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Garlic, ginger, turmeric and similar products are vital for healthy living and healthy food. So it is surprising that so little has been done before the Trump tariffs on Chinese food dumped in the U.S. This BBC report by Pamela Parker says 1994 was when the U.S. confirmed dumping by China of garlic yet the tariff that was placed was of an ineffective type that could be circumvented. As a result the U.S. producers such as Vessey in California that produced garlic for 100 years and 5 generations decided to not produce it beside cauliflower and cabbage. Of the surviving producers one producer today in California produces 100 million pounds of this product that has value way beyond the actual dollars as vital for healthy food supplies in the U.S. In fact after reports of contaminated water supplies in China imports of ginger and other such food products have been shifted away from China.  It is well known that the industrial revolution in China came too quickly and at a large cost to the environment after 1990 including contamination of the water, rivers. For this reason it is stunning that the people setting trade policy in Washington could have ignored the vital need of U.S. meeting food needs for healthy living out of its own soil and trusted farming community. To not have done so and let producers of garlic or ginger or other such vital food products to sustain health to go out of business is nothing less than a part of the growing calamity of self inflicted wounds that have happened so far. At no time more compelling an issue as today in the pandemic. The truth is that when it comes to healthy food supplies it is vitally important, as important as national security. And local supplies grown in one's own state or country particularly for vegetables, herbs, and fruit, are very critical. There is no way to even compare product grown locally to product grown in any country where water supplies may be contaminated by rapid industrial growth. ...

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The Indian 2024 election involved huge giveaways and caste based selection that takes India backwards, which explains some of the gains of opposition parties in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, two large states. As the WSJ points out giveaways to buy votes for Rs 1 lakh for every woman in the state of Uttar Pradesh with population of 120 million women was part of the strategy used by a leading opposition party. Caste selection was carefully deployed by another large political party in Uttar Pradesh. Fears and misinformation about the BJP party changing the Indian Constitution to remove protection of lower castes enshrined in the Constitution by Ambedkar, was also a factor that swung votes to the opposition. The effects of the pandemic and the unemployment levels for a largely rural population in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra in north and west of India played a role as the BJP failed to get an outright majority following its majority wins in 2014 and 2019. The Opposition parties and the BJP main difference is that the Opposition parties have accepted the leakages of funds as part of the culture that has prevailed since 1960 which makes rapid development and modernization impossible as the pool of funds for investment in infrastructure is diminished. BJP party under Modi has fought this leakage every step of the way and by executing projects of infrastructure with on time delivery created the prospects of India modernizing and industrializing the way Japan and China have achieved. The other difference is the execution and the Master Plan Gati Shakti developed by BJP and Modi and a 20 year execution model developed in Gujarat state by Modi from 2001 to 2021. This has made India the fifth largest economy in the world with plans to make it the third largest by 2030 and do what Japan and China have achieved in Asia. It is not really about religion or so called Hindutva that is driving the hard work it is about making India a modern industrial nation with the standard of living of US, Europe, Japan and China.   ...

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A brief history of the US presence in Greenland and US-Denmark relations in Le Monde. On a map Greenland is located closest to Canada on the Smith Sound with the American base of Thule nearby. Next closest is Iceland. Norway and Denmark are further away. Around 1814 when Britain invaded and occupied Denmark in the Napoleonic Wars, Norway which was part of Denmark since 1400 was given to Sweden by Treaty of Kiel. Greenland, Faroe and Iceland were Norwegian dependencies. All three were kept by Denmark.  Icelanders set up small settlements on shores of Greenland in the 10th century which did not survive. Other parts of the island's shore were visited by the Dutch who came into conflict with the Danes after 1500. No country could claim ownership of Greenland as because of the harsh climate there very few settlements survived except of the native Inuit people population of 14,000 by 1900 who lived there. In 2025 about 56,000 Inuit live on Greenland. Robert Peary explored the vast Greenland region for the US Navy on on many trips from 1894 to 1909. With his ship The Roosevelt he reached a point about 100 kilometres from the North Pole in 1909. This is part of the US history on Greenland. Denmark signed documents asking for US protection of Greenland after Denmark was occupied by Nazi Germany in 1941. The Danish ambassador in Washington signed an agreement with Cordell Hull US Secretary of State making Greenland a protectorate of the US. The US set up military bases in Greenland. Today the US base in Thule is 1220 miles north of the Arctic Circle. It has a giant radar capable of detecting ballistic missile attack and a control center of the US military satellite network. At one time 10,000 soldiers were stationed at Thule base, today about 150 soldiers are in Thule. ...

