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Van Dam says its not that great being a worker in the U.S. because it is hard for the unemployed resulting from competing with workers in other countries with lower wages, and for those who are unemployed harder because worker collective bargaining is weakened over 3 decades. He cites a 296 page OECD report showing very little government support for unemployed and at risk American workers. It says this has contributed to higher income inequality and larger share of lower income people than almost any other advanced a nation. Only Spain and Greece are shown as having more households earning less than half the median income- showing large numbers of people are poor or close to being poor. In the U.S. an average of 1 in 5 lose their jobs each year, and 23% of workers 15 to 64 are in their job less than a year in 2016. The job churn hurts workers because of firing and layoffs being frequent, more than is healthy for a economy. The U.S. and Mexico are the only two countries not requiring advance notice before firings. And fewer than half of workers find a job within a year in the U.S. Two in three families with a displaced worker fall in poverty for some time. Unemployed workers with typically 26 weeks support get less support than any other country in the study. Only 12% of workers in U.S. are covered by collective bargaining. ...

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Friedman points to the parallel between the democracy movements in Eastern Europe and the Arab World, and sees one difference. Whereas the countries in Eastern Europe were mostly homogenous except for Yugoslavia, the countries in the Arab world are homogenous only in Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco. Which makes the transition to democracy that much harder with sectarian interests, the Sunni-Shiite divide, tribal differences, and the lack of a transition period for building democratic institutions. This will require vision, leadership and perseverance from Arab peoples and from the outside world.

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One of the opportunities of this pandemic is that it offers a chance to think anew and act anew. Where in Lincoln's words "the dogmas of the past are inadequate for the stormy present, as our case is new we must think anew and act anew." Here Vladimir Putin offers his assessment of how the pandemic calls for a fresh approach to reviving De Gaulle and other postwar European leaders vision of Europe that spanned the entire continent culturally including Russia. He accepts mistakes have been made by all sides and the title of the article by Putin is "Be Open, Despite the Past." The Russian Embassy in Germany contacted De Zeit for publication of an article by Putin, and it can be seen as part of the Russian response to president Biden's effort to build a new cooperative relationship with Russia that is in the best interests of the US, Russia, Germany, the European Union and also of India which has a cooperative relationship with Russia. There is the danger that it could be seen as reported in The Times of London and comments posted seeing it against distrust built around Ukraine and Eastern Europe. The 670 Comments in Germany on De Zeit site on the article reflect a more German perspective of being a close neighbor that suffered so much from the war that left millions dead on both sides. One German commenter says his father and grandfather were forcibly recruited to fight in France and Russia and suffered much in wartime. The occasion is the 80th anniversary of the German invasion of Russia in World War II. Some of what Putin has to say- "We hoped that the end of the Cold War would mean victory for all of Europe. It would not be long before Charles De Gaulle's vision of a unified continent would become a reality, more culturally and civilizationally from Lisbon to Vladivostock." Russia has changed, Russians see themselves as European, as part of the larger European Union, culturally and civilizationally. This is not the old Russia of the Cold War or of the Soviet period. "NATO itself a relic of the Cold War, created out of a confrontation from that time." Not objecting to NATO but to the expansion of NATO to Russia's borders. But saying this has not got us anywhere where our heart not our brain says we ought to go. Lets try again to draw different conclusions from what we have seen. Its important to think anew because "we are all confronted with the common challenges of the pandemic and its extremely serious social and economic consequences." "The entire prosperity and security of our common continent are only possible through the combined efforts of all our countries, including Russia because Russia is one of the largest European states. Wed feel our inseparable cultural and economic ties to Europe." "We simply cannot afford to carry around the burden of previous misunderstandings, hurts, conflicts and mistakes. A burden that prevents us from solving current problems. We are convinced that we all have to admit and correct these mistakes. Our common and undisputed goal is to ensure the security of the continent without dividing lines. And to create a unified space for equal cooperation and collective development in the interests of the prosperity of Europe and of the whole world." President Biden was right to think anew and act anew in Geneva, and to "disenthrall ourselves" from old ways of thinking, and for rising to the occasion. Jill Biden said of president Biden's preparation for the meeting in Geneva- "Hell, he was overprepared," and it showed Biden's genuine feeling and effort that he owed it "in the interests of Europe and the world."       ...

