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This editorial in the NYT says Bill Clinton moved the Democratic Party to the centre in 1992. In 2016 about 25 years later, after the removal of the Glass Steagall Act led to the 2008 global financial crisis and a deep recession, after the trade relations with China led to loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs over two decades and the hollowing out of industry in the midwest, things have changed. The revolution led by Bernie Sanders, a shrinking middle class, smaller access to college education for the middle and working class, and wide disparities in income, are putting the Democratic Party closer to its roots and the days of FDR. The Democratic Party platform calls for a 21st century Glass Steagall Act to separate normal banking from investment banking, opposes the TPP to prevent any further export of jobs overseas, and goes for a $15 minimum wage. This was also evident at the opening day of the Democratic National Convention when Sanders told the gathering in Philadelphia that even though he was not the candidate, these are the planks of the platform that Hillary Clinton will be pushing for in her presidency. What the editorial does not point out is that the Republican economic platform also calls for reinstatement of Glass Steagall Act, opposes TPP and opposes any loss of American jobs to overseas locations. It differs on the minimum wage leaving it to the states, and it is likely to skew tax cuts towards the wealthy, but also possibly removing the lower income brackets from taxes as Britain has done under the Conservative Party. Both parties today are looking for support from the middle and working class and have directed their appeal to these two groups which are in upheaval. The election of Trudeau in Canada recently also followed this trend, after the hollowing out of Canadian industry in Ontario and Quebec in a similiar pattern as in the midwestern U.S.  ...

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Thirty minutes after trading started at the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Jan. 6, 2016, circuit breaker mechanisms were triggered following a decline of 7%. This followed a similiar circuit breaker trigerring on Jan. 4, 2016. This time investor anxiety was over a devaluation of the renminbi by the government. This triggered a drop of 3.5% in Germany's DAX index and 2.2% in the S&P 500 index. Faulty communication and confusing signals to markets by the central bank PBOC, and securities regulator CSRC, also played a part in increasing investor anxiety. Similiar problems were seen in summer 2015.

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Spain and Portugal growing at 0.7% in the first quarter of 2024, and Italy at 0.3%  are outpacing Germany and France at 0.2%. Manufacturing has slowed down in Germany and France. Overall US 1.6% growth in matched by the EU in 2024.

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This self portrait by Vladimir Putin about his growing up years in Leningrad and the life of his father and mother during the siege of Leningrad by Germans may offer a better sense of the mind and thinking of the Russian president than the Dresden years when he was a junior Russian official in Communist East Germany (the GDR). It is an interview of the Russian president in 2000 by Nataliya Gevorkyan, Natalya Timakova, and Andrei Kolesnikov over twenty years back. Putin's father suffered severe injuries during the war in the fighting around Leningrad, twice being given up for dead and being dragged wounded across the frozen Neva river to a hospital by a neighbor. His mother was half dead from starvation and his father passed on his food given to him at the hospital. Having gone through the memories of this period affected Vladimir Putin's view of the world and no amount of US or German assurance about NATO's intentions may have erased these memories from childhood. The long period in power and the Covid isolation may have led to  perceptions that were less likely to change so that Putin did his own research and wrote a long paper on Ukraine in 2021 that reflected Russia and Ukraine's long history but did not reflect the changing national aspirations of Ukraine's people in 2022. This may have led to the miscalculation and the errors by both Putin and the leaders Merkel-Bush-Obama that the detailed WSJ report of 20 years of events show to have happened. The WSJ report of April 1, 2022, was titled "Vladimir Putin's 20 Year March to War in Ukraine and How the West Mishandled It." The Social Democrats in Germany under Schroeder and Steinmeier mishandled it by deepening economic integration with Russia as a way to make up for what had happened in the German invasion of Russia, and the Christian Democrats under Merkel with business interests never really grasped the different thinking of the Russian president relying solely on deep economic integration of the EU and Germany with Russia as well as China as an answer. Mr. Bush and Mr. Obama from a distance even less so.  This has led to the miscalculation by Russia under Putin leading to invasion of Ukraine, and the US and Germany being unprepared about taking action to prevent it.  Beyond the key participants and the war damage, there is the enormous damage that is taking place in the mental health around the world after Covid with constant barrage of images of war and refugees streaming into Poland. There is the problem of food imports, of food scarcity in the Middle East, and inflation in food prices for Africa and the Middle East. As Brendan Simms, a Cambridge historian has shown in his book "Europe The Struggle of Supremacy 1453 to the Present," which is now being read by German chancellor Scholz, this has happened before with the UK, Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Russia engaging in these conflicts that led to prolonged wars and eventually to only small shifts in power. Yet with huge effects for ordinary people caught in the wars such as today's refugees and people struggling to feed their families in Africa and Asia after the effects of Covid on income. Food prices have gone up by 50% to almost double in these countries.   ...