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Judith Dobrzynski's interview with David Neelman, CEO of Jet Blue, at the airlines offices in Forest Hills, Queens. Neelman talks about the problems facing Jet Blue as it faces losses in 2006. This follows rapid expansion at the low cost carrier. He says Jet Blue did not monitor costs effectively. "Other problems include not pricing connections competitively with other airlines and poor revenue management. Analysts say low cost carriers will have a difficult time with high oil prices. Neelman maintains that it still works for oil at $60 a barrel. Jet Blue is turning its order of 100 Embraer jets, planes with 100 seats and 200 mile range to advantage, by gaining flexibility to serve short haul destinations from New York and Boston to Columbus, Tucson, Nashville, Houston and other places.

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The new plan of the Obama administration in August 2016 to tackle climate change is to cut power plant emissions of carbon dioxide by 32% by 2030 from 2005 levels. This will increase the energy from renewables to 28% of the total by 2030 from about 13% in 2014. The power industry was given more time to comply by shifting the first year to begin complying to 2022 from 2020. The final rule will also provide for generating more energy from nuclear power which provides 20% of the electricity, and which will help reach the 32% target for cutting emissions by 2030. It will also give more flexibility for the shift to natural gas from coal by giving credits towards compliance for projects starting early, rather than mandating a large shift early.

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Morgenson looks at the aspects of GM's culture that led to the recall crisis of 2014. She looks at the lack of accountability in a culture where managers were more concerned about preserving and protecting their own positions and less concerned about doing the right thing. The culture became ingrained over time to the point that there were terms referring to the way managing is to be conducted in the company- a "GM nod" referring to an action plan where everybody says OK but plans to do nothing, a "GM salute" where people crossed their arms and pointed to others meaning the responsibility is some one else's. Training about writing on safety issues required employees to write "smart" by not using words such as "problem" or "defect" and using instead "issue," condition or "matter."

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Amazing! Just fresh from the foreclosure crisis and as the worst of the foreclosures are taking place between now and 2009 for subprime and other loans homebuilders and home sellers are financing the 3% downpayment required by FHA for loans from the is government agency. What do they hope to accomplish sell homes and have the government foot the bill when these homes also go into foreclosure in a downturn? Already above average default rates for seller assisted down payment programs will make this government agency the Federal Housing Administration ask for a government subsidy for the firtst time in its 74 year history. The FHA will need $1.4 billion next year. FHA estimates that down payments provided by nonprofit groups account for 34% of all 200,000 loans backed by the FHA so far this year, up from 18% in all of 2003, and less than 2% in 2000. And FHA says that borrowers are 2 to 3 times as likely to default on their payments when they receive a down payment from a nonprofit. The reckless manner in which homebuilders are selling these homes is unbelievable, more so in today's difficult economy. See the ads for these homes in this WSJ article and its is shocking. D.R. Horton is advertising 100% financing for 2 and 3 bedroom homes near the beach in Maui, costint $498,000, and a Seattle area builder Quadrant corporation is advertising townhomes for $500 downpayment. Use your coffee budget says a online promotion in the St Louis area! And though the risks are known to housing officials in the government they face a battle from well funded and coaltition of homebuilders, lowincome housing and minority groups. though its hard to understand how a home that ends in foreclosure for a low income group or minortiy group can benefit a minority group. Yet the Black and Hispanic caucus, people in Congress like Maxine Waters and Barney Frank still think it does as they continue to support the lobbying that keeps these kinds of loans going. Two examples given here of a Dick Whitmore and a Gloria Harris one saying it was impossible for him to come up with the $5000 downpayment and the other saying she was living from week to week suggest that they are likely to end up having difficulty making payments. ...

