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A new Pew Research Center Survey shows prime minister Modi enjoying 88% popularity, very high ratings for a world leader. More unusual is that Modi's popularity was 87% in a Pew Survey in 2015, showing extraordinary resilience. This comes after moves to remove the large denomination rupee notes under what is called demonetization to take out some of the black money in India and increase tax revenues that were lost due to evasion. In South Asia tax evasion is rampant, much more than in countries like Italy of the eurozone. The move was difficult as it required being sudden, and a shift to use of debit cards and ATM's which required additional effort, slowing the economy. The other moves such as on GST tax were designed to facilitate doing business in India with one tax and free movement of goods replacing different state by state taxes. Business has not responded quickly to support Modi, and the Indian economy being prepared for the long term growth Modi hopes to generate is slowing in the short term. GDP growth has dropped to 6%. A bullet train planned in western India with help from Japanese financing and technology is being criticized unfairly because of the collapse of an old bridge near a railway station in Mumbai. Bruce Stokes, Director of Global Economic Attitudes at Pew Research, says the survey was done after demonetization but before the GST tax overhaul. This is not likely to change Modi's high ratings. The GST overhaul has been on the agenda for many years for all political parties in India. The views of Modi are not necessarily the same as for his BJP party which are lower for the party, the party gaining more from Modi's efforts and leadership, including in his home state of Gujarat. ...

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Used car retailer CarMax says wholesale market prices for SUV's and trucks were down about 25% in the first few months of 2008 to May 31. The market deteriorated quite a bit in May and early June as the decline becomes deep and significant.

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About 75% of French women oppose the pension changes in France planned by president Macron. Women get 40% lower pension than men, yet they work longer and harder in roles taking care of children, and helping elderly, and face age discrimination at work. Women are structurally underpaid and their pensions are lower as a result. And they work long exhausting hours, says this report. It says women stand to lose the most from a reform in pensions. It also disproportionately affects lower skilled workers who start work early and women says FR24, who would be required to work for longer years.

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This may be the most important work of the DJT administration by 2027 into 2028 elections.  WSJ calls it the soda wars, when it is the slow destruction of America. As JFK and RFK well knew when they made fitness a goal for America in 1960- health is not built on sodas. Today with such high obesity, sodas and its likes, it is about the slow destruction of America.  MALA make America Live Again starts here. “When a taxpayer is putting money into SNAP, are they OK with us using their tax dollars to feed really bad food and sugary drinks to children, who perhaps need something more nutritious?” Right now it is the biggest item for schools in most states for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Plan. Passed by Congress in 1964 the original bill for SNAP excluded sodas and luxury drinks, but had Sodas added back in by the Senate. By lobbyists even in 1964? SNAP schools program falls under the Agriculture Department. Democrats as well as Republicans appointed Agriculture Secretaries and not one took the action to get sodas excluded, to let states request sodas be excluded and approve it, not the Democrat a Carter, a Clinton, or an Obama, or a Republican a Reagan, a Bush, or a Trump (first term) took the necessary action. In 2025 Brooke Rollins is Agriculture Department Secretary. Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee has seen the damage sodas can cause in her family. Rollins on her first day in office has finally acted- after 61 years when the original intentions of the SNAP bill's creators were confounded in the Senate.  On her first full day in office, urging them to propose pilot programs testing changes to food aid. Rollins sent governors a letter to ask for the removal of sodas from schools food aid program.   ...

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The 1985 hit "Small Town" by John Mellencamp is about Seymour, Indiana. Republican State Representative Jim Lucas says the city of Seymour welcomes immigrants legally here who are properly vetted. The concern is about migrants not vetted and not legally here. At a recent city council meeting Lucas attended it was decided not to go ahead with an economic development agenda. Says Lucas- “However, Seymour has changed drastically in just the past few years, and many of us are obviously concerned about the direction we are headed,” he added. New immigrant cases or migrant arrivals for Jackson county, Indiana, where Seymour is located went up to 435 in 2024 from 66 in 2021. It is at that point that the welcome center idea ran into opposition in this small town in Indiana, an hour from Indianapolis population 21,000 in Jackson County. As the town's population mix changes - it was 1% Hispanic in 1990, then 5% Hispanic in 2000- jumping in two decades of Bush-Obama-Trump-Biden to 25% Hispanic, questions besides economic about the sense of uneasiness of resident came up. Also of cultural literacy of the state of Indiana, and of the history of the state within the Union forged by Washington and Lincoln, FDR and Eisenhower, and of Wendell Wilkie of Elwood, Indiana. Unemployment rate for Jackson County is 3.3%, median income $63,000, home ownership 57%. Issues were not about the economy alone, and about how many immigrants could be absorbed and the cultural and language literacy of arriving migrants. There were issues about the perceived crime rate (metrics show traffic related offenses were up), and about drawing too much of the school's resources as English learning went up slowing learning in the schools. Republican State Representative Jim Lucas says it is crowding the health care clinic downtown with immigrants. ...

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Wal-Mart has fallen behind competitors CVS and Walgreen in its drive to open medical clinics in its stores. Walgreens now has 350 in-store clinics, CVS 600, Target 44, and Kroger 80. Wal-mart has 149 in-store clincs in the U.S.

