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BBC answers the question "Who is Keir Starmer?" in this report on the new British prime minister. He graduated from Leeds University and studied law at Leeds and Oxford. He joined the Socialist Movement soon after college. He was a prominent contributor to magazine Socialist Lawyer. In school he had joined the Young Socialists, Labour's youth organization. His name is from the first leader of the Labour party Keir Hardie. He is the first from his family to go to college. From 1988 to 2008 he was a practicing lawyer and concentrated his efforts on his work till he was made the Director of Public Prosecutions, the chief prosecutor of England and Wales. Keir likes to talk about this period including prosecuting terrorist gangs as an example of public service. It was late only until age 52 in 2015 that he was given the safe Labour parliamentary seat in north London of Holborn St Pancras. Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of Labour in 2015. Sir Keir worked well with Jeremy Corbyn during this period and was Immigration Secretary and Brexit Secretary from the back benches. When Corbyn's leadership was challenged Starmer supported this, with Corbyn resigning in 2020 after the 2019 election defeat and being replaced by Starmer.  Then followed a period of fighting the Conservatives and only coming level to the Conservatives in 2021 in popular support. The changes that made Labour more popular and reversing finally the decline of 14 years did not come till 2023 only 12 months before this election. Throughout Sir Keir maintained his composure and moderate positions, distancing himself from Corbyn, to regain the confidence of the British people. When one sees that the votes increase in 2024 is only 2% for Labour in 2024 one realizes the achievement of Sir Keir in transforming Labour to run the country that is so needed today. The slight increase in votes converts into a landslide through careful planning and strategy, but it also hides the fact that the British people have turned to Labour for answers and solutions to the problems they face. Such is the level of confidence that Sir Keir has built over time bit by bit, as he says "brick by brick," something that is clearly in Sir Keir's character and manner of doing things. ...

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In a new WSJ/NBC New poll, conducted July 24-27, 2009, 42% called the Obama health plan a bad idea, and 36% called it a good idea. In mid June the poll showed Americans evenly divided on this question. It reflects rising anxiety over the costs of the health plan and what it will do to the deficit, and also shows public anxiety about the ways in which Obama and Congress are reaching compromises to pay for it and to control costs. Added to this are the anxieties raised about government involvement in healthcare and medical decisions about care. Noteworthy are two differing pieces of evidence. In the WSJ/NBC News poll, only two in ten people thought the quality of their own care would improve, only 15% of those with private insurance thought that it would improve the quality of their care. And 4 in ten people thought quality of care would get worse, and 45% of those with private insurance thought quality of care would get worse. By focussing on the cost of health care, the administration seems to have ignored or missed the concerns of people about the quality of care if government focussed on cutting costs. These concerns are real as a vast majority of the public, or about 85% of the people, as Martin Feldstein points out in a recent Washington Post column, are insured. The question is what cost would they be willing to pay for the admittedly worthy cause of insuring the uninsured? And even with the unisured, it seems likely with the current Obama reform plan that immigrants and other people may still remain uninsured, at least for some time. Would a huge burden of $1 trillion make this worthwhile, and is there some better way to do this without the prospect of higher taxes further down the road to pay for this. These are points Feldstein makes. The other piece of evidence is that at the same time that there are reservations about what is coming out of Congress today, there is general support for making constructive changes to healthcare. The WSJ poll showed 56% of respondents favoring the basic ideas in the reforms being considered in Congress, with 38% opposing it....