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States in America's Deep South have a much lower rate of people having taken one shot of vaccination, in the 30-40% range by May 2021. This report says states such as Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, and others in the South are at risk of seeing a new wave of the coronavirus  because people will spend more time in airconditioned spaces in the summer. In contrast to the north with cold winters and indoor heated spaces people in the southern states can spend more time outdoors because of the warmer weather in winter. This may have protected southerners during the winter and spring months. This may reverse with more time spent in airconditioned indoor spaces in close proximity where the coronavirus infections can increase. This report comes as new reports show the Indian coronavirus variant becoming more prevalent in the UK and other countries. This variant spreads about 50% more rapidly than an earlier UK variant, say experts. Another analysis in The Times of London shows that the imperceptible rise phase of the new coronavirus variants is the most dangerous part of the coronavirus as it dulls the sense of danger in the population that makes it take notice and prepare countermeasures early enough. India is an example of how this can happen as the sudden rise actually started with a first imperceptible increase in March and early April 2021 that changed into a rapid escalation of the virus in the population by May 2021. The vaccinations give a strong sense of confidence, however the vaccination rates vary widely state by state in the US. ...

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The Biden vaccination target of 70% of American adults at least partially vaccinated with one dose by July 4, 2021 remains elusive as vaccination rates have dropped. From a high of 2 million a day vaccinations have dropped to 400,000 a day during the first week of June 2021. Vaccination skepticism particularly in the south and western part of the US is making it harder to vaccinate the rest of the US population. This poses increasing risks as the new variants of the virus such as the Delta variant found in India, and now the most widely prevalent strain of virus in the UK, remain a serious problem. The unvaccinated population in the US is too large for any degree of safety in numbers vaccinated. Consider that at the press briefing given by the White House on June 3, 2021, only 28 states out of 51 states have fully vaccinated 50% or more of their population. There is a large variation between different states with states in the south such as Mississippi as low as 34% at least one dose and a similar situation in Alabama. In Arkansas, Georgia, Carolinas, and Louisiana  it is higher at about 50% with at least one dose. Even these figures are deceiving as in some parishes in Louisiana only 20% have even one dose. Studies show that only after the second dose are enough antibodies released to protect well against coronavirus. This is why vaccine experts at Baylor College of Medicine cited in NYT foresee a second wave in the southern US because of the South so underachieving in the case of vaccination.  ...

