Last year $414 billion of foreign investors money went into buying stakes in American companies and building factories and purchasing stock, according to Thomson Financial. Thats up 90% from 2006 and represented one fourth of all announced deals. This year in just 2 weeks foreign investors poured $22.6 billion in just the first 2 weeks of January, and that represents one half of all deals. Shows how quickly the picture is changing. One way of looking at it is that Americans buy a lot of foreign goods and the money Americans use to pay for a lot of imports is now being returned to the USA in the form of foreign investments. Note that foreign investment is desirable because it brings new ideas and technology and new management methods to the host country from other countries. These foreign investors in many cases are able to make these investments overseas because they are good at what they do, having them in the host country benefits the host country and shakes up competition in the particular industry in the host country that is receiving the investment. This is why economies once relatively unfavorable to foreign investors like Japan and S. Korea are now passionately seeking foreign investment to make their economies thrive through the exchange and inflow of new ideas and ways of doing things. The same can be and is true for the USA. The other aspect is that most of the investment is still from countries like Canada, Germany, Japan, S. Korea which are big free trade partners of the USA. Manufacturing investment is heavily skewed to European and Japanese companies. Foreign multinational investment (Sony, Toyota etc) grew to $43.3 billion in 2007 from $39.2 billion in 2006 according to OCO Monitor, and will accelerate significantly as companies like VW and other German companies find it cheaper to build in the USA and shift more manufacturing here. To get an idea why the rhetoric is overblown Canada spent the most in buying American companies, $65 billion in 2007, according to Thomson Financial. Russia spent $572 million and India $3.3 billion. How will this improve the chances of the USA making it out of this recession? Five million American work for foreign companies in the USA. Of these one third are manufacturing jobs. These jobs pay about 30% more than jobs in American owned companies. Figures from Treasury Department. There will be more of these jobs as companies like VW build plants here. Roubini Economics estimates that an infusion of about $300-400 billion is needed for the USA to overcome the effects of the current mortgage and credit crisis. $414 billion was invested in the USA by foreign investors according to Thomson Financial in 2007, going up from something like $200 billion in 2006. If this pace continues becasue of some of the same underlying reasons as the weaker dollar, stronger economies overseas, then $200 billion additional investments this year would add that much to a stimulus package of $150 billion by one estimate, to provide a boost of somewhere around $350 billion. In the range of the needed boost. Companies like IBM and GE which have significant investments in India and China and investments in software or infrastructure industries that are growing rapidly or Caterpillar with growth in construction overseas, may keep growing through this downturn. This recession may hit selectively and differently, not be a complete hit to the USA economy, and could prevent it from going beyond 2009 with recovery in 2010. ...