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The impact of the investigations into the Autonomy Inc. acquisition, the Barclay's rate rigging for LIBOR, and the UBS London trading desk's huge bets by a young trader in the twenties, have dented the reputation for integrity of London markets.

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There is one problem with the bull market in U.S. stocks in 2018. Most Americans are not part of it. Research by Prof. Edward Wolff of New York University, shows 84% of stock market wealth is controlled by the top 10% of Americans. This was 81% in 2007. This widens the gap between the wealthy and the rest increasing disparities and reducing social cohesion.

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Tokyo has the reputation for being the city with the longest working hours. Overwork leading to death has a term for it in Japan- "karoshi." But this is changing. Recent studies show Mumbai as the city with the longest working hours per worker per year at 3315 hours. The Japanese government had a law passed this year limiting legal overtime work to 45 hours a month, with an extension in busy periods to 100 hours for a maximum of 6 months. Yet the culture is taking time to change, even though long hours often leads to low productivity. It does not mean productivity is high in Mumbai or Tokyo. Dublin, Ireland has one of the highest productivity scores, workers in Dublin worked 1856 hours a year and still created $84 in GDP every hour- compared to this in Mexico City the third hardest working city had only $18 in GDP per hour. This is calculated by dividing GDP by the hours worked. Occupational health psychologists say working longer hours can be less productive because of the drain on performance, resulting in poor concentration, memory and compromised problem solving and creativity. The lack of rest means resources are not replenished with rest, and can deteriorate physical and mental health. Singapore a fairly liveable city has the highest percentage of people working more than 48 hours per week, in a Kisi study. Suggestion for work life balance include taking holidays and short breaks, and switching off from work mentally, using mindfulness and meditation. Practicing self-compassion and prioritizing self-care is needed. ...

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Pictures of the damage done by cyclone Fani as it moves eastward from the coast line near Vishakapatnam, to Odisha state and further to West Bengal and Bangladesh. The Indian government has announced a relief fund of Rs 1000 crores ($150 million) to help repair damage from the cyclone. About 1 million people were evacuated.

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There is space to notice to be mindful of where one is in the off season travel, that goes beyond just the sparse crowds and lower prices, says this report in WSJ by Sebastian Modak. There is a special feeling in that that is missing in travel at "the best time." 

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A Peking University economics professor who believes that China should take the best of western institutions not just its technologies and management makes his views public on the internet. He will be removed form his teaching position at Peking University by the end of this year. He is offered a teaching position at Wellesley College in Massachusetts in the U.S. Other Amercan Universities with ties to Chinese Universities have remained silent on his situation, says Xia Yeliang. His wife continues to work in accounting at the University. China's leaders see it as acceptable to work within the system to make improvements but not make the views public in the western media because this creates a bad impression of the party and the country, as Xia Yeliang is told by the party chief at Peking University.

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China's sharp slowdown in growth to below 4% is likely to reduce inflation in the US, Europe and the rest of the world. This means less demand for oil and gas, other commodities, that China absorbed for the higher growth, in a degree that was disproportionate when compared to the needs of the rest of Asia, Latin America, Africa, the US and Europe. The inflation in other parts of the world with inflation now exceeding 10% in Britain, is driven by the war in Ukraine cutting off supplies of Russian oil, and by supply chain issues. Lower demand for fossil fuels in China could compensate for the loss of Russian oil supplies by adding that much oil and gas to oil markets. Supply chain issues are being resolved though this may take some time. And a new supply chain is being built that replaces the old one that was too stretched out all over the world without emphasis on making at home in the US and Europe, India and other countries. US shale oil companies have not invested in increasing production and this could change adding to oil and gas supplies. Moderating inflation and a winding down of the war in Ukraine could help the economies of the US, Europe, India and other countries. ...