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AARP shows 29 million Americans working and taking care of older parents. Many work 40 hours a week and work an additional 20 hours helping elderly parents. About six out of ten people of this 29 million work full time. In 2024 a lot more people are living longer and older people prefer staying in their own homes and need help from family members. A simple fall or a cancer diagnosis can lead to long hospital stay, months of treatment, and worrying for family members. Company benefits in 2024 do not include senior or eldercare support or even accomodating employees caring for their parents. In America today federal and state laws do not protect people caring for elderly parents from discrimination in the workplace. Consider how this is affecting companies, as about one third who are caregivers say they are going to leave, and half of the employees leaving are senior manager and executives with much experience. This comes to about 5 million senior managers and executives that American industry can ill afford to lose as it competes with China, India and Europe. About half of all companies are making this a priority in 2024, according to Care.com. Citigroup added 2 weeks of paid leave to care for immediate family member. Companies allow employees to add older parents on their health insurance. These benefits are being added to maternity and paternity leave. The fact that Congress and state legislatures have failed to enact laws protecting caregivers is one more reason for the discontent and unrest in the US after the pandemic. ...

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This article in The Guardian on the lifting of the ban on a kind of risky research on virus in labs that involves increasing the power of pathogenic virus, first appeared on March 9, 2016. It is called gain of function research. The ban was lifted in 2018. It shows how fiercely this decision was opposed in the scientific community, even as some virologists and bureaucrats went ahead. An agency National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, going by the acronym NSABB would make the recommendations to National Institutes of Health or NIH agency, and the Health Ministry in the US called the HHS.

 

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Chloe Kelly of England soccer plays a key role with her self belief, energy and pace in Euro Finals 2025 against Sweden in a come from behind second half, against Italy, and now in a come from behind against Spain in the second half. She makes the pass that Russo heads into the net for 1-1 going into after time. She comes in after Lauren James ankle injury and immediately makes a difference with her pace attacking with Hemp and Bronze the back line of Paredes and Batlle of Spain.

England beat Spain 3-1 on penalties with Chloe Kelly making the winning penalty kick.

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Aldi plans to open 200 stores in the US in 2025- it's low cost model is working as Americans change their buying habits to get the best value from grocery stores. The German discount grocery store chain carries low cost produce and other items straight from the truck to the shelves for super discounted prices without the individual shelf byshelf stocking of larger grocery chains such as Kroger's. Aldi's like the Trader Joe chain stores are smaller and customers say it is hard to build up a large grocery bill when one reaches the cashier counter.

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William Galston in the WSJ says outright for the first time in the WSJ that the years from the last term of Clinton, through the Bush, and Obama administrations were an outright failure for the American people. He documents the losses- 5.7 million job losses in 2000-2010 as Clinton opened China's entry into the World Trade Organization without any precautions taken to prevent abuse of world trading rules after the experience with Japan. Worse no help to the displaced workers which fed into the resentment of workers. Sex scandals weakened the presidency and acted as the major distraction during the last years of Bill Clinton. Over the administrations of Bush and Obama almost the entire US manufacturing base was dismantled and shipped to China. Pharmaceutical companies were allowed to charge recklessly when Bush disallowed Medicare to negotiate prices for pharmacueticals placing additional burdens on the American people. Bush started long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that cost the US dearly in lives and resources wasted with no vital US interests at stake as in Europe. This distracted attention from problems simmering at home. Obama continued these wars preferring to focus on reelection. The migration crisis, the neglect of infrastructure worsened during this period. The Bush deregulation of banks led to the 2009 world banking crisis that led to large layoffs worsening a bad situation from outshoring and creating a class of unemployed, and shrinking household wealth and savings. The Biden administration, the first Trump administration and now the second have started the process of revival of the US. And yet Biden, DJT are relative outsiders who came to the presidency and were not favored in the established order of the 1990-2016 period. One can say about Blair, Cameron, Boris Johnson in Britain, about Clinton, Bush, Obama in the US, and Schroeder, Merkel in Germany that the leadership was mediocre and failed the people of Europe and the people of America.     ...

