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How 13% unemployment is affecting Lawrence, Massachusetts, with a heavy Latino population, heavier concentration of foreclosures and poorly managed finances, and high rate of unemployment that affects those with high school diplomas, and younger people. Unemployment nationwide is 7.3% among whites and 10.9% among Latinos. And places like Lawrence have a young and undereducated population, with the unemployment rate for teenagers at 21.6% and for those without a highschool diploma at 12.6%. Surprising as it may sound the town was going through a revival before this happened suddenly without warning. It was a fading industrial city 25 miles northwest of Boston. A new $110 million high school, three new grade schools, and a renovated city hall. And a developer refurbished several abandoned mills along the Merricmack River, and leased out 1.4 million square feet to some 200 companies employing 2000 workers.

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In the meeting in the Oval Office Biden and Modi had this to say about India US relations. Modi called it a "transformative" decade. Mr. Biden called it a "new chapter" in ties, taking on tough challenges in coronavirus vaccines for the rest of Asia outside India and China, tackling climate change, and ensuring rule of law in the Indo-Pacific region.  Biden's view- "I think that the relationship between India and the US, two of the largest democracies in the world, is destined to be stronger, closer, tighter, and I think it can benefit the whole world." A look at the US under the Biden administration shows a US that is very different from that of the US in the period of presidents since Harry Truman when he met Jawaharlal Nehru at the White House in October 1949. Biden sees the US needing renewal of its infrastructure, reviving worker incomes and families, regaining its leadership of the free world, for its role and place in the world. Throughout the period 1949 to 2020 for 70 years India was never seen as a modernizing nation of 1.2 billion people. For most of this period it lacked the good governance and speedy implementation of modernization of economy that is essential for a truly good relationship. By releasing the potential of the younger generation in a country where people under 35 years form the major part of the population, with good governance and development agenda, the Indian prime minister has changed the entire dynamics of the India US relationship. This is happening in the way China had done in its relationship with the US after 2000 by modernizing the country. India is now the country with huge potential and the country the US sees as helping it build its own role and place in the world. The sheer size of India and its population with countries around it in the east such as Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam with shared values in south and southeast Asia bring together a population of close to 2 billion people much larger than China, to determine the direction of Asia.  This is the new chapter that president Biden has in mind, and it is also the "transformative decade" in the eyes of prime minister Modi as India finally puts behind it years of bad governance, and speeds up modernizing its economy.   ...

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The Census Bureau reports that 46.2 million Americans were living in poverty in 2010. This is an increase of 2.6 million over 2009. This is the highest number of Americans living in poverty since 1958, when this statistic was first measured. Poverty is defined for 2010 as income at or below $22,314 for family of four. Also relevant is the median household income which went down to $49,445 in 2010, a decline of 2.3% from 2009. The typical household earned less in 2010 than in 1997, in inflation adjusted terms. The Census Bureau reports 16.3% of Americans had no health insurance coverage in 2010, the same as 2009.

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Prime minister Passos Coelho of Portugal makes the decision not to ask for a precautionary credit line from lenders, as Portugal exits the EU bailout program in April 2014. Portugal received bailout funds of $78 billion euros from the EU, IMF and the ECB in 2011. Portugal's economy is expected to see growth of 1% in the next 2 years. Unemployment declined from 17.7% in the beginning of 2013 to 15.2% in 1st quarter of 2014. Portugal returned to bond markets in April 2014 with 750 million euros of 10 year government bonds at 3.575%. Still Portugal will take a long time to fully recover and the EU will continue to monitor its financial position. The last loan to the IMF is scheduled for repayment in 2024 and to the EU in 2042. Exports and a return to bond markets are the two bright areas, but the government debt continued to climb from 94% in 2010 to 129% in 2014. A 15% unemployment rate and mere 1% growth through 2015 suggests a slow recovery similiar to Spain.

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Jeremy Carl is the nominee for Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs (including UN) in Feb. 2026. He is a research fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. His BA is from Yale where he was president of the student union, and his Masters is from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.  From 2004-2005 he was a visiting fellow at the Energy and Resources Institute in New Delhi, India.This article says he has been critical of Jewish attitudes yet he comes from a Jewish family and is now a member of the Presbyterian church. He was Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior in the first term of DJT. His recent book is on the theme of how the culture and attitude of America was culture an attitude of vast majority of the population from 1600 till 1965 for about 400 years. The Immigration laws of 1965 under JFK/Johnson, he says were not intended to change this, yet a change and relaxation of tight immigration policy has led to the situation similar to what Eisenhower faced in 1954 that led to Operation Wetback- as Mexican immigration surged in the war years by the early 1950's. For 150 years before 1965 the US only opened up for Europeans immigrating to the US. The changes since 1965 coincided with deindustrializationn of the US and the failure of the governing class to do anything about the steady shipping out the nation's manufacturing sector to China. Which is why there is so much anxiety about America's position in the world and a sense of a culture that is being lost- of Robert Frost's poetry set in New Hampshire, of Shakespeare's plays and morals for Western civilization, of the values of Emerson and Thoreau that guided Gandhiji and other Asian leaders. ...

