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DJT plans an additional 10% tariff on Chinese imports to the US for its role in not shutting off the fentanyl flows. This is part of overall tariff action on CMC countries for their role in the flow of fentanyl to the US for which they did not take the necessary action to close this.  Business in the US as expressed in the WSJ says the tariffs are wrong. Who is in the right? DJT says on his site "they are so-ooo wrong." Scott Bessent, US Treasury Secretary, calls the  DJT fentanyl tariffs on CMC (Canada Mexico China) as part of domestic policy. It is not economic policy but domestic action to protect the rights of Americans to live freely without drugs and gangs, without fentanyl flows in their neighborhoods just as China protects its neighborhoods and its people, the government fulfilling its most important  responsibilities for safety of its citizens, its families and children, the social compact itself. ...

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General Patrick Sanders former chief of the British armed forces tells graduates at Sandhurst Military Academy in the UK- "We have always fought with our backs to the wall. This is who we are.” “So if you fight, and my experience has been that you will, sooner or later, it will likely be as the British Army always has: isolated, overmatched in numbers, equipment and technology, with tenuous supply lines and before the country has mobilised,” he added. Reading US General Pershing's "My Experiences in the World War" one finds the same message about what he had learned from his experience leading the US Expeditionary forces that put one million Americans into France in 1917. US slow to mobilize in the face of unfolding German threat in Europe. Acting earlier the US Pershing believes would have had a decisive voice in settlement and not accepted the armistice that led to another world war. Every leader in that war trained under Pershing- Marshall, Eisenhower, MacArthur. ...

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Biden looks set to having DJT at the White House and attending his Inauguration. He has accomplished much says Pat Schumer, Minority Leader in the US Senate. He also believe it or not looks quite healthy and active, and likely to look like that a few short years hence in 2027-2028. It gives Biden who did in one term for Covid response and vaccines, infrastructure investment and rebuilding America, withdrawal from foreign wars, what has never been done before in just 4 years, an opportunity to enjoy life after 40 years of public service. And by letting DJT tackle issues of Border and fentanyl flows from Mexico and China in the first 2 years, of unfair trade that have not been resolved for decades, so that America can benefit from the the best of both parties resources and strengths. Contrary to what so called "smart heads" say the two party system is working by engaging people in an ongoing vigorous debate and bringing fresh faces into public service. 

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Cuomo's Queens, New York, accent. An accent that is part Queens, part his father Mario Cuomo's and part old country immigrant Italian. It has a lot to do with his growing up in working-class Hollis, Queens. Its plain, tell it like it is, says one state Assemblyman from Queens.

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McInerney takes personal responsibility and puts top priority on the Dreamliner. He says we will be defined by the 787, though not at this moment. This means he is personally walking through Boeing's and Boeing supplier's plants to see things first hand, and have the daily progress reports coming directly to him. This means closer supervision and taking steps to get things right. One step was to get some managers from its Defense unit into the 787 program management to correct things, buying Dallas based Vought Aircraft out of a joint venture with Italy's Alenia Aeronautica in South Carolina where sections ofthe 787 are being joined. He also stepped in taking control of key parts of the 787 program, and insisted on Boeing mangers closely monitoring and getting involved with first hand knowledge on supplier's sites and getting action where needed, and stationing Boeing people at each supplier's plant. His earlier style was a bit hands off in comparison. The 15 month delay in the 787 launch and the rather ill timed gala in Seattle for a plane that was hollow inside, and with managers having no idea that supplier's were already behind in their part of the program or not doing anything about it, may have suggested to investors that Boeing's McInerney and his key people were really not at grips with what was going on in their own company. From its July high of $107 Boeing stock has dropped 27% to $78 and recovered only slightly to $83 still 23% below the highs. Experts feel that McInerney will either lose big or win big. He wasn't there when the 787 program was started. Now he has to show he can get things right. His initial moves look like the right ones, taking personal responsibility, making decisions to fix things, and not hesitant to take corrective action in the midst of difficulties such as getting into suppliers factories first hand to see things on the inside. And gettiing his best people from other parts of the company into a team and putting them on the 787, and so on. See the link to the Airbus experience with their jumbo jet A380 which ran into similiar problems in the WSJ. There the French teams who were the better able to solve the problems were brought into the German plants to help get things right, even though there were cultural issues to be overcome. McInerney has process based experience at GE where quality and manufacturing were important, and he has delivered good results with an 84% increase in income to $4.07 billion, on an 8% increase in revenue to $66.4 billion in 2007. This comes just 2 to 3 years since joining Boeing in July 2005. Boeing may have to pay $4 billion in concessions and penalty payments for late deliveries, and Boeing is going to set aside this cost by booking the first 25 delieveries at zero-profit margin....

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What growing up was like for Rick Perry on his father's cotton farm in Paint Creek, Texas. What followed after high school in Paint Creek was typical - Texas A&M and the Army.

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Canada's Ralph Steinmann of the Rockefeller University, New York, wins the Nobel prize in Medicine for his immunity research. The other two winners were Bruce Beutler from the U.S. and Luxembourg's Jules Hoffmann.