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This NYT analysis of fund raising by the Republican and Democratic parties for the 2020 election campaign shows Republicans hardly raising any money from people with incomes over 250,000 and very little from incomes over $200,000 with most funding coming from the base white working class and lower and upper middle class. For Democrats fund raising is significant at the levels of income over $200,000. Geographically the Democrats get most of their funding from the east and west coast areas.  This reflects the changes in the parties starting in the the 2008 elections when higher income groups in software, finance, and in professions of law and medicine and Silicon Valley tech shifted to Democrats. The Democrats also held onto minority votes. In 2016 this changed with a sharp turn with tech on the west coast and finance professionals on the east coast shifting to the Democrats. The PPP agreement under Obama favored tech over the auto industry, and renewal fossil fuels such as solar were favored over the oil industry and fracking. In 2016 this helped shift the votes in Michigan and Pennsylvania to Republicans. Older manufacturing industries, oil and fracking were supported by Republicans who pushed back against ceding global dominance in manufacturing to China. By 2020 these changes are now entrenched with white working class voters in industries decimated and communities destroyed by foreign imports mainly from China, supporting Republicans. Republicans under Trump have made regaining the manufacturing leadership of the U.S. that was the situation after World War II, a top priority for the U.S.  The minority vote shifted with Hispanics moving towards Republicans to a much larger degree than before. The urban rural divide is similar to Europe where the similar impact of foreign imports mainly from China have destroyed older industries and led to sharp decline in older towns and communities outside major cities. This is the situation facing the U.S. and Britain, France, Italy Spain, and Poland. Germany as a manufacturing country dependent on exports is also affected but to a lesser degree. The unwholesome aspect of this is that the larger urban areas are divorced from the rest of the country  and rural small towns, smaller cities. In some form reintegration has to take place. The vast majority of the working class classified in today's terminology as the less educated lacking a college degree and white are  paradoxically with Republicans, and the wealthy professionals and industries in software, finance with Democrats. Nothing makes this more evident than a quick look at the map of the U.S. with blue on the opposite coasts for Democrats and mostly red in between and in the south. This is unprecedented in American history. A rising tide that lifts all boats in the U.S. and the return of the U.S. to the position it held after World War II could change this in the next decade. ...

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How Biden's economic ideas for American jobs, union jobs, are taking shape and the role of Jake Sullivan, Janet Yellen, Katherine Tai, Gina Raimondo, in taking these ideas forward is covered by Peter Coy in the NYT. Core challenges Sullivan identified and Biden agrees are the challenge of inequality to democracy, failure of markets to allocate capital efficiently and productively. So badly that two thirds of 4th graders can't meet Reading test proficiency for NAEP.

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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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The protests in Hong Kong could end up as a failure because of the lack of any leadership in the movement for Hong Kong rights. In the early stage the lack of leadership helped build up mass support. As the movement grew it also had weakness in the form of a lack of a coherent program for negotiations with the central government in Beijing. The risks inherent in internet mass media communication are apparent as it brings out people in large numbers nd amplifies all grievances, but fails to produce tangible or concrete results as time passes and lack of coherent leadership weakens the mass movement or makes it overreach.  The lack of communication between the Hong Kong government and protesters with Carrie Lam Hong Kong's CEO not meeting them also led to a lack of a negotiated way out.  This overreach is what Friedman talks about in the NYT saying that the limited universal suffrage offered by China in 2014, with Beijing crossing off candidates openly critical of it, should have been accepted by Hong Kong protesters in negotiated settlement with some protections. The 1200 electoral body would vote for which candidates should stand for election in the Beijing formula. This was not such a bad thing as it offered limited suffrage where there was none in China, says Friedman. By rejecting that formula the protesters gained little because the "perfect" is not always the best option or a practical option when all the realities are taken into account. This is happening again in 2019 with the protesters and Beijing moving further apart and creating a bigger gap with very little constructive communication between the two sides. The efforts to bring the U.S. into protecting Hong Kongers rights by protestors marching to the U.S. consulate also could be seen as going too far by the rest of the people of mainland China, as the U.S. has its own problems including growing inequalities and confrontation between different socio-economic groups. The gradual shift to more disruptive tactics and confrontation with police led to damage to public structures that affected the image of the protesters. The overall lack of a coherent leadership that could negotiate some form of agreement for the future is now seen as a problem for the protest movement. It could lead to a failure to secure the Hong Kong rights protestors seek, says Friedman in the NYT, creating a story of missed opportunities with missing communication, missing negotiation around a "do-able" agenda that builds on common ground between the opposite parties. ...

