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TSMC will build a third plant in Arizona with the $6.6 billion in grants it gets from Biden's CHIPS Act. It will increase its investment in the US from $40 billion to $65 billion, essential to make the US a manufacturing hub for semiconductors. Intel, Samsung and other companies are making similar investments in the US in semiconductor plants. After years of post Reagan/Friedman period orthodox economics that led to the US chip industry and other advanced manufacturing following textiles to Asia, the US is making its policies follow actual practice and experience. This experience shows that in semiconductors with long lead times of a decade to build plants the country which supports its semiconductor industry gets ahead while others following orthodox Reagan/Friedman period economics fall behind. This has revealed the danger of a theoretical economic textbook approach that doesn't work and endangers American manufacturing and technological leadership. A culture wrapped around the textbook approach has led to the US and the EU, India, losing their competitive advantages and losing manufacturing in industry after industry, with loss of millions of jobs and deindustrializing. It has also led to decline and increasing lack of economic opportunity in towns and communities dependent on this manufacturing across the US and the European Union. ...

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In his State of the Union Address president Biden set the tone for the next 2 years of his term, and in preparation for another term to Build Back Better for America. He talked about his efforts to address the needs of America in rebuilding aging infrastructure, restoring its place in manufacturing, chips and science, and addressing climate change with trillions of dollars of investments. No longer would crowding out of government investment happen as it did in the last two decades with neglect of infrastructure, manufacturing, workers and families, and massive misallocation of capital in capital markets. On Jobs, America and Renewal, "on rewarding work, not wealth" "Jobs are coming back. Pride is coming back because of the choices we made in the last two years. This is a blue collar blueprint to rebuild America and make a real difference in your lives." He told Congressman McCarthy-          "I don't want to ruin your reputation but I look forward to working with you." Reminding Republicans-  "The people sent us a clear message. Fighting for the sake of fighting, power for the sake of power, conflict for the sake of conflict gets us nowhere." ...

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US president Biden points out in his letter to the US Congress- "When I was elected President, a pandemic was raging and our economy was reeling, and trickle-down economics had undermined our nation’s growth long-term. I was determined to rebuild from the middle out and bottom up, not the top down, because when the middle class does well, we all do well. We can give everyone a fair shot and leave no one behind. Our plan has brought transformational progress." "Along the way, we’ve achieved one of the most successful legislative records in generations, bringing new opportunities to communities of all sizes nationwide. We’re tackling years of underinvestment in public infrastructure, clean energy, and advanced manufacturing, making sure the future is made in America by American workers. We’re making the biggest investment in American infrastructure in generations, including over $400 billion for 46,000 projects in 4,500 communities to date. These projects are rebuilding the nation’s roads, bridges, railroads, ports, airports, public transit, water systems, high-speed internet, and more, in every part of the country. We’re also making the most significant investment in fighting climate change in history—advancing breakthroughs in clean technology, boosting energy independence, lowering electricity costs for hardworking families, and revitalizing fence-line communities smothered by a legacy of pollution. At the same time, we’re working with the private sector to strengthen America’s semiconductor and advanced manufacturing industries as well, empowering workers and small businesses to share in the benefits. Already, my Investing in America agenda has attracted $650 billion." ...

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President Biden tells the US Congress- "Capitalism without competition is not capitalism. It is extortion." He questioned the form of capitalism in which the largest corporations and tech companies do not pay their fair share of taxes.

"And where is it written that American can't lead the world in manufacturing. And I don't know where that is written. For too many decades we imported projects and exported jobs."

About his planned investments for new factories and jobs- "we're seeing these fields of dreams transform the heartland."

"And now we're coming back because we came together and passed the bipartisan infrastructure law, the largest investment in infrastructure since President Eisenhower's Interstate Highway System. Folks, we've already funded 20,000 projects. And folks we're just getting started. We're just getting started."