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Yoon Suk Yeol from visit to Biden at White House as South Korea's president to jail sentence for life for ordering arrests and deploying military troops on Dec 3 2024. It shows the unstable situation for democracy and politics in South Korea, with the country polarized. It is much more polarized than the US  or Europe. South Korea may have advanced rapidly with its economy using Japan as a model, yet the political situation in South Korea and the Korean peninsula remains highly unstable. By comparison India has a long history of elected assemblies in the states and regions dating back to the 1936-37 provincial assembly elections under the British- nearing a century of democratic self government by 2036, ten years from now. Even the shorter period of elected government in South Korea was interrupted by dictatorships and the military rule. The Indian Constitution modeled on the unwritten constitution of Britain and the written one in the US, has the allegiance of a population of 1.4 billion people, unprecedented in the history of mankind. There are as many languages in India as in Europe and the media is lively in every language, so that it is an encounter that is the one of the wonders of the world to know and grow up inside India in the second half of the twentieth and the first part of the 21st century. It is also the first modernization effort in the context of Britoish and American democratic forms of government for over 1.4 billion people, almost 2 billion people counting other regions such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines, that use India as their role model. The economic dynamism of the region required integration of sorts with the European Union and the US for scientific and industrial cooperation at every level which is now happening. ...

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Edward Johnson and daughter Abby Johnson- Fidelity Investments succession turmoil and Abby Johnson emerging as CEO is covered in a new book- House of Fidelity by Justin Baer, Deputy Markets Editor WSJ. CEO Edward Johnson (Ned) failed to come up with a succession plan and executives under him were planning to sell the company to Chase or another bank. Ned had talked to Chase's Dimon in 2005 and said he was not interested in selling the company founded by his father. Yet this is what executives under Ned, Reynolds had in mind, who did not have confidence in Abby Johnson's leadership. Fidelity Investments has recovered from poor performance in that period and manages the pension plans of employers in the US, being the largest in this business. In 2026 Fidelity manages life savings of 20% of American adults and 50% of these customers signed up in last 5 years, says WSJ. After a period in her performance in the mutual funds business which was not great Abby was listed for demotion by executives under her father, who would sent her to run the philanthropy part of the business. It shows how awoman now 64 years struggled through this period and took the bold step of defying her father through control of 41% of the stock of the company to gain control of the company- a step that led to her father relenting and letting Abby run the company. It is a tale of how in such situations even the most favored can be put at a disadvantage by perceptions - in this case by Reynolds of Abby's leadership and ability- and need to act swiftly and decisively after impressions have been formed that lead to an outcome that doesn't need to occur. Her father Ned even though he in his younger period was a good stock picker, failed in two ways. By not planning a clear succession and lacking confidence in his daughter to overcome temporary obstacles. ...

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German management consultancy Roland Berger says in astudy that the cash for clunkers plan in Germany is likely to backfire by pulling in sales from 2010. It says car sales in Germany may fall by 20% in 2010, about 90,0000 jobs may be lost, and one in 2 car dealerships could be threatened with failure. GDP in Germany it says could take ahit. Roland Berger's partner Ralf Landmann says the German car market is good for 3.0 to 3.3 ,million cars per year. With sales in 2009 expected to be at 3.7 million, the forecast for 2010 are at 2.7 million to 2.8 million. Economist Carsten Dreger of DIW research institute in Berlin goes further. He says the cash for clunkers program was cannibalizing sales of other consumer products, in addition to taking sales from 2010.

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Liverpool has lost its World Heritage Site status but this may not be a bad thing, says Christoph Brumann, research leader at the Max Planck Research Institute for Ethnological Research in Halle, Germany. Fewer tourists, he says in this report in DW.com, but now the city can do what it wants to modernize the docks area, and not have to worry about the World Heritage Committee or the British government interfering in its plans. The World Heritage Committee is now subject to diplomatic lobbying of many countries, and the label has lost some of its value as more countries push sites in their country. Liverpool was asked by the World Heritage Committee to stop construction on the waterfront that was helping to bring new life to the city and revitalize the docks area to keep its World Heritage status. In the end the committee that met in China with China as the chair and lobbying by other countries, deteriorating China-UK relations, and and the UK sending only a representative from the Culture Ministry not the Foreign Ministry, played a part in the vote at the World Heritage Committee, says this report. Since 1972 Europe has gained a larger share of the World Heritage Sites. After 2010 meeting in Brazil this has shifted to other countries. There is no clear idea of what a World Heritage site is- cultural, or natural. Cultural is at this point 80% of the sites. This DW report shows some of the contenders in 2021, and only a few of them can be considered to be worthy of visiting. The committee that decides this has removed Dresden for building a new bridge across the Elbe river site, a decision made in 2007, so that it is becoming more controversial. ...

