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The Trump administration goes ahead with new tariffs of 15% on apparel, some electronics and consumer products from China. This is a new set of tariffs imposed in September 2019 as talks have stalled between the two countries.

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This Guardian report provides a timeline for lunar exploration. The last Apollo Moon missions date back to 1972 with Apollo 17. It lasted 12 days with the first crewed space flight to the moon taking Schmitt and Cernan to moon's surface while Evans orbited above. Since then it has been quiet for lunar exploration till Chang'e 3 lander and rover from China in 2011 put China on the moon, followed by Chang'e 5 in 2020. Today August 23, 2023 India puts its own moon lander and rover on the South Pole of the moon which is expected to have water.

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British prime minister Starmer has introduced new legislation to "smash the gangs" that have people smuggling networks and made 150,000 illegal small boat crossings into the UK since 2018. Small boat crossings have started in 2025 with more people packed into small dinghies and 1098 making the crossing in January 2025.

The bill includes counterterorism powers to Border Force, police, National Crime Agency to target gangs. 

Migrants at sea in the Channel who refuse rescue by the French will face five years in prison as part of a new set of offences inthe bill- The Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill.

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The success of India's Mangalayan mission to send a spacecraft to Mars in 2014. The project's key achievement is to have accomplished this at a cost of only $74 million. By contrast a U.S. mission cost $671 million. A 33 pound payload of small sensors in a 3000 pound spacecraft was propelled into orbit by a small rocket.

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Frenchman Christophe Weber, 47, is head of Glaxo's vaccine business. He is the next CEO of Japanese pharmaceutical manufacturer Takeda Pharmaceutical Company. He will succeed President Yasuchika Hasegawa. Weber will join Takeda in April as chief operating officer and become president in June 2014. Hasegawa will continue as interim CEO for one year and Weber is expected to succeed Hasegawa, 67, at that point. Hasegawa has run the company for 10 years. During this period Takeda has expanded internationally. Takeda acquired Swiss drug company Nycomed in 2011. Executives were hired from western companies. Francois-Xavier Roger, of Luxembourg's Millicom International Cellular SA was made the chief financial officer, and Phillip Duncan of Novartis joined as chief procurement officer. Hasegawa sees new talent from western companies as useful in penetrating emerging markets. Weber also headed Glaxo's Asia/Pacific operations. Hasegawa told a news confernece: "We're no longer in an age where decisions are based on whether a person is Japanese or foreign." ...

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A $100 billion infrastructure project to create a high tech manufacturing and freight corridor between New Delhi and Mumbai with a third of the money coming from Japanese public and private money will be announced this week during Japanese Prime Minister Abe's visit to India this week. Japanese investment in India is expected to rise from $515 million in 2006 to $5.5 billion in 2011. Lack of infrastructure has been a key constraint to investment in Indian manufacturing and this project hopes to address this problem. This would include airports, ports, and a high speed freignt line for the 1500 kilometres between New Delhi and Mumbai. CEO's from companies such as Toyota, Mitsubishi, Canon, Hitachi have joine a new Japan-India business leader forum. Toyota plans to increase manufacturing capacity to 600,000 in India by 2015. Japan played a major role in the rapid modernization of Korea, China, and now is likely to do so in India as well.

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Robert Lighthizer was one of the early voices on unfair and imbalanced trade with other nations subsidizing their industry at the expense of American jobs in manufacturing long before DJT took up the issue in 2015-2016. Lighthizer as US Trade Representative negotiated the new USMCA that replaced NAFTA agreement for North American trade with Mexico and Canada. 

Lighthizer was seeking a larger role than USTR, either Commerce or Treasury, yet he was reluctant to campaign for this or go to Mar-a-Lago to make his case. As a result says WSJ, he was passed over as Luttnick and Bessent tried to get DJT's attention. Another reason he was passed over is that DJT is  sees the continuing flow of fentanyl and the migrant flows from Mexico, the sourcing from China, as serious issues that require using trade as part of the solution by 2024 if Mexico, Canada and China do not cooperate and hurt US interests.

