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The Trump real estate assets in New York and the real estate business are at risk in the civil case in New York about inflated asset values and loans, says this report in The Guardian. Judge Ergoron is handling this case and this is not a jury trial. This report in The Guardian asks, did Mr. Trump have the goods, citing a line in his 1987 book, "The Art of the Deal." It says after all the press, the hyperbole, the promotion and the excitement, if one cannot deliver the goods, people finally catch on to what is happening.

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Republicans new strategy break the budget bills in half some budget parts expiring before the others- extend budgeting for some government agencies through early January and some through early February. This is what new Speaker Mike Johnson has done and what a more vocal group the ultra conservative Freedom Caucus in the Republican controlled Congress seeks. Democrat senators and some Republican senators oppose this kind of bifurcation of the budget and setting different dates. Chuck Schumer says the "hard right proposals, hard right slashing cuts have zero support among Democrats."

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Daniel Camacho reminds us that being spiritual increases life's satisfaction. It is about being constantly amazed at life and the world outside, and looking at it in new ways fired by spirituality and imagination. It is about the spirit, and it takes in everyday life and what we see in new ways. One can be non-religious and have spirituality, and be somewhat religious yet skeptical of some things in religion without being cynical and have spirituality. One in five Americans are spiritual, and many of these people feel inspired while reading a book or listening to music.

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The alliance to make housing more affordable by building more units in the suburbs after many blue state areas have used zoning laws and other ways to keep new apartments out of their suburbs. It is called YIMBY which stands for Yes In My Backyard. States as varied as Montana, Arizona and Colorado to California, New York and Texas are on abiparitsan basis with Republicans working together with Democrats are looking for ways to make housing accessible and affordable by increasing funding for subsidized housing, building more apartments by loosening zoning laws, and expanding renter protection for tenants.

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Keller says that Fox News has contributed to the corrosiveness that has affected public dialogue in the U.S. He admits that the prestigious urban newspapers like the Washington Post and the New York Times can be condescending and too open to consider points of view that do not have merit. Yet, he says, they are different from Fox News in that they are self-critical and take up different points of view outside their own, an openness that Fox News lacks. A little research shows another side of the Times- during its early years the Times with a scoop of its own helped put the boss of Tammany Hall, which dominated New York politics in the late twentieth century, in jail. The journalists of the Times, even though they have their own screwups, always must carry the added responsibility of living up to a long heritage.

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Roger McNamee, an early investor in Google and Facebook, writes this opinion piece in the Guardian newspaper saying that there are very serious problems in the way the "addiction" created by Facebook and Google products is affecting children. Lyrarc.com also points out that the reading and literacy scores in the U.S. and other countries are affected by how the new technology is used by digital gatekeepers. See our FAQ. Tim Berners Lee calls this a massive distraction for learning and youngsters. Melinda Gates has cited this as a problem she has faced in her own effort to raise her children.  Here is the main problem as stated by McNamee- of the millions of content pieces that can be shown the digital gatekeepers show only the content that is fit for their business model, and the best content from an educational point of view whether literacy, reading skills, civic literacy, all types of literacy and knowledge, is not only not the priority but is for the most part absent. He points out that that if not for the advertising business model this would be different- the focus could shift to experiences that educate, enrich and inspire users to better lives and better lifestyles. The smartphone has become pervasive in everyday lives to an astonishing degree- about 150 times a day with 2000 swipes and touches- to the point that it is changing the way people live and think without their realizing it. With it come new risks to the way we live and what we believe, like never before in history. ...

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Massachusetts is moving into no. 3 or no. 4 position after New York and New Jersey and possibly Michigan in coronavirus cases with 34,000 reported. More than 3700 were hospitalized  in the state.

Massachusetts is close to hotspot New York. It also has a more aggressive testing strategy and is hiring hundreds of volunteers to do contract tracing, and uses Partners in Health, a nonprofit. Michigan and Massachusetts have followed a more aggressive strategy of testing compared to California which has taken a different approach of not doing aggressive testing and contact tracing leading to lower numbers in California now adjusted for population that could be different later on.

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Friedman on how a new IT venture in India tackles problems facing the power grid.

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When Hyderabad was designated capital of the new Telengana state formed from Andhra Pradesh state the idea of a new capital city that would cost 1 lakh crores for basic infrastructure to be set up at Amravati was suggested. The current Chief Minister Mr. Reddy says there is already infrastructure at Vizag, and this would make it a natural choice.

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Offices are being redesigned to let in more fresh air and sunshine, and to avoid the old practice of closed spaces with offices sealed off from outside air. Filtering indoor air completely, and deploying ultra violet light to get rid of the virus, are new ways to improve office space. Outdoor air is critical in the new redesigns.

