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Inflation is receding as an issue in the 2024 elections as the CPI index dropped below 3% in July as reported by the Labor Department. It was 2.9% lowest since 2021. Greg Ip says when Trump is saying bacon costs 5 times more now he needs to find another supermarket. That is the joke as Trump is really getting ripped off. Ip says bacon prices are up 18% since 2020 when Biden took office. Trump says at rallies grocery prices are up 70%, Ip says fact correction -up 21% since January 2021 not 70%. Trump says gas prices are $5.00 a gallon. Fact correction- gas prices are $3.75 a gallon and falling, says Ip. Trump wildly exaggerates. Trump says he will cut energy and electricity prices by 50% in 12-18 months. His answer "Drill Baby Drill." Experts cited by Greg Ip say even if new offshore and onshore leases are given, increase in supply is marginal and years away. Gas prices are determined by the world price determined by OPEC and Russia, says Ip.  Trump will increase inflation says this report because of tariffs he plans of 60% on imports from China and 10% from other places. That would increase inflation by 1.4 to 1.7% say analysts. Greg Ip of WSJ offers more clues. Inflation linked bonds see inflation dropping to 2.2% in 2025 instead of 2.6% predicted earlier. Jerome Powell at the US central bank the Fed and president Biden hav done their job well and are not letting up, continue to work on it diligently every day. ...

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Next five year plan for China calls for more concentration on industry, dominance in key sectors identified by China such as rare earths, and more exports- not less in each of these areas. Chinese Communist Party is very conservative and once this has worked for China it is not going to change its reliance on exports even at the risk of leaving goods unsold in China or oversupply. The result is that the US effort to reduce the trade deficit, trying every tool in the book does not work, leading to an effort to resort to tariffs as a last resort to cut the unhealthy and risky $1 trillion trade deficit China has with the world. Has it worked? WSJ and other reports show that large companies are diversifying their supply channels, only smaller companies without the resources are sticking with China dependence for supplies. The tariffs themselves make headlines yet the US has made careful calculations not to upset relationships with key partners Britain, European Union, and Japan, keeping tariffs low at 10% with EU, and 15% with Japan which exports automobiles to the US to recover some of the years US made concessions to Japan. There are also loopholes on certain products where it is in the US interest to do so. As a result the effective tariff is 10-12.5% not 17-20% shown in reports. Of this 10% what is passed on to consumers is small- as in autos 80% of tariffs are not passed on by auto importers such as Toyota and Subaru because of the higher margins postpandemic. In retail only 30% is passed on again because of the post pandemic higher margins. The administration of DJT has also carefully worked with world oil suppliers to keep oil prices low, lower than in 2023-2024. The result is that inflation is at about 3% in September 2025. The idea that a capricious DJT is doing the tariffs is a myth as careful economic planners including Bessent, Jamieson, Lighthizer, and Luttnick, economic advisors in the Republican party, are carefully articulating the policy with room for DJT's political talk and appeal to public sentiment. ...

