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The Home Affordable Refinance Program's (HARP) gradual success in 2012-2013 in reducing foreclosures, after struggling in 2010-2011. From about cumulative 1 million who refinanced loans under HARP for relief in home payments the numbers went up to close to 3 million by the end of 2013, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Of this a major proportion were people who owed less than 105% of their home's value. The performance of the program improved with a revamp of HARP at the end of 2011.

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This article in the NYT provides a look at the features of the Republican House Health Care Plan- Both the Affordable Health Care Act and the House Plan provide incentives for buying insurance- the ACA bases these incentives on income levels whereas the House Plan does not provide additional help for low incomes or elderly. Incomes at $20,000 would see a loss greater than  $2000 under the House Plan and as many of the elderly poor living in high cost areas may not have the resources to make up for this loss of subisidies they may forgo buying insurance or have insurance coverage that protects only in a limited way. President Trump has given assurances that all will be covered. For people with incomes of $50,000 or $75000 the loss of $2000 subisidies would also have some impact. At larger incomes or the well to do the subsidies are not handed out under either plan. Under the ACA the emphasis was on income levels and high cost insurance areas the subsidies were greater, under the House Plan the subisidies would be higher for the elderly compared to the young but very low income levels are not given additional help.     ...

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This report in the WSJ points to Democrats having won consistently 18 states plus District of Columbia adding upto 242 Electoral College votes in every election since 1992. Democrats need 28 more to cross the needed 270 votes. Republicans consistently having 13 states with 102 electoral College votes. Demographic changes in recent years have shifted to where Hillary Clinton may not need to devote resources to Colorado and Virginia because of a more favorable position there.  Carrying Pennsylvania with these 2 states would put Clinton over the 270 required. Vice Presidential candidate for Clinton, Senator Keane is from Virginia and is popular in the state.  Pennsylvania has a long history favoring Democrats. North Carolina has also seen demographic changes favoring Democrats. The Clinton campaign is focussing ads on these states as well as the swing states of Nevada, Iowa and New Hampshire, as well as Georgia, Arizona and Utah which are becoming competitive for Democrats. By keeping up the effort in Georgia, Arizona and Utah, Clinton hopes to make Trump divert resources there. Other two swing states are Ohio and Florida, but this WSJ report says Clinton has to win only one of the four swing states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, and North Carolina to go over 270 and Trump needs all four. Of the 20 media markets Clinton or her super PACs have focussed their ads on 16 are in these 4 states. The Clinton campaign is looking at several alternative routes to 270 Electoral College votes, which gives it more flexibility to plan the campaign.  ...

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The real reason for the high valuation of $41 billion for Sky Broadcasting by Comcast as it bids for Sky is the need to compete with Netflix, says this piece in the WSJ. Sky has 23 million customers and a strong position in the UK, making it attractive to Comcast. Yet it says this could be a problem for Disney or Comcast as Sky could end up being simply an incumbent TV provider and not the solution they need.

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Friedman describes what he has seen on a road trip across America from Indiana to Tennessee. He says he sees both declining communities and thriving communities, that Trump is only half right about failing communities. He says the prescription of Trump is 100% wrong, as the thriving communities do not need a strong leader at the top, but leadership at local levels coming together, at schools, businesses, community foundations, civic groups, all working bottom up not top down.

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Bollywood actor Aamir Khan is compared to Tagore as an export from India that helps improve Sino-Indian understanding and relations. Aamir Khan's movie Secret Superstar was received with acclaim in China, and reflected issues that China also faces of gender inequality, domestic violence, and the social presence of You Tube  and internet. A young Muslim teenage girl is taken up by a You Tube video and sees herself in an a roleas a singer.

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Freedman reviews Ben Horowitz's book about the struggle entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs go through when their company has its back to the wall. At such times the entrepreneur has to come up with the tough decisions that lead the way out. Jobs came through this when Apple faced bankruptcy. It is the ability to come up with the right move at such times that helps to build the company's future.

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The U.S. Census Bureau shows incomes of American households, the median household income, surged in 2015 by 5.2%. This increased by $2800 to $56,500. This is the largest increase since 1967. It shows that steadily improving employment and hiring is leading to improvement in incomes for the middle and working class. Ris in minimum wage has also helped . The largest increase was for the lowest 20% of the income tiers. Full time working women did better than men, with increase annually of 2.7% for women, and 1.5% for men. Nocitizen incomes increased 10.5% to $45,100, native born households went up 4.4% to $57,200. The number of people without health insurance also declined from 33 million or 10.4% of the population to  29 million people or 9.1%. Another way the changes are helping lower income households is the decline of the official poverty rate to 13.5% in 2015 by 1.2 percentage points from 14.8% in 2014. Through a series of small incremental steps the path is being set for a recovery of household incomes for the middle class and working class. A bright spot is that the improvement has affected all age groups, household types, regions and ethnic groups, though among full time workers women did better than men. In this recession older white men have had more difficulties getting back into the workforce. This is reflected in the political scene in 2015-2016 for the election season. ...