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What is California's position in nuclear and renewables and does the substance the facts justify the image it promotes of being energy friendly and using renewables? Answer is NO  because only 9% of its total end use energy consumption according to EIA figures (2023) comes from renewables. It uses no coal yet about 60% of its energy is from crude oil. During the current crisis in the war with Iran is California an example to follow? The answer is No because it has not used renewable energy the way Germany has or EU has, and it has not managed its crude oil well by not using domestic crude oil instead relying on imports, which only burden the global needs for crude oil coming from a state with capacity to do lot better. By comparison Germany gets 23% of its total energy consumption from renewables compared to 9% for California, and for Germany 60% of its total electricity production is from renewables compared to 46% for California. EIA data shown here from US government data does not paint a very energy friendly picture. California's imports of crude oil at 75% of consumption and drop in refineries from 48 to 3 shows it has not managed the oil refining side of energy in the best way possible. How does it rate in making good use of energy? Here it uses 174 million BTU's per capita no different than New York at 174 and about the same as Florida and Washington DC, Massachusetts, Maryland.  And Germany has achieved 122 million BTU per capita showing California far behind. How does it rate in using renewables and nuclear? As it is a state with urban and suburban sprawl with large driving distances it uses a lot of crude oil for transportation. Petroleum or crude oil use is 58% of total energy use, Natural gas 25, Renewables are only 3%, electricity generation is 14% of which only 46% is from renewables. California is NOT the model for the US. We have to look elsewhere for answers.   ...

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Whites are aging faster in the U.S., census figures show, and white deaths are higher than white births as the birthrate for whites declines. This is also leading to anxiety among whites about uncontrolled immigration, and behind the Republican party's moves on immigration. The effects of world trade and the hollowing out of some industries with the effect on local communities in the U.S. has exacerbated the anxiety. Signs of this were evident in the last decade leading to the Trump campaign based on immigration issues and trade in the 2016 election, which resonate more in the mid sections of the U.S. with the lack of the tech industry and financial industry of the two coasts.

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A supercomputer called Aurora to be delivered in 2021 to the Argonne National Laboratory would do quintillion calculations per second. Supercomputers offer more accurate simulations of climate changes, solar panels, inner workings of engines.

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China risks a steeper fall in the value of the yuan with capital outflows following its policy of gradually weakening the yuan in 2015-2016.

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Established media is only a small part of the whole media scene in 2024- widely split into many parts that include podcasts, You Tube, blogs, radio other shows targeting specific audiences, and so on.  Harris and Trump engage in a wide variety of mediums in 2024.

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Border crossings and encounters have fallen to 83,000 under president Biden with unilateral action by Biden in the absence of the Republican Lankford Biden legislation that would have shut the Border down. Border crossings of 83,000 are close to the border crossings that reached 74,000 under president Trump even with the building of a border wall. This was achieved with the support of the Mexican president and with Biden's action to effectively close the Border. The best action would have been to implement the legislation that Republican senator Lankford negotiated with Biden by February 2024 and which was allowed to languish in Congress by new Speaker Mike Johnson under the advice of the former president, which is incomprehensible as it is the first time in decades both parties came on to the same page to slow or diminish migrant entry into the US and remake the asylum laws. Many Republicans and Democrats protested this action of the new Speaker. It was a historic and missed opportunity to fix the Border once and for all, and took the courage of Senator Lankford and Biden. For this action Lankford goes down as a senator who belongs in Kennedy's Profiles of Courage, a book of Congressional leaders since 1800 whose courage and leadership have made America the leading democracy and industrialized nation that has won the respect of the world. ...

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China's PBOC Governor Gongsheng offers $70 billion as loans to support China's weakening stock market and a number of other actions to help its economy in September 2024. China's CSI 300 Index, the benchmark has declined 2.3% in 2024, it lost one third of its value compared to 2021 as the overall economy felt the effects of a collapse in housing construction.

