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Middle managers is just a term, in reality leaders of tomorrow will be learning, practicing their craft, working on projects and products as a part of teams that report to some more experienced manager, who can provide the team the benefit of his experience and mentor these managers. These are not factory floor positions and interface directly with senior managers of the company. Without a seamless integration of all people in the company working in harmony, something has seriously gone wrong in the way the company should work. One might guess from the way companies especially financial institutions have been run, that along with CEO and senior manager aggrandizement, and layoffs of whitecollar workers who bear the brunt of the downturn along with people in the frontline in factories, that these teams and managers have been left out in the cold. Osterman in his book "The Truth about Middle Managers" points to this alienation of middle managers. These managers and teams especially in industries like the auto industry may lack the committment to the company and there may be widespread cynicism about the way senior management and CEO's are running the company. If things are happening the way they should these are the leaders of tomorrow and should be consulted and given increasing responsibility, and older management should make way for new leaders to better adapt to new conditions facing the company and meet new challenges. Instead as in the auto industry boards and CEO's and senior managers perpetuate themselves and their older mindset and their outdated strategies leading to disaster, and the elimination of the positions of these very managers and teams on which the real hopes of the company should rest....

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Questions abound about Steven Chu, is he a scientist who handled administrative positions, like being vice chairman of the Physics department at Stanford, and head of the Berkeley Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, with its $600 million budget and 400 staff? Or is he something more with the stuff to get things done to remake the way America makes and uses energy? Because running the Energy Department means running a place with 114,000 employees and a budget that has doubled under the Obama administration. And he has to disperse $39 billion in Stimulus money without it being wasted. And the priorities are just as big and important- ending America's dependence on fossil fuels, rebuilding the nation's electrical grid, and addressing climate change. WIth so much to be done, answering questions in Congress and handling the media may not be the hardest part, even though its the stuff that he likes the least. Its making things happen with the right investments in place for the new technologies that would help break the dependence on fossil fuels, and address climate change. Right now he has no Deputy secretary. He has brought in Matt Rogers an energy expert at McKinsey & Company. Matt and Chu's brother Morgan provide insights into his character. Says Matt Chu is kind and nice but he is not patient. He likes to see things move muuch quicker than things are done around the Energy Department. Chu himself talks about this. He says the bureaucracy in Washington is a place where Newton's law of motion does not work. Once things are set in motion you have to apply force or the bureaucratic atmosphere gets it derailed and it stops. His brother Morgan points to Chu's inclination to challenge established dogma. ...

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Changes Novartis CEO Daniel Vasella is making in the pharmaceutical business. He has hired Joe Jimenez, who is running Novartis's consumer health care business to be the new pharmaceutical division chief. Jimenez previously worked at packaged goods companies including H.J. Heinz Company. Jimenez is cutting 25% of the jobs at pharmaceutical division's headquarters in Basel to reduce bureaucracy and costs. In March he promoted Trevor Mundel and Andrin Oswald, 2 young executives, to head the drug developmet group which puts drugs through human testing and submits them for regulatory approval. This group had become too bureaucratic and slow to move and take initiative. To improve its functioning Jimenez is organizing it into small teams with each team assigned an experimental drug in Novartis's pipeline. Each team of 8 people including physicians, experts in regulatory affairs and marketing and toxicologists work together to spot potential safety issues early and discuss them with regulators to determine whether to put the drug through expensive clinical trials. Each team takes the responsibility to take its drug to the market. The pharmaceutical unit is also being organized to be more nimble. It solicits health systems early on whether its willing to pay for drugs. And Jimenez has startd 4 pilot projects in tough markets to improve relationships with payers, including the Pacific Northwest where Novartis has offered to train an HMO's nurses in aspects of heart disease. Vasella supports the generics division of Sandoz because the growth is in generics, with generics commanding 60% of the prescription volume in Germany and USA, and sales for generics up 25% this year in the generics division. And Novartis paid $39 billion for Alcon, a eye care company. Its also working aggressively in the vaccines business, which like generics enjoys double digit growth. ...