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Prof. Leverett of Penn State University says the student protests at the time of the Shiite holy day day of Ashura, after the death of Grand Ayatollah Ali Montazeri, do not represent the majority. He says it is unikely that there will be much change in the Iranian government and President Obama should work with the existing Iranian government. He goes on to say that vastly larger number of Iranians went to the streets on December 30, in demonstrations organized to support the current Islamic Republic government, even saying that these demonstrations could have numbered nearly 1 million people. As the Iranian student protests have generated much media interest and were covered widely, this article presents an entirely different picture of the situation. The question remains to what extent does student protests reflect wider sentiment throughout the country, and if Leverett is right why did the party represented by Ahmadinejad need to win the presidential election by practices that were questioned by the opposition and others. Or is there an urban-rural divide in Iranian politics where most of the urban and literate classes have turned against the government and support student protest and seek change, whereas the rural areas support the current government. ...

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This story about companies in Australia that have tried a four day week shows employees using two mini weeks working Monday and Tuesday, taking off Wednesday and back to work for Thursday and Friday. It shows employees planning their Mondays and Tuesday miniweek in such a way that they can handle important work and meetings ahead of time. They come back recharged and renewed on Thursday, with Wednesday as the day to break up the work week in two. This has increased productivity at these companies. This is also a useful idea for older employees who work part time and work past usual retirement ages of 60 or 65 years as longevity increases in many countries. This enables retaining the vast experience of older workers in the workplace and promoting the health of older workers by keeping them active. As Japan, the U.S. and Europe and even China become aging societies this is becoming ever more important.  For worker on five day weeks this offers creative ideas to have a four and half day week giving workers a morning off or an afternoon off to recharge with sports or recreation activity or exercize, then coming back to work recharged in the afternoon. Other variations can also be used which promote productivity and employee satisfaction to get more of the most valuable work done more effectively and with enthusiasm, pushing less important work and time wasting out of the way. Employees generally would take charge of their work day and come up with creative and efficient ways of organizing their mini work weeks. ...

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In this exceptional report of the housing market in Roanoke, Virgina, Neil Irwin talks to builders, home buyers, renters and young people. San Francisco and Washington D.C. are the exception in housing markets- hundreds of America's midsize cities like Roanoke are seeing smaller rates of household formation leading to a decline in demand for single family homes and fewer homes being built. This accounts for a large part of the smaller growth in U.S. GDP. There are he points out about 2.3 million missing households as a result of a significant change in home buying patterns that is reducing demand for new construction of single family homes. During the period 2001-2006, before the 2008 global financial crisis, the rate of new U.S. household formation was about 1.35 million annually. This dropped to 569,000 in 2007-2013, as the effects of the crisis were felt in a deep recession. One result is more young people are postponing buying a house and living with their parents. Faced with large student debt- the total U.S. student debt passed $1 trillion for the first time recently- purchases of homes are becoming more dfficult. Of 18-34 year olds 27% lived with their parents before 2006, according to Labor Department data. This went up to 31% following the recession. Lack of good jobs is another factor. In 2014 March only 63% of 18-24 year olds had jobs. Even young people older than 24 with jobs felt it necessary to save money by living with their parents. More retirees too are moving into apartments....

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This WSJ report traces the development of rail, trucking, container shipping and forklift use in Germany, Russia and the US. The World Bank Logistics Index shows Germany ranking first, the US 14th, China 26th, Russia 75th out of 160 countries.  Russia's military relies on a supply system that uses crates instead of container shipping, not much use of forklifts, and relies on rail and conscript labor. During the invasion of Ukraine in April Russian supply lines that did not control rail failed to supply forces leading to slow progress. Because of dense rail lines in the eastern Donbas region Russian supply lines have worked to sustain advances. About 750 miles of rail lines have also been repaired by a special force set up for this purpose.  In a larger sense the problem of logistics and supplying front lines remains. This report shows the contrast between the development of Russian logistics and American logistics described by military experts in the US. The Russian system evolved in the early years of the 20th century based on conscript or free and abundant labor compared to the US where labor was scarce and costly. Automation progressed rapidly with American business taking up use of forklifts and containers during the 1940's extending to its use in the military. During the Vietnam war Cam Ranh Bay US bases were converted to modern container and forklift use. Russia continued through the sixties till today with a different and less automated system of logistics and movement of goods.    The use of modern logistics in Russia is limited to the amount of freight that gets moved in Colombia and much less than France says this report in WSJ. Much of the industrial base in Russia is built around oil and gas exports and manufacturing with movement of supply chain parts has never taken the importance that it has in Germany or the US. This limits the capacity of the Russian military outside the rail lines located towns and cities in Donbas where it has recently made gains. ...

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A loss for the Christian Democrats and Angela Merkel in Hamburg. Coming regional elections in other states will determine the future of the ruling coalition.