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The Bank of Japan reduced interest rates by 0.2 %, from 0.5 % to 0.3%, lowering the overnight lending rate. Citing higher energy prices and lower export demand it lowered the growth forecast to zero for 2008. This is the first time in 7 years that the Bank of Japan is doing this. Japan has never recovered from the real estate and stock market bubbles of the 1980's and interest rates in Japan have been at levels near zero for many years. With low interest rates and a huge deficit Japn has few options left. The small nature of the rate cut is unlikely to increase borrowing or stimulate the economy say experts, but is more of a symbolic move that Japan will coordinate its efforts with other global economies. Even so half of the governing board voted for and half against this cut with central bank governor Maasaki Shirakawa casting the deciding yes vote. Upto now Japn's significant help has been in the form of suppplying yen and dollars to money markets to ease the global credit crisis. Another move is a $51 billion stimulus package that will give income tax rebates to households. Japan would like to pick up the slack in global growth from USA's weakness but is unable to do so because like other Asian economies its growth is export based with low consumption spending at home. This is true also of China and China's need for infrastructure spending is not as great as it once was leaving imports of machinery at lower levels, which gives less support to export driven growth from Germany or the USA....

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This report in WSJ says 4 months before becoming China's president in 2012 Xi Jinping issued a Communist party directive as head of the party committee overseeing the former British colony. The directive cautioned officials about a growing separatist sentiment in Hong Kong. It said "we must dare to struggle and be good at fighting," a retired official describes as Xi's approach. Another facet of Xi's views on Hong Kong are that his father as a party leader for the southern province of Guangdong in 1978 to 1980 near Hong Kong was the first after the Cultural Revolution to set up ties between the mainland and the British colony of Hong Kong. China was experimenting with a different model for the economy and Xi's father set up the early links with Hong Kong so that the flow of economic refugees from mainland China to Hong Kong could be reduced and the gap in living standards could be narrowed. He set up the first "Special Economic Zone" and met delegations to start the Sino-British talks on Hong Kong's future. Xi Jinping grew up in the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution. His father Xi Zhongzun, was jailed in 1962 in internal party struggles, and his family was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution that started in 1966. The Cultural Revolution that went on till 1976 ironically was an attempt to stamp out possible capitalist or imperialist influences from the colonial period and the opium wars with Britain. He was later rehabilitated under premier Deng. During the turmoil Xi with some difficulty was admitted to University after spending some years in the countryside. His father remained loyal to the ideals of the Chinese Revolution even though he had suffered from the internal party struggles, an experience remains a strong memory for Xi Jinping. It is as if the period is seen as a period of experimentation and failure for the party not for its ideals of China rising from the colonial period after its failure to engage with the world before the colonial period leading to backwardness. The unity of the country had to be maintained bringing Hong Kong and possibly Taiwan together with the mainland. Rejuvenation was happening and stability was essential for Chia to grow and emerge into the "China Dream" a word coined by Xi for its emergence in the community of nations as an equal to western powers after the colonial period of oppression and cultural backwardness. In this way he is different than other leaders before him who followed premier Deng who started the experimentation with markets and economic structures. The leader preceding him was party secretary in Tibet with a prime minister who was an engineer working on public projects, in sharp contrast to Xi who had the the sense of authority from seeing different phases of Communist party experimentation in his early years. The Bo Xi Lai incident during the transition before 2012 also influenced Xi. This was an attempt similar possibly to the attempt by Lin Piao under Mao to subvert Communist Party leadership into a new direction bringing China under Soviet influence after the break by Mao. Bo Xi Lai, a party secretary for an interior less developed region Chongqing, who rose from being Mayor of Dalien to governor of Liaoning province. Bo Xi Lai attempted to subvert the process operating since the Cultural Revolution of leadership by consensus within the party ensuring stability and continuity needed for development and pushing the trauma of the Cultural Revolution out of memory. He did this by seeking high party office for his own ambitions not for the party and China's interests that guided leaders after the Cultural Revolution. This incident and the period of two decades of growth of market economy had led to growing corruption and Xi was convinced that "corruption would doom the Communist Party and the State" and the resulting instability was bad for China. During this period in 2012 Xi Jinping said that it was necessary to remove "tigers and flies" who could endanger the party's ideals and the future growth and stability of the country.  About 10,000 party officials were removed for corruption, and the rule of Politburo Standing Committee immunity (PSC) of the party operating after the Cultural Revolution was removed. The PSC is the body that at the top of the organization structure that runs China. On Hong Kong Xi now believes that the problem is best tackled by the Hong Kong government not by intervening from Beijing. There is increasing perception in Beijing and Hong Kong that the local government, business leaders have messed things up, by getting into the habit of telling Beijing planners what they wanted to hear, and failing to communicate with the 7 million people of Hong Kong. These leaders are also in a bind because Xi believes that Beijing exercized "overall governance authority" over Hong Kong. A 2014 government white paper warns against "confused or lopsided perceptions" of Hong Kong's status, saying that its partial autonomy comes "solely from the authorization of the central leadership."     ...