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The final settlement of the conflict in Georgia takes the lines of Russia pulling out of Georgia proper, and Russia in return making independent states with Russian assistance out of Abhkazia and South Ossetia. The border between these states and Georgia would be patrolled by 200 EU military personnel. And Georgia would sign an agreement not to use force against Abhkazia. And the EU takes over responsibility with Russia for seeing all this fall into place, the US leaving all this upto the EU. Interestingly Putin is not heard much from in the media and Medvedev and Sarkozy work out the details basically setting the Russian inhabited regions of South Ossetia and Abhkazia on their own course as independent states with Russian assistance. Considering the tensions and conflict and bitterness between the people in these small states after Georgian nationalism took root after the Soviet collapse the lives of people there would be more peaceful and secure except that a price is paid in terms of South Ossetian Georgian villages where the people were uprooted. But tensions there had reached a churning point and leaders there inflamed passions so that at some point something like this would happen. This puts this chapter behind and Russia can be glad that it got out of all this without sanctions from western countries and the EU can go out of this with the assurance that Russia would not interfere in Georgia proper. Over time Georgians themselves may have to ask whether their leaders acted responsibly by inflaming Georgian nationalism upto a point of damaging relations with ethnic minorities. Angela Merkel who has experienced life under Soviet dominated governments still thinks according to media reports that the Georgian leader Sashkavili can inflame tensions with his statements and style of operating. ...

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Dudley Althaus looks at Mexico's 2018 election from a working class suburb of Mexico City called Valle de Chalco. Once a squatter settlement outside Mexico City this area was courted by the ruling PRI Institutional Revolutionary party for 3 decades with a social investing program building sewers, water and power lines. Today this area like others in the state of Mexico have turned to a new party Morena led by Manuel Lopez Obrador, to find a way out of the corruption, violence and failure of the rule of law under the PRI. Obrador left the socialist PRD party to form Morena in 2014 after running for president on the PRD ticket twice. The thirst for change is widespread inside Mexico giving Obrador a higher vote margin in state of Mexico than the 53% he won overall in Mexico. The PRI won just 16% of the vote. The old politics of piggy bank and patronage of the PRI is now discredited in Mexico.  The reason the old politics does not work anymore is the change in places like this from a shanty town of tin shacks to a bustling city of 400,000. This place has a technical school, a state university branch, rows of well kept cinder  block homes along with malls and wealthier homes. With basic necessities being met Mexican workers are turning to larger issues of national identity and how the next chapter can be written in the social contract. Obrador's nationalist message and criticism of the globalized economy struck workers and middle class as the right direction for Mexico. This came just as president Trump brought new views on immigration and NAFTA on the other side of the border challenging Mexico to find its own direction and independent position in the world economy, even building new links to other countries in Europe and Asia. ...

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Most Americans pay less in taxes, including state, local and federal taxes, today than in 1980 in inflation adjusted dollars. The taxes have gone down by 2-3% for incomes in the range of $50,000 to $150,000, and gone down by 3-4% for incomes between $150,000 and $350,000. Taxes have gone down over 7% for incomes above $350,000. The main reason is the decline in federal income taxes.Tax rates increased in the period to 1990 and declined from 1990 to 2010. The Democratic party and president Obama are pushing for increase in taxes for incomes above $250,000. Republicans are resisting the changes citing disincentives to investment and growth for small business which generates a large proportion of new jobs created in the U.S. economy. The New York Times study shows the percent of the U.S. population that makes between $200,000 and $350,000 almost doubling in the period 1980-2010 and at the same time its share of the U.S. income remaining the same - many small business owners who hire employees would fall into this income category. Republican's response is for tax reforms that reduce loopholes, deductions and other tax expeditures that disproportionately help the wealthy. Democrats say this cannot create enough revenues to address the deficit, when mortgage deductions, charitable deductions are excluded. The back and forth is leading to stalemate but also opening up discussion for the first time on whether the mortgage and charitable deductions make sense in today's environment. A significant portion of revenues lost in the mortgage deduction goes to affluent households, subsidizing larger borrowings to build larger homes than otherwise, according to the Brookings Institution. Politicians have resisted changes that would go against powerful lobyying groups in the past, yet the impasse has opened up new thinking outside the box because of the pressing need to come up with a solution....