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Janet Yellen is nominee to be Treasury secretary in the new administration of Joe Biden. The economic rebound from the pandemic that started in the summer is faltering without additional stimulus and help to businesses and people affected by the pandemic. She is the former chairman of the U.S. central bank the Federal Reserve.  Yellen faces a divided country and likely a divided Congress on many issues facing the country. She says of these divisions and the challenging task she faces of forging compromises- "Right now we live in a country where people look at the same set of facts and come to diametrically opposite conclusions, so that is a big challenge to anyone who takes that job, to build support for your policy outcomes." Yellen believes that the slow recovery after the 2009 financial crisis was because of a lack of a big enough stimulus and policy consensus across parties and with public opinion backing this up. During the pandemic in March 2020 the first stimulus was passed for $3.3 trillion  with support from the Congress and the Trump administration. Today Congress is split on the second stimulus with Democrats pushing for about $2.2 trillion for aid to state and local governments, jobless workers virus testing strategy. Republicans calling for about one third of this or $650 billion to help small businesses and industries such as tourism, retail and airlines. Because  interest rates are near zero much depends on getting an effective stimulus for speedy economic recovery. Conversations between the Treasury Secretary and the Federal Reserve, America's central bank, are critical to getting things done. A lot also depends on how Democrats and Republicans can put aside differences for the sake of getting the recovery back in place where it was during the summer. The media has a role to play in not stoking differences in public opinion which was the case close to the election to an unprecedented degree. One critical aspect of American process in getting things done is to bring Congress and the public with an elected president. Without a conciliatory approach and humility few presidents have succeeded as Congress and public opinion is also critical to getting things done. The House changes every 2 years so that even with  majorities- made transient by the founders of the constitution- nothing is certain without getting the other political party on your side. For the sake of the country and the people devastated by the pandemic, the professional class, media and politicians, Congress and the president need to bring a clear and transparent willingness to look at the national interest going forward.  ...

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This report in WSJ by Thomas, Hughes and Wise says despite the concerns about Biden he is tied with Trump at 46% in a recent Ipsos Wash Post survey of voters. Lyrarc.com's Analysis of readers comments of WSJ, NYT and Wash Post reports on Biden for the last week show that most readers support Biden and see the media overreaching and lacking balance and good judgement in reporting. This report also shows 42% of Democrats support Biden continuing his candidacy. There is clearly misinformation with 4 specific examples of gross distortion of images of the president spread online, cited in reports. A true grass roots assessment would show a large majority of Democrats support the president once the dust has cleared. Lyrarc's assessment of the President at the NATO press conference Q and A gives the president a 9 out of 10 for the sharpness and ability to handle a huge number of details and complex policy issues, and for his delivery and viewer comprehension. Biden explained complex issues in simple plain English which also stands out. On the same day India's Modi said he was glad to be welcomed by Australia when he was in Vienna, Austria, with its chancellor, correcting it immediately. No one mentioned it even though it happened twice for Modi. Media made it their headline for Biden for similar mixing up and immediate correction. Going over complex issues for 60 minutes with 9 reporters in A+ fashion- no mention at all by the Media. In Movement for Global Literacy we cited the low degree of confidence and trust in media- only 20% of the American people trust the media such as the TV news shows and the newspapers. To know the true picture go directly to the grassroots and find out in every part of the Union. Lincoln,TR, FSR and Truman all in their own way faced the twisted rhetoric of politicians and the media in their time, yet retained the confidence of Ameica. ...

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Stephanie Nolan's reports from Africa provide the few glimpses one can get today of the situation in Africa where variants are growing as a result of lack of vaccines (vaccine inequality) and the faltering vaccination drive, shortage of medicine and food supplies. Her report from South Africa showed how healthworkers and scientists in South Africa are working hard on the frontlines. This one from Zambia looks at the vaccination centers and vaccination workers as vaccination drives falter. The African continent with 1.4 billion people received 404 million doses. Today only 7% of the population is vaccinated in Zambia and the rest of Africa. People in Zambia do not have car transport so they have to walk 3-6 kilometres to get to a vaccination center, when they turn up at a center and it is out of vaccines they stop coming. Other problems are the social media accounts that show the vaccination drives as harmful to people, or CNN and other news that talk about blood clots that when carefully understood affect a tiny fraction of people. There are other issues also. Ida Musonda, a nurse in a clinic near Lusaka says after not many people turned up that she should go to markets and churches, but says there is no fuel for the vehicle to get clinic workers there. Bernadette Kawango is shown with her children. She works at an auto parts store and lives in a low income neighborhood in the edge of Lusaka. She ignores all the social media accounts that scare people from vaccines, yet she says she worries more about cholera, TB and malaria, and also HIV, AIDS. And she does not know anybody diagnosed with coronavirus.  The result is that there is vaccine shortage resulting in a kind of vaccine indifference (why walk miles to a center if it may not have vaccines), compounded by other problems such as the other diseases that also pose a threat in Africa, and the low incomes in a shrinking economy. And with about 8% vaccinated in Africa, the problem of variants can only be tackled by consistent and not erratic supply of vaccines. ...