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Ann J. Selzer who does the polling for the local Iowan Des Moines Register for three decades says- “It’s hard for anybody to say they saw this coming.” Yet the process does drive results. The only time Democrats did poorly in Iowa with reason was under Hillary Clinton, and it was clear that Obama did not have Tom Vilsack's back. Vilsack the three time popular governor of Iowa was Agriculture Secretary, yet Obama distracted by Silicon Valley did not give the support he needed. Joe Biden as president made Tom Vilsack one of, if not the most important part of his Domestic Agenda, underlining also to all that foreign policy would be driven by domestic agenda, and by domestic is meant in large part long neglected Rural America. Growing up as an adopted child in difficult childhood, Tom Vilack represented the best of Iowa and America in his public service in the state and the entire Great Prairie states that form the heartland of America's breadbasket, and for the world.   ...

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Adolf Merckle, a native of Dresden, left for West Germany after World War II and built up businesses RatioPharm a generics pharmaceutical maker, and Heidelberg Cement. After making a bad bet in shortselling of VW shares, just when the Prosche family moves ran up the price of VW shares from 210 euros to 1000 euros in 2 trading sessions to obtain majority control of VW, Merckle faced losses of several hundred million euros and possible loss of RatioPharm. A badly timed acquisition by Heidelberg Cement also created worsening finances for Merckle's business. When he failed to get a bridge loan Merckle committed suicide. A public outcry prevented the state government there to provide any loans to Merckle.

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The Afghan School in Kabul run by former Taliban officials for girls and boys is one of the best schools in Kabul. Boys and girls attend chemistry classes together. Taliban officials see the schools as a bridge between madrassas and modern schools, and now accept the idea that as long as Islamic ideals are respected girls should go to school like boys. A former Taliban foreign minister- of the government the U.S. ousted under president Bush- now helps his daughter with homework. The changes in neighboring Pakistan where the government of Nawaz Sharif is pushing modern ideas and technological development are likely to push progress in Afghanistan as well- this happens as the U.S. withdraws from Afghanistan. The U.S. leaves a region hungry for progress as new governments pushing technological development supported by business emerge in Pakistan and India in 2013-2014. Unfulfilled promises of economic development are at the forefront of people's minds. A transformation as large as the shift from communism in China to state run market economy and the technological and economic transformation that followed is now at its early beginnings in the region. This shift would be from religious strife and socialist structures to a market economy....

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Sue Desmond-Hellmann, CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, describes her growing up experiences in Reno, Nevada, seeing her father help people struggling with some problem as he ran a drug store in the town. This has influenced her own style of managing people, showing care in teaching people so that they can operate in their sweet spot without fear of being overwhelmed by too big a challenge. The ability to bring out the best in a person who is struggling, is one of the things she looks for in people she hires. Innovation, failure, resilience, and the humility that brings care and respect for others, are other things she looks for.

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Katy Balls of The Times of London on Charlie Kirk interview during an event in Florida. Kay Balls is The Times Washington Editor. She provides insights into Charlie Kirk who she says was polite in person than on the videos, mostly calling things as he saw it but also willing to engage with others which made him interesting to some young people on campus. His dad is an architect with his own practice who came up with the name TPUSA. The family is Republican and lives in Arlington Heights, Illinois. The parents wanted him to go to college, first an effort at West Point, then Baylor University, a Christian University in Texas, but he went to Harper College in Illinois. And he decided to drop out after work as a youth activist impressed Republican party organizers.