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This report in the WSJ shows American households are acting prudently by building up savings of $1.6 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. As much of these savings are not distributed evenly across the population, and coming back from a period after the 2009 financial crisis when savings in the lower classes had dropped to alarming levels, this saving is good for the future of the American people by building a path to sustained growth for the long term. Readers responses to this report show their dismay at calling savings hoarding, dismay at the idea that saving 3-6 months of expenses would be considered prudent when 1-2 years would be a minimum  and 2-3 years desirable would be considered decent protection in times like the last 2 decades of manmade disasters (shipping out American manufacturing, 2009 financial crisis) or nature driven disasters (the pandemic). For the Biden administration the saving also provides hope that the mistakes of the last two decades and the 2009 period can be avoided. By targeting the $1 trillion in infrastructure spending plan to projects that build synergy throughout the economy and generate more growth for every dollar spent in a long term Renewal America project. Recent WSJ reports show this is happening. The $2 trillion Families and Workers Plan works in a similar way to bring hope in improving the quality of life in America through children's education, childcare, paid leave, health care, affordable housing, climate change investments. The public in America is showing equal prudence by aligning the savings to this approach to set America on a path of long term renewal and development that could be sustained to 2030 or 2035. This will also enable the investments needed to build America's role in the world and help its partners in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa take the same approach for sustained and balanced growth into the next decade.  ...

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This month president Biden signed into law 100% tariff on China made EV's and 50% tariff on solar panels. The Guardian describes the hollowing out of factory towns in England such as Sheffield and the same in the US and Europe, which was a disaster for these communities dependent on manufacturing. There is now a sense that heavily subsidized products made in Asia should not be allowed to deindustrialize the US and take jobs away from these communities across the US. Trade has to be fair before it can be called free trade. Wars in Asia,  trade that ripped up American manufacturing, monopolies and burdensome pricing of pharmaceuticals and healthcare, lack of investment in infrastructure and public services, shows the deeply flawed policy pursued by presidents from Reagan and Bush to Clinton and Obama that have reduced the standard of living of the American worker and the American people.

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WSJ on Intel CEO Lip Bu-Tan and ties to Chinese chip making since 2001 and as an investor through investment firm Walden. Senator Tom Cotton, chair of Intelligence Committee in Senate, questions ties of the new Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan to China. DJT calls for a new CEO, saying there is no other solution that Tan should resign immediately. Under the Biden Administration and the previous CEO Pat Gelsinger the US government offered $8 billion in aid to Intel to maintain it's leadership in chip making technologies. Gelsinger was ousted by the Board last year after Intel's recovery effort was taking time and replaced with Lip-Bu Tan who was an early investor in Chinese chip makers. There are questions why the acting CEO Yeary is cited in WSJ reports to have considered offering Intel's chip making manufacturing for sale to TSMC to exit manufacturing, after the help Intel had gained of $8 billion from Biden to become the dominant maker of advanced chips in the US- recovering a position lost to TSMC when the US had invented the computer chip. Under DJT that is still the American goal under MAGA.   ...

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Biden said that after the pandemic which took a million lives and caused grave threats to mental health in the country the country has come out of these depths with record 15 million jobs created, unemployment at record lows of 3%, and inflation down from 9% to 3%. And huge investments in clean energy and in infrastructure under laws he had passed with bipartisan support generated from his decades of experience in Congress. "In fact my policies have attracted $650 Billion of private sector investments in clean energy and advanced manufacturing creating tens of thousands of jobs here in America!  Thanks to our Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, 46,000 new projects have been announced across your communities – modernizing our roads and bridges, ports and airports, and public transit systems.  Removing poisonous lead pipes so every child can drink clean water without risk of getting brain damage.  Providing affordable high speed internet for every American no matter where you live.  Urban, suburban, and rural communities — in red states and blue.  Record investments in tribal communities.  Because of my investments, family farms are better be able to stay in the family and children and grandchildren won’t have to leave home to make a living."  ...