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A serious problem for higher education, for universities and colleges in the US is the failure to focus on reducing cost. It costs $120,000 for a 4 year education at Michigan State University.Tution fees for one year have gone from about $10,000 to $20,000 over 12 years 2012- 2024 for state universities. Another priority should be reading comprehension as shown in Lyrarc's Movement for Global Literacy. This opinion piece describes the problems with colleges and universities further aggravating the fragmentation of the electorate into college educated and non college educated, with focus on theories of race and history when it should be focused on cost that makes it unaffordable to the vast majority of Americans. Priorities are misplaced and do not reflect the need to give good reading and math skills beyond high school in an advanced country where by 2010 about half the young population lacked reading comprehension in the ACT tests going further downhill since then. ...

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Renault's low cost entry cars which were originally designed with emerging markets in mind, are now popular in France and other countries in Europe. Renault gets 30% of its market share, up from 15% in 2006, from low cost cars like the Logan, which cost conscious buyers buy for around $10,000, instead of buying a used car. This has helped Renault at a time when other segments are not doing so well, and when Peugeot had to arrrange a 1 billion euro emergency capital increase. The profit margin on these low cost cars is 6%, compared to 2-3% profit margin on other Renault models. Renault manufactures the cars under the Renault label or the Dacia lavel depending on where they are sold, and uses a factory in Romania. Renault's model is to set the margin first and then ask suppliers such as LG and others to try to come up with a low cost design that meets its margin requirement. This eliminates features that add cost and may be dispensed with for the customer in mind. It requires a fresh approach. Cutting edge is replaced by working with parts designed for older models that cost less. Renault also used the experience gained in the Romanian factory where some of the tasks are done manually instead of using robots, and waste is reduced. The process has taken time because the Dacia Romanian factory was acquired under a previous CEO Louis Schweitzer in the late 1990's, and the first Dacia Logan was made in the Romanian factory at Pitesti, near Bucharest, in 2004. The reliability of the Dacia made cars is well established, say experts. On the sales side the Logan is sold on a no discount basis with fixed price. Dealers are told no discounts are permitted. Total sales of these cars reached 814,000 in 2011 and are expected to cross 1 million in 2012. This is similiar to the achievement of Toyota with its low cost multipurpose vehicles for emerging markets, which is expected to cross 1 million in 2012. The difference is that Renault has achieved this with European buyers in a bold strategy. Tata Motors which pioneered the effort to build low cost small cars with its $2000 vehicle is planning its own entry in Europe, the Pixel as a low cost city-car in European markets in 2015. And Renault is moving further down in cost than the Logan, as its next step, with such a car manufactured in India by Nissan-Renault and regional partners....

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This report of the Al Smith dinner event in October 2016 with Clinton and Trump both attending is useful as a contrast to the one in 2024. During 2016 Hillary Clinton did not quite grasp the effect of calling half her opponent's base "a basket of deplorables." At the Al Smith event dinner she called the audience " a basket of adorables" only reminding the audience and press coverage of how she had misspoken with lack of respect for the workers and families supporting her opponent. 

During the Al Smith dinner in which the younger Bush spoke in 2000 he said about the audience "these are the haves and have mores, this is what they call the elite, this is my base." Bush coming off as accepting it for what it is.

Kamala Harris in her video skit focused on her message, something missing in Hillary Clinton's speech. 

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Roubini at NYU and Rosenberg at Merrill Lynch see serious damage this time- prolonged and serious downturn. Roubini sees the auto loans and credit cards next as another bubble unraveling. The consumer may have already been affected and the effects there may be serious and lasting in 2008 and 2009. Exports may not boost manufacturing that much as to make up for the severe impact of a number of things-tight credit, consumer spending declines, housing bust, and escalating oil prices. The losses from the housing and mortgage bubble has been estimated at around $400 billion, Roubini thinks that the figures approaching $100 billion that the candidates are saying they would stimulate the economy by are nowhere near the $300-$400 billion needed and the government cannot afford that magnitude of stimulus. Experts are saying that the losses of firms are not revealed as firms are not saying much, and there is a lot more to come which will act as a further drag on growth. Roubini thinks this one will be severe and a recovery may not be in the works to 2010 or 2011. Some stimulus after the election and rate cuts may just make it appear that things may reverse themselves, but there is just too much going on. The consumer has human feet that are bound to falter at some point with all this burden stacked onto him....

