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During the primaries Trump appealed to blue collar voters of a white working class that felt neglected by leaders and policies of both parties that did not seem to work for ordinary people. Having caught onto this early long before Republican candidates, Trump registered a series of wins in the Republican primaries. He continued this theme in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention on July 21, 2016, saying- "The forgotten men and women of our country- people who work but no longer have a voice: I am your voice." The idea was to couple this with the theme of law and order and put perception of Hillary Clinton as part of the rigged system of the past that Trump would change, with Clinton's legacy described in terms of "death, destruction, terrorism and weakness." As a change agent Trump described his entering the political arena in terms of coming into this election only to help blue collar people "so that the powerful can no longer beat up on people that cannot defend themselves." The two themes for the rest of the election season- law and order, and blue collar lives- and who can best defend them a traditional Democratic politician with a fighting spirit for traditional Democratic values, or a blustery newcomer adept with slogans and the public mood and ironically representing the Democratic values of representing the working class to become the  Republican nominee, with the law and order theme thrown in. The voter or independent listening in to all this will hopefully ask what all this means. As the WSJ, July 19, 2016, pointed out in a recent look at economc policies under the two candidates- on Glass Steagall Act being reinstated to increase safety of the banking system that caused many of today's problems through the 2008 financial crisis both Trump and Clinton are similiar, on opposing trade agreements similiar except that Trump's bluster is a riskier approach, on infrastructure building similiar with Clinton's $275 billion plan spelled out out for source of financing and Trump's unclear as to source of financing. On immigration the candidates are different, on the minimum wage which impacts low income people Clinton supports $15 minimum wage and Trump has not taken a stand. On ISIS and the Middle East Clinton is in reality a hawk and not much difference in the candidates, on law and order more chance of divisions in the country with Trump than Clinton. Overall for the working class and blue collar voter his life will take a decade or more to rebuild, with both candidates commiting to go in that direction. And the bluster and ads to come- just that.  ...

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Some political experts such as David Plouffe, campaign manager of Obama's 2008 campaign for president, do not take a Hillary win over Donald Trump as a given. They cite the average of negatives for Trump at 63%, but Clinton's are high too at 54%, and this campaign season has shown Clinton has vulnerabilities in the way she has lost in some of the primaries to Bernie Sanders. Sanders like Trump is leading a voter protest against establishment candidates.

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Project 2025, originating at the Heritage Foundation, most dangerous idea similar to abolishing Social Security is to consider abolishing the US Federal Reserve. Why? Because the Fed was established to avoid banking panics and setup a sound banking system, a sound economic system. It suggests unravelling solutions that were developed after one hundred years of experience gained by US that has made the period since 1950 the least crisis prone compared to prior to Fed's formation in 1913.  Mr. Trump himself said in 2022 that the Heritage Foundation will "lay the groundwork and detail the plans" for what our movement will do, according to the WSJ report." It has become a matter of huge controversy with plans for outright attacks on the civil service, a blueprint of plans to shut down important government agencies such as the Education Department, Department of Homeland Security, and affect the functioning of the government of the United States in accordance with the Constitution.  The most radical is to change the financial system of the US that evolved from the Great Depression and previous economic crises since 1900 that led to the formation of the US Federal Reserve as the central bank that monitors aspects of the economy such as inflation and unemployment. Project 2025 says consider abolishing the US Federal Reserve and replace it with 'free banking' that does not control interest rates or the supply of money. These are untested ideas but more significant is the fact that it is the US Fed that under different presidents has taken the lead in managing the economy when a crisis happened. President Woodrow Wilson signed into law the founding of the US Fed, and its regional Fed system with a. supervisory board in Washington on Dec 23, 1913. Before the Fed the US currency was printed by individual banks and inflation or the economy could not be controlled. This led to banking panics the last in 2007, with great loss to the working people and families of America. It is unthinkable today that individual banks not the central bank the US Fed would issue US currency dollar banknotes. Yet it is just this kind of radical Barry Goldwater type of idea that is being put forward in Project 2025 that is written for a future administration running the country. ...

