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Gerson describes Obama's failure to connect in 2012, compared to the 2008 campaign. What is left is more of the politician from the South Side of Chicago, the idealism of an earlier campaign is gone. What is left is a supposed ruthlessness that is opportunistic at every turn, says Gerson.

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The median income in the US in 2024 is where it was in 2019 before the pandemic at about $83,000 with the upper 10% of the population making about $200,000 having a 5% increase. Median income means 50% of the US population makes above $83,000 and 50% below that. In 2024 compared to 2023 slight increase of about 4% for men compared to women, no change for white households, a drop of 3% for Black households, gains of 5% for Hispanic and Asian households, Census Bureau Report shows.

Overall cost of living prices at grocery stores, for automobiles, and housing rental, is what is impacting people the most and has left people in the lower half of the population with considerable anxieties about making ends meet. At $100,000-$150,000 incomes in the upper third of the population there is saving for colleges that have costs going through the roof and cost of child care that is causing anxiety.

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China needs to reduce excessive liquidity and let the yuan rise to cope with a developing asset price bubble.

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A look at Israel at 70 by the Economist magazine shows a country that has combined early achievements of socialist governments such as free health care system and good education system with the addition of 1 million immigrants from the collapsing Soviet Union, to build a highly trained technically skilled workforce and international companies.  It says the Israeli Arabs are still poor and unable to integrate. With ultra Orthodox Jews they make up 30% of the population, and many of them who do not work. Infrastructure has suffered from lack of investment and public transport is in poor condition. About 4.5 million Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza remain a continuous source of tension with no settlement in sight. The shift of the capital to Jerusalem is recognized by the U.S. Trump administration, a win for Israel, but leaving the divisive politics of Mr. Netanyahu in place. So that with the growing economy, there are social problems and political division which need to be addressed as much as the economy. A problem left for another administration, another leader from possibly a revived Labor party and another day. ...

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What is Antifa. during the protests this term keeps coming up, yet no one is really sure what it is.  It started in Germany in the 1920's and basically means anti-fascist or in German antifaschistisch. Most Germany parties from the SPD, CDU and the Greens to other parties accept this as a point of view considering Germany's Nazi past.  Yet DW.com asks is it only referring to all those opposed to fascism in Germany or to black clad anarchists and leftists facing police on German streets. The last such confrontation with police happened in Germany in Hamburg during the 2017 G20 summit. A famous scene from that time is pictured in DW.com. There the meaning becomes complex as the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) adopted the phrase and the disinctinve two flag logo for the 1932 election campaign, in Weimar Germany's last free election, which the Nazis could not win fully but with the left parties split emerged as winner. After the formation of the GDR, the German Democratic Republic in East Germany, the interwar KPD party veterans like Walter Ulbricht came to power in GDR. GDR became part of the Soviet bloc countries during the Cold War and used antifascist in a way that was synonymous with anticapitalism. This same movement then langusihed in the Germany of the early post war years under Cologne's former mayor, Korad Adenauer. In the 1970's and 1980's the left movement revived in Hamburg and Berlin, coalescing with a antinuclear movement and widespread protests against president Reagan's stationing of nuclear missiles on German soil aimed at the Soviet Union bloc. After the reunification the protests against coal, for climate change action, and for anti-globalization. There is even an overlap with anti-Zionism. Germany's internal intelligence agency says the antifa movement is the "main field of agitation" for autonomous leftist groups, with some groups supporting "militant actions." Yet when there are broad uncontroversial protests there can be people from all walks of life, not just the anarchist or far left groups.  So that the protests in the U.S. were met with comments of antifa - Saskia Esken of the SPD saying "58 and atifa. Obviously." To which the General Secretary of the CDU said "Against fascism, and for democracy and human rights. Without violence. Obviously, for me. It's sad that the chairwoman of the SPD lacks the strength to differentiate."  To which Esken says it is only a point of view that antifa refers to, not some action. To which the the youth organization of the Angela Merkel CDU/CSU alliance the Junge Union (founded 1947) replied: " 73 and appalled" getting the final word.  Search for a dictionary and you are left with no clear meaning either. DW.com says Germany's duden dictionary only says antifa refers to the " entirety of the movements and ideologies, which oppose fascism and national socialism."    ...