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Where do you place a winner of the Democratic primary in Maine, Graham Plattner, an oyster farmer who dropped out of college at George Washington University, served briefly in the Middle East wars of Bush and Obama, and had PTSD. Is he working class, middle working class or is he from a downwardly mobile professional class considering he has parents who are well educated and father a prominent lawyer in Maine? Plattner easily defeated a 3 term governor of Maine with his average working class demeanor and language. He is for universal health care, (Medicare for All) universal child care, affordable housing, affordable college. Politics in the US has been moving away from the simple divisions before 1950 created by the Industrial Revolution- the workers in factories and the owners of capital allied with the professional middle class. The few owners of capital mostly college educated allied with people from the non college educated workers in factories who are conservative in their values and beliefs and on the other side the college educated professional middle class now downwardly mobile because of the many recessions and high unemployment from frequent financial crises, with college costing $80,000 a year putting them in deep debt. There is today in the WSJ a story of a professional worker who at $194,000 a year salary is not able to payoff $15000 debt which owners of capital have set at 26% interest and is in downward spiral. Some of this comes from large college and other debt. There is says WSJ Analysis $1.25 trillion in credit card debt alone with highest delinquency rates in decades in 2026. Cost of living has only made things worse and some of this happened as Biden poured money into the economy to help people hurt by the pandemic, yet with some short run consequences with demand strong businesses including hotels, restaurants and grocery stores, auto dealers, jacking up their prices by over 20% in 1 year and Biden failing to respond, getting overwhelmed by open borders migrants under Mayorkas and Harris (also hit by a sudden Venezuelan migrant influx). This is the America one has today- a confusing mix. This in reality means Democrats may take issue with Democrats, Republicans take issue with Republicans, and Democrats join with Republicans on issue by issue basis. It might actually be rational than irrational. On cultural issues if the country has gone over its head and moved too fast on some issues that are not for the general public good, people of different backgrounds can come together to get the best path. On economic issues things are never so straightforward, there are unpredictable consequences and the rules of economics are really not so straightforward either.  Providing relief can mean the government shouldering the burden as during the pandemic which it should, yet with caution as businesses can use the excess demand to raise prices and one is back to square one with everybody worse off as happened with Biden. Migrant flows and fears of insecurity in public spaces can lead to a severe public "discomfort that can waylay the best intentions of a Harris or Biden, leading to public "backlash." In fact the title of a recent book is "Whiplash." Current books include Floridan Marco Rubio's "Decade's of Decadence- How our Spoiled Elites Blew America's Inheritance of Liberty, Security and Prosperity." Rubio means it. Its authentic because as Rubio says repeatedly, his parents could make a living in the 1960's working in a factory with decent wages, low cost of living and low cost of college, the arithmetic between salaries and what you needed for decent home in suburbs and sending children to good public schools, then to college, all adding up. The result is that Rubio could go to college and serve in the Florida legislature. Rubio says in 2026, after the elites under Bush and Obama and faulty economic theory shipped all of our factories to China, that the story of his parents and his education would simply be impossible. This is what he told people in India on his first visit last week. His parents were Cuban immigrants, yet he identifies with Spain and with western civilization, a devout Roman Catholic. Rubio is a Republican, and is in large contrast with Alejandro Mayorkas, also from Cuba, and Biden's Head of Homeland Security. This is the mix of people and representatives in Congress,  business people, small business owners, professionals, that we have today in 2026 in the US. Plattner and Rubio, one a Democrat and one a Republican- both have something in common. Plattner also has general disdain for "the corporate interests, the billionaires, the Washington DC elites, and the establishment politicians."  The winds are blowing in the direction of getting things right- remembering that Eisenhower continued the work of the Kennedy and LBJ administrations (Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System for instance, and LBJ gave America Social Security and Medicare). Before that Franklin Roosevelt a Democrat built on the work of his uncle Republican Theodore Roosevelt (TR gave America the idea of good governance and built the US Navy, FDR fought the Depression and stabilized a faltering economy after mistakes made by Republican Herbert Hoover could have happened even if Hoover was a Democrat. FDR was himself from a wealthy New York family and when he first met fellow New Yorker Frances Perkins before his struggle with polio, a haughty New York gentleman. That was before Frances Perkins as FDR's Labor Secretary joined forces with Roosevelt to give New York a modernized administration governance structure by 1940 that was applied to all 51 states after 1950. It allied labor with capital with fairness for all, and was the first such modern structure of this size the world had ever seen, which was the fundamental strength of the United States of America. It was imitated in Asia, first in the Shanghai region then China, and first in the Ahmedabad region and now India. The US is faced with the challenge of recreating and rebuilding this today, as first China, then India remind America of its roots which they have followed in their own style and culture.  First good governance, then good institutional structures, alligning labor and capital with fairness for all, strong affordable + accessible educational and healthcare systems, and investments of capital and labor for infrastructure + industrial development. ...

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Washington Post Analysis and details of Census Bureau trade information in September 2025 -showing the country by country and product tariffs by US and which tariffs are waiting for final trade agreements. China, India and Switzerland, Mexico face high tariffs. UK, EU, South Korea, Japan have made trade agreements with the US, China, India Swiss are still to finalize trade agreements leading to the uncertainty. The North American Trade Agreement is being renegotiated leading to uncertainty for Mexico and Canada which have both benefitted from trade with the US to detriment of US manufacturers.  China has huge surpluses that keep growing over time to $1 trillion ($992 billion) a year in 2024.  DJT Tariffs are designed as a bold step to remake the international trading system so that it does not work to the benefit of other nations gaming the system over decades as US administrations Clinton, Bush, Obama, paid no attention. Trade Deficits and the National Debt are a problem not just the National Debt. On the National Debt Republicans have pushed through cuts in parts of the budget where costs had escalated tremendously. ...

