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The symbolism of the Ramstein Air Force Base is unique as US Defense Secretary Austin says this months meeting of Blinken and Austin at Ramstein with their European counterparts will be followed by monthly meetings. Lloyd Austin sees this as a monthly group on Ukraine self-defense. Ramstein Air Force base is the headquarters of the US Air Force in Europe, and of NATO Allied Air Command. For the first time the invasion of a free people and country in the middle of Europe is being taken seriously in Europe and the US.  In Germany Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck of the Greens have joined with Mr. Lindner of the Free Democrats to express the same views in the coalition government with the Social Democrats, making it clear that the German people are with the Americans and European leaders gathered at Ramstein base. The earlier symbolism of Merkel and Steinmeier and a German position of a bystander in the changes happening in the world in China and in Europe are now seen as having emboldened the Russian invasion of Ukraine. India and most Asian and Latin American countries and the UN Secretary General have called for an immediate end to the invasion.  ...

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Speaking at Ulster University president Biden says peace and opportunity go together.  "It is upto us to keep this going, to keep building on the work that has been done every day for the last 25 years. To sustain the peace unleash this incredible economic opportunity, which is just the beginning." The US is stepping in with action. Joseph Kennedy III, the Special envoy to Northern Ireland will lead a trade delegation of US companies to Northern Ireland later this year. Biden also called for the effective devolved government to be restored to bring greater opportunity to this region. It is important to remember as this WSJ report amply shows that president Biden has been an unrelenting champion on the Good Friday Agreement. That it is there today and the Irish border remains in the Irish Sea after Brexit owes much to the personal effort of Mr. Biden from before his election as president to this day and this visit. It is also a measure of the kind of man and the kind of president Mr. Biden is. Keeping his personal ties to Ireland.  ...

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The Biden administration makes its decision- it will continue the tariffs president Trump placed on about half of Chinese imports into the US. It also seeks new talks with China on trade. US is also pursuing other policies on trade that were not pursued by the Trump administration. Longer term it is about alliance building in trade with the European Union, Britain, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and India. These alliances would jointly approach China on trade, economic and security matters.  Another approach is for the US to build at home. Congress is asked to approve $52 billion in subsidies that the Biden administration wants to give to companies so that they build the semiconductor plants of the future right here in the USA. The Biden administration is also aware that China is doubling down on technology purchases within China from Chinese firms to support its own high tech industries. In response it is laying down a policy of its own for the future step by step. The Chinese market now takes less priority than maintaining technological leadership of the US in all advanced technologies. The Biden administration is steering American industry and technology advancement in this direction. ...

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Experts say solar energy costs are going down by 30-40% every time the deployment of solar energy doubles in a country. The Modi administration plans to triple solar energy production in the next 5 years. This investment in solar energy should drive down costs from the $35 per megawatt hour in 2020. Experts say that costs are going down at a rate that was never expected.  For India the courage in making these investments in solar energy since 2010 and accelerated in 2016, are path breaking. This could be a world changing event for India as cost of energy can bring up living standards throughout the country. Gone will be the days when children lacked electric bulb light to read and study in villages in India. It also shows the need to heed Vivekananda's words: "This I have seen in my life- he who is overcautious  about himself falls into dangers at every step; he who is afraid of losing honor and respect, gets only disgrace; he who is always afraid of loss always loses." The pioneers in India pushing forward these new initiatives have listened to these words. ...

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Compared to the Trump Putin meeting in Helsinki when Trump went in casually into the meeting and Putin was late by half an hour, this meeting had a lot of preparation. Jill Biden when asked about it said "Oh my gosh he was overprepared." The meeting with Putin also came after Biden met with the G-7 in Cornwall, UK. He was briefed by EU officials, and had preparation with Blinken and Sullivan  before going into the meeting with Putin.  One result is that the meeting lays the ground for further discussions on many issues. By talking openly and plainly about US expectations from Russia- laying out expectations on cybersecurity and hacking, on arms control, on EU and other issues, the US made it possible to get tangible results. Both sides have an incentive to work for the interests of their countries including preventing another cold war, ensuring cyber security through mutual respect and US response capabilities, and arms control. One of the economic issues related to Nordstream 2 which was settled before the meeting with US respecting the wishes of Germany to go ahead with the project bringing Russian oil and gas through the seas to Germany. ...