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Boris Johnson was never for austerity and says this in his new book, yet he failed to make the major investments in the British economy in the way Biden has done in the US, and in some ways has left Labor's Starmer with difficult decisions with the strained budget finances of Britain. Of the investments he protected from John Osborne and his austerity plans as chancellor under Cameron Boris Johnson says- “Those big investments – Crossrail, the Olympic site, the Westfield Centre at Shepherd’s Bush – were fortuitously timed for London: vast counter-cyclical programmes that kept the spades going into the ground and people in work.” This was as Mayor of London in 2016. Of Osborne and Cameron so little is left, and so little came out of the period of austerity other than the failed investments Britain failed to make, simply a lost decade for Britain. And the diversion of Brexit under Johnson not taking Britain to a good place for the standard of living of the British people. Of the intraparty conflicts in the Tories he says Sunak's resignation as chancellor should never have happened calling it "worse than a crime," and a mistake for Sunak, the party, and the country. Johnson says that many days as PM he would come back to No.10 flat, exhausted and working into the evening when he should have been talking to colleagues, MP's to keep them all together. After Sunak's resignation from Boris Johnson's cabinet the Tory Conservatives split further apart, this time in the Boris Johnson faction of the party. Sunak's elevation to prime minister was short lived ending up with the Tories going downhill from there.  On the singular goal that led to the splits- that of Brexit- Johnson has little more to say than that in his travels he had found people wanted more Britain. ...

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It is true carrots are good for eyesight and to prevent macular degeneration. Sunglasses help prevent ultraviolet rays from affecting the eyes. Reading without taking your eyes off the page is not conducive to good eye health- take time out every 20 minutes to look outside for at least 20 seconds. It is a good idea to relax the eyes by looking at Nature, what is good for mental health is also good for the eyes. Move the eyes to the left the right and draw large imaginary visualization circles with the eyes, large squares, for 30 seconds as away to exercize the eyes. Closing the eyes and concentrating on an imaginary visualization candle is a form of meditation that is also good for resting the eyes. 

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The French British collaboration effort will bring a new vaccine to the global effort against coronavirus. This vaccine was expected in February 21. It will be ready by the third quarter of 2021 just as vaccine supplies are being ramped up. The Sanofi Pasteur unit and GSK Glaxo SmithKline are the two companies in this vaccine venture. This vaccine will address the problem of new mutations of the virus in the British and South African versions and can be stored at normal temperatures. 
 

The new vaccines will boost supplies just when the situation is bleak for vaccine supplies in Latin America and Africa, South East Asia, places left out in the vaccine race in advanced countries and in India. Britain has ordered 60 million doses. 

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Jake Sullivan cites JFK and what this means for the vision that "the Biden Administration must and will fight to achieve." Here at the Brookings Institution Jake Sullivan articulates Biden's vision for America and the Way Forward. "Let me close with this. President Kennedy was fond of saying that a rising tide lifts all boats. Over the years, advocates of trickle-down economics appropriated this phrase for their own uses. But President Kennedy wasn't saying what's good for the wealthy is good for the working class. He was saying, we're all in this together. And look at what he said next. If one section of the country is standing still, then sooner or later, a dropping tide drops all boats. That's true for our country. That's true for our world. Economically, over time, we are going to rise or fall together. And that goes for the strength of our democracies, as well as for the strength of our economies. As we pursue this strategy at home and abroad, there will be reasonable debate. And this is going to take time. The international order that emerged after the end of the Second World War and then the Cold War were not built overnight. Neither will this one. But together, we can work to lift up all of America's people, communities, and industries. And we can do the same with our friends and partners everywhere around the globe as well. This is a vision the Biden administration must and will fight to achieve." "This is what is guiding us as we make our policy decisions at the intersection of economics, national security, and democracy. And this is the work that we will do, not just as a government, but with every element of the United States and with the support and help of partners, both in government and out of government around the world." ...