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How the IMF conditionality has changed in the 2009 global economic crisis. The IMF head, Dominique Strauss-Kahn of France, is aware how sensitive nations around the world have become to the word IMF. So much so that it has even suggested removing the word IMF from loans to get takers. The IMF conditons worsened the S. Korean financial crisis in 1998. See link to this. This time Kahn has advocated that the developed countries of Europe and the USA increase stimulus spending to 2% of GDP.And there are fewer calls for cutting spending in developing countries offered help by the IMF. Pakistan was asked to increase interest rates by 3% but actually increased them by 2% to fight inflation. But to get some idea how the IMF is viewed with suspicion and hostility in many countries one has to listen to comments made. The move for Pakistan was so unpopular in 2008 that Mohsin Khan a top IMF official says he met with agroup of generals to get their backing. Some IMF officials insistend on a 10% rate increase. Something like that would have led to riots in Pakistani cities. IMF loaned Pakistan $7.6 billion. When S. Korea said no to the IMF credit line, Lee Hyoung-ryoul, a Korean Finance Ministry official said that S. Koreans tremble and financial markets turn sensitive whenever they hear the word "IMF." This time Brazil, S. Korea and Mexico, were offered condition free credit lines. But it has found no takers from these three conuntries, so badly is the IMF viewed in developing countries. Even though it appears that Kahn, in the small club of western nation's officials and staff that form the governing body of the IMF, is trying to give the IMF a new image, its just so bad and the views of the old timers at the IMF on spending or interest rates so contrary to the needs of people in the developed and developing countries, that a new generation of people in finance and economics will be needed before real change is established. ...

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Reinhart and Rogoff say it takes over 7 years for the economy to recover completely from financial crises. This is the lesson from other financial crises in the last century. Economic contraction lasts about 2 years. Housing prices from peak to trough takes about 6 years. Unemployment takes longer to heal in developed countries. Unemployment goes up by about 7 percentage points, and increasing unemployment lasts an average of 5 years. And the debt that builds up from lower tax revenues and more spending needed in stimulus acts to slow growth. The big message from other crises studied by the two American economists is that debt tends to go up by about 85% in real terms during the first 3 years of a banking crisis. They says this means an additional $8-9 trillion for the U.S. A key point they make is that restructuring is necessary for the financial system, and the U.S. needs to allow financial institutions to be restructured through accelerated bankruptcy, temporary receivership, and only afterwards recapitalizing and reprivatizing....

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Carmen Reinhart formerly at the Federal Reserve, says after a severe banking crisis it takes about 4 years to see a return to normal growth. With the current crisis having other facets like the overextended consumer intertwined with banking crisis, it is likely that it would take this long. He cautions business not to be overoptimistic.

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The supporters of free university education bring up some practical and important points. Not providing free university education at a time of rising inequality after a severe financial crisis that worsened inequality and led to a lost decade for middle class families in the U.S. leads to a situation in university attendance is restricted to people from wealthier backgrounds. Studies in Britain show this says the Economist magazine.  A report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a think tank, showed an increase in tution fees paid out of pocket of 1000 pounds ($1243) is associated with adecline of 3 to 9 percentage points in university attendance. Work by Thomas Kane at Harvard University confirms this. Other studies in the U.S. show attendance and completion rates higher for university education with  education being more affordable. Results of studies also show that the tangle of application processes and eligibility rules can reduce the benefits of tackling this by the current approach of financial aid. For this reason free tution which is easy to adminster and easy to understand for all is the real option for today's situation. Wealthy students can pay for it later in life with the progressive taxation. Warren proposes higher taxes on multimillionaires, and Sanders would tax financial transactions such as on stock and capital markets, as ways to address this and bring back free university. As the Economist magazine for the first time  puts this in its Free Exchange column the real support for free university comes not from economic efficiency, or even the way it benefits all in a free, open and equal opportunities society, but from the values that society believes in. There are broad social benefits to a well educated citizenry. The nation is stronger economically, more open to new ideas and more open to technological change to be able to grow when it has promoted to the fullest extent the education of all its citizens. This is especially true in today's world where more than 12 years of education are needed to build a strong base for a country to grow its economy and industry. A warning is presented by the Economist magazine that as the rich pull away from the rest of society they can actually undercut the very values based solutions that are needed today. Their increased political power can restrict the tax increases needed to fund the higher education the nation deserves, that the people deserve.  Social safety nets are also reinforced and societal harmony is strengthened when everyone cooperates to help everyone.  ...