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About 41% of Unilever's $53 billion in sales come from developing countries, up from 22% in 1990. In 2006 developing world sales increased by 8%, sales in Europe only 1%, and sales in the USA only 2.4%. This shows the growing significance of developing countries sales to Unilever. With head offices in Rotterdam and London, Unilever was formed from a 1930 merger of a Dutch food company and a British soap company. Unilever has been selling its bar soaps and cooking oils in the Dutch and British Empires, in countries like India, Indonesia, and South Africa since the 1880's. CEO Patrick Cescau is focussed on promoting products in fast growing regions of the world. The management structure is being changed to recruit new and nurture promising managers in countries like India and South Africa. These managers are being trained in western countries to learn new marketing methods, and are being asked to come up with their own new ideas for products from scratch for developing countries with low price points. Its not about adapting existing western products, but dreaming up new ones for low income shoppers. Its introducing a product called Cubitos- miniature bouillion cubes - tailored to low income shoppers in 25 developing markets and their tastes, for as little as 2 cents. The stakes are huge. Its competitors like P&G are doing this in Mexico. Nestle is expanding in Brazil with a new plant dedicated to shoppers making less than $10 a day, and setting up a distribution network to sell to small stores in shantytowns in Latin America. Unilever estimates are that 1.2 billion consumers will buy packaged goods for the first time in 2010, mostly all in the developing world. Detergent sales are soaring in places like India, as shoppers use powders to clean their clothes, moving up from bar soaps. Estimates are that each week 40,000 people in Asia use a washing machine for the first time. ...

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Wang Lequan, who is the party leader for Xinjiang, is aprotege of Chinese President Hu . He was pulled into the party from Hu's days in the Chinese Communist Youth League. He is from Shadong province China's industrial and petroleum capital. Because of his familiarity with the oil industry Wang may have beeen transferred to Xinjiang province. He arrived in Xinjiang just as the Soviet Union was dissolving, and the central Asian administrative regions that were formed inside the Soviet Union were becoming independent countries. China's army had occupied Xinjiang in 1949 under Mao. Millions of Chinese were leaving the Xinjiang area and the thinking was that the Uighur Muslims of Xinjiang would also form their own country. What happened was that Wang reestablished the Chinese presence in Xinjiang province. He opened the Xinjiang region's oil and gas fields to drilling, laid pipelines east to China and west to Kazakhstan. A Production and Construction Corps was formed so that Chinese soldiers leaving the army service could find work, and this was later listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. With growing industry and government jobs, many Chinese were attracted back to Xinjiang. In the 1990's 2 million Chinese went back to Xinjiang. At the same time his policies may have had the effect of making the local Uighur people feel that their culture and language weere being threatened and they needed to fight for its survival. Wang acting with dictatorial powers tightly constrained Uighur culture and religion. He substituted Mandarin for Uighur in primary schools, saying minority languages were "out of step with the 21st century," and banned or restricted Islamic practices among government workers, including the wearing of beards and head scarves and religious practice like fasting and praying while at work. He has been Communist party leader in Xinjiang for 15 years, which is unusually long, such jobs usually only lasting 10 years. SInce 9/11 Wang has fought hard to limit the influence of separatism, and the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, an Uighur group, and he has swept up thousands of Uighurs accused of terrorism or religious extremism. He worked to have the East Tukestan group listed as Al Quaeda allies by the Bush administration in 2002. He is closely allied to President Hu who supported Wang, giving him a seat on the Politburo. Wang's protege in Xinjiang has been placed in charge in Tibet. There is a sense with Wang and Hu, that a failure now in Xinjiang and in Tibet to control unrest would lead others in the Chinese leadership who think differently on theses issues to bring a different leadership to succeed them. The difficulty here is that the Han who now comprise 40% of the population in Xinjiang, and are heavily involved in the oil and gas industry, have brough a modernizing influence to Xinjiang but may not be received by the Uighurs as apositive influence. First any government that is in power for as long as 15-20 years tends to lose support over time. This happened with the Congress in Kashmir. Too powerful or corrupt, and lose touch with the young people. But compared to India the democratic ways of that country have helped it recognize the need for respecting the language, religion and culture of the people of each region. The British did the same, so it was something that went back to British times. With the monopoly of power of the Communist party, lack of precedent and amodel to follow that respected different culture and languages, the intolerance of Uighur and Tibetan language, religion and culture, creates a different situation in China. Elections were held in Kashmir recently and an effort is being made for reconciliation with different groups, the media is open and different voices are heard. No such prospect remains for Tibet and Xinjiang. ...