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To get a right grasp of the situation as a whole from the bigger picture than the headlines, is to know that even in the current chaotic immigration handling of both parties, the US comes out a winner in long term by 2034. That it gives for the younger generation a better future. Congress's Budget Office economic report shows GDP higher by 2% from the higher immigration of 5.2 million added to the US workforce by 2034. US productivity higher by 0.2% and residential investment including construction up by a whopping 10%. The younger profile of immigrants will help the US compete with India's younger population, and as China ages to have what it and Europe is aspiring to have- a younger population. The best way to look at the immigration issue is for the short term- manage it better by organized method of immigration without chaotic border crossings by allowing potential immigrants to apply from their home country, a step taken by the Biden administration. What it or any Republican administration could not control is the immigration that happens from countries the US is at war with or in conflict with. It is important to recognize that this is what happened with Venezuela the largest component of the immigration border crossings in 2023. It was made worse by actions of both parties Democrats and Republicans and made worse in 2017 by more severe sanctions on Venezuela under the Trump administration.  Also part of the problem is Venezuelan mismanagement- providing oil at pennies a gallon, hurting imports and spiralling inflation that only worsened under US sanctions after 2017. Long term- To reflect that US sanctions on top of mismanagement by Venezuela is a warning for all developing countries in Latin America, Africa, Asia and for the US. It meant 7 million refugees a staggering quarter of Venezuela's population fleeing the country, that burdened neighbors Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile. By 2022-2023 many of these refugees were making their way up the Darien Gap to the US. Yet within this tragic situation for Venezuelan people how could the US best respond is to close the border as president Biden has proposed with McConnell and the Lankford effort in the Senate, which was blocked by the House under Mike Johnson. This gives time to assess the situation, correct US laws on asylum and parole that allowed this chaotic way to proceed under actions of both parties.And not let this destabilize the US by understanding that while Venezuela has suffered for its role in the crisis the US will ultimately have come out a winner, as pointed out by the Congressional Budget Office projections. CBO projections of this immigration impact by 2034 of increasing the workforce population by 5.2 million will provide higher GDP, more tax revenues, and higher productivity than without this group of Venezuelan and other immigrants in this special situation of 2022-2023. For the Immigration projections discussion given by Phillip Swagel, Director of the Congressional Budget Office see page 51 of the Budget and Economic Outlook 2024 to 2034. For this search for term Congressional Budget Office or CBO which brings up the report on PDF and turn to page 51 or just click on Original Article on Lyrarc.   ...

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Aerial pictures of the damage done by cyclone Idai in Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe. Over 2.6 million people are affected in the three countries and the port city of Beira with 500,000 people is an island in the ocean completely cut off from the rest of Mozambique. Dams in the area of Beira are also under threat of bursting.