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The U.S. Agriculture Department cuts its estimate of corn crop yield per acre in the U.S. by 15.5%, as a result of the severe drought in 2012. Agriculture Secretary Vilsack, says the situation for farmers is better this time than during the last drought in 1988. Now 85% of farmers have crop insurance compared to 25% in 1988. The Agriculture Department estimate is for a 3-4% increase in prices in 2013. Capital Economics says the impact on GDP in the U.S. will be about 0.1%. Because 40% of the corn crop goes into ethanol production there is renewed debate about the 2005/2007 Renewable Fuel Standard, which requires 13.2 billion gallons of corn based biofuel be made in 2012. Worldwide the bad weather conditions in Brazil, India and Russia are worsening the outlook for food supplies. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization says global food prices increased by 6% in July 2012, with corn prices up 23%.

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Whitacre is basically blunt about his mission from the Obama adminstration when he attends meetings at the Tech Center in Warren or at the Westin Detroit Airport hotel and the San Antonio club: get GM growing again, he wants to see market share north of 20%. The Obama administration, Bloom and others are clear about the government wanting to get its $50 billion for the USA and $9 billion for Canada back as early as possible. He has told GM's Henderson he will be replaced it things don't change fast enough, and he wants product out faster, 2 year development times for new cars instead of three years today. The same message has been passed on to middle and upper middle managers in diagonal meetings. And what are readers commenting on this- and readers views matter a lot because GM has a wrong perception out there that hurts sales- a third of twelve readers said they cannot understand why young people are not moved up to run the company especially from design and engineering, one mentions Whitacre's age 70 years. A third just don't think much will change, and one says he will buy aFord. And a third says Whitacre is the guy who can shake things up and he should. ...

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Poland has a huge shortage of doctors and nurses. The ratio of doctors to every 100,000 of population is the lowest in the European Union. It is twice that in Germany whose relative success in tackling covid pandemic comes from having foreign doctors and nurses treat patients. Consider that the average age of Polish doctors is 53, only a few years from retirement. The situation in terms of immigration reminds pone of East Germany and its depopulation of young people who left for West Germany. Something like this has happened in Poland in health care.  In similar ways other countries in the EU, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania stocked up on ventilators but now have few doctors and nurses left to operate them. It is stretching the limits of human endurance as this report shows in WSJ, with doctors working 36 hour shifts and working 73 hours a week.  Here we see Dr. Rotnicki, who works these long hours at a hospital in western Poland and says that it is like the Second World War, that it is hard times in Poland for health care workers. This report says Italian and British hospitals, not just German ones, are tackling coronavirus with Polish, Hungarian and Romanian doctors and nurses. This report shows that headhunters in Germany drive in to western Poland blanketing windshields with pamphlets promising 5 times more pay, 2 years of free language classes and housing. In Slovakia a third of all nursing graduates leave the coutnry immediately after graduation. In Poland not nursing pay has lagged behind with fewer going into nursing schools. Staff remaining in the region are older and educated under communism when less English was taught, or have returned back home from years overseas. Forcing doctors to give up private practice and work in public hospitals during coronavirus pandemic is not working in Hungary, where surveys find 6 out of ten medical school graduates intending to leave Hungary. These doctors say they are better off working at Aldi and Tesco if needed and making more pay, plus getting weekends off. Poland only recently increased pay for healthcare workers, some even survived on cash given to them by patients. Not a good situation for a country to be in and reflecting the wrong priorities not just in the U.S. and western Europe, but also in eastern Europe, during the last 3 decades. These priorities shifted money away from health care, education and infrastructure priorities. The people simply lost control of their spending allocation to "financial markets" that shifted money in a way that benefited only small group in society neglecting others and national interests. ...

