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Simple numerical skills, finding information on a website might be difficult for a good third of the American population. Peggy Carr, a Commissioner at the Education Department says- "There’s a dwindling middle in the United States in terms of skills. Over time we’ve seen more adults clustered at the bottom.”  US is lagging behind other countries and is also having a shocking level of lack of basic skills for a significant part of the population. The failure of the Education Department and different administration's programs in the last 3 decades suggests need for companies and individuals to come up with their own efforts- including use of Lyrarc.com for reading comprehension and numerical skills. The number of test takers whose skills were at about the level of a primary school student in math went up to 34% in 2024 up from 29% in 2017. Program for International Assessment of Adult Competencies Test was given in 31 economic regions, to 161,000 people of which 2600 were in the US. It was given in 2012, 2014, 2017 and 2023. US ranked 14th in literacy, 15th in adaptive problem solving, and 24th in numerical skills. Countries doing best ranked are Finland, Japan Norway, Sweden and Netherlands, Estonia, Belgium and Denmark. Northern Europe does best and Japan.   ...

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Stock markets have declined about 1% during the current banking crisis. This shows that the action taken by president Biden quickly taking over Silicon Valley Bank and closing Republic Bank is working. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and the central banks of US, EU, Swiss, worked together to take immediate action. Swiss central bank and the government stepped in to arrange the backing for UBS to takeover Credit Suisse bank.  The crisis affected market sectors in differing ways. Information technology stocks were up 5.7%, energy stocks went down by 7%, bank stocks declined 6%, sensitive materials sector stocks went down by 3.5%. Risks remaining are that the loss of confidence in regional banks could affect lending. The Fed's policy of containing inflation by raising interest  rates could continue say experts leading to information tech stocks losing any gains. Any drop in the price of oil could help the economies of the US and EU, India, Japan and China. By March 15 prices of US crude had dropped for West Texas Intermediate benchmark to $67. Any drop of prices to the $60 level increases growth in the EU, US, China, India and Japan, reducing chances of a recession. ...

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The deep deterioration in U.S. China relations as the U.S. sees itself in a disadvantage in trade with China and the Trump administration imposes tariffs, calls for changing existing supply chains and trade to safeguard U.S. interests. The lack of transparency from China about the coronavirus and the underreporting that led to the U.S. and Europe not taking the threat seriously enough or taking defensive steps is also seen as a part of the deeper problem as the U.S. and Europe bear the brunt of the coronavirus in terms of deaths and cases.  This presents a deeper problem than the trade issue by itself as the U.S. had a trade issue with Japan which was later resolved. The way the Trump administration sees itself as the only protector of U.S. interests in trade, security and international cooperation creates a new level of tensions. Other countries such as Australia, India, Japan, and countries in South East Asia are seen as having similar concerns as supply chains are being remade to reflect the new trading conditions and economic structures. ...

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Japan's hopes of reaching a trade agreement with the US before tariffs of 24% kick in in July are now nil. Upper House elections coming up in Japan mean that the ruling LDP party could lose seats in parliament if it makes any concessions. US sees Japan as stalling in trade negotiations.

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Wall Street Journal reporters Hayashi, Dawson and Schlesinger, interview Prime Minister Naoto Kan of Japan. The Japanese government's policy is to reform agriculture and liberalize trade simultaneously. The average age of agricultural workers in Japan is 65.8 years. Agricultural reform would be designed to encourage young people to take up farming. On limiting the trade balance of each nation to 4% of GDP, and on the currency situation, Kan says it is very important to understand that Japan's situation is very different from the emerging economes, where GDP is growing rapidly and exports are expanding.

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The US and Japan are coordinating efforts to limit transfer of sensitive technology to China and increase trade and cooperation within the G-7 in high technology sectors. Efforts are being coordinated with South Korea. Janet Yellen says the IMF has overblown the effects on the world economy from the US decoupling from China. IMF reports have also in addition presented India incorrectly as a non aligned country, when it is a close partner of the US. In 2023 US is the largest trade partner of India.The US position is to limit flows of technology in sectors considered vital, and continue world trade in other areas with China. US is committed to friendshoring to India, Vietnam and other countries. Germany's three parties CDU, Greens and SPD are reversing close trade and technology links with China. This is also the policy of the Modi administration which seeks close trade and technology ties to US and EU. The shift is in response to what is really an overconcentration of the supply chain in China that happened as business in the US and EU and the Merkel and the Bush-Obama-Trump administrations failed to see the risks of overconcentration. And carried out misguided policies in trade and investment that are now being reversed by US president Biden, Kishida in Japan, and Modi in India. ...