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A case on whether a US government official can pressure social media platforms to remove content the government deems harmful is before the US Supreme Court. During the pandemic president Biden sought to quell rumors and misinformation about Covid vaccines. An Appeals court in Louisiana took a very conservative position that social media platforms could not be pressured in any way even from the bully pulpit not as a bully, meaning even persuasion was not allowed. The US Supreme Court will issue its decision in 3 months after it votes and the majority opinion is assigned to be written by one of the Justices It appears to be skeptical of the Louisiana Appeals court position.This NYT report shows exchanges between the Louisiana lawyer, deputy Solicitor General Fletcher speaking for the government, and Justice Kavanaugh. Justice Kavanaugh seems to agree with Fletcher that as long as it was a bully pulpit, that the president is saying it is harmful, but not threatening, it is acceptable under the First Amendment for president to do so. The president saying the rumor and misinformation was "killing people" was still only bully pulpit, no threat was involved.  ...

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There are about 181,000 homeless in California one third of the total in the US. This $6.4 billion bond issuance for borrowing funds was approved by just over 50% of the vote. It will go to create more affordable housing so badly needed in California's out of control housing prices. People tended to think nothing works and out of apathy did not vote. But the scale of the problem required effort at the state level or federal level with funding in the tens of billions of dollars for affordable housing. This is the first time that this has happened even though Silicon Valley and capital markets have wasted hundreds of billions of dollars in dubious companies and projects that have contributed little to the standard of living and ease of living of the American people, including essential infrastructure and health, education services. The dilapidated and crumbling infrastructure, of subways, streets and bridges in New York City is another aspect of the same problem of serious, serious lack of affordable housing in California. It also creates the kind of class divisions in society that FDR-Truman-Kennedy sought to remove since the 1930's. ...

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Compare the presidential election spending in France and US one sees a huge, really huge difference. In France by law the first round it is limited to 16 million euros and second round to 22 million euros. Companies cannot donate and maximum donation is euros 4600 per year. All candidates must be given equal time by networks after official campaigns start usually March 28. If you get 5% of the presidential vote you get about 48% of the $22 million ceiling and if not only about 5%. Its a fairer system considering about $5 billion will be spent in US presidential election 2024. It keeps out lobbyists and donors looking for silent favors as the pharma industry and the tech industry in the US that has prevented any legislation on fair drug pricing or oversight of the monopolies of Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta and others, taxation of profits of tech and fossil fuel companies, or passage of healthcare for all. Indian elections cost of 1.35 lakh crores or $13 billion in 2024 are also similar to the US with parties spending leading to much corruption in the democratic process and defeating its best character.  ...

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Fed's Powell sees only a temporary slight effect of DJT tariffs on inflation to 2.7% in 2025 that he says can be "looked through without action by us." Fed will wait for clarity in coming days and weeks. Powell says in March 2025 “It can be the case that it’s appropriate sometimes to look through inflation if it’s going to go away quickly without action by us. And that can be the case in the case of tariff inflation.” Tariffs are intended as they were in the first term of DJT and retained by Democrats led by Biden to create a level playing field after hidden subsidies by China, and to rebuild American manufacturing. New investments in manufacturing and in infrastructure supported by both DJT and Biden have brought new hope and vigor to comunnities and towns across America. For far too long as Powell understands textbook economic theory at Ivy League universities that had no connection to reality was used by American business to turn its back on communities and towns across the 51 states and the Nation. ...