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The director of research at one of two cybersecurity companies that monitors disinformation used by the Senate Intelligence Committee to analyze and give reports on the Russian disinformation activities 2014-2017, shares her conclusions. Information from Facebook, Google and Twitter was turned over to the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, which in turn handed it over to the two cybersecurity companies for analysis and reports. The Russian disinformation activities have continued in 2018, according to DeResta. The domestic propagandists and actors have taken these methods and used it to target sub groups, expanding the scope of these activities. The advertising related segmentation provided by these companies gives a ready made tool to easily target subgroups in the U.S. population. The viral activity arising from this means the message is carried over to other groups. As a result many groups are affected, affecting how democracy works through vigorous, yet intelligent debate. Explicit bias happens in election campaigns yet this is not spread through anonymous sources that are not identified and whose interests are known, as in disinformation efforts in a medium that spreads information quickly and without any depth whatsoever. For some minority subgroups the effects as ubiquitous, says the report. This report concludes that it is the responsibility of government, private organizations and individuals, and the tech companies combined to tackle this, as tech companies do not have the resources to deal with it. Its not enough to adjust how you sell advertising as tech companies are doing, says the report. The whole ecosystem of information is being compromised in multiple and still not fully understood ways, making it essential that a comprehensive solution with multiple combined efforts address it effectively. ...

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Fox News leads in total viewers in 2015 with an average of 1.8 million viewers in prime time. It also leads in the 25-54 year demographic. By comparison CNN had average of 490,000 viewers, MSNBC had average of 352,000 viewers. A major problem for cable news channels is an aging demographic. The median age for most channels is over 60 years, for CNN 61, for MSNBC 63 and Fox News even older at 67 years of age. In the the crucial 25-54 year old demographic FOx News does poorly with 207,000 total day viewers, CNN does badly with 149,000 and MSNBC at 89,000, posing some serious questions for all the cable news channels in the U.S. Among news shows "O'Reilly Factor" with 2.8 million viewers was first, followed by "The Kelly File" by Megyn Kelly. News stories about Pope Francis, terrorism in France and in the U.S., provided added momentum to news channels in 2015.

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Ghosn of Renault-Nissan used to be a skeptic about electric cars. Now he is on board. Nissan plans to sell an electric car in the US and Japn by 2010. It will be only hundreds of vehicles at first so it will take more time to take it to mass market, but the goal is to go for mass market. By 2012 Nissan will plan for a lineup of electric vehicles, so it will extend beyond small cars to small minivans and small commercial vehicles and small crossovers. 100% electric cars also are described as zero emission vehicles. But Nissan won't be the only company doing this. Mercedes is moving "very fast" in the direction of emission free vehicles, see the the interview with Daimler's Zetsche. Mitsubishi Motors and Fuji Heavy Industries are testing versions of electric cars. And GM plans to introduce the Chevy Volt in 2010. Toyota plans to have a plug in hybrid about this time. Mercedes will be the first to bring a lithium oin battery in its S400 coming out later this year which will be a hybrid. It is the cooling of lithium ion batteries that has been a major hurdle to development of electric cars and Daimler's Zetsche says they have solved this problem, have 24 patents, and developed a cooling system that works inside the car. Nissan has an electric car project that it is working on with California based Project better Place to produce electric cars for the Israeli and Danish markets. Ghosn has grasped the idea that the market is signalling a major and irreversible change towards smaller emissions and regulators are way behind on this curve. He says that if one is to sensibly participate in the growth of emerging markets which Nissan is doing in North Africa and India and Eastern Europe then one has to think in terms of sustainability and lower emissions, as putting tens of millions of more cars on the road around the world can damage the environment. And the only way this can be done to meet the aspirations of people in emerging markets is to lower emissions and to set this as the overriding goal. One gets the same sense from the Germans, see Zetsche, Daimler....

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Ryan Tracy and Anthony DeBarros try to address the question of patchy internet service for America's heartland, rural areas from the prairies of Iowa to the west, and in the south and southeast. Public funds were allocated through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund for broadband service with the latest optic fiber technologies in 750,000 census blocks in all states except Alaska in the US. This was supposed to bring digital internet with fast speeds enjoyed by urban users to every American home. Instead after this and another program the Connect America program why is internet service serving some customers and not others in rural areas, with patches of areas in each rural part of a state without internet service at the speeds one should expect for streaming and other uses? This WSJ research looks at data and conducted interviews on this important issue and found that internet service providers were given public funds by the FCC yet allowed to pick customers leaving some customers out. FCC rules till 2021 did not require service for all customers equally as long as they provided service to a minimum number of locations statewide say former senior FCC officials. One senior former FFC official says it is not surprising that companies made the decision to do the bare minimum required.  In Heavener, Oklahoma this meant that during the pandemic and lockdown when schools were closed the lack of good internet service affected learning from home. Many students could not get online from home. In 2021 another effort was made. This time funds will not go through the FCC but through the states. The Biden $1 trillion infrastructure spending for workers and families includes $42.5 billion for a rural broadband program in America. This WSJ report does useful service to America by putting the spotlight on one of the issues that divides America today the gap between the quality of life in rural vs. more affluent areas of urban America. It also shows that it is the federal bureaucracy that is at fault in this case for poor internet service in rural areas. Careful attention to this is needed so that rural America gets the attention it deserves from the prairies of Iowa to the mountains, the breadbasket of the country, and the heartland.   ...