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Gerald Seib, executive editor of of the WSJ, attributes the divisions in America both on the left and the right to a deep skepticism among people about the intentions of the U.S. political and financial establishment to conduct the country's affairs in a way that benefits all people. Both the traditional Democratic and Republican establishments, the Bush-Reagan, Clinton-Obama politicians and the financial community were seen as self-serving and looking after their own interests. The right of center supply side economics and the the tolerance for immigration levels of 30% rise in the last decade were discredited. A much larger recovery program was seen as needed from the deeply bruising effects of the financial crisis of 2008, started by the reckless financial establishment behaviours, than either the Reagan supply siders or the Obama people had understood or planned. This opened the way for Mr. Trump to take up the cause of ordinary Americans with a message of ambitious infrastructure development, confronting China's use of trade adversely affecting American workers, and slowing down immigration. And within the Democratic party the emergence of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders with programs for a wealth tax that would finance Medicare for All and college education supported by the federal government. Both the traditional Republicans under Bush and Democrats under Clinton Obama were seen not upto the task, after the 2008 financial and economic crisis created deeper scars than were imagined possible. The lack of effective policies under Bush or Obama simply aggravating the situation further. The culture wars have split Americans down the middle with a breakdown of the traditional American family and social structures creating deep anxieties in America. Obama's comments unsettled people in the heartland when he said that economic decline in the Rust Belt had made people there to "cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them."   The trillions of dollars spent in wars in Asia and the Middle East were seen by Mr. Trump as an enormous waste when much needed investment was deprived of attention at home. Mr. Trump hammered this point home till today it is well accepted across America.  Even as political divisions persist they are now on how to tackle the redevelopment and growth of the U.S. The new focus of agreement has shifted with agreement across the country that infrastructure development in the U.S. and defending workers rights to jobs and opportunities is the top priority. That trade relations need to be reshaped keeping this priority ever present in negotiations. As a result all parties could agree on infrastructure and the recently concluded agreement for trade with Mexico and Canada and phase 1 of negotiated agreement with China. In overseas affairs the U.S. under Trump seeks cost sharing with a 2% of GDP defense spending by other nations so that money can be diverted to use at home. In this sense the debate has already shifted in the U.S. and the UK to how to address the problems of uneven development and growth across the two countries and better allocation of scarce resources to needs at home. Which is for the U.S. a good thing in the middle of all the perception of divisions.      ...

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In a massive intervention last week and again this week the Bank of England cut interest rates from 0.25% to 0.1% and launched a 200 billion pound program to buy UK government bonds and corporate bonds to support the economy and business. Investors sold UK government debt for short term cash holdings and invested in U.S. currency holdings as the safest asset they could find, as the economic effects of the coronavirus epidemic hit capital markets. Andrew Bailey, the Governor of the Bank of England stated that it was the government's job of preventing temporary "dislocation" becoming permanent economic "destruction." Business failures are expected as a result of the coronavirus impact and also layoffs resulting in a temporary jump in unemployment. The government needs to take steps to mitigate these effects in the UK as is being done in the U.S. by the Trump administration with $1 trillion in direct assistance to business and people affected by the crisis. ...

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WSJ shows breakdown on federal spending hikes and cuts in the big DJT US Tax Bill. 2025 US Tax Bill renews the tax cuts put in place by Trump in his first term that expire in 2017. About $2.75 trillion in spending increases are not offset says WSJ. Briefly it has spending hikes for $2.18 trillion      DJT Tax Cuts from first term  $1.31 trillion       Increase Standard Deduction $820 billion         Deduction for businesses $797 billion         Child tax credit $1.41 trillion        Limits on Alternative Minimum Tax The goal is to promote business growth and help small business owners, parents with children, help ordinary Americans take more in take home pay during cost of living pressures for the average American. Savings come from $1.87 trillion repealing personal dependent exemption and $916 billion from capping state and local tax deductions. Added savings from repealing clean energy tax incentives and EV credits. Increasing work requirements for Medicaid saves $625 billion, tution aid cuts $346 billion, $300 billion from SNAP changes.   ...

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The Space Shuttle with astronauts Behnken and Hurley makes a sea landing in the Gulf of Mexico after a 64 day trip to the Space Station orbiting the earth. 

After the retirement of the Space Shuttles in 2011 NASA relied mainly on Russia to send astronauts up into orbit to connect with Space Stations. Under the Obama administration two private companies were hired by NASA to operate Space Shuttles SpaceX and Boeing to take astronauts up to the space station in orbit. Much of the work to build the spacecraft is financed by NASA. 

