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Most countries in Europe and North America are observing a locked down Easter. In France 160,000 police officers and gendarmes are on duty to make sure people respect the lockdown. Fear that people will gather in parks and transmit the virus leads to officials in Germany, France and Britain to keep tight restrictions. The virus transmission has not abated in these countries. Religious services in Germany will be held online. Police in London patrolled parks and green spaces to prevent people going outside on sunny Spring days. 

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In this New Yorker essay after Biden's Soul of the Nation speech at Independence Hall Philadelphia, Jelani Cobb stated in the New Yorker that it was a speech made not just for the midterms in 2022, but for setting the country back on the path it has followed since Washington and Jefferson, Lincoln and FDR, to once more as in the times past through civil war, through depression, through world wars, to restore the ideas of equality and democracy when they were under assault. Biden said- This is where we set in motion the most extraordinary experiment with self-government the world has ever known with three simple words, "We the People." "We the People." These two documents and the ideas they embody- Equality and Democracy- are the rock on which this nation is built. They are why for two centuries America has been a beacon tho the world." As I stand here tonight, equality and democracy are under assault. We do ourselves no favor to pretend otherwise." ...

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Former Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin on Harvard, Columbia and other US universities dependent on full tution of foreign students to where they make up 30-40% of students, highly disproportionate to the American student population, which the author says funds the universities expanding buildings and bureaucracy. It means fewer opportunities for the American student population at the Nation's universities. An hidden aspect of this is that at the upper tier and upper middle tier of universities in the US this helps support rapid increase in the tution fees to levels not seen in two generations, making even upper middle class families with incomes over $200,000 a year find it hard to save for several children at such schools. It imposes an unnecessary and stiff burden on parents in the upper middle class. At the middle level of middle class incomes of $100,000-$150,000 the general inflationary trend for college tution puts these universities also in the range where the middle class can barely access them- cost of $30,000 a year over 4 years adding upto $120,000 and total of $360,000 for 3 children households. Basically universities have become an entrenched system operating in the interests of their own operations now in conflict with what is good for the Nation. ...

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A study and analysis in the One Earth journal for climate change action shows oil companies owe about $209 billion annually to pay for damage caused from climate change. The leading companies accounting for about 10% of global emissions are Gazprom and Saudi Aramco. These companies have benefited greatly from the oil price surge. The US and European oil majors who also have profited greatly from the oil price surge come next. Further distorting the effects of wars, financial crises since 2010, the war in Ukraine creates price surges from which oil companies benefit while the vast majority of people in the world are affected by a cost of living crisis made worse by higher energy prices. This is what is important to keep in mind as the US under president Biden prepares to play a leadership role in correcting these unneeded and bad distortions on how it affects the lives of workers and families in the US and Europe, as well as in Asia, Latin America, Africa. ...

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Potential Treasury nominee Kevin Warsh is given the possible role at Treasury plus appointment as Fed chairman after 2026 when Jerome Powell retires. At 35 years Kevin Warsh was the youngest governor of the Federal Reserve, America's central bank, appointed in 2006 by George Bush. At the time his appointment was criticized for lack of experience- Warsh comes from upstate New York and went to school at Shaker School in Latham, then Stanford, in economics and a JD at Harvard, followed by 7 years at Morgan Stanley. He was executive secretary of the National Economic Council in 2002. During the bank financial crisis of 2009 the lack of macro regulation led to failure of investment banks. Warsh was able top save Morgan Stanley and he acted as an avenue of information from banks to the Fed.

Warsh left the Fed in 2011 and returned to public service in 2016 when Trump made his first run for president as an adviser to DJT. 

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Three factors make up risk in diversification and risk reduction through bonds in 2025 with the estimated 1.5 -3 trillion in spending planned by 2030 with $400 billion in 2025 alone. AI in corporate bond indexes up to 15% and reach 20% by 2030 vs 40% of stock indexes (JP Morgan),  AI risk in bonds diversification from over issuance and downgrades is something to look at. One cannot assume bonds will reduce risk in the same way as before with overissuance of corporate bonds to power AI spending by Tech companies. There is also the risk to the Nation in the massive capital misallocation of funds that will crowd out essential spending in the crumbling infrastructure of the Nation, in education and healthcare, that degrade American leadership in industry, science and technology.