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The narrowest of majorities in the House- just 1 vote for Republicans will require that every Congressman be present during a vote, and that not 1 Republican decides to do what he or she believes is the right thing to do. This will make it difficult to deliver on DJT's agenda says  this report in WSJ. 

On paper Republicans are 220 to 215 for Democrats. With resignation of Rep Gaetz  it comes to 2019 to 215. This means no more than 1 defection is possible for Republicans to pass legislation. Rep. Michael Waltz of Florida and Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York will become the National Security Adviser and US Representative at the United Nations, which means by February 2024 till new elections are held for these 2 seats the House will be 2017 to 2015. At that point a single defection would risk blocking legislation.

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Coca-Cola will invest $5 billion in India by 2020 as part of a plan to invest $30 billion in capacity and marketing in emerging economies. The plan is designed to double sales revenue and volume by 2020. Coca-Cola today has 60% of the Indian soft drinks market, according to Euromonitor Intenational, because it also owns the brands of Parle Agro Pvt. Ltd- Thums Up, Limca, Gold Spot and Maaza. The Parle acquisition gave Coca-Cola a bottling and marketing system on which to base its expansion.

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French approach to social media for children- parliamentary inquiry recommendations in 2025. Macron is taking the lead on this issue.

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Governor Newsom and the LA riots as events unfold in immigration enforcement of the nation's laws under the mandate received by the president in 2025. Newsom as governor is playing to the politics of standing up to a president seeking to fulfill a mandate that has received support in most parts of the country including California, to make all immigration legal. 

California's sanctuary laws set it up in a collision course with the Nation's immigration law enforcement. This is also true of other states. No matter how it is presented, including peaceful protests, the policies under Obama and the deterioration with open borders under Obama appointed Mayorkas and Biden's egregious lack of proper oversight in 2023 with the largest flow of 2.3 million illegal migrants across the border, have created problems for the Nation that will take time and patience to correct.

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You didn't have to be poor to be frugal. American frugality was a way of life on the prairies and farms of America for most of the eighteenth, nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century. It was only after 1950's that piles of consumer products were discarded to pile up in rubbish mountains somewhere in the Atacama desert in Chile by 2020. The over use of plastic contaminated the land and the oceans. The consumer debt led to money sent overseas that could be invested in America so that workers could have good jobs and American manufacturing could hold its place in the world as second to none.

As old habits are revived some areas in America from upstate New York to upstate Michigan still cling to the old values as shown in this report by Claire Ansberry in the WSJ. 

 

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Berlin Brandenburg Airport or BER was supposed to open in 2011 or 2012,instead it will open in October 2020, nine years behind schedule, three times over budget. There were 2 parliamentary probes into what went wrong. The planning was faulty and plans were changed, blueprints were not finalized, resulting in a long sequence of problems with such basic items such as the fire safety system, and shoddy electrical wiring, faulty smoke extractions systems. A technical manager was jailed for three years for accepting a bribe from a contractor who then went bankrupt.  The airport CEO Mr. Daldrup says his job was to mop up problems like a "crime scene cleaner." It may be an example of how German values in hard work and good engineering declined as the country lost its focus in the period after reunification and the austerity years under chancellors Schroeder, Merkel, a period when new infrastructure and public services suffered neglect.

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The first reading of the bill to stop no-deal Brexit clears the House of Commons in Britain with a vote of 329 to 300. This rebuffs prime minister Boris Johnson's plan to push Brexit through by stealth and at any cost by October 31. The bill will delay this to Jan. 2020, and set the stage for a no confidence motion in the minority government of Mr. Boris Johnson.

It now prepares Britain for general elections as early as October with Johnson hoping to unite theBrexit faction, but facing a possible backlash from Conservative moderates, and facing also the lack of support from UKIP Party's Nigel Farage. It is a very different Brexit campaign in very different circumstances than the one that was able to win in the last referendum. It also poses a challenge for Labour party to get its message across about living standards and economic opportunity for all, better than it has before.

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Latin America makes up about half the world's deaths in the last 2 weeks of June with over a million infected in Brazil, and millions pushed back into poverty.

Mexico's antipoverty agency says 10 million, Peru 2.5 million says the central bank will be pushed into poverty. A entire generation of gains on poverty could be wiped out in 2020.