Space exploration was not a priority for the Obama administration after the financial crisis resulting from banking behaviour in 2009.The U.S. under the Trump administration is renewing America's efforts for space exploration for science and out of a curiosity for what lies outside our planet.

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The bottom half of all U.S. households have only recently recovered the wealth lost in the 2009 financial crisis. They still have 32% less wealth than in 2003 when inflation is taken into account. The top 1% of households have more than twice as much as they did in 2003. Wealth is defined as net worth that includes houses , savings and stocks minus any debt. The wealthy have 85% of their wealth in stocks and bonds. For the bottom 50% half of the assets are in the house or family home. Economic and regulatory trends have happened in ways that favored the people investing in stocks, and rescued people investing in stocks with policies designed with this purpose by central banks and the U.S. government. By contrast for the bottom 50% buying a home is more difficult today. The problem this WSJ report points out is that the next recession would most hurt the bottom 50%, even before they have recovered from the last one which was a result of shaky practices of banks in financial lending and not some cyclical swing in the economy. Policy was then geared to provide a recovery first for stock markets as a way to economic recovery. The bottom 50% have little stake in the stock market, the top 1% have most of their gains from the stock market. Much of the popular anger comes from the way policies by both Democrats and Republicans differed little in past administrations in the way they approached this in shaping economic policy. As a result infrastructure building and investments in public services took less priority in this period of 30 years with trade imbalances with China building up on the external front, in another side to this development. The shift to Trump and to right wing populists in Europe is only the first phase in the corrective action that has to take place to return to a fairer distribution of wealth that existed before the last 3 decades. Eventually it is not right wing or left wing factions or parties, but healthy policies, that matter to create a better balance for society.  ...

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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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Responding to criticism of the Clinton Foundation which has affected Hillary Clinton's ability to win voter support in her contest with Bernie Sanders, the Clinton family has decided to take action in August 2016. The Clinton Global Initiative will be discontinued in 2017. Bill Clinton and Chelsea Clinton will stop raising funds for the Clinton foundation. The Clinton Foundation will not accept funds from foreign donors. What started as a do-good effort to raise funds for worthy causes such as world health, poverty and hunger turned out -because of its very success in raising large amounts of money from corporate donors- into a distraction for the election campaign of Hillary Clinton in 2016. It opened up Hillary Clinton to charges of having conflicts of interest from outsiders Sanders and Trump. Hillary Clinton discontinued her association as a board member of the foundation in 2015 when she began her campaign. Bill Clinton continued to give paid speeches and raised $2.6 million. All that fund raising appears to have been a big mistake and not even fair to the candidate, as it gave rise to misperceptions about the candidate going far beyond what the Clintons ever understood about was happening. As former Labor Secretary Robert Reich put it, it gives rise to accusations of impropriety that may affect an election, without the voters getting a chance to evaluate the candidates on the basis of what each candidates program or agenda is. In this the Clinton family may have realized that in retrospect the entire foundation activity appears to be a small matter, when put next to the choices facing the U.S. and the world in 2016 for the next decade and beyond. The Clinton Foundation in future would be managed by people independent of the Clinton family and circle. The next step would be setting it up as a public foundation, a new board and professional staff. Was it all worth the problems it has created for voters being able to get a clear idea of what each candidate offered, an not acting as a huge and dangerous distraction which Hillary Clinton and the country and the world could do without, considering the significance of making good choices in a general election- very much so. The foundation and the fund raising made it possible for outsiders Sanders and Trump to turn this election into one of slogans and accusations, to which the Clintons were unprepared to respond, acting as a distraction  which was bad for the country and the world. ...

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The first rally for Harris in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The road to the presidency goes through Wisconsin and Harris received enthusiastic support with Governor Tony Evers putting it this way-On the Tony Evers excitement scale that goes from ‘holy mackerel’ and maxes out at ‘heck yes,’ I am jazzed as hell to be welcoming our next presidential nominee to Wisconsin: Vice President Kamala Harris.” Harris used the same lines she used in Wilmington at her first rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In her legal career, Harris said, she “took on perpetrators of all kinds. Predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain.” “So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type”  On project 2025, the blueprint for the first 100 days in office of a Trump second term, the action items are ones that would jeopardize the safety of American institutions that were set up with so much care by Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and nurtured by the first president George Washington with little attention to himself, and protected by president after president through civil war under Abraham Lincoln, through 2 World Wars and The Great Depression under Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, through recovery under Harry Truman and Ike, only to falter under a series of mediocre presidents Reagan, Clinton, Bush, Obama and be endangered by a NBC television show and construction business person with support from new social media networks that were unknown throughout America history till 2010 and television networks that had degenerated into recklessly divisive behaviours to win silo audiences. ...