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The step by step process Mr. Obama used to arrive at his decision to send 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. The use of charts showing the buildup at one of the last meetings, and how President Obama expressed frustration at the length of time the troops would be there, and then says "I want this curve pushed to the left," pointing to the bell curve showing buildup and withdrawal after some years. This says Baker may be the pivotal moment for the expansion of the war. What he meant was something like a fast buildup and rapid draw down. He asks Petraeus how fast the Iraq buildup for the surge took place, and Petraeus says 6 months. The option being discussed was Option 2A carefully prepared to get a30,000 troop addition approved by Defense Secretary Gates and presented to Mr Obama on November 11, 2009. What Obama said at that point was according to NYT reporter Baker's sources is - "What I'm looking for is a surge, this has to be a surge." Gates was the seasoned person in saying the right things at just the right time and not sooner in these negotiations. The process had seen alot of back and forth swings, leaks including the McChrystal report leak and the Ambassador Eikenberry report leak, and the President preferring to keep his thoughts to himself and using University of Chicago law school style analytical thinking to wade through the swamp of issues in this place called Afghanistan. With that Gates shows how that curve can be moved up and gets the President to allow for conditions at the time to be the factor for withdrawal conditions. In effect the President's analytical thinking an approaches good for a law class in the University of Chicago and potentially very unlikely to allow for agrasp of the muddied details and complexities of social, political and historical type in Afghanistan, were being applied to a crucial mind decision that would have a mind boggling impact. Had Gates served the country well? Had Mr Obama served the country well with these analytics, when a more intuitive decision based on understanding of all the conditions on the ground by talking to different people who had first hand experience in Afghnistan and Pakistan- see the links here to first hand reports- would have accomodated the peculiarities of the Afghan situation better than some charts and numbers? Speaker Pelosi and Congressman Obey had indicated lack of support among Democrats. The Budget Office had provided a cost estimate of 1 trillion dollars for 10 years. None of this appeared to matter in the final decision. NATO would supply the additional troops to get the number closer to 40,000. Gates had been the most seasoned player through years of negotiating with Congress, and he helped formulate Option 2A for 30,000. The President makes one final Professorial comment at the final meeting on November 29, 2009, after announcing his decision to support Option 2A, -"but if you don't agree with me say so now" and repeats saying "tell me now." Gates signals to Vice President Biden who inquires whether this is a Presidential order that it is one. Mullen and Petraeus say "fully support." America had by using charts numbers and law school analytical processes turned the complexities of Afghnistan into something else, but these analytics had still to be played out in the vast mountainous spaces of Afghanistan and in the homes and workplaces of America in 2010 and beyond. It is hard not to sense that something serious was lost that day. ...

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Saakashvili, the President of Georgia who was elected in 2004 has spent a lot of time in New York, as a waiter, as a student at Columbia Law School, and was elected at the age of 36, and runs an administration with a lot of 30 year olds. He says he has "American va;ues". HE also ran for election in 2004 on the platform of taking back the two ethnic Russian regions of Abhkazia and South Ossetia. Note also that the mountains near Abkhazi border the region around Sochi where Putin goes for vacation and likes to ski in the mountains and where the winter Olympics are to be held in 2014. He has also had run ins when he has talked to Putin saying he has western support for his position and has met with disdain from Putin. See th link to other articles in the New York Times about Putin's perspective on all this and how the two men share a dislike for one another which may have exacerbated Russia's response still further.