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Negative interest hurt the vulnerable the most- consider how much in interest would have to be deposited in retirement accounts savings of retirees to make up for lost interest over two decades. It could be in the hundreds of billions of dollars. It has added to the poverty in the Nation as interest income went gradually to negligible amounts. It also disincentivised savings,  and reduced the cost of capital so that hundreds of billions of dollars of retirees and other people's income was shifted into startups and dubious investments that did little to add to essential public services, education, healthcare, that would improve the quality of life for workers, families and children.It was in effect a misuse of economic policy to serve one section of the population at the expense of the large majority of the people in the Nation, and a shift of hundreds of billions of dollars over two decades from the vulnerable who needed it most to other uses. And aggravating the situation resulting from the failures in investing in manufacturing in the US that put whole communities at risk, neglecting the investment in infrastructure that helps ordinary people the vast majority in the nation the most. Only now are these investments being taken up by the Biden administration reallocating funds to infrastructure, manufacturing and clean energy, to retirees, and to communities across America. During this time of two lost decades for America, and into the future, the great nations of Asia, China and India, have advanced and are advancing with focused attention on the needs of all the people in their nations, and most importantly of all in advanced infrastructure and advanced manufacturing.  ...

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Globalization is being replaced with government support for attracting new investment and industry. Germany is providing $11 billion for 2 Intel semiconductor plants. The Biden administration $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act investment by the US sets the new pathway for government to support industry to increase investment and create good paying jobs inside the US. This reverses decades of neglect of American manufacturing by administrations from the time of president Reagan through the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations. A new world order is being shaped that enables the EU and the US to compete with China with direct government support for industry.  The US and the EU gain, the UK and Singapore lose out in the new arrangement.

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For years economists and finance people left this hidden and obscured, the common sense understanding that higher interest rates in an economy based on better education with investments in infrastructure and manufacturing as Biden has put in place today would actually stimulate the economy. Why? David Uberti rightly points out this is household wealth growing larger with investment in CD's and savings accounts, dividend paying stocks at higher interest rates. Consider this important fact -Americans have earned $3.7 trillion in the first quarter alone in interest and dividends. This is $770 billion larger than in 2019, according to Commerce Department. In the last quarter of 2023 Americans had the largest wealth ever held in stocks, real estate, and other assets such as pensions, according to the Federal Reserve. Charles Schwab of the brokerage company he founded in 1971 stated this as a major loss for the American people and the economy when zero interest rates were used to tackle the problems created by greed and poor behaviors of banks in the 2009 crisis, Schwab was talking about something real. Hit the country with war burdens for Middle East wars of Reagan, Bush, Obama and Trump by taking away funds from infrastructure and education, healthcare and you have two burdens -2009 financial crisis created by banks and wars that reduce the household wealth and the capacity of the American economy to grow and create needed jobs to reduce standard of life/quality of life in the US. A third burden fell heavily on pensioners and elderly depriving them of interest and dividends with zero interest rates that no economist wanted to talk about for 30 years including  the previous administrations since 1990.  ...

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As Lyrarc would say a new culture is taking hold in America. Call it centrism or popularist, rejection of neoliberal whatever that term means, or any other term, it is basically about following good common sense, one's observation of real life and what is working or not working for ordinary Americans. Republicans and Democrats are shifting to policies that worked under Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, and to views expressed by John F. Kennedy for a fair society that respects the work and dignity and quality of life of all Americans of every class and level of education. And oppose business monopolies, oppose efforts to restrict workers rights. There is a growing sense in both parties that the policies of Reagan, Clinton, Bush and Obama have not worked for ordinary people in America. These are seen as wasted three decades that plunged America into foreign wars, let manufacturing decline, reduced standard of living, let its infrastructure deteriorate. This is why president Biden has achieved remarkable success in putting together legislation with support from key Republicans including McConnell for chips, science, infrastructure and other investment spending. Leonhardt is hardly alone in seeing that this is the path America will take in the coming decades. What is significant now is that the culture and mental framework itself is being transformed. ...