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The WSJ provides a fact check of Trump statements on crime, debt, and taxes. Trump says he is looking at a new plan for taxes not the $10 trillion in tax cuts over 10 years reducing tax collection by 22%, but something about a third of the size. No details are available on the plan. WSJ disputes Trump's statement that the U.S. is "one of the highest taxed nations in the world." WSJ points out that the U.S. in 2014 for federal, state and local government taxes collected 26% of gross domestic product in taxes, compared to average of 34% for about 30 countries, according to OECD. Debt to GDP ratio is about 75% that is high, but because of low interest rates the budget deficit is less than 3% of GDP, which is close to the long run average. For this reason economists say the government should invest in infrastructure and R&D that supports long run economic growth. On crime the record is mixed with increase in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City, but decreases in Washington D.C. and Baltimore. Police shootings were 67 in 2016 compared to 62 in July 2015, and the high being 280 officers in 1974 when Nixon was President. Crime was an issue in the 1968 Republican National Convention during the Vietnam era protests, police shootings and terror incidents attracted attention in July 2016, yet the situation today is very different from the war protests of the Vietnam era. On terrorism fact checks by the NYT and in Lyrarc shows Clinton at State Department and Panetta at Defense Department taking hawkish stands only to hit a barrier from President Obama for taking action needed in Syria, Iraq and Libya. Panetta's new book calls for robust action where needed. A Clinton administration would take action with allies in the Middle East. Even Hollande and Obama who pulled the U.S. and France out of following up in the French-British Sarkozy-Cameron led intervention in Libya, have changed policy, with Obama calling it his biggest mistake. France under Hollande with the U.S. is now actively engaged in the Middle East, having changed policy. It is highly unlikely that a Trump led policy which alienates most allies in the Middle East- Iran, Iraq and Saudis- is likely to work better than a determined Clinton-Panetta led effort which has support of the local countries on the ground actually currently on both sides because of complexities of Middle Eastern politics.  On trade a new administration will still have to work with China, India, the European Union, and other countries, as global trade supply chains are not likely to evolve overnight. Lessons will have been learned by Clinton about the need to bring back jobs and ensure the strength of U.S. manufacturing. Economic and jobs growth will require prudence in strengthening U.S. manufacturing coupled with global cooperation, which a Trump administration that alienates trading partners without the possibility of making any serious immediate gains in jobs, is highly unlikely to do better.      ...

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President Biden's action to protect consumers when there is a run on the banks such as SVB bank, Signature, Republic bank in the US. And the coordinated action with European central banks and European governments that protect the international banking system because of the interconnections between US and European banks and risks of contagion from one region to another. Janet Yellen at Treasury and the FDIC, Federal Reserve, Swiss central banks worked together on Credit Suisse and other banks affected by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature bank. The Federal Reserve bank of San Francisco supervised SVB bank and flagged the problems of it not being able to sustain itself in a crisis with enough cash on hand. Congress under president Trump removed banks under $250 billion in assets from supervision which made it difficult for the San Francisco Fed to take the problem of SVB to the next level or to be able under the law passed during the 2009 financial crisis to regulate SVB and impose the Fed's requirements. A problem exists  of lobbying by banks for less regulation and the influence exerted on the US government and even the Fed. Spreading of ideas that a culture of laissez fairre or little regulation works well for the banking system contrary to evidence from the 2009 financial crisis and the mismanagement of banks such as Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, with frequent or egregious behaviour leading to settlements with the government. All it takes is the failure of one significant bank even if it is not a large bank, and the spiralling effects on banks with weakness of some kind for a crisis of confidence in the banking system. The role of lobbying by SVB bank and its CEO's appointment to the board of San Francisco Fed is seen as part of this self serving culture. ...