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Section 230 is a law passed in 1996 that makes the Social Media Companies and Media companies such as Meta and Google and others to have no liability for content posted on their sites. This has allowed these companies to grow and develop monopolies on the internet. Here CSPAN covers the hearings in the US Senate today December 9  with the following US Senators speaking at a Senate hearing on Online Safety for Children. Senator Whitehouse of Rhode Island describes the biggest problem as being the Section 230 which needs to be removed. The following mothers who are Senators and mothers or grand mothers of children were very vocal on this point- Katie Britt-Alabama, Martha Blackburn-Tennessee, Ashley Woody-Florida (former Attorney General of Florida).  Senators who are fathers or grandfathers of children speaking are-Josh Hawley-Missouri,      Whitehouse-Rhode Island, Bluementhal-Connecticut, Corbyn-Texas, Chuck Grassley-Iowa. Senator Whitehouse says-  "I understand Senator Graham was with respect to getting rid Of Section 230 Um, I strongly believe that Section 230 has long outlived its use, and it is now a real vessel for evil. That needs to come to an end. Um, the laws that Section 230 protects these big platforms from are very often laws that go back to the common law of England. that we inherited when this country was initially founded. I mean, these are long lasting, well tested. Important Legal constraints that have They've met the test of time, not by the year, by the decade, but by the century. And yet because of this crazy Section 230, these Ancient and highly respected doctrines just don't reach these people. And it really makes no sense that if you're a Internet platform you get treated one way. You do the exact same thing. And you're a publisher, you get treated a completely different way. And so I think that the time has come. I think it's pretty widely known that there were a core 4 of us. Ready to proceed with a bipartisan bill 2 and 2. And a A lot of work, important work, good work, valuable work has gone into making sure that other members of the committee and other members of the Senate have a chance to look at that and decide whether they want to join or not. And I'm at the stage right now where I think we just need to go." The Online Safety Act passed overwhelmingly in the US Senate recently still languishes in the House of Representatives. Ostensibly because of free speech but really because of monopolies and campaign contributions, and beyond this because of the idea that rapid internet growth gives the US economic and business leadership in the world. That is not how it has turned out instead by weakening the education of the children of the Nation this has created the idea in China and other nations that the US's period of world leadership has passed. In the overall scheme of things social media has weakened education in America as children of the Nation spend countless hours away from classroom education on their smartphones. Australia and other countries including China regulate the use of the smartphones and internet social media for children under the age of 14. This regulation strengthens education in these countries at the same time that the absence of limits weakens education competitiveness in America, and creates the idea that America's days of leadership in education have passed.The loss of this leadership means the loss of American leadership in the world in a decisive way. ...

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Scott Bessent on restoring the mission of the IMF "brutally calling out imbalances" including China's surplus economy and unfair trading practices instead of "whistling by the graveyard"- in his address to the IMF, Feb 15, 2025. Bessent says the IMF and World Bank had mission creep and lost track of financial stability and were not asking the hard questions about China's focus on exports at the expense of the manufacturing capacity and jobs of America and Europe.  Hee are his remarks meant to show that Bessent is taking an all of the above approach on energy, knows climate change is real but cals for flexible approach, an approach he wants the World Bank to take. And for the IMF to focus on key issues that have led to deindustrialization of US and Europe essential for financial stability before getting into social and cultural issues that are not its mandate for which it is ill equipped to address. Bessent told the IMF and World Bank - "Instead, the IMF has suffered from mission creep. The IMF was once unwavering in its mission of promoting global monetary cooperation and financial stability. Now it devotes disproportionate time and resources to work on climate change, gender, and social issues.   These issues are not the IMF’s mission. And the IMF’s focus in these areas is crowding out its work on critical macroeconomic issues. The IMF must be a brutal truth-teller, and not just to some members. Instead, today’s IMF has been whistling past the graveyard. Its 2024 External Sector Report was entitled “Imbalances Receding.”  This pollyannish outlook is symptomatic of an institution more dedicated to preserving the status quo than asking the hard questions."  Some of these hard questions are about surplus countries- about China and their focus on exporting their way till they destroy the manufacturing sector of the rest of the world. ...

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Moderna has made the initial batches of doses of the vaccine for the variant of coronavirus including South African variant, and shipped these to the National Institutes of Health in the US. If the test results are positive the vaccine for variant could be given authorization by the third quarter of 2021. It is becoming crucial to stay ahead of variants developing from the coronavirus and pharmaceutical companies Pfizer, J&J, Astra Zeneca are working on the technology to tackle this.