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Surges in capital value can be wildly misleading. Nvidia a rapid computing company propelled in stock value. From the growth of crypto currency that led to losses and was perceived as a danger to the financial system by central banks and governments. This is happening when capital investment is a dire need in education and schools, good teachers and good classrooms, when only a third of American students pass NAEP tests on reading comprehension. Today's capital allocation system was never designed to accomplish this even as it sends hundreds of billions of dollars in one single day to a single company. Nvidia is now seeing a surge from chatbots computing coming out of ChatGPT,  leading to $184 billion change in its market value on May 25, 2023.  Nvidia was mostly a graphics processing company setup to make graphics on PC's look better. In 2006 Jensen Huang made the decision to open it up to developers to tinker with it and develop more computing capabilities. This has led to Nvidia designing much more powerful computing chips that perform thousands of calculations at the same time.   Nvidia designs the chips and sends production out to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. Suddenly Nvidia sees its share price surge and it joins companies such as Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Tesla that have seen one day surge in the value of the companies by over $100 billion shown in this WSJ graph by date. Huang says he thinks that this is the beginning of a ten year period in which companies will redo their data centers to build them up with AI computing capabilities. WSJ also says China's top nuclear weapons research institute has bought these advanced chips even though it is on a US export blacklist since 1997. In 2022 the Biden administration imposed new licensing requirements on export of the most advanced chips. Since then Nvidia is following specifications for chips that allow it to export to China, says the WSJ.     ...

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This report in WSJ says at an event in Germany in 2022 Merkel said that after annexing Crimea in 2014 Putin told her he wanted to destroy the European Union. Yet Merkel did not hesitate to double gas imports from Russia after 2014. Joachim Gauck, president of Germany when Putin invaded Ukraine in 2014 says Merkel's decision to boost energy imports from Russia after that aggression was surely a mistake. Gauck stated "some people recognize their mistakes earlier, some later. Her decisions for over concentration of Germany's manufacturing in China led to a similar situation with China that is only now beginning to unravel. The two decisions overconcentration of energy dependence on Russia and manufacturing dependence with overconcentration in China have had interwoven effects and shows Merkel did not grasp the implications and dangers of overconcentration or excessive dependence on any one country. Merkel instead doubled gas imports from Russia and had the Nord Stream 2 pipeline built at a time when Germany was already 55% dependent on Russian imports of energy. She moved too quickly to phase out nuclear energy completely after Fukushima accident leading to Russian gas imports rapidly increasing. When leaving office she said LNG which Germany has now used to replace Russian gas from places such as Norway to Qatar under efforts of Deputy chancellor Habeck was a third more costly.  It could be said that with her sheltered upbringing in the more affluent sections of Communist East Germany's, the GDR's, educational sector, Merkel had such limited exposure to the world that when she emerged as Kohl's preferred choice in ministry positions she was headed for the chancellorship without the right qualifications for leadership. When one considers the experience of an Konrad Adenauer or a Willy Brandt through the World War II years, Merkel's experience for the chancellorship not only pales by any comparison, but also shows significant limits of comprehension and sound or right thinking of the issues facing Germany and the world in the twentieth and twenty first century. ...