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As drops in price of steel could lead to imports into the US with paying lower tariff Trump increases tariffs on steel to 50% on May 30, 2025. Nippon Steel says it will increase its investments in US steel mills at US Steel including older mills, $7.7 billion in modernization of plants, and $2.2 billion at Mon Valley plant. Ownership of US Steel based in Pittsburgh with 14,000 workers will stay in American hands. DJT intervened to make these investments possible. Investments will keep furnaces open 10 years and give every worker a $5000 bonus. It is this type of action that has helped DJT win in Pennsylvania and win worker support.

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Jose de Cordoba of the WSJ provides this excellent story on the nature of the migration crisis in the U.S. that is creating political divisions in the U.S. What is causing this surge in migration to the U.S.? Cordoba provides some useful insights to understand the nature of this problem. Nine out of ten migrants in Guatemala which sends most of the migrants from Central America are moving north from Guatemala through Mexico to the U.S. for financial reasons, it points out. Only 10% are because of violence in the region, the rest for financial reasons according to the United Nations International Organization for Migration The jump in apprehension of Guatemalans at the American border shows a surge from 15,000 in 2007 to 236,000 in 9 months of 2019, according to U.S. government data. The surge began in 2008 and jumped in 2014 after U.S. court rulings that first required migrant children to be allowed to join relatives in the U.S. followed by a ruling in 2015 that allowed a parent to join the children and allowed court proceedings to take place that takes years. The result was that smugglers advertised on radio and families sold small plots of land to join relatives in the U.S. who had gone before them. The migration is also specific to certain areas hit by damage to crops, including coffee crop from drought, or certain towns that simply sent more people simply for financial reasons advertised openly.  For 8 hours of work a migrant could make at $12 per hour amount of $96 per day, in Guatemala the daily wage would be about $5.  Overwhelmingly it is financial reasons or economic opportunity that sends migrants north. After it became known that kids could help migration the people in family groups apprehended at the border jumped from about 40,000 in 2015 to 390,000 in fiscal 2019. Smugglers charge $8600 per adult and half that for a child and an adult that can be dropped off at a checkpoint. The efforts of president Trump to close the border to this migration include having Mexico sign an agreement to police its southern border with Guatemala using its newly setup National Guard. As a result the migration has actually surged in 2019 with migrants seeing this as their one last opportunity to join relatives in the U.S. or to migrate to the U.S. The Trump administration tried separating families because of the loophole in the law that allows children to be not deported and parents to join their children. But this created a public outcry and the effort now is to close the loophole in the law. It is also strange that as many migrants are coming from one town Joyabaj  with population 100,000 as from Guatemala City the capital population 2.5 million. In fact the economy has grown by 3.4 % a year in Guatemala and efforts have been made to improve conditions with the help of donor countries in the West for several years, though the drought conditions exist. The situation is similar to that in Europe. If one looks at the violence by gangs in central American region after the end of the guerilla wars and compares it to the wars in Syria and Iraq, one can see how humanitarian concerns preceded what eventually turned out tobe a full blown migration for economic reasons. Initially chancellor Merkel adopted a humanitarian stance but failed to recognize that there was another side to his situation that would attract a wave of economic migrants from places as far apart as North Africa to Afghanistan. Poverty has existed in these regions for many many years before the current migration, with drought and lack of economic opportunity going far back in time. Merkel only recently recognized this problem and the new CDU leader Kambrauer has clearly recognized this. CDU policy shifted in 2018-2019 with curbs on economic migration that has reduced it to a trickle. This process is underway in the U.S. at its border with Mexico and for Mexico with its border with Guatemala. In the short run Europe and the U.S. are paying a price. Not just in the way it has divided each country with a far left and a far right eroding the centrist parties that existed before. In some cases centrist parties that were popular on the right and the left now hve leaders from a far right or a far left faction within the centrist ruling parties. Boris Johnson in Britain, Trump in the U.S., leaders in Italy, Austria and Hungary. Or as in Germany and Spain new far left or far right parties causing the centrist parties to dwindle in influence or as in Germany this combined with a shift to the Green Party in Germany and Liberals Party in Britain as a show of disapproval for how the migration issue has been tackled.  The Economist in a July 2019 issue also points out that the country's own citizens have fared worse with migration. It shows how the Conservative Party's austerity cuts for welfare budgets was popular in Britain as long as eastern European migration at high levels in Britain were allowed starting with the Labour party under Blair. This disproportionately hurt the middle class and the poor after the hit already taken from the faulty banking caused recession. With the drop in migration it is now felt by a majority in Britain that the austerity cuts have just gone too far and a mood is set in to restore many of the cuts and fund public services. Meantime some of the damage has been done and will take a decade to correct as the issues that mangled the centrist parties and led to fragmentation on views of what society should look like have taken place with Brexit and high levels of poverty, income inequality in Britain, lack of investment in infrastructure with overallocation to tech with declining productive benefit for every additional dollar spent. ...