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This opinion of the Editorial Board of WSJ says it is not clear why Taiwan has been excluded from the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework that includes most of South East Asia including Indonesia, and India, South Korea, Japan, Australia. The Biden administration plans to deepen economic ties with Taiwan. WSJ says this is a mistake and Taiwan should be included in the new Asian alliance led by the US. IPEF is a Asian alliance built around 4 pillars of digital economy, transparency and good governance, Asian security and rule of law, and rapid economic technological progress. Biden administration Commerce minister Raimondo says it will increase investment in the alliance countries for supply chain renewal and shift of investments away from China and into India, Vietnam. President Biden and Jake Sullivan see it as pulling in investment into the US for infrastructure and technology and into allies such as India who have the pool of manufacturing workers to compete with China in a new supply chain. Mr. Modi also sees it as he is focused on digital economy, good governance, and infrastructure with speed and scale at high levels to match rising aspirations for the economy in India. It is designed in a way that lets US, Japan South Korea and India to fill in the needs and strategies over the period to 2030 and 2040 so that US and Europe and the Free World in Asia and Latin America, Africa can preserve democratic values with matching technological and economic strength. ...

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US president Biden campaigns in Nevada. His focus is on the cost of living actions and has proposed 15,000 affordable housing rental units on underused federal land repurposed for housing, action which can be taken on presidential orders. Other cost of living action is being prepared by Biden and he closely follows the mortgage rate increases from 3% to 8% that are leaving families stuck without owning an home. Biden is also focussing on the threats to democracy coming from the former president's rhetoric and actions, something that he devoted time to in his address in Philadelphia's Independence Hall, where the founders of this Union gathered together to draft the Constitution. This happened early in his first presidential term and in the 2020 campaign Biden focused on this threat to democracy. Peter Baker points out that Biden is best qualified to convey a sense of hope to America, yet what the NYT, W. Post and WSJ, and the television news channels -that are not watched as much by the core 25-54 years with a shift to digital- fail to do is to do their own introspection on how Biden has forged the consensus in Congress from his vast experience and wisdom to make the multi trillion dollar investments in America's future through infrastructure, job creation, manufacturing, chips and science. Not since FDR has America seen this happen and it shapes 2030. ...

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Intel CEO Andy Grove in the 1990's wrote about his experience with the Japanese competitors in semiconductors, about the unlimited access to funds from the government, mysterious workings of Japanese capital markets that provided endless low cost capital to export oriented companies. These subsidies enabled Japanese companies to underprice Intel as he wrote in his 1996 book "Only the Paranoid Survive," and revealed an internal Japanese sales memo. It said: "Win with the 10% rule ... Find AMD and Intel sockets... Quote 10% below their price...if they requote, go 10% AGAIN... Don't quit till you WIN."  Peter Coy of NYT interviews Pat Gelsinger, CEO of Intel Corporation, on the effort with the help of the Biden administration to regain leadership in chip manufacturing technology. Biden, Gelsinger and American companies with such experience have no illusions about the competition. Intel plans to do this with $100 billion investment over 5 years in manufacturing and research and design of advanced chips, with projects in Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon and Ohio. To level the playing field with Taiwan and China -where as in Japan in the past the government pushes subsidies to its companies to gain competitive advantage in key industries- president Biden is supporting Intel with $11 billion in low cost loans and $8.5 billion in grants, plus $25 billion in investment tax credits.  ...