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 After a landslide win in the recent election with 56% of the vote, Gabriel Boric, 36 years, will work for a fair deal for ordinary Chileans. His win comes after years of street protests calling for a fair deal including pensions, transport services, and better income distribution. The protests called for writing a new constitution to replace the one written by dictator Pinochet. Chile has grown increasingly polarized with younger generation favoring change and fairness and many of the older generation favoring the system left by dictator Pinochet.

Chile is described as an economic success story but it is a highly unequal society with 1% of the people owning 25% of the wealth, and about half of the people seen as economically vulnerable, says this report in The Guardian.

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

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Preliminary results show the SPD Social Democrats leading in Germany. The SPD had 25.7% of the vote, ahead of Merkel's CDU at 24.1%. This is the worst showing for the CDU in German elections. The environmentalist Greens Party came in at 14.8% of the vote. The pro-business FDP Free Democrats came in at 11.5%, the far right AfD at 10.3%, and the socialist Left party at 4.9%. Parties calling for big infrastructure investments in Germany with tax increases emerged as big winners reflecting the public mood in Germany after CDU led coalitions with SPD for the last eight years focused on the eurozone crisis and opened migration into Germany, while neglecting much needed investment in broken infrastructure. Both the SPD and Greens are calling for big investments and taking on additional borrowing to do so. They now have a combined 42% of the vote, and 47% when combined with the socialist Left. The Afd with 10% remains mainly a fringe party - and primarily a result of Merkel's decision to open migration from war torn Arab countries which she later reversed, and from from the CDU's failure to tackle social and economic problems of eastern Germany.    ...

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Macron faces parliamentary deadlock in France after efforts to pass legislation on a bill by bill basis and use of an unpopular mechanism to ram laws through without a vote. This led to months of street protests for a law that increased the age for pensions. These moves by Macron have now left the government with no way ahead except by talking to opposition leaders. The US is making major policy changes under Biden and expanding its economy, Germany under the Schultz government is following similar policies, Britain looks to major changes under Keir Starmer's Labor party, in France the rest of Macron's term appears headed for a period when no constructive changes can take place in the economic and social condition of France.

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Paul Tough's detailed and vivid account of the problems in Chicago's South Side in 1987 when Obama worked there as acommunity activist, in 2007 when Obama visited the area and expressed his vision about what was needed for the Roseland section, and in 2012 when Tough visits Roseland to document life today in this part of Chicago. He sees the same problems and a need for an all round approach to help kids of parents without work living below the poverty line to provide not just financial help but the kind of support and institutional help that would help them overcome the disabling effects of growing up in broken homes and counteract the destructive effects of a poor environment surrounding them. He left Roseland with a feeling that the President has not pushed hard to accomplish much of what he started out to do and let opportunities slip by.

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What is it like in Fushun, China? A city of 1.7 million in northern China it was a city that led in China's revolution against feudal regime and colonial occupation, and in cutting the birth rate. It is similar in size to Detroit, yet has only 5000 births compared to 20,000 in Detroit. Signs of aging are everywhere in Fushun as China's birthrate drops below 1.  For population to remain stable birthrate has to be 2.1. It is 0.7 in Fushun.

In Fushun most refineries and coal mines are closed. A third of the population is over 60 years old and half of the young people have left the city. In 10 years half of the population will be 60 years old. 

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Mr. Trump trashes the state of Florida and calls it "a dump" says the Editorial Board of WSJ, because of personal interest as the 2024 primaries come closer. "The real DeSantis record is one of misery and despair. He has left a wake of destruction all across Florida," is the quote from a spokesman, in a statement issued by Mr. Trump. WSJ says that is not how Floridans saw it when DeSantis was elected with 59.4% of the vote. It says Florida is a model of successful Republican governance and Republicans should be citing it as a role model, not "a dump."