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By shifting production of the Santa Fe SUV model to Kia's West Point, Georgia, plant- which makes the Kia Sorrento- Hyundai plans to free up 100,000 units capacity at it newly opened Montgomery, Alabama, plant. This freed up capacity will be used to meet increasing demand for Hyundai's Sonata sedans. Hyundai owns 34% of Kia Motors. The West Point plant was built to produce 300,000 units and uses the same components for the Santa Fe that it uses for the Sorrento.

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BYD has aa price earnings ratio of 60 times after Buffett bought into the company. Its F3 model is the best selling compact in China. And the F10 is the second biggest seller in monicars. By 2009 end sales are estimated at 137% above 2008 by JD Power and share prices up 7 fold since Buffett's investment.

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Daimler takes a $3.4 billion charge for Chrysler. It sold 80% of Chrysler retaining 20% for $7.4 billion from Cerebus Capital. Daimler will take $1.5 billion out of a $2 billion lien loan neeeded to close the transaction because of the recent credit squeeze from the mortgage crisis. Zetsche emphasized the fact that after this transaction the return on investment on Chrysler does not affect overall profitability for Daimler as it has only 20% stake, and this appears to be the goal of Daimler from the beginning.

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Wildfires burn on 1.4 million acres in California as it seeks help from Australia and other places. These fires are the second largest in its history.

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William Daley, the head of Washington lobbying for JPMorgan Chase, is appointed Chief of Staff to President Obama. He also serves on the board of directors of Boeing and Abbott Labs, companies which a strong interest in Washington lobbying. William Daley is with Chase since 2004, and was hired primarily to strengthen Chase's Chicago connections. In the past he has served as the main liasion with the White House. In 2007 he joined the bank's senior leadership as head of its new Office of Corporate Social Responsibility, which oversees the company's global lobbying efforts.

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An exceptional editorial on the steps taken since bankruptcy for reviving Detroit -with all the numbers one needs to know for how this was done and is progressing. The editorial gives credit to Michigan Governor Snyder and Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr for having the courage to guide Detroit through the bankruptcy. It sees the outcome emerging, including treatment of bondholders, pension funds, and city workers, as fair considering the problems involved. The steps are also being taken to correct the deep seated problems that caused the crisis.

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Jim Tankersley of the Washington Post looks at the myths and realities of trade following incorrect statements made by Donald Trump about international trade. For example Trump suggests that Japanese automobiles imports are a big problem, though the imports have been cut by over 50% since the 1980's with Japanese companies Toyota and Honda making cars in the U.S. in Kentucky and Ohio. Detroit faces competition from foreign manufacturers based in southern states, including Alabama for Mercedes Benz and Tennessee for Nissan. Mismanagement including lagging in fuel efficiency and quality, and higher health costs for older workers were problems facing Detroit in the past decade. The Obama administration provided support to the auto companies to make the recovery following two bankruptcies in the U.S. auto industry, showing the U.S. has intervened as needed and the auto companies have made transformational changes. A big problem says Trump is the trade agreement with China which he promises to renegotiate. Tankersley points out that no such treaty exists. The U.S. agreed to China's entry into the WTO. This is not something the U.S. can renegotiate as the WTO sets rules for trade for all countries. The likely result of a shift away from Chinese imports would be more imports from countries such as India and Vietnam which are lower cost producers than China. Trump says some of the 2 million jobs lost in the past 2 decades will come back, yet the shift may be towards lower cost countries from China, with fewer jobs coming back to the U.S. High tariffs would not lead to the growth Trump predicts. A study made by Moody's Analytics at the request of the WP shows a Trump move for high tariffs would lead to a recession and lead to mass layoffs as other countries imposed their own tariffs, leading to large loss in U.S. exports. Trump has made claims such as telling the Post that $19 trillion in federal debt could be paid off in 8 years without raising taxes by fixing trade. No grounding on facts is provided by Trump. One of the failures of the media in the 2016 election campaign is the failure of the media to provide scrutiny for candidates claims and wild exaggerations, which have gone uncontested or unquestioned, or without the persistence till satisfactory answers are given by the candidates making them. Especially when the stakes are so high, for the U.S. and for the global economy. ...

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GM's marketing strategy for the new SUV, the Chevy Tahoe, which is in showrooms. 1) Defining the market segment- people with many children, a dog, a trailer, people who would otherwise need two cars to do the same job transporting kids. 2) Addressing the fuel efficiency concerns, showing how the fuel management system works. Fuel economy of 22mpg for the Tahoe. 3) Providing detailed training to salespeople handling these SUV's, checking that its working, and making sure it addresses the customer concerns. It took 12 days to sell a ChevyTahoe in U.S. showrooms in February 2006, according to Power Information Network. Links: see Maugeri of ENI in Foreign Affairs, April 2006 on refining constraints Yergin in same global issues in energy security Bush India nuclear deal for civilian energy Niall Ferguson on China and recession, affects future Chinese demand, Hoover Digest, Winter 2006 Links on Biofuels, Ethanol Offsetting this Links to geopolitical areas- Nigeria, Iran, Saudi, terrorism or other political risks, and declining production Iraq and Mexico links....

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A study by Dr. McCormick of the Harvard Medical School and professors at the City University of New York School of Public Health at Hunter College, shows that the anticipated savings from conversion to medical records may not materialize to the extent expected. This study of data from 1100 doctors of 28,000 patient visits shows that with access to digital records doctors actually increased the number of tests ordered- from 12.9% of visits without digital records to 18% of visits with digital records. For more advanced tests such as MRI and CT scan the rate was 70% higher. Dr. McCormick says this may be because the new digital technology may have made it easier to order tests.