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Glimpses of the Airshow for India's Republic Day in New Delhi in this video with president Macron of France attending the event.

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The problems facing the De Santis campaign in Iowa and the efforts of the Haley campaign in New Hampshire looking for an upset win.

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Over a period of 35 years, Luis Rios, an immigrant from Spain and retired worker in the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, has run nearly 200,000 miles in Prospect Park, New York.

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Powell and Rashbaum's interview with New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. Kelly changed the idea that crime was an everpresent fact of urban life in the heart of America's cities. He also considered increasing the number of officers alone as a political number not related to improving safety. Crime reduces the quality of life in inner city neighborhoods and in downtown areas and a safe city benefits all communities. Could this have been done without "stop and frisk" or had things deteriorated to the point that such measures had to be resorted to is the controversy surrounding the tactics. This had less to do with the increasing inequality in the city that the new Mayor De Blasio cited in the election, which was aggravated by the 2008 financial crisis and cuts in state and federal funding, which affected minority communities disproportionately.

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Denmark plans a huge wind farm project in Germany on an artificial island with 200 turbines. This will be Denmark's biggest infrastructure project. Germany plans to reduce emissions by 65% over 1990 levels by 2030. This means projects like this will be needed. Denmark prime minister Witte is on a 3 day visit to India with renewable energy projects under discussion. Germany's Economics Ministry has set up a joint working group with Denmark. 

The new project will be the size of 18 soccer fields setup on this artificial island in the Baltic Sea, to generate 3 GW enough for 3 million households. After this the project second stage is to install more turbines, for a total of 650 turbines, according to Der Spiegel. The project will cost 28 billion euros ($32 billion) with energy planned flowing by 2033.

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Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is the only Treasury Secretary who also served as the chairperson of the US central bank the Federal Reserve 2014-2018, and the only woman in these roles. Here she says she toured the country in 2022 a year after joining the Biden administration as head of the finance ministry. What she has seen are the early results of president Biden's  two trillion dollar bills, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 and the Science and CHIPS Act 2021, which give manufacturing and new infrastructure building a critical role in a new revitalized America. All across this vast country aging infrastructure is being rebuilt and new infrastructure is changing the landscape. Yellen says the US economy is resilient and growing amidst a global economic slowdown and higher interest rates. The labor market is strong and household balance sheets are healthy, consumer spending robust, says Yellen. It provides the basis for American global economic leadership in the years ahead. ...

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Maggie Haberman has covered Donald Trump from the period before he ran for president in 2016. Here she looks back at this period and reflects on the trial in New York with Judge Merchan, the campaign trail, and reflects on what it all means today to the people of the 51 states. She says it shows a former president who sees his best days in the 1980's when the Trump Tower was built, the connections with the New York elites who at once ignored and embraced this new view of the world and a place for greed in this world. It is also a period that began with Reagan Bush and the start of the Iran Iraq wars, the Bush war in Afghanistan, the Clinton embrace of economics that led to decline in US manufacturing, the 2009 financial crisis and Obama's continued war in Afghanistan- a period of decline in standard of living of the American people and failure to invest in essential infrastructure to improve quality of living.

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States with zero tolerance laws for marijuana use are Arizona, Utah, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Georgia. Washington, Montana, Nevada,  Illinois and Ohio also restrict driving using marijuana. About 15 million people reported using marijuana in 2019 in the US, according to AAA.  And 15% of the US population uses marijuana up from 7% 10 years earlier, according to Gallup. Highway Safety officials at the state level say as lot of attention was paid into revenue coming to the state and not enough to highway safety for the legalization of marijuana use. 24 states legalized recreational use of marijuana, 39 states allowed medical use. States that legalized recreational use in the western US - Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Montana, Washington, Oregon, California, Colorado, Alaska, Hawaii. In the Midwestern US- Illinois, Michigan. In the Southern US  Missouri and Florida, Maryland. In the northeast, Delaware, Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, New Jersey, Maryland Washington DC,     ...

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Germany's 0.3% decline in GDP in second quarter offsets o.3% increase in first quarter. The cost of living and the uncertainty for the industrial base as it readjusts to new rules in trade following the energy dislocations of the shift in energy supplies, remain as hurdles for the German economy.

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"Our public and democracy needs constructive questioning,” speaking in Irish and English says Catherine Connolly of Ireland after winning by 63% presidential election in Ireland. “Together, we can shape a new republic that values everybody, that values and champions diversity and that takes confidence in our own identity.”