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The pro-independence party of Catalan president Arturo Mas called an election two years ahead of schedule in an effort to increase autonomy for Catalonia in relations with the central government of Spain. He failed in negotiations to reduce the tax burden for Catalonia in relations with the federal government in Madrid. Arturo Mas's party lost seats in the regional election, ending up with 50 seats compared to the 62 seats it held previously in the 135 seat regional parliament in Barcelona. Other pro independence parties gained seats. The left leaning Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya party increased its seats from 10 to 21 seats. The Partido Popular of Spain's premier Rajoy won 19 seats, up one seat from the 18 it held earlier. There is considerable questioning inside Spain about whether this issue should be brought up at a time of 25% unemployment and negotiations with the EU for loans to restore the health of Spain's banking system.

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The fiscal 2016 U.S. budget of president Obama proposes government spending at 7% or $74 billion above the caps set in a bipartisan deficit reduction deal reached in 2011. It proposes $561 billion in defense spending with an increase of $38 billion, and $530 billion in non defense spending with an increase of $37 billion. Across the board cuts known as the sequester were set in 2013 following a 2011 bipartisan budget deal plan to take $2 trillion out of the federal budget deficit over 10 years. Spending caps were set at the time and a supercommitte was setup to look for ways to trim $1.2 trillion from the federal budget. With the failure of the supercommittee the sequester went into effect until Sen. Murray (Democrat) and Sen Paul Ryan (Republican ) agreed to ease cuts through fiscal year 2015 ending in September. The Democratic president's effort is to remove the caps in 2016 to invest more in infrastructure, medical research, other strategic priorities and defense.

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The value of the gold holdings of the Swiss central bank, the Swiss National Bank, declined by 15 billion Swiss Francs ($16.6 billion) in 2013, as the price of gold declined by 28% in 2013. The loss was much more than gains of 3 billion francs in foreign currency positions and 3 billion francs in profit from sales from a fund holding troubled assets. As a result the bank will not pay dividends fro the first time since its founding in 1907. Prices declined as the Fed announced a policy of reversing its bond buying in 2013. In 2008-2012 the U.S. Fed's bond buying efforts pushed up prices of gold holdings as a hedge against inflationary risks. Signs of economic recovery in the U.S. are likely to lead to further price declines. Purchases of gold made after 2010 are now showing losses. The Russian central bank made 30% of all gold purchases since 2010 made by central banks and reported to the IMF.

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John Githongo is appointed in 2002 by Mwai Kibeki, an an anti corruption official, but his efforts only bring him grief. Kibeki is from the Kikuyu tribe, and like Jomo Kenyatta before him in the years after 1963 he is engaged in ramopnt corruption. In the intervening years between Kenyatta and Kibeki, Daniel Arap Moi from the Kalenjin speaking group of tribes aslo was engaged in enriching officials from his tribe. So Githongo, who once reported for the Economist in Kenya, concludes that the election of Odinga would have changed nothing, as he like Obama's father is a Luo, and the Luo's would have in Githongo's words have seen the election as making it "their time to eat". Its interesting to note that Obama's father was like Githongo standing up for something to his great grief that was never to be because of the lack of education among the elites and the leaders of the tribes of their true role in nationbuilding.

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Republican Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and Mitch McConnell no's and 50-50 US Senate vote, a tie on Hegseth nomination. Only a last minute change of heart by Senator Tillis gets the 50-50 tie that was broken by VP Vance's vote to get the Hegseth nomination through. Armed Services chairman Wicker in questioning in the Senate supported Hegseth as he faced tough questioning from Democrats Duckworth, Slotkin and Peters.  Wicker cited Hegseth's service in two wars in combat as a Major in Iraq and Afghanistan and the way many who had fought in these wars had struggled and overcome difficulties, the need for second chances in some situations. Other Republican senators said the position was held by others who did not have experience running large organizations. Panetta was a lawyer and Gates an academic who had CIA positions before appointment to Secretary of Defense. Perry had experience running defense supplier companies. Chuck Hagel served in combat in the Vietnam war and started his own company Vanguard Cellular and was a talk show host.   ...