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The US Federal Reserve Report on Economic Wellbeing of US Households 2024-May 2025 gives some insights into the well being of American households. It shows food insufficiency households the same in 2023-2025 at 7%. The situation for cost of living remains a concern in 2024 as well as 2025. Retirement savings have improved for many middle class Americans, as confirmed by reports from Fidelity and Vanguard. The people earning less than 25,000 are 19% and about the same in 2024 under Biden as under DJT in 2025. 39% make $100,000 or more and 26% make $50,000 -$100,000. Combining the 19% making less than $25,000 and the 16% making between $25,000 and $50,000 shows about one third of the population under $50,000 living paycheck to paycheck. It would appear that $2000 DJT rebate putting $160 billion out of $550 billion of tariff revenues for 2025-2026  in the hands of 79 million households that make less than $100,000 would go a long way to keep the situation stable with optimism and hope arising from the restructuring of world trade that would bring trillions of dollars of investment into the US from Europe and Asia. A this investment plus domestic investment should bring back jobs and higher incomes to US manufacturing in small towns across America. The rest of $550 billion tariff revenue of $390 billion would go to reducing the deficit which would improve prospects for the economy in 2027 and produce a more resilient economy in 2027-2028. As shown on this page the popular Democratic Governor of Michigan in her op-ed in Washington Post supports strategic tariffs, and supports using the revenue for a check to American workers of $2000 per worker or per worker household and offers to work with the opposite party to get a WIN-WIN for the American People.  In the whole process of trade tariffs it must be remembered when seeing the inconsistent cases of tariff use by this Republican administration that these were special reason situations not aberrations or whimsical. First, it should be borne in mind that behind the appearance of DJT making tariff decisions is a carefully thought out process that took ten years to form under Reagan era Trade Representative Lighthizer who negotiated with Japan, and his deputy Jamieson for 2016-2024, and the economic and capital markets experience of Scott Bessent as Treasury Secretary. The two cases of inconsistent application of tariffs relate to the 50% tariff on India and the reduction of tariffs on China agreement on rare earths, and the imposition of a large tarif on Japan and the EU. In the first instance with India it was intended to give Ukraine breathing room from Russian attacks as Germany steps up its military preparedness and assistance to Ukraine. With both countries it was about saving face important in Asian or any societies and it has achieved it's purpose. Reports show both Indian and Chinese refiners have quietly cut purchases of oil from Russia leading to Russian oil selling at about $20 discount to Brent crude oil. In the case of Japan the quick action to raise tariffs was intended not to get into long drawn negotiations and show serious intent- Japan is known for dragging out negotiations for years if not decades. The same is true for the European Union. With the Swiss it was about a certain disrespect of the US coming from attitudes that Swiss products were somehow superior. Not just in the long run, in 2026-2028 history will show that the effort done right - and it takes effort to get this right- to restructure world trade so that other nations are not siphoning off the benefits and leaving the US to lose its manufacturing and factories is the right one. And taken with courage and sincere desire to create a fair distribution of the benefits of world trade for too long distorted by egregious practices of competitors. It has nothing to do with 2 senators from the 1930's who were from places like the Mountain West in the US, having no concept of world trade, Smoot and Hawley, who under a irresponsible president Hoover got everything wrong. This is a carefully set out plan to evenly balance the benefits of world trade to all nations.   ...

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Senators in the US Congress, Rubio and Schumer, have asked the US government to look into Apple's plans to work with Chinese semiconductor company YMTC. As a result the Commerce Department has placed export restrictions on YMTC. This NYT report looks at the two decade long rise of China and of Apple after Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 and shifted manufacturing to China. When Jobs returned to Apple he found major quality issues at Apple's manufacturing facilities, a demoralized workforce, and financial losses, with CEO Michael Spindler running the company into the ground. Jobs had to start with afresh model for Apple and decided to shift manufacturing to China under the engineering leadership of Tim Cook. Alabama native Cook went to Auburn University for his engineering degree and Duke for his business degree. Cook joined Jobs in 1998 at Apple and for ten years till 2007 the two cut costs, shifted to contract manufacturers and rebuilt Apple with new products, iPod, iPad and the iphone. By not manufacturing Apple avoided quality control issues, and the costs of maintaining inventory. It was Tim Cook who ran operations worldwide, and he gradually built up the manufacturing relationships in China with Foxconn, which makes most of Apple's products in sprawling Chinese factories that employ 20 years later about 3 million Chinese workers. Foxconn was chosen by Apple in 2000 to manufacture the Apple Mac laptop. Before that it was a parts supplier to Apple. Increasingly Apple relied on Foxconn to make its new products including the iPhone. Both companies growth relied on the manufacturing of Foxconn to the point where Apple was dependent on Foxconn and had intertwined its operations with Foxconn in China. Today the whole relationship is being called into question after two decades in which American workers suffered the effects of the outshoring of manufacturing jobs. It should be noted that though Mr. Trump raised the issue of manufacturing exclusively in China with Apple, the Trump administration did little to change the practices of the company that pioneered this type of massive manufacturing role for China. That surrendered the entire supply chain to foreign suppliers in the interest of cutting costs and maintaining huge profit margins, with which it financed an array of new products and reached $1 trillion in sales from $10 billion, hundredfold increase over 2 decades. American workers and families for the first time in American history got very little from this Cook-Jobs project. American infrastructure in communities that would have been supported by American factories including the services and infrastructure in communities financed through local taxes, a practice throughout the Industrial Revolution in the US, was sharply disrupted over 2 decades. It caused a rupture in social relations and increased inequality in the US, and defunded infrastructure that comes with manufacturing.  It is the task of the Biden administration to now correct what Mr. Trump simply talked about but never induced or required Apple to do- lead the resurgence of American manufacturing, and make its major investments in the US, invest in its workers and families, invest in America. ...