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China's role for World War II defeat of Imperialist Japan given prominence in 2025. China made huge sacrifices in fighting the Japanese just as Russia made huge sacrifices fighting the Nazis in Germany, yet US help was crucial in helping China stay in the war to the end in 1945. Roosevelt sent one of America's best soldiers personally selected by Gen. George Marshall, Joe Stilwell to China. The best documented writing about this period of the war and the role of Stilwell is in Barbara Tuchman's book- Stilwell and the American Experience in China. Stilwell starts his knowledge of China in the period of the First World War when he decides to take the position as military attache to the American consulate in China. Tuchman is the only writer who was welcomed by China's revolutionary leader Mao to write about China during the renewal of US relations. She gives the best account there is of how Stilwell in his different trips to China learned the language and lived with the ordinary people, embracing the conditions of China's backwardness and war torn countryside as Japan invaded. No American or European in history could be said to have done what Stilwell had done in restoring the morale and giving self respect to China at an extremely difficult time of poverty, backwardness and war. To read it is to realize how America and Americans fought all the colonial ideas of the British and the French and Dutch and embraced the dignity and culture of the Asian people. Gen. Joe Stilwell was the best of America- of whom it could be said in all races, especially in China, he defended justice and protected the weak. ...

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This report in the NYT shows a grim reality that about 70% of 15400 nursing homes offering a place for the elderly in America are for profit and some owned by private investors who seek to turn a profit on the operations. With competition from home care support and assisted living facilities the investors were having a hard time turning a profit on the operations resulting in deterioration in quality of operations and care. 

 Japan, Scandinavian countries, and Germany, other countries have a better system for quality of life as people get older.

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This NHK video shows what bones look like under a microscope and the role of isoclytes that generate small amounts of acid to decrease bone and isoblasts that help generate new bone to replace old bone tissue. Every 5 or 6 years humans have entirely new bones. Japanese researchers show the role of FM1 in disrupting malignant isoclyte cells to prevent osteoporosis. Four exercises are shown including heel raise, weight on one leg with leg raise, squat using chair and correct walking. Soy isoflavones and kiwi help reduce osteporosis say researchers at Japan's Agriculture University.

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BYD's expansion in the EV market is a threat to established automakers in the US, Japan and Germany, says this report in WSJ. BYD making its own batteries means it can keep costs low. It made 1.8 new energy vehicles in 2023 through August and 83% increase over 2022. It is now the largest car brand in China overtaking VW and its product mix enables it to overcome a cut in EV prices. 1 in 3 cars in China are EV's giving China and BYD the experience and scale for world wide competition.

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This report by Jia Lynn Yang in NYT covers only the Coolidge period and the JFK period ignoring the wider trend since the 1850's when immigration from Asia to the US was discouraged. The laws limiting Japanese, Chinese and Indian immigrants were put in place long before 1924 by the 1890's. Japan agreed to limit immigration to the US under an agreement with the US after 1900. China was undergoing a transition under the Boxer Rebellion and upheaval in government in the period after 1900, India was part of Britain's colonial Empire.It does not mention that Chinese laborers helped do the dangerous work to build the railroads east to west. It also ignores the immigration from Mexico which was a special case in immigration because of Mexico's relationship along the border, first with the Mexican American War that achieved Jefferson's idea of a continental nation coast to coast. Mexico was a source of labor for US agriculture in the 1930's and 1940's when Asian immigration was severely constrained. When Gen. Eisenhower won the election in 1952 immigration policy was on the agenda, in fact Truman had a commission look at it by 1950. Operation Wetback was launched by Eisenhower and returned millions of Mexican migrants back to Mexico. Fearing the lack of farm help for Mexican agriculture Mexican agricultural interests supported the return of migrants. All this is left out by Lynn Yang. For almost a century Asian immigration was discouraged till JFK with experience in Asia during the war looked at Asian immigration to US differently passing new legislation to support this in the JFK/LBJ terms as president. In this sense the operations under DJT at the Border  and in the US in 2025-2026 are similar to what happened under Operation Wetback under a popular president Eisenhower, after the surge in Mexican migration adding millions of migrants to the US population in the 1930's and 1940's. A greater glimpse of the US can only be imagined if after the early immigration and discovery of the continent by the Spanish, the French and the British by 1600, the continent had not been unified first by the war of 1756-1763 with the French and Indian Wars creating the original 13 British colonies before the War of Independence in 1776, and the expansion to Spanish/Mexican territory to the West and South including California, Texas and Florida in the Mexican American War of 1846-48. In that situation there would be five sectors in America- British, Spanish, French, Mexican and American. The US could not have advanced as an industrial power divided in this way and would not have attracted immigrants from Europe the away it did. If it was split into two Southern confederacy and Northern Union states it would also have led to a similar situation. There would be conflict. It is only divine intervention and the courage and ideas of Jefferson and Washington, the work of president Polk, the leadership of Lincoln, and the industrial revolution on a large scale of one Nation in peace for most of the 19th century, that it became a haven for immigrants from a troubled Europe, a struggling Asia and Mexico. ...