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This essay in WSJ is from Marco Rubio, Senator from Florida, and now Secretary of State in the second term DJT administration. Here Rubio points to his first visit as a return to focus on the American continent, on Central America and South America, which was neglected since the Kennedy administration in 1961 when JFK launched the Alliance for Progress (Allianza para Progreso). Like JFK Rubio visited Central American countries the source in the last decade in addition to Venezuela of much of the illegal migration north to the US. After support for failed dictatorships under the Eisenhower administration, JFK made Latin America a priority. This can be seen in the JFK Nixon debates. 64 Years after the conference in Uruguay's Punta del Este in 1961, America is back to square one with the failed Central American countries from gangs plus crime and from Venezuela's economy collapsing from inflation plus mismanagement with a socialist experiment. Kennedy said-"To our sister republics south of our border, we offer a special pledge – to convert our good words into good deeds – in a new alliance for progress – to assist free men and free governments in casting off the chains of poverty." -- John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961 Kennedy said of the Alliance for Progress "a vast cooperative effort, unparalleled in magnitude and nobility of purpose to satisfy the basic needs of the [Latin] American people for homes, work and land, health and schools – techo, trabajo y tierra, salud y escuela." Speaking in the White House on March 13, 1961, JFK said to more than two hundred Latin American diplomats,  "Let me be the first to admit that we North Americans have not always grasped the significance of this common mission." Yet at the same time, "many in your own countries have not fully understood the urgency of the need to lift people from poverty and ignorance and despair." ...

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South Korea never had the benefit of representation in parliament under the Japanese the way India had in the British parliament for Naoroji and others by the 1900's, political participation in the 1920's, assembly elections in 1930's under the British. Democracy came to South Korea in 1948 in the middle of a huge war in the Korean peninsula with invasion from the North, leaving it without democratic traditions, and again in protests in 1960 against Synghman Rhee's military government. Then followed military governments by Park and Chun till 1988. Democracy is only 36 years old in South Korea since 1988. BBC gives this Special Report on President Yoon of South Korea how he was elected as a prosecutor of a right wing government and made Chief Prosecutor by left wing parties. After this appointment he investigated ministers in the left wing government. This increased his popularity but also alineated both the left and the right. Running for election as president of South Korea he won by less than one percent of the vote.  BBC talks to a Yoon primary school friend Lee who describes his interaction with his friend over many years- during which he make more introverted, angry and vehement, and after becoming president more authoritarian. The process is described by the BBC talking to other colleagues and friends of Yoon who worked with him. They found that he relied more and more on a close group of like minded right wing groups. After losing the parliamentary election by a big majority he became a lame duck but still stubbornly refused to talk to the Opposition leaders to work together. Soon he began to see them as his enemy watching too many one sided You Tube videos. The result was one day he declared martial law, creating a huge wave of  opposition by the public, the military and others. In 6 hours he had to withdraw martial law- ending his career when his impeachment was upheld today April 3, 2025 by the Constitutional Court. ...

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The southern and southwestern U.S. which were expected to peak late are now seeing a surge in the coronavirus cases. This includes Alabama, Florida, Texas and Arizona. New York imposes a quarantine of 14 days on residents of these states travelling to N.Y.