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In this thoughtful essay Bob Davis of the WSJ asks whether the decision of the Clinton administration to admit China into the World Trade Organization was a bad one for the U.S.  Mr. Clinton in 2000 tried to persuade Congress citing words of president Woodrow Wilson that of a dream "of a world full of free markets, free elections, and free peoples working together."  Every year China would have its most favored nation status renewed with help from supporters in Congress. After WTO entry this was not necessary. Chinese leaders saw the entry into WTO as a way to knock down trade barriers, to act a wrecking ball for the planned economy, to give the economy a big boost.  In 1994 China was a relatively backward economy with 60% of the population living on less than $1.90 a day. Hard to imagine today.  Not everyone was convinced that it was good for the U.S. This included a trade attorney who had tackled a huge trade deficit with Japan in the Reagan period- Robert Lighthizer. Lighthizer was Deputy Trade Representative negotiating with the Japanese. His prediction was that no job in America would be safe once China entered the WTO, that China would become a dominant trading nation.  Robert Cassidy, 73, trade negotiator for president Clinton looks back on that time and says that he regrets what has happened, that all his work night and a day only benefited business and hurt workers. David Autor, MIT economist and his colleagues,  in a later study documented loss of 2.4 million jobs to Chinese competition between 1999 and 2011, in many manufacturing towns dotting the landscape of America, particularly in the midwestern states. And the expectation that the higher economic growth would lead to less political control did not turn out to be true.  In the process multinationals rushed to China after WTO entry and China became the world's manufacturing floor. By 2013 China's per capita income reached $7000, after years of fast GDP growth approaching 10% a year.  About 400 million Chinese were lifted out of poverty from living on less than $1.90 per day from 1999 to 2011, according to the World Bank. A big problem was that the U.S. did not plan for the change from WTO entry. No resources were allocated for the plan to let American workers adjust through worker retraining and special trade handicapped income support, to allow for a slow planned shift. Instead the pace of growth was faster than that which the U.S. faced with the Japanese export offensive in the eighties. China experienced double digit growth after 2000. The irony is that the Republican administrations that followed Clinton followed a policy of free trade to the advantage of China's state run economy when working class Americans voted mostly for the Democratic Party. Little was done and little said in the media from Democrats and Republicans in Congress and the establishment during this time even after Mr. David Autor documented the effects of trade in the U.S.  Till Mr. Trump recognizing the alienation in communities hit by job losses from trade upended American politics, shifted this part of the electorate to the Republican base. Mr. Lighthizer's view is that complaints about China should be left out of WTO because it is naive to tackle it that way. With a $375 billion China trade deficit for 2017 the challenge has to be met in a different way, and the U.S. has to rely on regaining its economic strength within a fair trading framework. Having negotiated with the Japanese Mr. Lighthizer sees the approach adopted then as the one right for today. During the long negotiations Lighthizer is said to have received many negotiating positions of the Japanese signifying no change in long sessions. He once simply made a paper plane and sent it right back, in one of these sessions. He meant that the U.S. was serious about reversing the imbalance in trade. ...

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For Ford Motor Company 2007, 2008 and part of 2009 should see negative cash flow of $17 billion. Already in the first 9 months of 2006 Ford had $6 billion in losses. About 23 billion in financing arranged to meet these financial cash flow needs to restructure N. American business and finance an entirely new product line and production systems. This includes the largest ever leveraged loan for Wall Street, $17.5 to $18.5 billion, according to Reuters Loan Pricing Corp. Leveraged loans carry an interest rate 1.50 percentage points above the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) and are loans to non-investment grade borrowers or unrated borrowers. Ford now carries a high yield or "junk" credit rating. To secure the loans Ford pledged all its N. American assets including its logo as collateral. This is the largest such arrangement for an American company in modern business history showing the depths to which the company has plunged. Fitch lowered Ford's ratings to B- from B. Ford is rapidly losing market share to rivals such as Toyota Motor. About 38,000 workers or close to half its factory workers have accepted buyouts or early retirement packages. Ford will shut down 7 assembly plants in 2010....

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Toyota's views on a car run by batteries like the Volt GM has planned. It will take the time to work on this, at this time it sees a hybrid as the best option for alternate busts of power by both the electric and the gasoline power. A battery that would fill up the trunk of a car would be needed for a car to run only on electric power for 40 miles. He heads engine development and fuel cell engineering for Toyota. This is the existing technology but Toyota will take the needed time to develop the technology of lithium ion batteries to power vehicles, doing this step by step.