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Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan's early years in Washington D.C. working for Senator Robert Kasten as an intern and on his staff, at Empower America for Jack Kemp and in other jobs.

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Even with the housing industry decline in Spain the country is not expected to be hit with a serious economic dowturn as overall housing debt is relatively low and banks are still healthy.

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In this essay in Der Spiegel, Charles Hawley says that the Trump movement has become a movement of patriotic downtrodden whites, with a whole range of interests-of extreme right talk show hosts, Tea Party politicians, white power supremacists, those left out by globalization in the working class especially in the midwestern states. The danger he says is that this movement of which Trump has become a part, rejects the narrative on which America is based of the Constitution and the Founding Fathers establishing a country based on principles of "the inalienable rights of man," that have evolved through the years to include black people, women, and minorities.  To put this in perspective, president Obama writing for The Economist magazine in October 2016, puts this movement in a different context- that of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, Know Nothing Movement of the 1800's, the anti-Asian sentiment in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, periods when anti-immigrant or anti-foreign sentiment gained prominence. Obama's view is that it is not fundamentally economic. In this he is right in that some of the forces on the far right do not stem from globalization. Yet he would be missing a great deal if he did not address the economic problems for the middle and working class that have given such views the support of a broad segment of the population, especially in some midwestern and older industrial states compared to say the economy of California or New York. Obama is aware of the problems in his essay as he points to the problems of workers trying to get a decent wage, of job losses through globalization, and the aggravation of these problems by the financial crisis of 2008 when some of the potential physicists and engineers as he calls them went into the financial sector to create faulty mortgages. Yet he goes back to the free trade and global networks of supply chains as having reduced global poverty, without showing a keen awareness of how it has through a combination of events and decades of policy indifference to manufacturing communities in the U.S.- as documented by experts and shown in Lyrarc, with David Autor and Gordon Hansen in the WSJ, 2016- 08-16. A Gallup Study, WSJ, 2016-05-16, supports Obama's assertion by showing that many of Trump supporters are actually self-employed and not in economic distress. Yet the movement would not have taken its proportions without the merging of different groups particularly largely disadvantaged working class voters, and fortunately Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, have a better sense of this than the president. It is by their efforts that income and wealth disparities can be tackled in a way that restores the social fusion of all parts of society- in Hillary Clinton's emphatic words in the final debate by "growing the middle," growing the middle class. This is the task of the next decade, or possibly two decades. (For Gallup study see WSJ, How Economic Anxieties Explain Trump's Appeal- And Where They Fall Short, Nick Timiraos, 08-16-2016. And for Autor, Hanson, see Tallying the Toll of U.S.-China Trade, Justin Lahart, 08-27-2011)   ...

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As Mayor Bloomberg nears the end of his third term as Mayor of New York City, 48% in a recent poll by the New York Times say they approve of his job performance, 39% disapprove.

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At a time when ideas are held with passionate conviction, Andy Kohut kept a remarkable self-discipline in phrasing his questions for polls so as to hear clearly what people were thinking. He followed and loved a robust debate and saw his job as presenting the facts. The Pew Research Center's credibility has been enhanced by Andy Kohut's leadership. He led the Gallup polling organization for many years before becoming founding director of the Pew Research Center. At a time when more than ever we need to hear what is on people's minds, and provide a glimpse of this that goes beyond the passion and political spin in the news story, the work of Kohut is sorely missed.

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Nitish Kumar, a former leader of the BJP party in the populous Indian state of Bihar, and the state's chief minister, wins the Nov. 2015 Bihar state assembly elections running against the BJP led now by Narendra Modi from Gujarat state. Mr. Kumar allied his new party with the party of an old style politician Lalu Yadav, (who is part of Bihar politics for many years), and ran on his pro-growth record of improving development in Bihar. The election provided a landslide for Nitish Kumar's coalition. Mr. Modi now has to find a way of working with states such as Bihar run by politicians formerly part of the BJP, who have also developed a pro-growth record.

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This New York Times report shows that Rick Santorum sponsored legislation that would have helped Universal Health Services, a Pennsylvania based hospital management company, win hundreds of millions of dollars in additional Medicare funds for its hospitals in Puerto Rico. After losing his Senate reelection bid in 2006, Santorum joined the board of Universal Health Services, and was paid $395,000 in director's fees and stock options. Santorum also worked as a consultant to Consol Energy after his failed reelection bid. This was after advocating policies that would help the Pennsylvania gas and coal producer. The Times also reports that during the time Santorum was in the Senate he had developed close ties to Washington lobbyists.

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Hollande served as mayor of the town of Tulle in central France for 7 years. During these years he worked hard to modernize schools, provide home care for the elderly and improve finances in a relatively poor town. He is remembered for his hands on style, freely talking to people about their problems. Hollande moved to this region from his birthplace in Rouen, so that he could contest the seat here in elections back in 1981, over thirty years ago. He lost that election but won in 1983 as a local councillor for Ussel, which is close to Tulle. In 1988 he is elected to France's parliament from Correze, loses in 1993, and comes back to win in 1997.