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Under the law overturned by the US Supreme Court it was illegal to carry a gun openly and a permit was needed in New York to carry it concealed. Three Supreme Court Justices appointed by president Trump were of a disposition that opposed gun control laws- Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. The requirement under the New York law was that you had to show "good moral character" and "cause" to carry a concealed weapon or carry a gun openly. Many other states have such laws in California, Hawaii and urban states in the north east. Republican states are loosening gun control laws. This comes as many random shooting incidents are taking place in the US some in schools and grocery stores, the most recent being a shooting in Buffalo, NY. The vote was 6-3 after the Supreme Court for years had avoided hearing such cases based on Second Amendment rights from the Constitution that some had interpreted to include freely carrying guns without any common sense restrictions. This issue is second only to abortion as a cultural issue in the US on which sides are taken by the public including the Supreme Court Justices selected by Mr. Trump. Though not directly apparent these and issues of immigration, other cultural issues surrounding gay rights are putting those who would normally come together on issues of national interest on opposite sides when it comes to common sense support for everyday issues of feeding families, keeping workers employed in good factories at home, child care, education, health care, fair wages, restoring America's manufacturing leadership and bringing back manufacturing to the US. The emergence of Tech and tech companies, Silicon Valley, the finance sector in New York, has reinforced the prejudice in these opposing sides as Tech and the finance sector have largely embedded themselves into the Democratic side. Tech and finance sector employees with higher incomes have largely insulated themselves from the interests of ordinary workers and families creating a split Democratic party when it comes to supporting workers and families who form the vast majority of the American people. In a sense today the national interest is separate from these cultural issues and supporters of national interests can be found in both parties who can look beyond and above these cultural issues. It is also where many of these cultural issues can be resolved to some degree using common sense on which most informed members of Congress can agree. This is true for gun control as a group of bipartisan Senators from both parties are preparing gun control around common sense principles that today are even beyond the capacity of the Supreme Court of the US that itself now reflects a raucous public sphere. ...

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Brazil's oil company, Petrobras, has 55.7% of voting shares controlled by the government. Petrobras's nonvoting shares make up most of the widely held stock, which has increased significantly in recent years. Petrobras is Latin America's largest publicly traded company with market value of $96.9 billion. Oil production by Petrobras is 1.9 million barrels a day, larger than Brazil's expected consumption of 1.85 million barrels a day for 2006. The policies of former President Henrique Cardoso are credited with making Petrobras competitive. Cardoso passed a constitutional amendment that allowed foreign companies to compete against Petrobras. And he put new managers from banking in charge of the company, leading to significant changes in how the company was run. With new deepwater drilling oil production increased by 12% a year during the Cardoso years 1997-2002. Under the Lula administration Petrobras has also reflected the government's social goals by delaying passing on price increases in gasoline and cooking gas and limiting the price increases. Under President Lula the CEO and senior managerial appointments for Petrobras have come from the ranks of his political party, the PT. Jos Eduardo Dutra, and Jos Gabrielli are members of PT. Under the Lula government Petrobras faced little competition from foreign oil companies and Petrobras dominates the Brazilian oil sector....