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Germany faces serious problems in its vaccination drive and efforts to control the pandemic in November 2021. The rate at which people are getting vaccinated has slowed to 150,000 a day and the percentage of the population that is vaccinated is stuck at 67%. This percentage of 67% fully vaccinated in Germany as of November 3 is much lower than that in Spain, France and Italy.  Spain is at 78%, France at 69% and Italy at 72%. (Data from NYT) This report in the Guardian points out that most of the remaining one third of the population is not eager to get vaccinated as surveys show that the those who have refused to get a jab are unlikely to change their minds.There is also the problem of booster shots. Germany's 16 regions conduct the vaccination drives and with many of the vaccination centers not active since September staff has to be retrained or rehired. This makes it harder to give booster shots to everyone that was vaccinated early by the start of winter. Why is it that Germany lags behind Spain in vaccination? There is a great deal of trust in Spain and Portugal in the health service and people are 100% behind their health system. The other countries that have a low rate of fully vaccinated are the US at 58%, Brazil 57%, Russia at 33%. Even the UK with its well respected National Health Service remains at 68% fully vaccinated. Today the US, Russia, Brazil, European Union countries and India have many of the 5 million deaths from coronavirus. India's vaccination drive is approaching 1100 million vaccinated, yet there is along way to go in getting most of the population fully vaccinated because of the large population of 1.3 billion. This is why the Indian prime minister on the first day of returning from the COP26 climate summit devoted his time to meeting with leaders of different states and heads of districts with low vaccination rates to press home the idea that the effort had to be taken up vigorously in the coming months. ...

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For the first time in decades the U.S. trade deficit with China is falling significantly. China's exports to the U.S. dropped 12.5% to $296 billion in 2019 from $323 billion in 2018, according to Chinese customs data. Actually China's trade surplus with the U.S would have fallen even more had not the U.S. exports to China declined by 21%. With the Phase 1 trade deal negotiated recently U.S. exports to China will increase significantly, while 25% tariff on $250 billion in Chinese goods still in place limits China's exports. This means in 2021 and 2022 and years ahead China's surplus should shrink much faster achieving one of the principal goals of Mr. Trump and his trade negotiator Mr. Lighthizer. Mr. Lighthizer was chosen by Mr. Trump for having accomplished a similar goal decades back in the eighties with Japan's surplus. Even though China has not stated this in writing, American officials have said China will increase purchases of American goods and services by at least $200 billion over the next 2 years from 2017 levels. China and the U.S. have essentially agreed that the two economies so tightly intertwined works to the detriment of the U.S. with the Chinese surplus creating tensions. China will now have the European Union as the largest trading partner followed by south east Asian countries, and other regions. China decided that its priority is technological development and was unwilling to meet U.S. demands to reduce its efforts for technological competition and access to western technologies. Instead opting for shifting it economy away from dependence on exports to the U.S. in a gradual way. The other demand of the U.S. for stopping state subsidies is also a concession China is not willing to make as it sees it as an economic feature of its business model that is working and a competitive advantage.  This leaves the U.S. with a limited win so that trade and resulting jobs can be brought into favoring the U.S. a key Trump goal, and not a win in the technological competition with China which will continue. ...

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French president Macron is skipping attending the Swiss Davos conference in 2019, as he attends to pressing problems at home. A year ago after attending Davos Macron appeared as a champion of globalization and took some risky actions in the euphoria over his win- stripping job protections at a sensitive time of rising inequality, and abolishing a decades old wealth tax. The election showed a regional and urban-rural divide in France even though Macron gained a large majority in the Assembly. The yellow vested protestors showed no particular allegiance to parties, only showing a sense of dissatisfaction with neglect of working class struggling to make a living. All that is changed now after yellow vested protestors rioted week after week over neglect of working class issues.Macron has resisted pressure to reinstate the wealth tax. He has suspended plans to increase fuel taxes and introduced 10 billion euro worth measures to boost purchasing power of working class French people, a major demand of the yellow vests. A series of town hall meetings are planned for Macron to listen to the voices he has not paid enough attention to before in his aloof style of governing. ...