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Matteo Renzi wins a confidence vote in the Senate by 169 to 139. His economic plan is to give business a boost. He calls on Italians to free themselves from "cultural subalternity" or inferiority to Europe, and "to dream bigger." The plan is for a double digit cut in Italy's payroll taxes, creating guarantee funds for small companies, and paying all of the money the government owes to suppliers estimated at 100 billion euros. Renzi covered the subject of addressing school repairs costing several billion euros. His new cabinet has half of the ministers as women, some under 40, six from the previous Letta government. The Economy minister is Pier Carlo Padoan, chief economist of the OECD.

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How Virgin Atlantic's Ridgway sees his company, his market and the customer. What is their approach and what makes them tick in the trans atlantic market especially the London- US market. How he sees the opening of routes to the US from Europe to all airlines. The special way he sees things in the airline industry, the knack for coming up with the right ideas and doing them anyway if their intuition told them it was right and how providing value to premium customers is approached by Virgin and doing what customers would love to have but dare not ask in a industry thats run by guys who dont really like passengers.

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Interesting insight on the election of December 2007, why it was held, and the differences between warring factions from the FSB, the military and other parts of the government and business leading to conflicts just before the elections. The election and the vote for putin was Putins way of reasserting his authority in Russia even as he nears th expiry of his term and names a successor. It shows how fragile the situation politically is in Russia even as the country has made economic proress from the Yeltsin years and a succession is not to be taken lightly to continue the work of economic progress and further development of democratic processes without the chaos of the 1990's.

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Comments from readers of WSJ about the interview with Rubin at Citigroup (Ken Brown, David Enrich, NYT, Nov. 29, 2008), and his defense of $115 million in compensation since 1999 on its pages. Readers expressed strong sentiment after the housing foreclosures, bank bailouts, and the shock to the nation's financial system. One reader says history will find Rubin, Greenspan and Barney Frank in the financial scrap heap, another says he is incredulous at the way Rubin condescendingly points to his opportunities to do better elewhere, another says Rubin uses a lot of B school mumbo jumbo like risk book and inflection points and laments the failure of Wall Street executives to take responsibility for errors of judgement.

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Richard Levitan, a physician expert on patient oxygen levels treated patients at a New York Hospital, and found this very important fact about coronavirus and its attack on patient lungs. Early detection and treatment, use of pulse oximeter monitoring, are shown to be critical for coronavirus.  Covid or cornavirus pneumonia is different from normal pneumonia in that it attacks the lungs but patients can be low on oxygen without realizing it through shortness of breath. As it turns out and confirmed by this physician expert who has invented intubation techniques and served at a New York hospital to understand why coronavirus was killing patients, the patient simply breathes faster and deeper without knowing it and is not short of breath even though his oxygen saturation is going down. This delays treatment- use of pulse oximeter is therefore recommended, an easy test placed on a finger that shows the oxygen reading. This kind of fast breathing then suddenly leads to the complete collapse of the patient's lungs, which is why so many end up in hospitals late and end up later on ventilators. British prime minister Boris Johnson received this kind of monitoring and early treatment to be able to return to work.  ...

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Mike Atherton on India vs England Test cricket series in June-July 2025. It is seen as a Test series for the ages, India vs England 2025. Looking back at the series Australia vs West Indies in 1960 when the Test ended in a tie when Gary Sobers and Richie Benaud were players for their teams, one finds this one drawing the same level of excitement and suspense. The whole series of 5 tests was filled with suspense, Pant's theatrics, Gill's brilliant batting matching world records set by Don Bradman and Jadeja's all rounder performance with bat and ball matching that of Gary Sobers. Bowling was not far behind with Bumrah, Siraj and Stokes.  The England team and the Indian team were evenly matched with Ben Stokes,Root and Woakes, Atkinson, English players giving it their all. Woakes was injured dislocating his shoulder in an effort to save a boundary, such was the fielding effort on the Oval grounds in the final test. Woakes turned up to bat in much pain, but did not face any balls thanks to Atkinson. Stokes bowled overs almost to exhaustion to miss the last Test.  ...

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At 0.3% growth in 2024 the OECD predicts German economic growth lower than that in France or Italy. High oil and gas prices, worker shortages, and lack of government subsidies to compete with highly subsidized solar and EV's China in a level playing field, have hit German industry hard. The adjoining article looks at France and what it is doing right.

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Cable TV is in long term decline, replaced by streaming services. Comcast spins off MSNBC, CNBC, Oxygen and Golf Channel keeping the rest of the business NBC and Bravo, TV programs "Top Chef," the Universal Studios, together. Brian Roberts will own one third of the new company. He has followed the strategy of his father Ralph who founded Comcast.

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The serious differences between founders Elon Musk and Sam Altman over the non profit mission of OpenAI have spilled out into the open. Musk feels Altman is turning his back on the early mission set for OpenAI by planning to profit from OpenAI and drifting away from what it set out to do aware of risks during the early years of AI.

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It is hard these days to walk on streets in Germany, Austria and other European countries without the fear of being hit by a speeding bicycle. Some cyclists are known for aggressive cycling on city streets and make it difficult to go out for a walk without constantly being on the alert for bicycles. This is completely different from when bicycles were rare ocurrence.