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A rapid increase in the number of Russians with favorable views of the US going up past 30% as one sign of the effort to improve US Russia relations by Trump and Putin is seen in March 2025. A call by Trump to Putin will take place March 18, 2025 to start discussions on how to settle the Ukraine conflict including land, power plants and exchanges and getting to the root cause of the war- NATO expansion. Some solutions include NATO being disbanded in its current form as archaic as there is no Soviet Union, its original goal being stopping Soviets from setting pro- Soviet governments, setup in Czechoslovakia and attempts to do this in Greece and Turkey. Truman formed NATO for this purpose in 1949 after the Berlin Blockade by Soviets. WIth nuclear arsenals being replenished in Russia and China, India, Japan, small nuclear states such as North Korea, Pakistan, the situation is different today with responsible policies needed today on this issue which are impeded by the idea of NATO on the borders of Russia and the Eastern European and British view of Russia as the pre-eminent threat not shared by India, Brazil, China and the new administration of DJT in the US. A long period of peaceful coexistence and arms control developed in the late 1960's, 1970's and 1980's between the US, German Federal Republic and Soviet Union/ GDR Germany. ...

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The protests happened as Immigration agents moved to enforce the law in a town Paramount just south of Los Angeles. Protesters blocked streets and defaced property. In response under Title 10 authority of the Insurrection Act president DJT called in 2000 of the California National Guard. 

Los Angeles has the largest Mexican American population in the US followed by counties in Texas Dallas and Houston areas and Cook County, Illinois. There were about 21 million people of Mexican descent in the US in 2000 which has almost doubled to about 37 million in 2023. Of this about 16 million live in California and 11 million live in Texas. Because of this concentration in Los Angeles immigration enforcement is faced with new challenges in the LA area. President Trump won a mandate in 2024 to take strong immigration enforcement of the nation's laws.

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This New Yorker has resilence in his roots in the Scottish Hebrides islands. No wonder he was able to take up the challenge of a US unable to extricate itself from  wars in the Middle East (Reagan, Bushes, Obama), and unfair trade with China, and an onslaught of unfavorable media attention. His name is DJT. According to the BBC in this story on Donald Trump's mother Mary Ann Mcleod, she was a regular churchgoer, well respected in the community, who visited her homeland in Scottish isle of Lewis, British Hebrides, frequently. Mary Ann McLeod is the youngest of 10 children of a Scottish family in the town of Tong in the Hebridean isle of Lewis in the North Sea, northwest of the Scotland mainland. Her father ran the local post office. The family was  relatively poor coming from Scottish people cleared of Highlanders during the Clearances and with fishing disasters in the family. Two hundred servicemen returning from the first world war to Tong lost their lives in a shipping disaster and the economy of the island was in poor shape. With no opportunities or future many immigrated to Canada. Mary Ann's sister Catherine immigrated to Canada and on a visit to Tong she took Mary back with her to New York in 1930. Mary worked as a nanny for a wealthy family in New York before meeting a socialite of German immigrants Fred Trump. Mary returned to Scotland in 1934 and by then she found a new life with Fred Trump whom she married. The couple lived in a wealthy area of Queens and Fred Trump ran a real estate business he had inherited with his mother. Donald Trump still has three cousins in Tong in the British Hebrides Scottish isles. His older sister Maryanne Trump Barry regularly visited Tong. Donald Trump visited Tong in 2008. Of this family a local who knows the cousins and the family John MacIver, a local councillor and friend of the cousins told BBC in 2017- "They are very nice, gentle people and I'm sure they don't want all the publicity that's around. I quite understand that they don't want to talk about it."   ...