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The explosive issue of executive compensation where performance was a mirage. Here Louise Story of NYT says Merrill paid $5 billion to $6 billion in bonuses in 2006. A huge amount with bonuses sometimes running 100 times salary. Sow Kim with asalary of $350,000 had a bonus of $35 million.

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Faces in the continuing foreclosure crisis in Spain in 2014 include Xacobo Rodriguez and his mother in Madrid. Foreclosures continued at a high rate in Spain into 2014. The Bank of Spain reports that 38,961 primary residence homes were foreclosed in 2013, a decline of only 1% from 2012. If second residences are included the number of foreclosed house increased by 11% in 2014. This is six years into the housing crisis in Spain with no end in sight. The government has declared a 2 year moratorium on eviction of families that meet hardship criteria- a member of household disabled, expired unemployment benefits, very young children. A Social Housing Fund with 6000 units which provide places to live was created but only a small number of units are given out so far. The social advocacy groups say not enough is being done. The government points out that 90% of houses taken by banks were unoccupied at the time. Bank Association spokesperson says there is an understanding of the depth of the crisis with 6 million people out of work, that action is taken to reduce the stress on homeowners. And point to the data showing only 1% of homes were taken by banks in 2013 of the 6 million home mortages outstanding, with one third of these done with an agreement to have debts erased for the homeowners. Women and immigrants are affected to a larger degree, according to Human Rights Watch. Social housing in Spain is only about 2% of the housing stock making things more difficult, by comparison it is 17% in France, 21% in the UK, 35% in the Netherlands, according to Human Rights Watch. Meanwhile the Spanish government of the Partido Popular under Mr Rajoy, continues a policy of trying to be responsive to the homeowner crisis, and at the same time helping the banking system recover following a $56 billion bailout loan taken by Spain from the European Union. ...

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The U.S. and China sign Phase 1 of the trade agreement in a sign of reduction of trade tensions between the two countries. Difficult issues of state subsidies under China's state enterprise model of development, and technological competition were put off for the future. China made the deal possible by agreeing to double its purchases of agricultural products, and offering to purchase about $200 billion in American goods and services over the next two years. This gives relief to farmers, a key part of Mr.Trump's support base. This also helps achieve a key Trump and U.S. goal of cutting the U.S. trade deficit with China quickly, just as happened decades ago with Japan.  See the related article and link on how for the first time in decades China's trade surplus with the U.S. is now set on a path for permanent decline. It dropped significantly in 2019 by 12.5% even though China's imports from the U.S. dropped by 21%, based on Chinese customs data released for 2019. With China increasing these imports significantly and the U.S. holding on to tariffs of 25% on $250 billon of China's exports to the U.S. which are outside the Phase 1 agreement, the downward course is set for the next few years for correction of a dangerous trade imbalance. That imbalance was allowed to develop over successive Republican and Democratic administrations. China already has the European Union as its first leading trading partner and south east Asia as its second. China plans to not be so closely intertwined with the U.S. in trade, and yet preserve its state sponsored development model and drive to compete in technology. China's increased purchases from the U.S. of $200 billon are broken down in terms of farm products- $32 billion, manufactured goods- $80 billion, energy products- $50 billion, services $35 billion. In effect the U.S. gets its goal of cutting the unsustainable China trade surplus quickly and with certainty in 3-5 years. China uses the period to transition for less trade linkage with the U.S. yet preserving its state sponsored model of development and drive for technological advancement.   ...