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This WSJ editorial says the U.S. Federal Reserve's Operation Twist has not resulted in improving growth. The Fed has lowered its forecasts for growth in June 2012 after its effort in the first part of Operation Twist when it sold $400 billion in short term debt. It says the Fed cannot come with growth using monetary policy, only supply side policies, changes in regulatory policies and the efforts of private enterprise can do this. All it does is have financial markets hang on every word of the Fed chairman Bernanke, as it will for the next two months about the prospects for a QE III.

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GE will spin off GE Capital into a separate business and put up about 20% of the assets for an IPO in 2014. GE will also get out of the retail lending business. The unit may also be put up for sale at a later date. This move is designed to meet shareholder interest in separating the industrial assets with steady earnings from the volatile financial business. GE Capital is the fifth largest bank in terms of its size and still generates a large part of profits for GE. Profits in 2012 for GE Capital were $7.4 billion. Other moves would reduce exposure to consumer lending and increase lending to midsized businesses. These are remaining moves following the 2008 financial crisis, in which GE Capital hurt GE's overall performance badly, for GE to return to its industrial business roots.

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The Indian prime minister has ordered that a million job vacancies be filled in the next 18 months. About 21% of job openings in the Central government have not been filled says this report in The Indian Express. According to the Annual Report of the Department of Expenditure 21.75% of the 4.1 million sanctioned posts were vacant as of March 1, 2020. It is these and other additional jobs that will be filled in mission mode. Jobs are vacant at all levels of the different departments and ministries and regions.  About 92% of the positions are in the departments of Railways with 40%, Home Affairs with 30%, Civil Defense 11%, Postal 6% and Revenue 3%. Of the employees Indian Railways had 1.25 million on March 1, 2020, and 1.20 employees on March 1, 2022. The pandemic had the effect of restricting hiring of people needed. With the expansion of the economy the hiring for government has not kept pace. In the Armed Forces, for the Army no hiring took place in 2020 and 2021 recruitment years says this report in Indian Express.  There are calls at public meetings including at Defense Minister Rajnath Singh's rallies for "sena bharti chalu karo" to start recruitment drives for the army, navy and air force. The government is responding to the public's demand for recruitment to begin as the needs of the government grow and the economy grows, to keep pace with it. ...

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Wealth and people migration in the US in 2020 is shown in this WSJ report. Latest IRS data released for 2020 shows migration of taxpayers and adjusted gross income from states in the midwest, on the eastern and western seaboard to states in the southern US and to mountain states in the west. Some of this is a result of the pandemic lockdowns and the shift to remote work which means that the trend for migration will continue for 2021 and 2022. The shift in income was as follows-Florida  23.7 billion, Texas $6.3 billion, Arizona $4.8 billion, North Carolina $3.8 billion, South Carolina $3.6 billion, Tennessee $2.6 billion, Nevada $2.6 billion, Colorado $2.3 billion, Idaho $2.1 billion, Utah $1.3 billion.  The biggest losses came from New York -$19.5 billion, California -$17.8 billion, Illinois -$8.5 billion, Masachusetts -$2.6 billion, New Jersey -$2.3 billion, Maryland -$1.9 billion, Ohio -$1.4 billion, Minnesota -$1.2 billion, Pennsylvania -$1.2 billion, Virginia -$1.1 billion. WSJ says the tax burdens in the southern and mountain states in the west are low. In four states there is no state tax- Florida, Texas, Tennessee and Nevada. By comparison says WSJ states losing wealth and population have high state taxes for property and income. Schools, quality of life and cost of living are also major considerations, with remote work opening up the opportunities to seek a better life in other states which offer more space for working at home.   ...