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Angela Merkel left Germany dangerously dependent on Russia for energy supplies that may simply be shut off after maintenance on the Nordstream pipeline. She did even worse on China says this report in The Times that says that it leaves Germany on the hook for billions. There are $200 billion of German investments in China and German business concern is snowballing with new restrictions on operations in China and the deteriorating business sentiment. Worse the entire supply chain for solar energy and other renewable energy products to tackle climate change is dependent on Chinese components. Another failure to prepare for the future under different scenarios. And 46% of German business have supply lines that include components made in China. By grossly underestimating the risks of such dangerous dependence on Russia and on China, and ignoring warnings from the US, Merkel has hit Germany's new elected government of Scholz, Baerbock and Habeck with very serious problems that may take the next five to ten years to sort out. On energy and how to build a whole new supply chain in Asia with the US and its allies Japan, India and other countries. The ultimate irony was that Merkel felt that she was the leader of the free world, and a free world that excluded the US and India. Such is folly. And how she was presented as a good leader in the media is today hard to comprehend. ...

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President Macron announces a curfew from 9.00 pm to 6.00 am in Paris and eight other metropolitan regions of France covering about a third of the population. The cities are in addition to Paris region, Grenoble, Lille, Lyon, Marseille, Montpellier, Saint Etienne, Rouen, Toulouse.  Macron said "we have to act now." The president called for bringing the daily cases which have reached a high of 27,000 by October 14 to about 3000 or 5000. About 1600 of the 5000 ICU beds in France are now taken for coronavirus cases and the curfew is an effort to keep the numbers from jumping as they did in March  and April 2020. To do this he said: "we won't be leaving the restaurant after 9.00 pm and we won't be partying with friends because we know that that's where the contamination risk is greatest." Macron made it clear that scientists are all in agreement on the pandemic continuing till the summer of 2021. He urged people to limit gatherings at home to 6 people and wear masks.  Financial support will be given to people affected by the curfew in the hospitality industry.  Anyone found outdoors after 9.00 pm will be fined 135 euros and 10 times that for repeat offences.  ...

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About 105,000 airings of ads on immigration making up 42% of all Republican ads in battleground states are on the Immigration issue since Harris became candidate July 22, according to WSJ analysis. WSJ polling shows 59% of respondents favored the bipartisan Senate deal negotiated by Republican Senator Lankford with Biden which Trump rejected in February. This deal would have effectively closed the Border, added Border Patrol resources, and would have passed says Lankford in NYT if it came only 3 months earlier in December 2024 before Mr. Trump won the primaries. Mr. Trump rejected the deal preferring to run on it, leading to action by Biden to do this with executive orders and cut illegal entry. This means less advertising for discussing the Economy and less for Inflation, which is the top issue says WSJ polling, immigration coming in second.   WSJ cites the Congressional Budget Office on the number of legal migration in the Biden term as 4.5 million, and illegal entry at 4.5 million. Instead the Trump-Vance Republican campaign is using the figure over 4 times that for illegal migration of 20 million without saying why and makes less distinction between legal and illegal entry, says WSJ. And makes statements that economists say is not the case that this will solve the housing supply and cost crisis, and other cost of living pressures. ...

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Borchers of the Washington Post reflects on why president Trump gave the long rambling interview in July 2017 to the NYT.  President Trump has  called the NYT both "failing" and "a crown jewel." He particularly respects the reporter Maggie Haberman, a reporter with whom Trump has a long relationship and whose reporting he respects. Haberman is seen by Trump as an influential political reporter, whose view counts, and who can be critical but also seeks to be fair in reporting. During the election campaign the NYT carried reporting critical of Trump, yet it also had reporters who were critical of Hillary Clinton. In many ways both the NYT and the WSJ from different points of view seek a place in the middle with fair reporting, needed particularly in today's politics where ideology sometimes trumps common sense and U.S. traditions of fairness.