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A small group of advisers and Macon including Nicholas Sarkozy of the Les Republicains voted to have new elections. Les Republicains governed France under presidents De Gaulle and some of De Gaulle administration members Pompidou, Giscard and Sarkozy. Sarkozy was seen as aloof and was succeeded by the Socialist party's Francois Hollande. At that point in 2017 at the end of Hollande's term the Socialists failed to take up working class families issues, and it marked the beginning of the National Rally of Jean and Marine Le Pen gaining worker support. Macron was a minister in the Hollande government who detected an opportunity in the loss of support for both Sarkozy's Les Republicains and Hollande's Socialists. He set up his own movement for renewal of France saying France needed newer people than the old administrations and got an infusion of support from young people. Yet Macron lacked a specific program to get back the voter support of working class families as he implemented policy on climate without addressing concerns of cost of living leading to yellow vest protests. He was reelected im a close election with a challenge from National Rally 58% to 42% in second round after having only 5% point margin over Le Pen in first round, with help from the left vote. Macron spent the first two years of second term fighting the unions and labor over pension reform, when his measures failed to pass the Assembly he used executive action. As a result support in small towns and other parts of France has shifted to National Rally, with the immigration issue adding to support and young people frustrated by Macron not tackling key issues of working class people decided to shift to the National Rally and to Melenchon left party, and to Socialist parties. As Macron is closely allied with Les Republicains ideology he is looking for away to rebuild the LR and his EN Marche as an alternative in 2027 presidential elections. ...

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Donald Trump is acquitted in the second impeachment trial with a vote in the Senate of 53 in favor to 47 against. A two thirds majority is required to impeach a president. Senators Burr of North Carolina and Cassidy of Louisiana were Republicans who joined the expected ones to vote for impeachment- the Republicans Mitt Romney of Utah, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. The Republican defense lawyer insisted that Trump's speech to his supporters was not an intention to incite them on the day of the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021 but an expression of his rights to free speech guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution First Amendment. He made the point that the prosecution lawyers had selectively focused attention on the words "fight like hell" and taken them out of the entire context in which they were made, ignoring key parts of Mr. Trump's speech. The defense argued that the president had already left office and this made an impeachment unconstitutional. Seventy five million voters voted for Mr. Trump and he cited this as the most number of votes won by a sitting president. President Biden is shifting his attention to the president's agenda and needs Republican support to pass key legislation including financial help to households, unemployed, and business to recover from the pandemic. The U.S. health effort behind the vaccination drive and seeing the struggle in Europe to access key medical supplies of vaccine is also leading to new efforts to move beyond the rhetoric to the hard work ahead with support of all parties. As part of this the trial once it reached the Senate was quickly resolved in about 5 days. The defense used only a small fraction of the time allotted with bipartisan effort to not let the trial drag on, bipartisan effort to putting some statements simply on the record and not calling witnesses.   ...

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Stephen Harper's Conservative party won 167 of the 308 seats in Canada's House of Commons, the NDP won 102 seats, the Liberals 34 seats and the Bloc Quebecois 2 seats. Harper gave indications of how he would govern by saying that he would stay on the same path the Conservatives followed when they were a minority party. He said there would be no changes to Canada's public health care system. He told a news conference in Calgary, Alberta: "Even as a majority you have to, on an ongoing basis, keep the trust of the population." The Conservatives won only 40% of the popular vote, and this may be a reason for the caution in making major changes. The Conservatives maintained their base in western Canada, and gained seats in Ontario. The gains in and around Toronto, came because the left-of-center vote was split between the Liberals and the NDP. Experts say Harper will shut down a disputed registry for rifles, end direct government subsidies of political parties, and maintain scheduled corporate tax cuts. The Conservative government is also expected not take any significant steps to cut greenhouse gas emissions that are opposed by the oil and gas industries in western Canada. ...