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Veteran reporter Mark Landler at NYT gives this exceptional report on Bolsover, a town in the Midlands in UK. Natalie Fleet, running for Labour for parliament, is a working class parent and a product of the UK Midlands region, a region around Coventry, Birmingham and Nottingham that was dotted with coal producing mines and industrial towns in the era before World War II. For most of the century till 2019 Labour held the parlamentary seats in this region and in the north of England around Sheffield. It was the loss of these seats that brought first Cameron and then Boris Johnson Tories to power, and where the immigration issue resonated for Nigel Farage's UK Reform movement that led to Britain having a referendum and leaving the European Union.  Today locals think it was all a big mistake, most Britons want to rejoin the EU, and they back Starmer's Labour party by huge margins after Jeremy Corbyn left the leadership position at Labour. Money that was allocated for reviving the town was never spent and the years passed with little change. Labour's Natalie Fleet attends D-Day ceremonies in the region and the one thing that is arousing Britons today is that PM Rishi Sunak chose to leav D-Day ceremonies the same day, ignoring the sacrifices of so many Britons and the need to keep alive the memory of a Europe united against the horrors of the war period- the need to work together make the world a better place. ...

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After elections this week in Germany the CDU may be faced with forming a government with the BSW socialist party an unlikely pair. Germany's political leader Sarah Wagenknecht considers the policy of letting migrants in to be "highly problematic", and making it difficult to focus on help for workers and families. Wagenknect says - "Not because people don't deserve a better life, but because our country is simply overburdened as a result."  She pursues a social policy that follows common sense on behalf of the working class and unions, and follows socialist policies for better incomes and benefits for workers. This is new to Germany says DW.com, yet it is not true for the EU. Neighboring Denmark for example has prime minister Mette Hendriksen who has said the same thing about migrants, opposing entry because it leaves the workers worse off than before and presents both a burden and a huge distraction from the many issues the working class face today. The Democrats in the US also are coming to the same conclusion as president Biden and Harris have moved to secure the Border with Mexico and cut unlawful migrant flows to a trickle in 2024.  These shifts will affect Scholz and the SPD party in 2025, as well as the FDP and Greens as they lose popularity in the former East Germany.  ...

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The complete Transcript of the Harris Trump television debate on ABC Television that went on for 90 minutes. As expected Harris remained organized, thoughtful and precise in her answers to questions of cost of living, the economy, and never wavered in her focus on her plan for an Opportunity Economy that lifts all boats where she said Trump had none. Trump raised the immigration issue in questions about the economy and cost of living failing to tackle one issue at a time and do it well and convincingly. Harris brought up Trump's focus on himself and billionaires, and on Project 2025, when Trump talked about immigration. Trump's response on Project 2025 was long and rambling and failed to register losing critical minutes and spreading himself thin leaving behind the idea that he had no Plan for America, for if he had one would he not have offered it when the question was raised. This set the pattern for the rest of the debate. The next issue Trump hoped to focus on was migrant crime after immigration. This is where his exaggeration that migrant crime was rampant came under the first fact check of the evening by David Muir. Something that other moderators had amazing as it sounds neglected their duty to do - all of them failed to do this with rigor and on the spot- till David Muir. “As you know, the F.B.I. says overall violent crime is coming down in this country.” ...

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This WSj editorial says the meeting of president Trump and president Putin in Helsinki on July 16, 2018, projected weakness and was "a personal and national embarrassment." It say Mr Trump could not even support his own intelligence adviser Dan Coats over Mr. Putin. This will bring Democrats and Republicans together and offers ammunition for the president's opponents, says the Journal. 

It also says that on the Nordstream pipeline Mr. Trump was right about Germany having it own favorable dealings with Russia. On NATO the lack of strategy and Mr. Trump's swagger, saying what comes to his head for Mr. Trump, only weakens support for the alliance in the U.S. The NATO alliance with spending above 2% by Germany and France after calls by Mr. Trump for spending 4% strengthens NATO, yet weakens it by weakening the alliance with America's European partners. 

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Wagoner says GM can get 37mpg on average by 2012 for its cars in response to Congressional demand for higher fuel efficiency and energy conservation. Congress is looking for European mandated levels of 50mpg by 2015, which were initially opposed by European automakers also. It becomes the condition for loans. The awfully bad unemployment numbers for November of 533,000 layoffs led to some compromise from Speaker Pelosi, so that $15 billion could come as a bridge loan to the Detroit automakers from the $25 billion allocated for the specific purpose of fuel efficiency technologies. The only way this compromise could be reached is by a complete shift by the auto executives on the issue of fuel efficiency, which is a sore point with Congress especially the way automakers in Detroit have dragged their feet on this issue over 2 decades, contributing to the jump in oil prices in 2007 and early 2008.