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Issues of war an peace, food supplies, climate change and renewable energy transition, world health, and other issues that relate to the wellbeing of people in the world can only be met by broadening the membership of the UN Security Council. US president Biden favors broadening the membership of the UN Security Council. Ministers of the G4 countries, Germany, India, Japan and Brazil met this week to push for reform of a UN Security Council that is now not working or dysfunctional. 

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The view presented that Ambedkar's conversion to Buddhism was because of frustration that he had agreed to give up his demand for separate electorates for the lowest castes with the Poona Pact that he made with Gandhi in 1932. Gandhi saw separate electorates as one more effort at continuing divide and rule by the British to keep India divided and weak. This report in Indian Express says Ambedkar addressed a huge gathering of Mahars in Bombay in 1936 and advocated conversion to Buddhism. How much this was done to practice Buddhism is not clear. The Four Noble Truths are described as being dismissed from being part of Buddhism. Yet Buddhism as practiced in Sri Lanka, Japan and other countries consider it to be central to grasping the idea of Buddhism.

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Katsuya Okada is elected leader of the Democratic Party of Japan in Jan 2015. He is from a prominent business family. His brother is CEO of Aeon, a supermarket chain in Japan, which was founded in 1758. Okada says he supports Abenomics, saying: "I have no intention of completely rejecting Abenomics. On the contrary, there are many areas where I'd like to tell him, 'Go for it. Step up the pace.' " Policies he backs are deregulation to improve productivity, and Abe's policies to increase worker wages. He also supports being better prepared for regional conflicts, and said the DPJ would study Abe plans for legislation to strengthen the role of Japan's defense forces. Okada's comments reflects the changing sentiment in Japan about Abenomics since Abe's win in the snap election, and winning credibility for his economic policies.

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Tomiko Itooka is the oldest person at age 116 years and was born in Osaka in 1908, a life spanning the entire modern period in Asia. Of the 95,000 people over 100 years in Japan 88% are women. Itooka loved mountain climbing, had 3 children and four grandchildren.

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Washington Post Analysis and details of Census Bureau trade information in September 2025 -showing the country by country and product tariffs by US and which tariffs are waiting for final trade agreements. China, India and Switzerland, Mexico face high tariffs. UK, EU, South Korea, Japan have made trade agreements with the US, China, India Swiss are still to finalize trade agreements leading to the uncertainty. The North American Trade Agreement is being renegotiated leading to uncertainty for Mexico and Canada which have both benefitted from trade with the US to detriment of US manufacturers.  China has huge surpluses that keep growing over time to $1 trillion ($992 billion) a year in 2024.  DJT Tariffs are designed as a bold step to remake the international trading system so that it does not work to the benefit of other nations gaming the system over decades as US administrations Clinton, Bush, Obama, paid no attention. Trade Deficits and the National Debt are a problem not just the National Debt. On the National Debt Republicans have pushed through cuts in parts of the budget where costs had escalated tremendously. ...

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At a time when multilateral financial and other institutions are not working properly on behalf of countries in the Global South, the G20 is seen as the place where the poor countries can find a voice. The African Union was admitted to the G20 nations with the support of India and the US at the New Delhi Summit. Before this the only nation from Africa was South Africa. The other countries are the original G8- US, Canada, Germany, France, European Union, Britain, Italy, Japan. These countries represented the already advanced economies. To these nations were added the newly advanced economies of Russia, South Korea and China, Australia for 11 economies. The 7 rapidly developing nations added are India, Indonesia, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, South Africa.