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Arvind Subramanium, outgoing Chief Economic Adviser to the prime minister in an interview with the Hindu newspaper, shares some of the knowledge he gained from failures and successes. The key lesson he gained is that it is important to have independent advisers in government who can speak their mind. Finance minister Jaitley has embraced this point, that such an adviser is not just one more part in the technocratic machinery of government. The success in getting GST he says shows that cooperative federalism is needed going forward as a kind of technology for many changes, including agriculture, DBT.  Subramanium calls the Economic Survey a success with 350,000 unique visitors. He likes the independence and distance of the CEA job to propagate the big ideas combined with closeness to decisionmakers. He counts as a failure not being able to create an office of CEA to the states, a request from 7 chief ministers and state finance ministers. Subramanium sees the need for more people in government with specific expertise in different areas as opposed to generalists as the work of government is becoming much more sophisticated. There is much need for talent and the flow of lateral talent into government.  Responding to economic issues such as the impact of oil prices on the economy Subramanium sees CAD at 2%, inflation at 4.5% much better compared to 2013 levels of double digits and not in unhealthy territory and very manageable. He sees risks in the impact of a combination of oil prices, dollar appreciation, and currency trade wars that are happening. On Iranian oil imports and strict U.S. sanctions on importers Subramanium sees the cost of not complying as stiff once you are in the dollar trading system. On demonetisation he sees there are short term costs and potential long term gains that requires an assessment every 2-3 years provisionally, what happened to tax and formalization, and the costs. Including costs in inconvenience and hardship for informal cash intensive sectors noted in the Economic Survey. For GST he says the revenue growth rate is 16-17% in aggregate for next year, growing 12% in the first year after a difficult implementation. The poorer states have seen an expansion of tax base and revenue performance is unprecedented.    ...

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German chancellor Merkel is interviewed by DW.com's Max Hofmann as her 16 year period as Germany's leader comes to a close. She discusses immigration to Germany, climate change and other issues. Not discussed are the issues of neglect of infrastructure and failure in preserving upward mobility in Germany society during that period. She is described as a "compromise machine," which she refutes by saying "I'm not a machine, of course, but... a human being." Through compromise she was able to extend the Christian Democrats hold on power for this long. Yet for much of the time she kept the Social Democrats, who were lacking in conviction at the time for real upward mobility, out of power; by compromises that meant she would do just so much not enough on social values. In the end her party the CDU fell to a low of about 22% support of Germans in the 2021 election. The Greens with more conviction and the Social Democrats surpassed the CDU under Baerbock and vice chancellor Scholz. Her achievements came reluctantly in the end in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. This time she put all her convictions and support behind the German and European Union financial package for trillions of euros of support that would enable Europe to get back on its feet after the pandemic's devastation. This may be her singular achievement, long after everything else is forgotten. Yet not one word of this interview talks about this achievement made with the full conviction of both Scholz and Merkel. Scholz and Baerbock will lead a new Social Democrat+ Greens coalition that will finally rebuild Germany along new lines on pillars of social mobility, infrastructure building, and climate change action for the New Germany. Baerbock is just 40 years, and Germany now moves to be run by a new generation so unlike the last in conviction and vision, and more in line with the vision and aspirations after World War II. With both Willy Brandt's vision of the Social Democrats, and the vision of Konrad Adenauer of the Christian Democrats, now carried forward with the help of the Greens Baerbock and the young generation of Germans. ...