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Fed Governor Waller, a research director of the St Louis Fed argued that in the post pandemic situation fighting inflation would not increase unemployment. The actual decisions were made by Fed chairman Jerome Powell who also grasped the situation and gave priority to winning the fight against inflation. In his arguments Powell pointed out the disturbing effects of inflation on workers. Powell's determined effort and careful policy management also made it possible to bring inflation down- the manner and way this was achieved and Powell showing a sensitivity to workers and their interests. Powell also communicated this effectively and the Biden administration made this possible through its efforts to rebuild American manufacturing, its investments in infrastructure and getting bipartisan deals through Congress. Without this combined effort by Biden and Powell this may not have worked out the way it did. 

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Investments made by president Biden and Congress of $1 trillion in manufacturing and infrastructure will take time to go into effect. It is wrong to say this shows limits of this policy of investing in America as it has increased growth, maintained employment levels, and helped America recover from the pandemic. Biden did this for the National good not for Democrats and it was designed to benefit red and blue states like. Its effects will be felt long after the next election cycle in just 3 years January 2028, so that to say that president Trump or Republicans would get credit is an erroneous notion. The next president could come from the opposite party and the long term effects of this could benefit all parties, giving everyone a stake in making it work. The narrow view also overlooks the great benefits from this investment of $1 trillion for America's trading partners and allies in Asia and Europe, the American leadership role in CHIPS and Science as a result, and the respect of the world in the way America has handled its economic affairs. ...

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The tech boom bust since 2000 that has hurt America and Europe and which also laid the foundations for the loss of manufacturing and technology to China, ceding American leadership and critical advantage, is shown here in the WSJ. The role of the finance sector  is explained here. That has added one more factor to the factor of endless wars in the Middle East, where American and European investment in healthcare, education and new infrastructure was somehow diverted away, and much of America's and Europe's resources wasted- or not turned to the benefit of the people of America or Europe.  One financial firm that rode the tech boom to the hilt finds itself with unacceptable losses except in a severe recession. Tiger Global Management was using tens of billions of dollars from pensions, endowments and rich clients riding on some of Silicon Valley's hottest stocks.  With the plunge in tech stock values including startups in which Tiger pushed into aggressively now facing large losses after hyper valuations, Tiger's hedge fund which managed $23 billion at the end of 2021 was down 52% in 2022. Another of its funds that managed $11 billion has lost 62%. WSJ says this wiped out two thirds of the gains Tiger has made in the tech stocks since its founding. In addition large writedowns are expected on its venture funds valued at $64 billion at the end of 2021, says WSJ.  WSJ says cheap money (money somehow diverted from infrastructure and funding manufacturing in China instead of the US now goes by the misnomer cheap money) reshaped Silicon Valley in the last decade, as pension funds, rich investors and celebrities turned to well connected money managers such as Tiger to put money in tech stocks and startups. This WSJ report says compared to Sequoia Capital and an earlier generation of venture companies Tiger Global is simply not interested in management of companies it invests in, taking a broad brush approach, using Bain Capital for research, and trying to haul in a large load of fish like trawlers at sea hoping for some companies to make big gains. Many pension funds such as Calpers California's public pension fund invest in Tiger with a $400 million investment. WSJ also reports that Tiger Global's venture funds do not reflect the realities of the tech business as venture stocks will reflect the drop over 2022 and 2023, including its ByteDance Chinese tech investment which will need larger writedowns. Tiger has also not hesitated to get into cryptocurrency which has loss of about $1.5 trillion dollars. It is of interest to note that Julian Robertson, hedge fund manager of the 2000 period (when Clinton-Bush were US presidents) who ran Tiger Management provided the impetus for Mr. Coleman, then 25 years old, for the start of Tiger Global. Julian Robertson closed his fund in 2000 during the dot com bust. Coleman hired a Blackstone analyst and started on the next cycle of tech with social media platform Facebook now Meta, followed by China's JD.com as investments in a new China boom were started. The end result is that during a period of Middle East wars under Bush and Obama, and building dependence on Russian oil and gas supplies under Schroeder and Merkel, China was the gainer as the US and EU lost much of its manufacturing and technology to China. During this period US and Europe neglected investment in infrastructure that would benefit the people of America in ease of living and quality of life. Just as money was wasted in wars much of the tech investment was wasted. The companies that added value over time were started long before and relied on sales growth and new products that revolutionized their field such as Apple with smartphones that started well before the nineteen eighties, Amazon with logistics and its own style of management, Microsoft from an even earlier era. Tech monopolies Facebook, Google, and others would not be missed much in terms of real progress for the people of America. The cost is many decades of ceding manufacturing and technology advantage to China by US and the EU led by Germany. China 2030 and the war in Ukraine with China's support have shown how fragile the foundations have been with weak political leadership and a finance sector running backwards in terms of America's and Europe's strengths in new infrastructure, better healthcare, services and education for the people of America and Europe. Leaving it to the Biden administration and a new coalition of Greens and Scholz in Germany to begin the task of rebuilding America and Europe on strong foundations, including the dignity of the workers and families, that makes who we are and what we believe in, and why the free world believes in us. ...