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Several experts point to a dangerous change in the nature of unemployment in this downturn. Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute, says people are more likely to get stuck with unemployment now than at any time in the post war period. Andrew Stettner, deputy Director of the National Employment Law Project, says a larger share of the unemployed are not going to be able to go to the same line of work. They will need new skills, just like an auto worker in a permanently downsized industry would have to find new skills to make a product in the renewable energy field or health care. And the law as it currently stands does not help either. Because if an unmeployed worker looks for training or goes back to school he loses his unemployment benefits, something the Obama administration proposes to change. What this means is that many of the unemployed will end up as permanent job losers. Rob Valetta, an economist at the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank says that throughout the the last 3 decades including good times, the unemployment pool is shifting towards permanent job losers. Lawrence Katz, a Harvard University economist, points out that once workers exhaust their unemployment benefits and don't get new training, they become disconnected to the labor market, and bascially end up on disability or become permanently unemployed. The statistics bear this out. In April 2009, 47.1% of the people collecting state unemployment insurance exhausted the usual 26 weeks of benefits without finding work, according to the Bureau of Laor Statistics, that is the highest rate on record. In December 2007, there were about 2 unemployed workers for every job opening, according to Labor Department data. In March 2009 there were five unemployed workers for every opening. Mark Beaupre, 49, of Providence, R.I. lost his $8 an hour manufacturing job an year ago, one of many manufacturing jobs he has held since the 1980's. His wife Cathy lost her customer service job a year ago. This couple who together made $50,000 a year, are now behind on their mortgage payments and have applied for food assistance. At a recent job fair in Providence he says three thousand people turned up and he could not even get into the parking lot. ...

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New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Arden came to know she was pregnant only a few weeks before she became prime minister. She was chosen as the new leader of the Labor party in this country of five million people only five weeks before becoming prime minister at the age of 37. 
 

Most people in New Zealand think it will not affect her performing her duties as prime minister. She will be the first western leader in modern times to have a baby while serving as prime minister.

Her duties are being performed during her leave of absence by her deputy, Winston Peters, who conducts cabinet meetings and is the acting prime minister. Arden is informed about key issues and cabinet meeting discussion during her absence.

 

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Executives are outspoken in their frustration with having to develop plans to operate in the event Britain leaves the European Union on March 29 without a deal. Ties in logistics bind Britain with the single customs market of the EU. 

The British plans of a German toolmaker Heller are shown here to continue operating. Questions are raised whether Heller will close it Brexit goes the wrong way. Across Britain plants have closely timed cross border supply chain. Airbus Chief Enders calls the Brexit failures a "disgrace."

All the uncertainty means new investments will be postponed, and the cost of contingency planning will increase. Some say they have difficulty believing this crash culture and say its not British way of doing things.

 

 

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Elections in Nigeria on February 16 are seen as a referendum on president Buhari's first term. 84 million voters will chose who will lead Nigeria, Africa's largest democracy. The choice is between Mr. Buhari and Mr. Atiku Abubakar, Mr. Buhari won office in 2015 with his All Progressive's Party on three promises of ridding Nigeria of endemic corruption, fixing the economy, and tackling security issues. The economy entered a recession and then climbed out of recession under Buhari. Mr. Atiku plans to privatize parts of the state owned oil company, a plan which has been received with some skepticism considering problems with privatization around the world. A remarkable aspect of this election is that half of registered voters are aged 18-35, who see their leaders as out of touch. In fact many are supporting a "Not Too Young to Run" campaign to encourage younger people to run. 2015 was the only time Nigeria had a peaceful transfer of power since civilian government was installed in 1999. The candidate with the most votes is declared winner if they have at least one quarter of the votes in two thirds of Nigeria's 36 states and the capital Abuja. Nigerians look for someone who will unite the country as the  democratic process is only now being popularized and planted in Nigeria. This is not an overstatement as Nigeria has Muslim North and Christian South, and 200 ethnic groups.  ...