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Yellen tells the governor of Guangdong that China's huge subsidies for solar, EV and other industries disrupts "the level playing field" America needs. In all previous administrations  of both parties American economic ministry heads stayed silent or said it in a way that they were ignored. A culture of government staying out spread like wild fire under Reagan and "free to choose" advocates such as Friedman who did not realize the grave dangers to American manufacturing and its workers inside America, and to the world's other manufacturing capable nations such as India with overconcentration in one location. It was America's misfortune that economists and business leaders in the US were not listening enabling China to ignore this. By offering huge government subisidized incentives China and Taiwan shifted manufacturing away from the US in semiconductors, solar, EV's. It started with Apple and is still going on with Tesla. Today economists such as Yellen say economic resilience and supply chains are at risk before they said it lowered cost for consumers and failed to wake up when advanced technologies were at stake, as economists never trained in manufacturing had no knowledge of how it works with learning curves and knowhow that is built over decades, once lost hard to regain. The message fellow Americans is that trust your instincts and common sense, and trust observation which is what the Renaissance in the 15th century was all about and which put Europe ahead of Asia, to the great misfortune of Asia. Japan, China, have learned these lessons well, America as an immigrant nation is different from Europe, and must use its good sense to keep open the opportunities for its people and workers, and the people and workers of all nations that are manufacturing capable. Yellen said- "Direct and indirect government support is currently leading to production capacity that significantly exceeds China's domestic demand, as well as what the global market can bear...Overcapacity can lead to large volumes of exports at depressed prices, and it can lead to overconcentration of supply chains, posing a risk to global economic resilience,"    ...

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 South Korea has run about 300,000 coronavirus tests, double that in Italy and ten times that in the U.S., says this report in the WSJ. This report shows how the South Korean testing works and the workday of Lee Hyuk-min, a clinical microbiologist at a testing lab of Yonsei University Health System Severance Hospital in Seoul, who is working from 4.45 am to 11 pm. South Korea's effectiveness in controlling the spread is based on a strategy of efficient testing that enables isolating quickly people and areas. South Korea's testing network is a legacy of the MERS coronavirus outbreak in 2015, and the government failure at that time to control it.  It brings together doctors, medical staff, labs, and political leaders in roles following the protocols established since then. Dr Lee and others are the final checkpoint in the system which coordinates a diagnostic operation that combines together 633 test sites and 100 labs. The protocol includes a uniform setup- same testing equipment, same training, same decision making process. At 8 am each day all labs upload results to a shared database, which allows public and private hospitals to monitor patient results and report them to Korea Centers for Disease Prevention and Control. Hospitals upload testing details to an online directory. This surveillance allows South Korea to predict where to concentrate its efforts for controlling spread, says Dr Lee who advises the South Korean government on lab testing issues. Action plan took 2 years for the new rules to be implemented following MERS in 2015. The plan included accelerated bio testing company approval for tests. The first company got approval on Feb 4, followed by 4 other firms. Dr Lee says testing is only part of the equation as labs are needed to process and confirm results. Another key is innovation. South Korea setup testing in drive thru locations, that limit contact and speed up testing, which the U.S. is adopting. Dr Lee says early identification is key, and identifying the first coronavirus patient which was done in South Korea on January 20. Other countries including the U.S. took too long to identify the first patient, says Dr. Lee. ...

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It has happened before- the issues and the tactics. This article is from the Washington Post March 10, 1985. The 2016, 2020, and 2024 US campaign for president most resembles the 1952 campaign between Dwight Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson. In that campaign Senators Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin and Senator Jenner of Indiana made unfounded statements and criticism of of candidate Adlai Stevenson, of Gen. George Marshall, of NATO and aid to war ravaged Europe under the Marshall plan, and by 1958 of Eisenhower for "ruining the party," according to the Washington Post. Edward Jenner, Senator from Indiana 1952-1958, conducted Senate hearings in which he made spectacular criticism of public figures and US policy from 1953 to 1955. Eisenhower was elected as president in 1952 and after considering running as an Independent reluctantly accepted when New York Governor Dewey asked him to do on the Republican party ticket. What is similar is that the issues and tactics used now are reminiscent of issues and tactics in those days in the 1950's, that this is not happening for the first time- it is not new. Both Senator Taft who headed the Republican party at the time and president Eisenhower felt uneasy about this type of criticism. Then as today it was about aid to Europe and NATO. Jenner said America could not afford it and it "would bankrupt America." Jenner also called the US Supreme Court "the most powerful instrument of the communist global conquest by paralysis," and introduced a bill to limit the SC jurisdiction. Jenner said in 1951 on the Senate floor, according to the Washington Post-  "the only choice is to impeach Truman," as "this country is in the hands of a secret inner coterie directed by agents of the Soviet Union." Today's differences are not new, the rhetoric familiar, about NATO, Europe funding, about the SC, about this and the former president, and about isolationism and about extended costly foreign wars, all after a pandemic and climate change in an uneasy atmosphere about the threats to American leadership then from the Soviets now from China. ...