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Larsen says the EFSF should get the funding it needs to recapitalize troubled European banks, as the first step to solving the eurozone financial crisis. Banks in Spain and Italy that failed stress tests would get funds to build up their capital. Creditor haircuts should be part of the effort to reduce the debt burden of troubled eurozone countries.

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The Tories are seen shifting their position from working with the unions during the pandemic and Boris Johnson's position that there would be no return to the period of "low wages, low skills, and low productivity," in this analysis in The Guardian. Faced with risks of higher inflation in Britain the conservatives have shifted to supporting no more than a 3% wage increase for rail workers in the face of 8% increase in inflation in Britain in 2022. Rail airline, other workers,, and the government now are on opposite sides on wages after joining together during the pandemic. Shortages of workers have pushed up wages in some sectors but others are lagging behind including transport workers, leading to the rail strike and other strikes of public sector workers.

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President Biden says he opposed reducing minimum sentences for crimes in Washington D.C. such as carjackings, as proposed by a new law in D.C. Biden says Republican efforts to block that legislation would bring that to his desk and he would not veto the Republican proposal blocking reducing sentences. Crime is up 40% in Washington D.C say police. In the New York election for Congress, and in the recent Chicago mayoral election crime was an issue for Republicans leading to losses for Democrats and for Lori Lightfoot in Chicago. Biden wants to focus on the major issues for workers and families in the country, on infrastructure, jobs, inflation, and the US economy, and not let his plan for America's renewal lose focus because Republicans are able to make crime an issue.

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 The average work has declined in Europe, and increased slightly in America. It is about one day a week less in Europe for the 5 largest European economies, according to the OECD. Shorter work hours set by employers and furloughs are affecting workers in Europe. This is because many European businesses used shorter working hours to avoid layoffs during the pandemic. 

Nearly 2 million Europeans are in furlough programs with governments making up the lost pay.

Working hours are less in Southern Europe because of a lack of full time work. About one third of workers in France and half in Spain and Italy would like to work more hours but cannnot find the extra hours. In Germany one fourth of workers choose to work less than 30 hours a week by choice.

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AP News describes Biden's long association with Irish poets W.B. Yeats and Seamus Haney. In an earlier presidential run in 2008 he said- "I believe with every fibre of my being that we have a chance to make hope and history rhyme." In the 2020 campaign this happened and Biden believes today that this is reflected in the hearts and sentiments of the vast majority of the American people. 

Haney's poem uses these words in a translation of the Greek playwright Sophocles. From Haney's The Cure at Troy:

"History says don't hope On this side of the Grave

But then the longed for tidal wave of justice can rise up. And hope and history rhyme." 

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The view presented that Ambedkar's conversion to Buddhism was because of frustration that he had agreed to give up his demand for separate electorates for the lowest castes with the Poona Pact that he made with Gandhi in 1932. Gandhi saw separate electorates as one more effort at continuing divide and rule by the British to keep India divided and weak. This report in Indian Express says Ambedkar addressed a huge gathering of Mahars in Bombay in 1936 and advocated conversion to Buddhism. How much this was done to practice Buddhism is not clear. The Four Noble Truths are described as being dismissed from being part of Buddhism. Yet Buddhism as practiced in Sri Lanka, Japan and other countries consider it to be central to grasping the idea of Buddhism.

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Meticulous preparations in France for the Olympics. This report shows Macron at the Olympics Aquatics Centre built at cost of 188 million euros. The budget in 2012 Olympics in London overspent by 200%, France will do it for about 20% overspend, says the Sports Minister. Macron says "Everything is a cause for vigilance and attention, nothing is a cause for worry or paralysis, that is my and our state of mind." When the Olympics open on July 26 this year it will be on the river Seine, with hundreds of flotilla boats. It is a unique effort as even the housing complex was built so that after the Olympics are over the housing could be reused to serve residents of a poorer neglected suburb of Paris. The river Seine is being cleaned up for swimming

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The pandemic is bringing new hope to smaller towns and rural areas in Europe. For decades the migration from smaller towns to cities led to depopulation and decline. With the pandemic the situation is changing and offers new hope. In rural parts of Galicia, Spain, small towns are seeing some revival with enough children now in schools to keep them running. People from cities are moving to smaller towns and rural areas during the pandemic. The housing transactions in smaller towns and rural areas are up by 15% in Spain in 2020. 