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David Barboza of NYT describes the hidden subsidies China gives to Foxconn for its plant in Zhengzhou, in a poor region of China. The factory there makes about half a million iPhones a day. These subsidies include incentive packages, infrastructure building, local government help of about $1.5 billion. As a result Apple has high margins. For a 32 gigabyte iPhone 7 that costs $400 to make, the retail price is about $649 in the U.S.  The hidden subsidies is why Apple can maintain dominance as profits are reinvested. And the result is that with only 12% of the smartphone market Apple can take in 90% of the profit, according to Strategy Analytics. Barboza looks back at Apple before co-founder Steve Jobs left in 1985 as focussing on manufacturing at plants in Colorado and California. By 2001 with iPod sales soaring the move to China under Cook, who previously worked for Compaq, was underway. With the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, the move to China for manufacturing accelerated. The reason: only China offered the kind of subsidies, the speed of approval and building of infrastructure facilities, the local government support, the hundreds of thousands of workers, and the best tooling engineers, to produce in huge volumes with speed, and maintaining quality levels. Earlier plants including one in Colorado Springs that this Lyrarc editor was invited to visit just prior to Jobs rejoining Apple had many quality problems, so much so that Apple had a large part of the manufactured personal computers set aside for rework. The quality levels were dismal, defects were unbelievably high. This is the Apple manufacturing process and plant that Jobs must have seen when he returned, and which he hired Cook to fix. Not only were costs higher in the U.S., (subsidies in China came later) when Jobs looked at the manufacturing quality and the inability to get the quality he needed from American workers and engineers at that time in the 1990's, only then did he turn to China- and the more he saw what was possible to accomplish there he sensed an unusual opportunity to finally put the ghosts of memories from competition with Microsoft at rest, and to surpass everything that had been done in Silicon Valley. The result one of the most ingenious and large manufacturing networks in the world, huge profits for an American company, except for one thing- it would not do much for American workers. ...

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The Alternative for Germany AfD party's increasing popularity in the former communist eastern part of Germany based in Dresden, is hurting its popularity in the west. It is expected to do well in elections in Saxony where city of Dresden is located, and in Thuringia and in Brandenburg in election in the fall of 2019. Much of its support has come from being the only opposition to the open door refugee policy followed by chancellor Merkel, seen as goning too far.  Merkel herself and the new CDU leader Ann Margaret Kampbrauer have decided it was not the right policy considering that many or most are economic refugees. This policy is now reversed and migrants are down to a trickle, with a new policy of foreign aid and selective intervention to troubled countries to keep economic refugees in their home countries. This report says any gains in the east could come with loss of many more votes in the west as the party loses its popularity in the west. This is because far right parties always had done better in the east with its older population, higher unemployment and loss of population. This is a legacy from the communist period in eastern part of Germany, and the merging of the two Germanys that led to westward migration and loss of economic potential in the east.  ...

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The Indian federal elections started on April 19 and will take place in phases for 960 million voters the largest of any country in the world in mountains in Ladakh to desert around Jaisalmer to the seas around Vizag and Kotchikode. It will take about 6 weeks to complete by June 1 and final results to be announced June 4. The voting is done using portable electronic boxes. It is still one of the great wonders of the world that its crazy no one talks about it and is a demonstration that India has taken the best of its own democratic traditions dating back to the time of the Buddha 563-483 BC. "It may come as a surprise to many to know that in the assemblies of Buddhists in India two thousand and more years ago are to be found the rudiments of our own parliamentary practice of today." This is Rab Butler, who was born in Attock, India and the leading parliamentarian of Britain who set up the post war education system of the United Kingdom, the longest serving minister in Britain from 1941, Home Secretary under Churchill to Foreign Secretary during Suez Crisiz in 1956, under Macmillan as Home Secretary in 1964, the best parliamentarian Britain had to offer in the 20th century. Butler served under Viceroy of India in 1910, and worked hard as India Secretary to pass the India Act of 1935 that gave India its first parliamentary style assemblies and elections. His idea even in the 1920's was for India to gain Dominion dominion status similar to Canada and Australia with a democracy, and was opposed by Churchill. Churchill knew his own weakness and supported Rab Butler as the younger Conservative who would revive the Conservative Party- his 1977 book The Conservatives. Cooperation with Hugh Hugh Gaitskill of Labour Party right into the 1970's made Britain a stronger country, which is how the Education Act 1944 was passed to make free education to all children to age 16.  Much of it broken since 1980 in 50 years of failed Conservative policy leading to the chaos of the Conservatives today, and an effort to spread that chaos to the US. ...