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Shares of Adani Enterprises went up by 3000% over 5 years putting valuations at extreme levels, says this report in the WSJ. This has created a disconnect between valuations and fundamentals say some experts. Hindenburg Research is a American forensic financial research firm started in 2017 by Nathan Anderson in New York City with 5 employees. It has issued a critical report of the Adani Group companies leading to a loss of 18.5% of its valuation. Adani Group companies make up 5% of the Bombay Stock Exchange and are a big part of its renewable energy effort even though the company had major interests in coal in Australia. Adani is trying to make the switch to renewable solar and wind energy and at the same time meet India's continuing need for coal because of its large population. The situation is similar to China and is poorly understood in the US and Europe, the effort to make large investments in renewable energy even as the company provides energy from fossil fuels. Adani set up the Mundra port in Gujarat helping Gujarat become energy sufficient and making it the most industrialized part of India. The London based Financial Times took a look at the Adani Group long before Hindenburg Research in the last 2 years and concluded that Adani Group companies have grown rapidly because India's effort for industrialization requires aggressive investment and risk taking which none of the other companies including India's Tata and Reliance Group are able to do in infrastructure and energy in the same way that Adani has. Reliance Group has invested in 4G and 5G and setup Jio to create low cost access to fast internet in India. When it comes to roads, airports, coal and renewable energy Adani has invested aggressively. This has created the perception that the Adani Group has benefited from its relations with the government. As the Financial Times put it Adani Group was the only private investor willing to take up the challenge of super sized goals needed for India's rapid growth. In this sense a forensic research company based on short selling is up against a company that has already faced skepticism about its rapid emergence as a renewable energy focused company shifting from fossil fuels, a transition neither Exxon or Chevron in the US have been able to do. ...

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This is the biggest climate bill in history. The NYT looks at the $369 billion Biden Climate bill to show how it will cut carbon emissions by 40% by 2030 over 2005 levels.

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Wages remain stagnant, labor participation rate declines, and U-6 at 11.8%, as unemployment rate declines to 5.9% in U.S. labor market.

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Improving business conditions and lower unemployment are helping president Macron of France recover from a drop in popularity following the yellow vest protests. Macron tackled the crisis by changing his style of governance from top down to a listener style with regular town hall meetings and meetings with people who were critical of his government. Recent poll from Elabe shows 33% approve of the French leader compared to 23% in December 2018 at the height of the yellow vest protests. The yellow vest protests were from people who felt left out at the lower end of the wage scale who were protesting increasing inequality. Macron also offered minimum wage earners billions of dollars and shelved his economic agenda till he had a better grasp of the French public's opinions. The recovery in the economy means Macron has more flexibility in taking up priority items in the national agenda. The French pension system is fragmented with about 43 different plans, with some plans for transport workers offering generous retirement by age 52. The system is also likely to go into deficit of 10 billion euros in 2022. Brazil has run into major economic crisis from generous pension plans taking up a major part of the budget. Macron wants to increase the number of years people work before they collect pensions, not just increase the retirement age of 62. Most major European countries are at 65 years retirement age, the U.S. is at 66 years. Transport workers paralysed the nation's transport system including subways and bus systems recently to keep their generous benefits. Macron sees himself as promoting a national agenda similar to India for GST, and other countries tackling shortfall in pension systems by increasing the retirement age, even though in the short run people who benefit from the old system oppose it. By addressing grievances at the lower wage levels and tackling glaring issues in the way benefits such as pensions are distributed Macron can win enough support to offset the opposition of entrenched groups. Lawyers will see their pension contributions double for lower benefits and are opposing the pensions overhaul. For decades workers in different groups or sectors took to the streets in protest making any changes even if well thought out and in the national interest hard to make in France. By taking on entrenched groups tactically and first letting the groups express their sentiment before announcing top down changes, and by being an empathetic listener, Macron is showing that he has learned a lot from the past year without losing his sense of what is best for France. It just maybe that in the short run there is an offset gaining some support from neutral groups and losing support of entrenched groups. Yet in the long run when the dust settles there is more overall support particularly through empathetic listening and carefully planned flexible approach to making changes that improve the economy and reduce unemployment. ...