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Jeanne Whalen on the Two Speed Economy in the US September 2025- diverging paths of low and high income Americans. With the new administration in 2025 priorities shift to immigration and what to do about 14 million illegal migrants from Latin America and other places, war on fentanyl and drug trafficking gangs with hundreds of thousands of lives lost to fentanyl and drugs in the US, crime and safety which includes the unprecedented illegal movement of drug trafficking in the Nation, and to a bold posture on using US advantages of its huge market to get European Union, Japan, South Korea, and China to level the playing field on trade bring jobs home.The Biden administration had already conceded to DJT's approach in its one term presidency by shifting on uncontrolled illegal migration but not fast enough, by not removing DJT's tariffs, and failing to take an aggressive posture on fentanyl and drug trafficking. Of the DJT plan US has tariff based revenues of 10--15% for all countries imports into US can that it redirect to groups to soften any effects of tariffs. DJT administration oil transition policy of stretching out the transition to give middle class and lower classes cost of living relief was also accepted by the Biden administration and is now the policy of Democrat run California state government.  The US economy was slowing in 2024 under the Biden administration. What has changed in 2025 is that the US stock markets are responding to steps taken by the DJT Republican administration to lower the cost of doing business by softening regulations, and giving US business the upper hand in different industries, and rebuilding the manufacturing sector with calls for EU and Japan/South Korea to invest more in the US as a quid pro quo for market access. This has led to increase in the value of market portfolios of the income earners above 250,000, or 10% of American households. As this happens the process of trade renegotiation has introduced some uncertainty in 2025 and businesses are looking for more clarity before increasing investment and slowing job hiring which hurts younger people entering the job market and lower income Americans. Were things better under Biden? Government Covid assistance and payouts in the early years 2020-2021 helped lower income workers, as this faded and the cost of living autos, housing increased sharply under Biden in 2022-2024 the situation deteriorated. The situation today is similar to the situation in 2024 with the difference in 2025 that inflation is coming down just as government help is receding. And added factor is the DJT administration plan to tackle head on the increasing cost of Medicaid to about $1 trillion by adding new requirements and reducing subsidies. The federal workforce had a disproportionate share of black workers and the policy changes to reduce the federal workforce have increased black unemployment from 6.1% under Biden in August 2024 to 7.5 % a year later. Hispanics have seen slight improvement in unemployment to 5.3% in 2025, and the middle class incomes also have held up and are holding steady. Meantime Bloomberg points out that one third of people in the top 10% are living paycheck by paycheck because of high cost of housing, university education for children, and inflation.     ...