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UK Business Secretary Kwarteng orders a National Security Review of the acquisition by Chinese semiconductor maker Wingtech through a Dutch subsidiary of a semiconductor factory in Wales. The factories in Wales are becoming a hub of the UK semiconductor industry with research and manufacture of compound semiconductors, which enable electric batteries for cars to get more mileage. Nine Congressmen in the US wrote to the Biden administration about the acquisition and its dangers for the UK and US semiconductor industry's technology being shifted to China. The head of the UK Foreign Affairs committee in parliament also alerted the UK government of the risks involved. The UK government has passed a law that allows it to retroactively cancel deals that are considered a risk for national security. Under the Bush and Obama administrations there was a transfer of western technology through acquisitions of this type and not much was done by the governments in Europe and the US. This enabled China to acquire western technology using its state subsidized firms which had better access to financing for acquiring key western technologies. It was only under the Trump administration that 2 decades after it started in 2000 this process was given attention. It was ignored in the same manner that the Germans under chancellors Schroeder and Merkel allowed Russian energy companies to dominate the energy sector in Germany even to the point of acquiring ownership of the storage of energy on German soil. That dependence allowed by German elites according to the Manchester Guardian in a recent article is now unwinding with the brave and unceasing efforts of Economy Minister Habeck,  who is now the most popular person in Germany for making this  correction in the midst of the Russian invasion of Ukraine with China's support. ...

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Questions may relate more to how these situations affected the role of Gates and similar individuals in protecting the interests of the US, Europe, India, Latin America and Africa in health organizations such as the World Health Organization. As globalization spread governments in the West surrendered some of the essential role they played in world health organizations to individuals and NGO's, and countries lacking experience needed for such an important task. The mishandling of the pandemic is partly a result of this retreat by western governments from the role that they have played during the nineteenth and twentieth century. In the US letter to the WHO by president Trump the role of Gro Harlem Brundtland of Norway was shown in handling an earlier virus epidemic that originated in Asia so that it would not spread and could be controlled. This is the H1N1 crisis in 2003 cited in Mr. Trump's letter to the World Health Organization. Brundtland took strong action that was missing during this pandemic after the US and western nations surrendered the essential role they have played for centuries based on role in medical science discovery for maintaining public health. Surrendering this role or seeing it erode is one of the biggest mistakes of our time and a mistaken form of globalized behaviour. It is only now being corrected as the realization dawns on major nations such as US, UK, France, Japan, Russia, India and other countries about the essential stability provided by western nations knowledge, experience and resources to this task of maintaining global health. Even a nation like India has to base its role on hundred or more years of work in medical science and commitment to public health that transcends political preferences or national interest to take on and be a worthy participant with the advanced nations that have played so great and beneficial role for the world in public health. What to speak of transient interest of nations in the developing world or countries where national interest or political preferences play a part in public health of the peoples of the world. This responsibility for world's public health can never be delegated to individuals, foundations or any one country, or small countries, or a combination of these, only to the collective experience of the last 300 years in medical science discovery and the role of Europe including Russia, and the US in leading the way.  The Biden administration has the same underlying concerns as the Trump administration about this mishandling of the pandemic and the disasters that followed bringing so much death and suffering This excerpt on Brundtland of Norway is from the letter the US sent to the World Health Organization- "In 2003, in response to the outbreak of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in China, Director-General Harlem Brundtland boldly declared the World Health Organization’s first emergency travel advisory in 55 years, recommending against travel to and from the disease epicenter in southern China. She also did not hesitate to criticize China for endangering global health by attempting to cover up the outbreak through its usual playbook of arresting whistleblowers and censoring media. Many lives could have been saved had you followed Dr. Brundtland’s example." ...