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Thomas Friedman sees the WikiLeaks information showing America paying the Pakistan army and intelligence services to be two-faced, to both fight with the Americans and at the same time support the insurgents fighting the Americans. He sees America being made the sucker in this game. And without the resources to change the region and transform it, America needs a better approach that does not waste its resources and energies.

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Europe responds with platitudes and vague references to "benefits for everyone" and "detrimental" without facing up to the facts. How many American cars do you see on the streets of Germany? in Berlin or Frankfurt?- or Japan? in Tokyo or Osaka?-or South Korea? in Seoul? And how long has this been going on - since the 1980's. Europe's answer to the Marshall Plan and Japan's and China's to post war American help for recovery, was to exclude American cars and other products. GM and Ford have pulled out of China and so has VW. China's plan is to flood the world with electric cars, and Japan's to flood the world with hybrids. For far too long America has relied on capitalism that has no state involvement. In this kind of competition with hidden subsidies and national planning at the core of industrial growth in Asia. The US government has to have state involvement in it's auto, steel, aluminium, and chip industries, not to create trade disturbances but to create an even playing field for all, and rebuild a middle class destroyed by unfair trading practices of Asian nations and the EU, including Canada and Mexico which are simply used as bases to ship to the US. Ford makes 80% of its cars in the USA and GM can make the investments in new plants to raise its production from 60% in the USA to 80%. South Korea's Hyundai and Kia are investing $21 billion to make in the USA. Toyota and Nissan, VW, BMW and Mercedes can do the same.   ...

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China agrees to drop a 40% tariff on American cars after a trade truce is announced following the Xi-Trump meetings at G-20 meeting in Buenos Aires. About $9.5 billion in car exports are made chiefly from Alabama with German plants, and the states of California, Kentucky and South Carolina. For China this is a small concession as this is only 4% of China's car market, or 1.2 million cars, and are aimed at the affluent market.

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WSJ reports that the former president's supporters will rally to his side but swing voters might be repelled by this latest legal controversy including the context in which it happened that of a sordid affair. Mr. Trump built his support base out of two mistakes of president Obama, his neglect of rural America, and neglect of American manufacturing. And of the mistake of president Bush in pushing America into two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that put money into wars with no productive purpose that needed to be put in rebuilding America's infrastructure. Others could have done this, Mr. Trump aggressively pushed ahead and found himself first. President Biden has closed the chapter on the wars by ending them, he has also closed the chapters of neglect of American manufacturing and put working families and America at the top of his agenda at every point. And as he did at the State of the Union address in 2023, made it personal by reciting what his father has told young Joe about standing up for working families. Biden's abilities rival that of president Lyndon Baines Johnson, who had as much experience in the US Congress as Biden, and delivered the passage of Medicare and Social Security for all Americans. Biden has done something that ranks similar with trillions of dollars for the Inflation Reduction Act, CHIPS and Science Act and pandemic assistance, and has the conviction that there is much more to be done. ...

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Germany's views on DJT Putin meeting in Alaska- proceeding to next step of peace talks with European efforts to ensure a peace that holds. A failure by Ukrainian leaders to build a consensus for the foreign affairs of their country bordered by language and cultural ties to the east but wanting to be open to the west, its unique position after 1990 similar to how Austria navigated German language ties to Germany after 1945 but was outside NATO and carried on with an independent foreign affairs friendly with all sides. The Bush, Obama and Merkel administrations did not pay attention to this and made serious errors, leading to further wrong turns by Ukrainian leaders and Russian leaders for prolonged wars. This led to destabilization in the Middle East, in Latin America, and in Europe and the US around migrant flows, refugees, and local wars, with Russia, US and Europe local regimes acting as adversaries that had not happened in this way in the 1960's -1990 period. This is the mess that DJT and Merz are now having to untangle with the help of countries that suffered huge losses in the war Russia and Ukraine who now may have realized what went wrong and offer their cooperation to end the war. ...