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WSJ investigations of Facebook and Instagram showed how these social media companies business activity was damaging to young women's health in the US, Europe and other countries. Because of the reach of social media companies into the lives of millions of young people the damage was serious and extensive. This report in the WSJ describes the activities of management at Facebook and the resignation of one of the key executives from burnout herself. This WSJ report says that during the WSJ series on the investigations this and other key executives remained silent on the issues facing young women for mental health in the use of Facebook products.  One WSJ report in 2021 said that company documents showed Facebook knew that the company's products were toxic for teenage girls. Other issues emerged in the WSJ investigations such as the Outrage Algorithm which the WSJ says was made by tweaking some aspects of the company's algorithm as a way to counter dropping user engagement. This led to much angrier discourse on Facebook according to WSJ and other reports. The experiences at Facebook reflect the general experience of this period in 2000-2015 when business management shifted to an entirely different conception of business that ignored the importance of human values in the blind pursuit of rapid growth, profits to make acquisitions of smaller companies for further growth creating monopolistic firms. This extended to disruptions of democratic process with the Cambridge Analytica access to records of data of 87 million Facebook users as reported in WSJ, that were used to target social media users in the period leading to the 2018 election. With such activities the risks could be seen to the democratic process itself in addition to mental health by the emergence of social media in the short period of a dangerous decade 2010-2020, when there was little or no regulation of this medium.   ...

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The lack of a light combat helicopter to reach high elevations was sorely felt during India's Kargil War in 1999. Hindustan Aeronautics Limited started developing this type of helicopter for ultra-high regions such as Ladakh and Siachen Glacier in 2006. The Indian Cabinet Committee has approved the purchase of 15 LCH Helicopters from HAL.

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Afghanistan plunges into a dire economic crisis and socio economic collapse with the collapse of basic services such as health care, banks, food supplies, financial systems. The EU promises humanitarian aid of $1.16 billion to be delivered directly by aid organizations. A virtual group of 20 summit leads to discussion of how to prevent famine and collapse In October 2021.

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Social distancing is relaxed in places such as Delhi market in Chandni Chowk, India, as the Diwali holiday approaches. This is similar to what happened in Europe in the summer. India has managed to bring down the daily cases to 44,000 after reaching a high of 100,000 in September 2020 for a population of 1.3 billion people. 

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The new plan to aid small business in the second stimulus of $908 billion being discussed in the U.S. Congress, is expected to be targeted to needy businesses. Lonas will go only to  businesses with less than 300 employees which can show they are hurting having a loss of 30% in revenue in any quarter of 2020.

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The Times of India looks at four decades of the BJP party's presence in India's largest state Uttar Pradesh. The first BJP prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee is from this Hindi speaking region.

In the 2022 Uttar Pradesh elections the BJP party increased its vote percentage from 39% to 42%. The BJP plans for rapid economic development in the state were affected by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 and 2021, as resources were diverted to tackle vaccination and healthcare priorities. Uttar Pradesh is India's largest state with a population of 250 million. Much of India's development agenda is being shaped by the state's leadership and the federal government with the Master Plan of Gati Shakti and development from the grassroots to new airports, logistics for export markets and Made in India, new highways and modernized rail networks, infrastructure development, and industry.

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In India 70% of smartphones sold in 2015 cost less than $150. Apple's market share in India is really small at about 2%. Apple iPhone sales were up 56% in the 1st quarter of 2016 over the same quarter in 2015, according to CEO Tim Cook. iPhones cost about $300-$1000 without a data plan in India reducing the size of the market. In May 2016 Apple applied for approval from the Indian government to sell refurbished or certified iPhones at lower cost. In India the best selling iPhone is the older 5S which costs about $300. It makes up 50% of iPhone sales in India for 1st quarter in 2016, according to Counterpoint. Apple has no model at the low end, as the SE model will cost even more at $500. The Indian market is growing at 26% in 2016 over prior year, making it the next largest market after China. Another approach Apple is taking is seeking approval to open its own retail stores and sell online. A waiver has been given by the government for using locally made parts. Apple's high prices and margins remain a significant barrier in opening up the Indian market, when lower priced Korean and Chinese smartphone models offer attractive options to price conscious Indian buyers....