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Henri Specht, Director of the Olympic Village, walks along newly installed boardwalk along the river Seine and sees how the Olympics will turn an industrial bank into a pedestrian walk area.This approach  has not been taken before and shows the French have taken the courage to try something new. The French government and organizers have built the Olympic Village in one of France's poorest suburbs along the river Seine in northeast of Paris to give it a jolt and revitalize the area. Carbon emissions will be cut in half using new technologies and it will be kept cool without airconditioning. Each of the 40 low rise tower blocks will provide housing for 14,000 people for Olympics and another 9000 for Paralympics. This a 52 acre project with housing for athletes to provide housing for residents, a new Aquatic Center, and other facilities to increase its potential for regeneration. Training facilities for employment are added in with high unemployment of about 20%.   Will it work? It was home to car and steel factories that have now closed as manufacturing went overseas. In 1998 the Stade de France stadium was built here to revive the area. Institut Montaigne says poverty will not disappear. The mayor says new housing is being delivered to change our image and improve the social balance in the city. In the neighboring town of St Oen the mayor has attracted $400 million euro investment for new housing. Tesla is putting its French headquarters in St. Oen. For the village about two thirds of the budget of 2 billion euros ($2.2 billion) comes from private real estate companies and one third from the French  government 646 million euros. After the games a third of the 2800 apartments in the Olympic Village will be sold to private owners, one third to go to public housing, and one third for rentals to students and others. ...

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An account of the meetings between Speaker Boehner and president Obama in the fiscal cliff negotiations. The WSJ pieced together the flow of the negotiations based on interviews with aides and lawmakers. There is little to show the two sides closer than before the election. If anything the WSJ report concludes the discussions this time left both sides further apart, and the lack of trust in the relations between Republicans and president Obama has worsened. Speaker Boehner asks Obama at one meeting what he gets in return for offering $800 billion in revenues and Obama tells him he gets nothing. At another meeting Obama tells Boehner he is asking Obama to accept Mitt Romney's tax plan and sees no reason to do that. Obama's first offer is for $1.6 trillon in new revenue over 10 years, a permanent increase in the debt ceiling and $400 billion in spending cuts. The Republicans find 25 cents of spending cuts for every dollar in tax increases as simply unacceptable and hold out for $1 in cuts for $1 in new tax revenues. Obama drops down to $1.2 trillion in new revenues and Boehner asks for $100 billion in additional spending cuts. Boehner drops a demand for raising the Medicare eligibility age. Obama raises the tax figure for the Bush tax increases to incomes over $400,000, Boehner proposes $1 million. But no level of trust has been gained in the negotiations. And no rapport established, as at one point Boehner tells Obama the two can just stare at each other or he Boehner could come back. Boehner then proposes to pass Plan B in the House for Bush tax cuts on incomes over $1 million. At that point the president feels the Republicans are not negotiating in good faith and some Republican Congressman in the House say they would not support Plan B. The distrust on all sides is worse than before. In the weeks leading to this in Dec. 2012 a review of oped pages show Democrats and Republicans saying a bad agreement- meaning too much in spending cuts for Democrats and too much in tax increases for Republicans- was worse than the fiscal cliff of automatic cuts, which could be addressed in other ways....

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Marchionne's major achievement is the genuine integration of Fiat's operations with Chrysler's operations using the strengths of both parts of the operation. Daimler showed little interest in doing this and the result was a failure of the merger between Daimler and Chrysler. Another aspect is the use of Fiat's Alfa Romeo and Maserati models to build new Chrysler vehicles. The new Dodge Dart which gives 40 miles per gallon and which gives Chrysler entry into the small car market, is based on the chassis and technology of Fiat's Alfa Romeo brand. Another vehicle of this type is the Maserati Kubang, an affluent buyer SUV based on the Jeep Grand Cherokee.

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This NYT report by Patrick Kingsley shows how the hopes for peace with Kurds in Turkey under the Erdogan government have faded. By 2015 peace talks faltered with Kurdish separatist groups. Kingsley's report shows towns such as Sirnak and Cizre in the southeastern part of Turkey are now ghost towns after government troops and tanks moved in. This means that Turkey not only has about 3 million refugees from Syria and Iraq fleeing the war there, but also large numbers of refugees in Kurdish areas inside Turkey. Added to this are the tensions between the party of prime minister Erdogan and the opposition, following a crackdown and as the referendum for granting new powers to the presidency under Mr. Erdogan approaches.

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A new Made in India 4G network is taking shape under BSNL. Rupees 24,000 crore have been allocated by the Indian government for this effort.