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Issues raised by the huge mismatch between revenues and investment for AI. $400 billion estimated investment by 5 Tech firms in 2025 alone with revenue of about $40 billion and huge uncertainty about when AI will produce returns. Articles seen this week of November 17 in the WSJ and NYT on this issue, podcasts, discussions in other media outlets. Could this lead to a dot com bubble type economic crisis? Could that lead to a recession? Alongside these articles another article in the WSJ on Nov 17 shows the benefits small firms get by using AI, benefits which are on the fringes of their business, not essential but with some experimenting firm owners/managers able to tweak AI information for use in business. Nothing significant which firms will pay much money for. The uncertainty is a major factor. Should geopolitics trump all these concerns? Is the competition with China require this scale of investment, and is China following a more utilitarian approach as reported in a WSJ article this month, of investing in AI in a utilitarian way targeting its use in improving manufacturing, improving infrastructure, and not wildly throwing money at experimental uses that are unlikely to yield much result. In geopolitical sense would the country that not only promoted AI but used it efficiently and cost effectively, used it in ways that promote the overall public good, get the WIN. In short it behooves everyone of us to ask hard questions of AI, to dehype the hype, to look for the public good that comes out of this from it's efficient use. To ask the tough questions when $400 billion generates only $40 billion in 2025 and the $3 trillion planned investment over 5 years is half unfunded, is it going to crowd out energy needs for homes and business, push renewable energy targets back, crowd out essential investments in the crumbling aging infrastructure of the US and Europe, crowd out essential investments in education, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, and manufacturing, that hold better promise for our People. Will it also put retirees at risk when corporate bonds from retirees money fund the unfunded portion of AI? This means making the political dimension not about migration, settling the illegal migration issue that was meant to be settled a long time back, or about cultural issues that have little day to day impact on our lives which are about groceries, childcare, housing that are non ideological. Making the political dimension not about remote countries that one knows little about except when it affects public safety and health as with fentanyl. Capital allocation decisions to the vital needs of America can then be free of politically induced error, so that it can be subjected to the test of how best it serves the public interest and the people of the Nation. ...

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Greg Ip tells India's story, piped water for hundreds of millions of Indians, massive increases in road and rail, rapid development of infrastructure, aviation, ports logistics. WSJ graph shows country growth of economies for Japan, China, India, Germany in 2000 and 2020. By 2000 Japan had grown its economy to become about half the size of the US economy with two decades of rapid growth since 1980. China repeated this process with two decades of hyper growth since 2000 to become about 75% of the US economy by 2020. The graphs also show Japanese growth tailing off so rapidly after 2000 in relation to the US economy that it is now only about 25% of the US economy. China is likely to follow the same path as growth slows and with an aging population to become about 35-40% of the US economy by 2040 from 75%. India following the process that happened in Japan and in China is likely to become close to 35-40% of the US economy by 2040 from about 18% today, with the fastest growth over the next two decades for the most populous country in the world. Greg Ip points out what has been achieved since 2014 with the Modi government. Good governance without leakages of public funds dedicated to infrastructure, ease of living, GST one India one tax so that growing pool of funds from taxes fund rapid development with no leakages to corrupt officials,  Swacch Bharat or Clean India, clean water from taps, electricity and cooking gas for the whole population of India with dates for completion. All this Ip calls removal of the shackles that existed for far too long even past 2000 and 2010 when China had vastly surpassed India from its low point in 1980 after Mao and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. India today is in as much a pace of development as China in the 1990's and Japan in the 1960's, except that it now has the benefit of grasping how development can be done in a way that does not affect climate and health in adverse ways as happened with China's hyper growth -which also led to the tragic loss of manufacturing for workers and communities in the US and Europe due to the economic theories of laissez faire of the Reagan era. Reagan theory for governments not working with industry that were applied indiscriminately during the Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump presidencies for three decades led to shipping manufacturing overseas with no regard for the risks and dangers. What Greg Ip fails to mention is the uniqueness of India that is united by Vedanta, Hinduism and Buddhism for thousands of years, and which keeps the fabric of society together when it is divided by 13 language groups. These 13 language groups are: Hindi 43% of the population, Bengali 8%, Marathi 7%, Telugu 7%, Tamil 6%, Gujarati 5%, Urdu 4%, Kannada 4%, Odia 3%, Malayalam 3%, Punjabi 3%, Assamese 1%, English 1%. It was the vision of the early leaders Vivekananda, Gokhale, Mohandas Gandhi, Nehru, Sardar Patel, that united a diverse country with many languages and cultural variation. And it is this vision of Vivekananda that is creating the Good Governance under Sab ka Vikas, Sab ka Viswas, Sab ke Saath, Sab ka Prayas of today- development for all, with the confidence of all, with the support of all, the efforts of all. Without a disciplined direction based on hard work India could not make it this far or fulfill the aspirations of its youthful population by 2040. ...