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Simply put the party that makes the best case for the economy and for a better future consistently and constantly will prevail as at the end of the day white, black, rural and urban voters will be listening carefully. The cost of living, immigration, the economy, are major issues in 2024. Nate Cohn of the NYT looks at the 2020 election, the 2022 midterms and polling for 2024. He says Republicans are doing better in states they did well in the midterms in 2022. Nationally they are doing as well as in the midterms making gains in noncompetitive blue states such as New York and California where there is less impact of Roe vs Wade abortion rights and voters can show discontent with Democrats for the way they have governed. Trump can also gain with black and Hispanic voters but more in California and New York and Texas noncompetitive states.  Harris does well in Florida, and Texas, and in some red states for the same reason as voters look for alternatives from being tied down to the Republican party or the Trump Republicans.  In the key Electoral College states in midwest Harris is holding up well in polling- in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. In these states Black and Hispanics are not in the same population numbers as in other states. ...

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Concern that the $1.6 trillion aid package could become a bailout for business delayed passage in U.S. Congress, with Republicans trying to allay these concerns. The legislation in Congress would offer $350 billion for small business loans that may be fogiven if firms use them to keep workers on payroll and $500 billion to allow the Treasury Secretary to make loans, loan guarantees or investments to support businesses, states or municipalities. Democrats want less power over the money given to the Treasury Secretary and for money to be directly allocated to the states. The legislation also includes $200 billion for unemployment insurance, and direct payments to households estimated at $300 billion.  Another $242 billion includes appropriations, including money for hospitals and protective gear.  The one time payment to households is $1200 per person and $500 per child, with payments stopping at a specific income level. Unemployment assistane will now be given for 36 weeks instead of 26 weeks. These two items have universal support. It is the $500 billion for businesses with authority given to the Treasury Secretary that is the controversial part. Not so much the money given to businesses and required to go to payroll as the money to businesses in loans and other action with the Treasury Secretary making the decision. ...

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The concluding G20 statement asked the IMF to raise $50 billion for the poorest countries through IMF gold sales. Central banks in Russia, China and Japan will be counter parties to these sales.

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The Trump Accounts for children born 2025-2028 and the Dell $6.5 billion expansion to include earlier born children may be one of the single biggest actions to rebuild the bank accounts of the next generation. It looks at the shrivelled bank accounts of today's older generation with lack of enough savings for a medical crisis and says it has got to be different from now on. The median bank account of Americans over 65 and over is $13400 which means there is little for medical health emergencies and little for needs of older Americans. Median means half have less and half have more than $13400. This is astounding for the wealthiest nation at a time when the total wealth is the highest ever in history. This report by WSJ unfortunately does not mention this at all and dwells on how this is an opportunity for banks and investment companies to get in the door to get your business. DJT as US president with a mandate from lower income Americans has designed this so that it shows the value of careful investments of small seed money. With $1000 to begin with from the government, added amounts from parents and grandparents and invested in a mutual fund that tracks the S&P 500 it will grow with the economy for 18 years, doubling two to three times on the way. It would provide funds for education increasing enrollment in higher education, increase financial literacy by showing how money grows in broad S&P 500 type index funds such as Vanguard type funds. Much of the shriveling of bank accounts for the shocking figure of $13400 median for American 65+ year olds is a result of job losses, high health care costs, wage decline  with factories outshored, hits from 2009 financial crisis caused by bank irresponsible behaviour, drug epidemics and fentanyl allowed to pour into the country, covid pandemic and stock bubbles, decline in higher education enrollment, other. The US president DJT is seeing his mandate as one that reverses these adverse situations one by one to take America back to post war prosperity and rising incomes, rising bank acocunt savings and rising hopes and aspirations for the next generation. ...