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This WSJ report sees Angela Merkel as leaving an international legacy of cooling relations with America. It says Angela Merkel turned down US president Biden's first call after his election as president because she was going to her cottage in the country that weekend. This report says after 4 terms Merkel is to be seen as dramatically increasing her country's economic dependence on China, pushing through a energy deal with Russia, joining France in challenging US political influence in Europe, rejecting American requests on economic policy and setting Berlin's openness to Chinese technology.  What happened with her youthful fascination with America during the years growing up in East Germany asks the WSJ? It also says of the Bush years of unregulated banking leading to the 2009 US banking crisis- that left her with a distaste for Anglo-Saxon banks and Wall Street lobbying. Of the Obama years it says Merkel found Obama unsteady, verbose, and sometimes meddling, with the spying on Merkel's phone also giving her a sense of disrespect to Germany. The result was that Merkel increasingly was fascinated by the Chinese experiment in development, visiting China 13 times while in office, studying Chinese history, politics and economics.  Merkel over this period met with the Dalai Lama and had questions about one party rule by CCP. Yet she became more and more resigned to Germany as a country of 80 million, not the EU and Europe as one group united in vision with a population of about 500 million, larger than America that could be a force for good in its own right. She said "we can be as hardworking, awesome,  as super as we like, but as a country of 80 million we won't be able to prevail if China ever decided that it no longer wants to have good relations with Germany." She ignored the experience of Sweden and Scandinavian countries in their relations with China. In saying this she ignored the potential of India and its neighbors in south-east Asia that make up about 2 billion people or about twice the population of China. She also seemed unaware of the role Woodrow Wilson, FDR, have played in realizing the democratic vision of the German revolutionaries of 1948 who failed to bring democratic government to Germany. And she had forgotten of the role Harry Truman, the commoner president of the US, who played a major role in establishing German democracy and its dignity during the Berlin Crisis after the blockade of Berlin by the Soviets in 1948. The mediocrity of presidents from Bush to Trump has bothered Merkel. Yet it may very well be that there is nothing mediocre about Mr. Biden and America's vision about its future as it grapples with the social and economic problems of the last three decades, as it has done before in its history and come through. ...

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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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Regional public universities, universities with state in their name, such as California State University, Northridge, or Michigan State University, Lansing, are where 60% of Americans come from, Ivies and upper income colleges such as Oberlin or Haverford, Kalamzoo make up 5%. Paul Gastris, Editor in chief of Washington Monthly, points to an important segment of the American population that has been ignored and without the needed funding in the last 3 Reagan decades. College educated from regional public universities such as California or Michigan or Pennsylvania state colleges/universities system are a huge section of the American population comprising 62%. 37% of Americans over 25 years have a college degree, 10% have an associates college degree, and 10% have some college education but no degree, 5% vocational certificate, all adding up to 62%. This is even as the Reagan period ends three decades of underfunding of state college universities  such as the California system setup by a visionary Governor Pat Brown that lifted up economic opportunity in the whole state in 1960. ...

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Bank of America plans to sell its $8 billion stake in China Construction Bank. Bank of America will post a $3.3 billion gain on the sale of these shares. This lowers Bank of America's stake in China Construction Bank to 5% from 10%. Buyers include Temasek Holdings of Singapore. Bank of America's new CEO Brian Moynhan is trying to sell noncore assets to bring the bank closer to meeting new reserve capital requirements set by the Federal Reserve. These steps include selling its consumer credit card unit in Canada, and plans to sell other non-U.S. credit card units. Warren Buffett recently made a $5 billion investment in Bank of America. Restructuring of consumer units will lead to job reductions of 10,000. Earlier this year the bank made 6000 job reductions.

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Barrack Obama's speech on closing Guantanomo, on the constitution and its abiding values and principles by which he would like to live by and be guided by, in making the decisions on various issues related to national security. " I stand here today as someone whose own life was made possible by these documents. My father came to these shores in search of the promise that they offered. My mother made me rise before dawn to learn their thruths when I lived as achild in aforeign land. My own American journey was paved by gernerations of citizens who gave meaning to those simple words-- "to form a more perfect union." WIth that Obama in his characteristic style addressed the fears, the passions, and dangers presented by the response America makes to global terrorism. And tries to find in the founding documents,- to which he refers again and again- and inside his own inner sense of what it takes to honor those documents and the principles enshrined in them, the guidance of how he should lead the country....