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Fewer workers will support the elderly in the U.S. and the process is accelerating, posing new problems for Social Security programs. Census figures show in 2017 there were 25 Americans 65 years or older for every 100 people in working years, by 2030 this figure goes up to 35 retirees. By 2025 it will reach 33 retirees. By comparison in 2025 Canada would be 40 retirees, Germany 44, Japan 58, and on the lower side India at 13, Mexico 16, China 22. Trustees for Social Security are dipping into the Trust fund in 2018 to pay benefits for first time since 1982.

States are in worse shape $2.6 trillion in assets cover $4 trillion in liabilities in fiscal 2016, according to data from Pew Trust.

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Cracks are appearing in Japan's manufacturing model in recent years. Kobe Steel, Mitsubishi Materials and Subaru Corp have admitted to manipulating quality inspections. Takata Corp, maker of airbags is a case study in what can go wrong, as the company declared bankruptcy after failing to tackle safety problems and supplying defective airbags. The case is all the more astounding as airbags are designed for ensuring the safety of automobile passengers, a key feature of every automobile.  The situation is one of failure of management to take the right actions. This also happened with Toyota as management missteps worsened the issues related to faulty acceleration of vehicles, leading to media focus on Toyota in the U.S. Japan is not unique in this area of management failures as VW's actions in the diesel emissions case have clearly shown. Pressures to cut costs are part of the problem as this report shows. In Japanese companies quality checking staff employees are the targets of cost cutting layoffs resulting in the faulty step of outsourcing quality checks, which is contrary to what the country's pioneers sought to do when they adopted American Total Quality methods in the 1960's. This creates opportunities for China today, and for India in the future if it is able to capitalize on the opportunities in manufacturing desperately needed for job creation.    ...

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Real tariffs are less than 12% of imports much lower than expected because of exemptions and tariffs announced and later dropped, CEO's have said that the impact of tariffs is much less than expected, and some say the worst is behind us. The administration of DJT and Treasury Secretary Bessent has shown much more flexibility and responded to the stock market declines in its tariffs posture. Bessent says the purpose of tariffs was not the revenues itself but getting other nations to play by the rules for fair play in world trade, rather than try to take the largest share of trade for their nations in the case of China, EU, Canada, Mexico and Japan which have all profited from unfair trade practices. The perception of tariffs is now changed.

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Tontine pension products are popular in Japan where longevity has risen to the point where many women are live much longer. To make their pensions last longer for older participants the women pool their investment assets so that the oldest participants do not outlive their savings. As participants die the remainder of the asset pool is divided among the remaining women so that older participants can continue to receive periodic payouts for longer. Annuity products of this type are offered by Japanese insurance companies where contributions are made by Japanese people in their 50's for pension payouts later in life.

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Surjit Bhalla, executive director for India at the IMF, looks at different trajectories of growth in India to 2030 and 2047. He looks at growth for per capital incomes that India can achieve over the next 2 decades to meet the aspirations of a young population of over 1 billion. With next generation technologies and acceleration in growth after certain parameters are met including logistics capabilities, manufacturing in advanced technologies, infrastructure improvements, rule of law in some states, federal and state governments working together, much of the work to achieve per capita incomes similar to Japan and South Korea can be achieved in the next decade by 2035.

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Britain's population increased by 9 million between 1992 and 2018, to 66.4 million, and is projected to increase further. It will pass 70 million in 2031. This report looks at the positive changes this represents by keeping a large working age population in contrast to China, Japan and France.

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There is a major shift in world opinion among major countries in Asia and Europe and North America moving negative by double digits in Pew research surveys. The shift is gradual and negative in Germany, France, Spain and Italy, and steeply negative in Sweden, Denmark, Britain and the U.S., Japan and South Korea. The people with negative views of China in world affairs are also the people who believe China did a bad job in handling the coronavirus.  In Australia in one year alone there is a 24% increase to 81% of people who see China unfavorably, in Britain this is a 19% increase in one year to 74%. In the U.S. the shift is over 4 years by 20% to negative views for 73% viewing China unfavorably or negatively. The shift in Canada is similar to the U.S. The biggest shift is in Japan where 86% view China unfavorably and Sweden where this is 85% after China handled Swedish relations poorly. See the color graphs in the original article in DW.com by clicking on original article here in Lyrarc.com. It is rare to see the such a dramatic shift in public perception of one country. The handling of the coronavirus by China in a way that hurt all countries with lack of transparency and total cooperation normally seen in pandemics and the cost in poverty and job losses, economic losses has resulted in a massive loss of confidence in China, and in the leadership of Xi Jinping. Most public opinion in these countries now believes that Jinping cannot be trusted to do the right thing in world affairs. ...