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Daniel Henninger says in the WSJ that the debt ceiling will be raised, and Republicans should not be pitting program against program. He says the narrative though should be framed around the trillions being spent by the Biden administration on climate change action, US manufacturing and technology in chips, with interest on debt at over $400 billion a year. Yet this does not take into account that for two decades there has been an overcrowding of US government initiated capital investment for essential needs by massive Tech industry misallocation of funds even as productivity of this capital invested by tech was dropping, with much wasted capital. Today because these essential needs in infrastructure and for manufacturing and technology were starved for so long of capital the productivity of capital in these areas is high and will have ripple effects to help rebuild America.

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US economic growth was 2.4% in the second quarter of 2023. Even though the Fed increased rates at 10 consecutive meetings by 5% since March 2022 to tackle inflation the US economy appears strong. Large investments in the trillions of dollars in US manufacturing and infrastructure, tackling climate change is what is different this time compared to the past 2 decades when bad decisions were made with twin wars in the Arab and Muslim world, and the supply chain was transferred to China, investments were neglected in infrastructure, education and health in public goods, and capital markets allocated money with decreasing advantage to the economy. President Biden was in a unique position after the pandemic to take stock of all these mistakes and move the nation forward in positive directions in a decisive way in scale as well as in spirit and determination. That he has done so is more proof of the resilience of America.

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President Biden is determined to stop the further loss of jobs in the US. He has sent Yellen to China to communicate this. India, the UK and Argentina are opening investigations into China's dumping of goods in their countries. Chile is considering new tariffs. Brazil and Indonesia are feeling the impact. They are joining the EU and the US to fight the danger posed by dumping by China. To offset a large property market bust China is pushing more investment in factories leading to overcapacity in markets, much of the product then ends up at lower prices in other markets around the world putting companies out of business in home countries and loss of millions of jobs. Couldn't other countries do the same. The US is taking that approach to support its own industries. Economists and business leaders in the US who have never felt the pain from factories closing have let America down with textbook theory that ignored this leading to the loss of 2 million jobs in the 2000 era, with failed presidents since then ceding American advantage in manufacturing.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Based on this Washington Post sample of reader views on the presidential Debate, 4 of 5 readers in the sample are critical of the way the Post, NYT, WSJ are acting against the elected and popular transformative president of the US. What do Washington Post readers think of the way media magnates running Post, NYT, WSJ are trying to run the country in the face of a elected president who remains popular for the action he has taken on cost of living, climate change, manufacturing jobs, factories and supply chains, and is investing trillions of dollar in renewing America's manufacturing, Chips and science, and Infrastructure? Their campaigns are there for all to see against the president, even as the British election shows Keir Starmer of Labour saying "from 20 points behind to 20 points ahead," achieving a landslide even with only 2% increase in votes since 2019. Starmer too was written off just twelve months ago. The first letter is from Little Rock stating the Post, NYT, WSJ position. The second is from Linda Barnes of Ashland, New Hampshire, who faults the Post for not having the headline about "Disastrous debate performance by Trump who failed to answer most questions and lied relentlessly." Lauri Costello of Las Cruces, New Mexico, says every American would have benefitted from an in depth analysis of the debate rather than a focus on how each debater looked and spoke. Diana Hasuly of Ashburn, Virginia, says the debate was an opportunity to see two men's perspectives about the future of America, and the Post had done a great disservice to America, as have the NYT, WSJ and the Media in general, by not spelling what each man was offering America for the future. To take just three Climate change, manufacturing investment and jobs, infrastructure spending, Biden is getting so much done and has the plan for 2030, the former president has none, simply none and did not talk about this. Mark Parkhurst of Silver Spring, Maryland, says of the June 28 front page in the Post that the Post uses "falshoods" not "lies" when a lie needs to be called a lie from the former president. And says to be fair the Media needs to point out the actual achievements of president Biden not dwell on MAGA rhetoric. Is the Post or the Media in general overreaching, is it listening? What would Washington, Lincoln or FDR say?   ...