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It says a lot about America at this time in 2025, and should be reassuring to all that these women are standing tall in their effort to do this- to pursue satisfaction of contributing to national life and professional lives, and being good parents involved in raising children. Shown in this report in WSJ as examples of Conservative Women are Alabama Senator Katie Britt 43 years, May Mailman deputy assistant to the President, and ,Shannon Clark. Other women shown are former North Carolina governor Nikki Haley,  Karoline Leavitt, press secretary to the president, Huckabee Sanders, governor of Arkansas. They all say their faith, grit, family and spouse, and setting priorities, are helping them both make it in their careers and be engaged parents at the same time. Pew Research shows of women in both parties Republican and Democratic, about 70% want careers outside the home, and about 88% want good parenting at the same time.   ...

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From now on the vaccination program in India will be run nationally by the federal government. This will ensure fair access to vaccines to all parts of the Indian population. Earlier vaccine costs were bid up as states and private hospitals bid up prices. Under the new national program 75% of vaccines will be given out by the federal government and 25%  by private hospitals and other private health institutions. The government in New Delhi under prime minister Modi will offer adults free vaccinations. Modi said "We will increase the speed of procuring vaccines and also increase the pace of the vaccination program." Even in private hospitals the cost of vaccine will be kept at Rupees 150 or $2.06. Experts say this is the right policy and the government has learned from errors in letting states and other private institutions run vaccine policy, which made it too fragmented and subject to too many variables, resulting in inequity, and slowing vaccination drives. The Supreme Court stepped in asking for clarity, leading to the clear policy from the federal government announced today.  Advantage of the new policy is that the responsibility lies in one place, and the federal government also has the clout to make things happen, to negotiate with companies and other parties involved effectively. India has vaccinated 222 million people but because of the population being so large at 1.2 billion this comes out to be a small fraction of the population. This puts the task of getting vaccine supplies and getting the vaccination drives to work in the only place that has the determination and the resources to deliver results by vaccinating 1.2 billion people by December 2021. It has never been done before in history says Mr. Modi, and it is a challenge that India is now taking up for itself and for the global community. It also lays the ground for India to help its neighbors in Asia and in Africa, Latin America in 2022.   ...

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This report in the NYT says US officials now say Russia was not involved in the attack on the Nordstream pipelines in the Baltic Sea. The pipeline was connecting Russian oil and gas undersea to Germany and generated revenue for Russia, cost $12 billion each to build for Nordstream 1 and 2, so that it would have no reason to sabotage its own pipeline, say US officials. Cost of repairing the pipeline would be over $500 million.  Nordstream I and 2 stretch across the Baltic sea from Russia to Lubmin, Germany for 760 miles under the sea. Nordstream 1 completed in 2011 cost $12 billion to make, with a similar amount for Nordstream 2 completed over American objections in 2021 by the Merkel government in Germany. American officials are still reviewing the intelligence to understand how it happened. Just as happened for the spy balloons over the US initial reports and speculation have turned out to be misleading. It shows the importance of getting all the facts right, more than ever.   ...

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2023 is the year of huge aviation orders. Some even say this may stave off a recession. Biden says this would create 1 million jobs in the US. Modi names about 10 American states that will benefit from India's growing civilian and military aircraft needs. The biggest order in aviation history was one of 500 single aisle planes from Airbus by India's Indigo Airlines. Before this order Air India made an order of 470 planes from Airbus and Boeing. Riyadh Air and the Saudi airline also place large orders. 

WSJ cautions that it takes 6 years for planes on order to be delivered. There are production and regulatory issues. Some of the orders can be pared down. One expert says it is a way to get in line for planes to be delivered by planning ahead as the Indians have done by foresight about rapidly growing demand.