In the small town municipalities in Galicia, Spain, town officials are trying to build a new sense of attachment for younger families, in a long term strategy. This WSJ report looks at this trend in Spain and in Europe.

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After the first round of elections Mauricio Macri threw his support to Milei. Macri was president from 2015 to 2019 when pro-market reforms led to unrestrained borrowing from overseas investors. It failed leading to high inflation and turning to the IMF for loan of $57 billion. Any time there is a drought or agriculture in Pampas fails reserves dry up as in 2016 and again recently. Macri was ousted in the next election and replaced by Peronist Fernandez. The problems persist with a return to Macri and Milei who was just elected president turning to dollarization when the country lacks the $9 billion needed to convert pesos to US dollars. Argentina has net reserves of $20 billion, borrowing from China of $17 billion and net reserves of  negative $10 billion. 

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Jonas Vinegaard of Denmark settles the race with a fast time working himself upto near exhaustion and adding 7 minutes to his lead during the trials in the 17th stage of the Tour de France. From 10 seconds in earlier stages of the cycling race in Basque Spain across the Pyrenees mountains and into France Slovenian cyclist Pogacar was only 10 seconds behind Vinegaard. With this time in the trials and putting up a great effort in the Alps near Geneva Vinegaard now has a 10 minute lead over Pogacar, enough for him to make it to Paris without the pressure that would otherwise be seen. Vinegaard shows a new kind of resilience, strength, strategy and skills that has endeared him with a new generation of cycling enthusiasts, with a humility that comes naturally for him.

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This report in the WSJ cite sources showing the advisers that had the most effect on Trump's decision to launch airstrikes in Syria after the chemical attack were Defense Secretary Mattis, National Security Adviser McMaster, Secretary of State Tillerson, and Jared Kushner. Senator Corker calls it a transformative moment for president Trump, as Trump acted decisively once he had talked to his advisers, and after having several options prepared for him, and acting on the same day as he met Xi Jinping at the White House dinner. Trump unlike Obama who let the chemical attack go without a response and had many deliberations that ended up with inaction, acted decisively. Unlike Obama in 2013 after a similar chemical attack Trump also showed emotion that reflected normal human reaction after something of this kind, says this report. 

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John Fetterman Democrat of Pennsylvania has maintained a friendship with Katie Britt, Republican freshman from Alabama, and even turned up in Congress to show Britt's son around the House and Senate buildings. It shows how some senators in the US Congress are taking stances independent of their parties different factions and staying true to their authentic selves about what they see as right. For example Fetterman and Britt are introducing legislation requiring children to be 13 years of age to use social media platforms. Texas Senator Cornyn and other Republicans are at ease talking to John Fetterman. It is the kind of bipartisanship that is emerging in 2024 in the US. Fetterman says he is behind president Biden and is campaigning in 7 states calling Biden "a decent, good guy," and a tough guy.

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The huge task of getting across policies to voters in the US who have been left out either through the presence of social media distracting attention or the busy lives of voters keeping them less informed as they struggle to get by. The message on the White House Biden and Harris site does not get through to these voters. The television and newspapers have only now gone into the policies Harris has announced at Wake Tech community college in Raleigh, North Carolina. This reaches a Democrat audience but what about it reaching the voters who are unaware in rural areas, of North Carolina and the rest of the 51states, in other areas and parts of the country where it is still fuzzy fuzzy with misinformation or counter advertising muddying up the clear picture of Harris policies. 

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If the wording in the Pew Research Survey were to include that only the government can tackle huge problems in climate change, infrastructure, and manufacturing, the over 50% of Americans that support government taking on these responsibilities might just as well be closer to 60-70 percent. The tide is turning as the whole culture since Reagan and the key adopters of Reagan's theory  successive Democratic administrations of Clinton and Obama is being reversed- Democrats and Independents supporting the change to get government to tackle these problems is up 15 percentage points. Another shift is the young people who are filled with frustration by the lack of government taking on a bigger role to solve problems such as climate change, manufacturing jobs in US, infrastructure rebuilding that only the government can do. 

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How trying too hard can mess up your style is shown for bowler Mohammad Siraj. After the failure in the New Zealand series Siraj talks to his old bowling coach on the phone. Bharat Arun tells Siraj he is trying too hard and this is leading to errors. Go back to your original stye. He tells Siraj this will take discipline first concentrate on one wicket, try bowling yorkers to get the wrist behind the ball the original movement. It worked says Siraj in Perth and Canberra. The ball that went to Steve Smith that he edged into for a catch by Pant was one that was Siraj bowling a yorker. Bumrah said trust the process, wickets will come don't fret too much about it. And if you do come to me.