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President Xi's struggle to bring 43 million people out of extreme poverty in China in 3 years as shown in this BBC video. Xi Jinping's focus is on the people left out in the boom years in which the wealth gap expanded to astounding levels and many were left behind. Communist era society under Mao went for leveling up after the 20's and 30' capitalism under the Nationalists. Then came the Japanese invasion in 1931 and chaos out of which Mao built Communist China by 1947. The years with the Nixon opening in 1971 led to another experiment with capitalism to modernize China under Deng and Jiang Zemin in the 80's and 90's to this day after the experiment under Mao had collapsed by 1976. This led to a fading away of the Communist Party's ethos and reason for existence till its revival under Xi Jinping. For Jinping the efforts to guide China's progress started by Deng appeared to derail with the widening wealth and inequality gaps in China, the sense of corruption and misuse of power at local levels that people could see, and the gradual sense in America that the experiment of outsourcing manufacturing and jobs to China was failing for Americans. From 2013 to 2017 a complete rethinking was underway which shaped Jinping's ideas for the future for China. Some of it may be still underway after the realization that Russia and China had diverging views of the world also, following China's sense that the prolonged war in Ukraine affecting its relations with the European Union does not help a country such as China as a middle income country with large pockets of poverty. Russia was seen as a non colonial power in the Soviet era yet it was a major part of the western colonial powers that suppressed the first revolution for an independent China in 1901.   ...

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This report on Venezuela in the NYT cites the IMF to say that the Venezuela currency is almost worthless today with hyperinflation of 1 million percent. An article in the Washington Post confirms this that the IMF first predicted 13,000 percent but now has corrected this to say yes, 1 million percent. Three million refugees are said to have left the country because of severe shortages, and another 5 million expected to leave in 2019.

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This editorial in the WSJ says the Breitbart News site or its founder Steve Bannon is unlikely to influence the State of the Union address, that its influence is overestimated. It also says that it should be kept under a watchful and vigilant eye, that this is in the interests of the Republican party, and says it hopes Vince Preibus, chief of staff, understands this. It basically says that this type of fringe politics, on the right or the left, has no place in American politics. It sees this as one of Mr. Trump's obligations to the American people.

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Abdulrazak Gurnah, a native of Zanzibar and Tanzania writing in English wins the 2021 Nobel Prize for Literature. His prose has inflections of Arabic, Swahili and German. He left Zanzibar at age 18 years after a violent uprising in 1964. In "Admiring Silence" he reflects on the experience of migrant refugees caught betwen two cultures and remaining silent about their true feelings. The prize is given at a time of migrants reaching Europe in large numbers from Africa and the Arab countries of North Africa to Germany.

The chair of the Nobel Committee Anders Olsson says about Gurnah- "He ha consistently and with great compassion penetrated the effects of colonialism in East Africa, and its effects on the lives of uprooted and migrating individuals."

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This marks the end of an era in which British Empire based journalists and media barons such as Beaverbrook and Murdoch were able to unduly influence events in the world. The period from 1915 to 2020 was one in which the British Empire and the USA  were dominant in the world. News Corporation will be run by Lachlan Murdoch who is the CEO as his father Mr. Rupert Murdoch has resigned his roles at the company. He remains as chairman emeritus at age 92. This marks the end of an era for a son of journalist Keith Murdoch who gained prominence in Australia evading censors and  covering a disastrous campaign in World War I, the invasion of Turkey by British forces in which 8000 Australian soldiers were killed, 20,000 wounded, about half of the Australian force before evacuation on Dec. 20, 1915. It could be said that Rupert's father Keith Murdoch left with his reputation intact in the British Empire after building the Australian newspaper business that his son Rupert inherited. Rupert introduced new technology and set up Sky News in Britain and Fox News television channel in the US. A large legal settlement for improper coverage of election machinery in US 2020 presidential election leaves his media business with a diminished reputation as Lachlan inherits it compared to the reputation left by Keith Murdoch in standing up to British authorites in the First war for staggering losses suffered by Australia. Rupert Murdoch tried to innovate with an aggregation news site for internet news Knewz to achieve some of what Keith Murdoch had achieved. This venture did not get the resources or ideas it deserved and failed. Apple News has started its aggregation site years later in 2020 with human  selection for aggregation following Lyrarc.com which started in 2010.  ...