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Hard liners in the Iranian parliament include Hamid Rasaee and Ali Taheri, and other members from the days of president Ahamdinejad. In the media this includes Hosssein Shariatmadari, editor of newspaper Kayhan. They oppose any concessions in nuclear negotiations by Javad Zarif, Iran's foreign minister, and any cooperation with the U.S. on issues related to Syria and Iraq. As negotiations face another deadline of March 25, 2015, Israel and the U.S. Congress are pushing for a ratcheting up of sanctions, while the Obama administration seeks more time to complete negotiations. Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Khamanei has urged conservative critics to avoid discussion of negotiations, also setting low expectations for settlement.

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In 2000 student debt in the U.S. was at $200 billion. In 2010 student debt at 1 trillion dollars will surpass credit card debt. Student debt is now become a serious macroeconomic factor. Budget cuts will also increase the level of student debt as fewer grants are available and tution goes up. It is expected to shape when young people can afford to buy a home, start a family, or save for their kids education. This would have serious economic implications for the future.

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Did Kirsten Tatlow points out the different perceptions of China's anti-corruption initiative in a country with deeply rooted corruption. China's ranking dropped to 104th of 175 countries ranked for corruption in Transparency International's Corruption Index for 2014. The current campaign under Xi Jinping is lacking because it is partial, opaque and politically driven say researchers at Transparency International. For it to be effective it has to be done in a transparent manner, and with stronger laws for bribery, whistleblower protection, asset declarations, according to the researchers. China dropped 20 places since 2013. China's score declined by 4 points to 36. Denmark is highest at 92. Turkey dropped by 5 points. Norway, Finland, Sweden and New Zealand, are at the top of the list. Transparency International points out that free speech, accountable government an independent judiciary are essential to tackle corruption. These are not sufficient however as the example of India shows. A culture of corruption or lack of transparency and effective laws can enable corruption to grow even in countries with genuine democratic process. Democratic process does provides remedies through a change in administration as happened in India with the decisive defeat of the corruption scandal affected Congress government....

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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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According to the U.S. Labor Department the average private sector work week went up from 33.7 hours during the recession to 34.3 in July 2011. UBS Securities estimates every one tenth of an hour increase in the workweek is equivalent to 320,000 jobs.

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India's new Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Dipak Misra, comes from the state of Orissa in eastern India. He was on the bench on several important cases included a Dec 16, 2016 gang rape case in New Delhi, and reflected popular sentiment in that case about the dangers to civilized society in the decision.

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Lally Weymouth's interview in October 2013 with Tony Abbott, prime minister of Australia.

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John Taylor, says Obama and Alan Krueger (Obama's new head of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisors), said some of the same things in early September, 2011, that were part of Obama's old plan to revive the U.S. economy. And the old plan has failed to produce results. The part that puts construction crews to work on the roads, railways and airports was tried earlier in the stimulus plan. Because of a lack of showel ready projects, and the state governments putting most of the money in their state coffers, this only increased infrastructure by a miniscule 0.05 percent of GDP, according to research by Taylor and John Cogan. Taylor's sees the moves by the Obama administration and the Bernanke Fed as not only being ineffective, but having the opposite effect of lowering investment and consumption demand through increased concerns about the federal debt, another financial crisis or the risk of inflation or deflation. The U.S. private sector has the money to make the investments that create jobs but their concerns have led to holding back. Taylor points to the need for a comprehensive economic strategy to replace these temporary interventions. The debt limit agreement of 2011 is a part of this strategy, and he agrees with reducing spending in a gradual way in a weak economy. The other parts of this strategy he says are entitlement reform, tax reform, regulatory reform, monetary reform, including a reappraisal of the role of government in the economy. This should lead to a more stable and predictable economic environment and reduced uncertainty about the future, which is critical to improving supply and demand....

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House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan said in remarks at a breakfast hosted by the Wall Street Journal- he would submit a budget plan that would balance the budget in 10 years by cutting government spending and without raising tax revenues. This comes before the House vote to suspend the debt ceiling till May 18, 2013, giving more time for deficit negotiations. Ryan said: "Hopefully, people can come together to agree on getting a down payment on the debt crisis."

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After the failure of its venture with Redi-Clinic , which put its clinics business in reverse, Walmart is rebuilding this business. In 2008 Walmart talked of having 400 clinics by 2010. But of the 78 that were running in 2008, all but 17 closed. Now Walmart is partnering with Hospitals. And Redi-Clinic is doing the same. Walmart now has 33 clinics, with 26 having a hospital affiliation.