Goverments not just in Brazil, but also Mexico have not played an active role. Contrast this with India where the Indian prime minister said around March 21 that in stark terms India could be set back 21 years in the next 21 days or do the lockdown completely and be able to withstand it. And Merkel in Germany when she said back by the end of March that the virus could take the lives of millions of people in Germany if the country did not lockdown effectively.

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Latin America is hit hard by the pandemic. About 20% of the region's companies will close down or about 2.7 million companies, and loss of 8.5 million jobs. GDP decline in 2020 of about 10% is expected.

All the statistics of a fall in poverty in Latin America that used to be cited by economists have proved to have no good foundations. Even before the pandemic the economies of Argentina and Brazil were in trouble. The pandemic has worsened the situation. It shows how important it is for countries in Latin America to build on strong foundations of education, health care and good governance. With fall in trade and in tax income the debt to GDP levels are expected to go up from 57% to 70% and 30% drop in earnings coming from relatives overseas to support families at home, resulting in great difficulties. 

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Queen Elizabeth II addresses the British nation and the Commonwealth on April 5, 2020.

Key moments and lines in her address:

"Together we are tackling this disease...If we remain united and resolute, we will overcome it."

"Self discipline... quiet good humored resolve...fellow-feeling" as attributes to get us through this.

"The pride of who we are is not in our past, it defines our present and our future."

Clap for carers, "an expression of our national spirit" with its symbol "the rainbows drawn by children."

"We will be with our friends again, we will be with our families, we will meet again."

A reference also to wartime 1940 and the song from that time "We'll meet again."

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Inflation declined in October to 7.7% in the US from 8.2% in September 2022. This reflects year over year change in the consumer price index. Excluding food and energy it was 6.3%. Goods inflation for used cars, clothing slowed, airfares also declined.

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The South Korean won has lost 17% of its value so far in 2022. Heavy reliance on exports to a rapidly slowing Chinese economy, high corporate and household debt levels, outflow of funds, and the depreciating won, reflect weakness in the Korean economy.

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Prime minister Boris Johnson says at an event before the coming UN climate change conference in Glasgow that Britain will bring forward a ban on the sale of gasoline and hybrid cars to 2035 from 2040, to promote efforts to fight climate change.

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The Chinese car market is changing fast, with domestic brands making up a larger share of the local market. In 2000 these domestic brands made up 18% of total sales, whereas in 2010 forecasts show this to be about 32%, with the share increasing in future years. In a rapidly growing market this did not make much difference, but with the market growth moderating to 7-8% in the next ten years from the heady 33% of recent years, the foreign brands such as GM and VW will not see the growth of recent years. J.D. Powers projects passenger vehicle sales in China at 19.2 million by 2017, with Chinese brands taking 45% of the share, in one scenario. Under this scenario foreign brands like GM and VW would see sales growth of only 5% in the next 7 years. The foreign brands are not allowed to own more than 50% of local operations. And their partners are making their own domestic brands. If Japan is a useful example, China's automobile companies will like Nisssan, Toyota, and Honda, proceed to penetrate global markets and become a dominant player in their local market. This has implications for GM, VW and Daimler....

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Doctors face a 21% cut in the amount of Medicare payments for treating seniors having Medicare, though this cut will be delayed till 2011 under legislation in Congress. This issue goes back to 1997, when a budget law set spending targets, and stated that if they were exceeded formulas to reduce doctors payments would go into effect. The formulas seriously cut into doctor payments by Medicare in 2002, so the formula was put off. The result of this is that the cuts based on the formula now amount to 21%. The cuts are not expected to go through, but at the same time Congress has an headache on its hands with the growing deficit. In the Senate there is opposition to a $120 billion bill to extend long term unemployment benefits which lapsed in June 2010, for tax breaks, and other expenses. Senators want to pare down the bill's price tag, as $80 billon of this is unfunded and will be added to the budget deficit. For a primary care doctor in Washington state, Medicare pays about $95 compared to private insurers payment of $129, and a plan for state workers that pays $140....

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As jobs grow even with repeated increases in interest rates in 2023, inflation slows to 2.6%, unemployment rate at 3.7%, consumer sentiment is up 29% in 2 months in a UMich survey highest since 1991.US jobs growth of 353,000 in January 2024 the best in a year, twice what experts had predicted. The December figures were also revised upward by the Labor Department from 216,000 to 333,000. Unemployment rate held steady at 3.7%. Wages increased by 4.5%. Job gains in 2023 were mostly in government, healthcare, hotels and restaurants. In January growth was healthy across all private sector industries. The Fed's preferred inflation rate guage was 2.6% in December. Even with repeated increases in the interest rate by the Fed, growth is strong. Much of it could be attributed to the strong investment in infrastructure, and in manufacturing, US technologies by the Biden administration with help of bipartisan support in Congress.