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Michael Powell of the NYT shows what is wrong about the Olympics model of the IOC having host cities build costly facilities just for a two week period. Cities that have suffered paying for the Olympics in recent memory are most strikingly Athens, Greece, and some observers say the Greece crisis started about the time the Olympics were held there. In Greece as in Rio, corruption, and mismanagement, are major issues. In the case of Rio the Olympics were held following a time of widespread protests as the economy hit a recession, and corruption scandal at Petrobras and in the government led to public anger. Most striking is the fact widely reported that the Rio government does not have enough money to pay salaries and much of the investment in Olympic infrastructure is not going to be available to the working class, middle class, at a time when basic public services such as clean water, good bus services, environmental pollution, significant shortages in affordable housing remain unaddressed. Bolsa Familia program of the socialist Workers Party helped the poor, yet the middle and working class have suffered with misspent funds, and mismanagement of the economy. Powell does well to show how things could be done better than they are now. He says he applauded the Bloomberg plan to build swimming pools and kayak routes in different parts of the city, in city parks further away where the middle and working class could use these facilities. This did not happen at the Rio Olympics. It also shows that the IOC could also get into this instead of being some distant organization, that simply hands out this gift called the Olympics and stringent requirements. What if the IOC also says it wants to see ways in which the facilities will be later available to the broad public, so that swimming pools and other athletic facilities, including housing and transportation systems are then available to the people in different parts of the city. Rio de Janeiro University has seen large cuts in pay and services. It took Montreal decades to pay for the Montreal Olympics. Sochi facilities will not be used for the large part by the Russian public, more painful because of the Russian deep recession similar to the Brazilian deep recession. Olympic host cities should be required by the IOC to show that the facilities built will be usable to the maximum degree by the broad mass of the public, finances are stress tested for recession in a country. At this time citizens of cities such as Boston and Oslo have taken up these things- as the IOC takes no responsibility and host governments are giddy about showing off their country- and pulled out. Least valid of all is the notion that the developing countries are being discriminated against. Look at all the empy stadiums in the far north of the country of Brazil in the World Cup, and you realize there are better ways to take pride in a country- how about matching your transportation infrastructure with that of China, some bullet trains, some new subways in large and midtier cities, done so as to give broad access to the public at affordable prices for transportation? India is a large and now forward looking developing country, a young population with tech and infrastructure dreams and 4 medals in all in the Olympics. Does it make more sense to match China's success in transportation infrastructure with bullet trains, new subways and road building programs, and to build athletic facilities in every high school and college in the country matching the U.S. and Britain,  especially for girls, or to seek pride in putting up an application for a gift from the IOC? ...

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A 50 foot marble statue was placed at the canopy near India Gate of King George V in 1936, by Edwin Lutyens, in an irony of history only 11 years before independent India emerged out of the British Empire in India. It was not removed till 1968 and no decision was made on what should replace it until 2022. Today the statue of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose now stands at that place, Bose led the Indian Army's fight for independence from territory freed by the Japanese after Gandhi adopted Quit India in 1942 and most of the Indian leaders were arrested and Netaji escaped to East Asia. Part of the reason Netaji and patriots who fought to free India through means other than non violent protest were not seen as having made significant contribution was the sense that the Japanese invasion of China had shown it was another colonial power. However without the Japanese weakening British rule in Asian countries the British may have continued their rule in India. After the Japanese had proved the British, Dutch and French empires could be removed from Asia, the process that began with Naoroji, Tilak and Gokhale, and continued by Gandhi, Bose, Nehru and  Patel working together  seemed inevitably headed for success. Seen in this way a genuine understanding of Hind Swaraj can be gained. Mohandas Gandhi points this out in Hind Swaraj by saying that Gokhale was the true leader of independent India. In the true sense of genuine struggle the leaders and unknown soldiers who were jailed in the Andaman islands made significant contributions including Tilak. The struggle for Hind Swaraj was done by people who took the largest risks, and who weighed the future carefully. And this includes Gandhi and Bose,Tilak and Gokhale, and most of all the unknown people who were at the Salt March and Quit India movements.   ...

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Howes gives Marchionne high marks for doing what Daimler failed to do. He says Fiat took the best of what Chrysler had and melded it with the best parts of Fiat to create an integrated company. Both Chrysler and Fiat benefit in the process. There is a lot to be done especially with paying off government debt, building the fuel efficient vehicles essential to do well in a time of high gasoline prices, and operating in a highly uncertain economic environment. But the steps taken so far show Marchionne has put Chrysler on the right path. The new version of the Jeep Cherokee has done well- with a sales increase of 34% in first quarter 2011 over the prior year.

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Lessons learned from the earlier wave of Turkish migrants to Germany in the early postwar period, and how Germany is using the lessons learned to integrate the new wave of Arab migrants in 2015 from the beginning. One part of this effort is the openness of educational institutions throughout Germany to offer free language classes and easier access to schools and universities. The media is cooperating in the effort by creating a positive perception of the new migrants to help integration into German society. Many challenges remain, yet German leaders on the centre right and centre left have shown remarkable courage and willingness to tackle the situation with forward looking initiative.

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U.S. Defense Secretary Panetta says the U.S. will hand over provinces to Afghan government forces and complete the transition to a training role in 2013. This is part of the withdrawal of NATO forces and comes after France's president Sarkozy proposed reducing France's committment in Afghanistan. Panetta said he would tell NATO partners- "We all went in together and we will go out together." This also fits in with the changing picture in the region, poor relations with Pakistan, sentiment in the U.S. and Europe focussed on the economic crisis, and direct talks with the Taliban for a post-NATO settlement of the conflict.