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Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute points to trade barriers reducing competition and free trade that should raise an outcry when free trade and competition advocates focus alone on the Trump steel tariffs. He points to estimates that show $90 billion in additional costs to Americans from the barriers that prevent Americans from paying world market prices for surgeries and medical treatment, prices similar to what is paid in advanced countries like Germany, Britain and France. A bigger barrier in pharmaceuticals prices being sheltered from market competition worldwide costs a huge $370 billion in additional costs to Americans. These two costs in healthcare would help Americans by a magnitude compared to tax cuts that do not work for average Americans with the business tax cut going more into share buybacks than into increasing wages or capital investment in 2018.  Bernstein points to Neil Irwin's column in the NYT that flags statements such as Senator Mike Lee, Republican, that the steel tariffs are a huge job killing tax hike, as being misleading. Bernstein says two actions were never taken that would have used benefits of free trade to help affected communities that lost jobs in industries such as steel and textiles, other industries affected by foreign competition.  He lists these steps as sectoral employment training, apprenticeships ,and job creation efforts in the worst affected areas. Basically no one really knows what is good trade policy, the textbook concepts and theories are out of date when countries can subsidize particular industries such as steel and dump products into the American market. At a press conference on CSPAN with the Swedish prime minister Mr. Trump stated that China was exporting more than what is officially shown as there are transshipments from other countries, some of them with no steel mills.  As Mr. Trump stated at that press conference he was elected partly because of the worst affected communities- in places such as Michigan and other states in the midwestern U.S.- that suffered from unfair trade. Bernstein admonishes the economists and politicians, media, for the headlines that are misleading in showing that bad trade policy is being pursued and trade wars are being started. This deserves attention because the Trump administration and advisors such as Lighthizer who served in the Reagan administration seek fair trade, and the Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross successfully pushed for NAFTA trade deal renegotiation not the outright rejection of NAFTA that was mentioned in the election campaign. Ironically no one is helped by this trade rhetoric and misleading headlines. In fact the strengthening of the U.S. currency as the huge trade surplus of China goes into U.S. assets, and with the election of Mr. Trump, gives foreign competitors a continued advantage. And in fact Japan, South Korea, China, had a mild response to the tariffs as reported, because these countries are aware of global overcapacity created especially by China which produces 50% of the world's steel, and as China shifts to higher technologically value added products closing many older steel mills. ...

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Democrats working to challenge the big cuts planned by Republicans in federal, state and local spending on everything from education to essential services.

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The solitary side of Obama's nature, which leads to an insular presidency, without the frequent contact with other political leaders and the public. Kornblut calls it the schmooze deficit. One Democratic leader says Obama is daisdainful of things that make people feel connected to him. In numerous interviews lawmakers from both parties complained of arms-length treatment. Earlier reports also show a leader who does not go outside his close inner circle to understand what is happening in the country. Obama is not known for making social encounters outside the ones scheduled or to make spontaneous calls. Some of this solitary nature comes across in this autobiography, "Dreams From My Father." In that memoir Obama writes that if the talk began to wander, or cross the border into familiarity, he would soon find reason to excuse himself. And that he had grown too comfortable in his solitude, the safest place he knew.