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It is hard to imagine that one is even writing about this, as shocking as it is- the 4 or 5 minutes between a decision to launch nuclear weapons and the end of life on this planet earth as we know it. Here Sam Nunn, a U.S. senator who was part of the negotiations for arms control and who is the leading American in this field talks about the unimaginable danger. He says the strategy from the Cold War where Russia and the U.S. put their nuclear forces in a position to be launched within minutes, 4 to 5 minutes, is outdated and needs to be changed. Hillary Clinton described the issue in the television debate. Yet this was not discussed because of the nature of the 2016 presidential election with lack of serious discussion.  And both Nunn and Clinton emphasize that once the missiles are in the air they cannot be ordered to go back. Accidental error, judgemental error, informational error in which one side thinks the other has launched a missile, a firing by mistake, are possible. In this situation Nunn says Trump is temperamentally unfit, and Clinton is fit to take on the responsibility. Yet the question this raises is as Nunn signals- is anyone but God fit to make this decision to launch nuclear weapons. Nunn says it is outdated and wrong to have only a few minutes, as such a decision cannot be made in a few hours or days, much less in 5 minutes. Nunn brings up a discussion he had in Moscow when he brought this up with Russians and president Putin. Russian president Putin told Nunn that he was fully aware of this. Putin's response was- "Senator Nunn, at some point it becomes automatic."  Nunn does not clarify what this means, or what Putin means to say. For people on the planet it is not enough to have Reagan, Gorbachev, Clinton, as Nunn mentions being responsible people for a nuclear decision. The current state of affairs is simply shocking and the lack of attention to this is also shocking. Equally dangerous is that 20 countries have weapons usable nuclear material, and sophisticated hacking of command and control processes is another danger.       ...

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Textualism or strict interpretation of the Constitution word for word may be back but one can never be sure. No sooner is one decision made in a certain direction with a particular approach to the law whether it be textualism or something else it then comes up for rethinking a few years later, under a different approach to the law or from a new angle. This is the law practiced in most British style courts of law including the US.  Former Justice Breyer of the US Supreme Court replaced by his law clerk Ketanji Jackson, is interviewed by NYT's Adam Liptak. Today so much is written about Breyer as a non textualist, and Gorsuch, Kavanaugh recent additions to the Court as textualist or strict interpreters of the Constitution based on when it was written with what intent. Yet as thinking individuals who like the rest of the American people grow in their understanding all Justices cannot be categorized  in this way. Breyer says he worked with retired Justices Kennedy and Souter and found them to be willing and keen on hearing all angles. Then it has to be said that both Kavanaugh and Gorsuch were law clerks for Kennedy. Much of American law at the highest court actually is no better than any other human creation - it tries to approximate as best one can the people of the US. Sotomayor coming from Puerto Rican descent, Ketanji Jackson from minority black, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch from Georgetown preparatory schools where Kavanaugh's paternal grandfather attended Yale something even JFK could not claim, Chief Justice Roberts coming from a company professional type background, Barrett a professor at a Catholic university, Kagan with a Bostonian JFK style background, Alito old Italian and Clarence old minority black background. Breyer retired recently to make way for a younger judge, Judge Ketanji Jackson who was law clerk to Breyer. Breyer is writing a new book which he hopes the conservatives on the Supreme Court will read- Justices Kavanaugh, Barrett and Gorsuch. The book coming out March 26 has the title- Reading the Constitution- Why I Chose Pragmatism not Textualism. He hope these Justices will read the book and say their colleague was making sense, would say that it was not a bad point. ...

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In this insightful essay Peggy Noonan, former spokesperson for president Reagan, says that Republicans like Speaker Ryan with the Republican Health Care bill are making the same error made by president Obama.. Noonan says she had suggested a different way for president Obama to show compassion for the uninsured- first wait till the 2008 financial crisis was tackled, tackled waste and fraud in Medicare first, then look at the option of expanding Medicare to help the uninsured, and not the approach taken of swiftly focussing on the Affordable Care Act early in the first term disregarding Republican objections. She says Republicans are making the same mistake now by ignoring the impact the bill would have on Trump's base of working class Americans who may be affected by the bill's provisions not taking into account incomes in offering incentives or subsidies. Noonan says Trump did get one thing right in calling it a "carnage" for the worsening opioid epidemic in America which has hit rural areas and parts of the midwest hard. Noonan says Eberstadt has correctly documented the collapse in working class Americans wages and standard of living, and Caldwell the opioid epidemic at another level to their health. She also supports journalist Carlson who questioned Speaker Paul Ryan's judgement about eliminating the tax on wealthy investors in new legislation in a Fox News interview, as she says responding to the sense of America at the moment means listening to the sense of being left out of ordinary Americans, who have done not as well as the wealthy who have benefitted from a surging stock market.  ...

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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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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. ...