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President Obama in his speech at Georgetown, April 13, 2009, describes the thinking behind the decisions made in the first 12 weeks of his administration- why the actions are not aggressive and overreaching as some critics say, and why they are not timid as other critics have said. This was not a typical downturn of the business cycle, but a perfect storm arising from irresponsibility and poor decisionmaking in Washington, Wall Street and Main Street- in effect several crises colliding for something like an explosion, if not dealt with at once, and with strong action. He says "the key to dealing with our deficit and debt is to get a handle on out-of-control health care costs, not to stand idly by as the economy goes into free fall." The recognition that the crisis itself brings with it new possibilities, the opportunity for coming to grips with and forging a good solution to health care, energy and education issues that were neglected while Wall Street directed investments to areas other than investment in building for the future. To the critics like Krugman, Rosenfeld and others who say that the takeover of insolvent banks should be done quickly before the situation worsens, he says it is not because of any ideological or political judgement he has made about government involvement in banks, but because it is more likely to undermine than create confidence at this point. He goes on step by step, through the process of decisionmaking, first to step in and boost spending vigorously, second to get lending flowing again to businesses and families, strengthening the non-bank credit market for consumer purchases and loans, the housing plan, the auto plan, and the work at the G-20. Then President Obama goes on to project his vision and the road to getting there. The five pillars he sees for the future are: redirecting Wall Street and banking to constructive investments for the future, investments in education, investments in renewable energy and technology to create new industries and new jobs, investments in health care to cut costs for businesses and families, and new savings in the federal budget to bring down the deficit. Obama says he will look for savings line by line in every corner of the budget, and has already identified two trillion dollars in deficit reductions over the next decade. And the goal is to reduce discretionary spending for domestic programs as share of the economy by more than 10% over the next decade. Procurement reform will greatly reduce no-bid contracts and save $40 billion. Secretary Gates is attacking th problem of hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and cost overruns that have bloated the defense budget, without adding to the nation's safety. And education programs that don't work will be removed, and waste, fraud and abuse in the Medicare program will be controlled. Finally, Mr Obama points to the nation's political system as one more reason we are in this perfect storm- "a fundamental weakness in our political system." He cites the putting off hard decisions for another day, scoring political points instead of rolling up up sleeves to solve real problems, an impatience that is only worsened by the 24 hour news cycle, and a short attention span that focusses on the immediate results and on poll numbers. And there is too much responding to the "tempest of the moment until the furor has died away and the media coverage has moved on, instead of confronting the major challenges that will shape our future in a sustained and focussed way." After these 12 weeks President Obama says, for the first time there are glimmers of hope, and way off in the distance can be seen a vision of America's future that is far different than its troubled past. And citing the parable in the Sermon on the Mount about that "house built on a rock", he sees America's house built on a rock, a house for which we use this moment to lay a new foundation, come together and begin the hard work of rebuilding, persisting and persevering in the face of disappointments and setbacks that surely lie ahead. Then he has no doubt "that this house will stand and the dreams of our founders will live on in our time." Its a remarkable speech in its directness, its simplicity in approaching the subject, and its borrowing from the Bible for that story of that house built on a rock, and its Lincolnesque reference to the house that will stand. And more than a speech, it describes a vision, and the set of actions and steps taken and to be taken to get there. ...

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For the first time Ukrainian faces doing great work in wartime, staying calm in unbelievable stress, as part of Ukraine Rail, can now be seen. The amazing work done by Ukrainian Railways for helping get refugees to Poland from cities like Kharkiv and Kviv hard hit by shelling, is shown in this Guardian picture essay. On the return trip the trains bring back humanitarian aid from Poland sent by the US and European Union countries. The Ukrainian Railways has 230,000 workers and all of them have remained in the country to operate the trains and train stations in this war and refugee crisis. Many of the trains operate in darkness into stations that are dimly lit. "The soul is torn and the heart aches, as a train driver I see what is going on," says Chumak, 43, the train driver for the Kviv to Lviv trains for evacuation of women, children and other refugees. At the peak 200,000 people were travelling every day going west to Lviv, trains were free of charge for everyone with women and children having priority. In the first 2 weeks of the war 2 million passengers were taken to safety. Shown here also is the train driver Yaroshenko, 36, for Train No. 82  the Uzhorod to Kviv train going to the Slovakian border. During the journey the train lights are turned off near Kviv or anywhere that is dangerous, as he says who knows who might be lurking nearby. He sees himself as part of the Ukrainian war effort. Tetjana, 36, and her daughter Sofia, 5, are shown on a train to Przemysyl in Poland. She worked as a train conductor on evacuation trains till she decided to take the refugee train herself for the sake of her daughter. If tracks are damaged, they are quickly repaired. Territorial defense units protect the key places and bridges so that the risk is reduced, though shrapnel from missile attacks elsewhere can damage windows of trains.   ...