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Typhoon winds that exacerbated the floods in Beijing, China, are shown here in a BBC report. Recent floods in China and fires in Maui, Hawaii, show effects of climate change on opposite sides of the planet in August 2023. This is one more reason for the US and China to work with other countries in limiting the effects of climate change and focus on the important issues that require cooperation and mutual effort.

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This NYT report covers the period around 2019 and since when Tesla established its first factory in China.  It is the remarkable story of how the intuition and rapid decisionmaking  of Huang Li, a top Shanghai official and now premier since 2022, helped China create its own EV industry from scratch. He did this by giving Tesla a start with a new factory in Shanghai with $1.5 billion in incentivized loans and building it in 1 year 2019-2020.  A top Shanghai official Huang Li hoped to attract Tesla to China in 2019 after contacts were opened through California officials. Tesla had its only factory at Fremont, California, and had worked with the state government on a program of emissions credits as a form of financing that it could use. California officials  advocated for a similar policy in China in 2019. With Mr. Li's backing the Tesla factory in Shanghai was built in 1 year, California style emissions credit were put in place in China. What Mr. Huang Li's intuition told him was that China was at a turning point it had to take strong steps for a emissions free auto industry to tackle climate change. A company like Tesla offered an opportunity to do this. The factory was built faster than Chinese time in 1 year and loans of $1.5 billion helped finance this. Li correctly sensed that local supplier chain had to be built giving China a way to build its own EV industry. CATL was a lead supplier to Tesla. By providing assistance to CATL and other suppliers and using China's rapid development model Li was able to build an entire EV vehicle industry from scratch. BYD became through work in the pandemic years the largest EV maker in the world, and CATL the largest battery maker. Tesla provided the impetus which Li took on with the idea of building its own versions to soon overtake Tesla in 4 years between 2020 and 2024. BYD went even further and developed its own in house battery technology to cut costs and bring prices down. ...

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This report by Jia Lynn Yang in NYT covers only the Coolidge period and the JFK period ignoring the wider trend since the 1850's when immigration from Asia to the US was discouraged. The laws limiting Japanese, Chinese and Indian immigrants were put in place long before 1924 by the 1890's. Japan agreed to limit immigration to the US under an agreement with the US after 1900. China was undergoing a transition under the Boxer Rebellion and upheaval in government in the period after 1900, India was part of Britain's colonial Empire.It does not mention that Chinese laborers helped do the dangerous work to build the railroads east to west. It also ignores the immigration from Mexico which was a special case in immigration because of Mexico's relationship along the border, first with the Mexican American War that achieved Jefferson's idea of a continental nation coast to coast. Mexico was a source of labor for US agriculture in the 1930's and 1940's when Asian immigration was severely constrained. When Gen. Eisenhower won the election in 1952 immigration policy was on the agenda, in fact Truman had a commission look at it by 1950. Operation Wetback was launched by Eisenhower and returned millions of Mexican migrants back to Mexico. Fearing the lack of farm help for Mexican agriculture Mexican agricultural interests supported the return of migrants. All this is left out by Lynn Yang. For almost a century Asian immigration was discouraged till JFK with experience in Asia during the war looked at Asian immigration to US differently passing new legislation to support this in the JFK/LBJ terms as president. In this sense the operations under DJT at the Border  and in the US in 2025-2026 are similar to what happened under Operation Wetback under a popular president Eisenhower, after the surge in Mexican migration adding millions of migrants to the US population in the 1930's and 1940's. A greater glimpse of the US can only be imagined if after the early immigration and discovery of the continent by the Spanish, the French and the British by 1600, the continent had not been unified first by the war of 1756-1763 with the French and Indian Wars creating the original 13 British colonies before the War of Independence in 1776, and the expansion to Spanish/Mexican territory to the West and South including California, Texas and Florida in the Mexican American War of 1846-48. In that situation there would be five sectors in America- British, Spanish, French, Mexican and American. The US could not have advanced as an industrial power divided in this way and would not have attracted immigrants from Europe the away it did. If it was split into two Southern confederacy and Northern Union states it would also have led to a similar situation. There would be conflict. It is only divine intervention and the courage and ideas of Jefferson and Washington, the work of president Polk, the leadership of Lincoln, and the industrial revolution on a large scale of one Nation in peace for most of the 19th century, that it became a haven for immigrants from a troubled Europe, a struggling Asia and Mexico. ...

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A directive from the Central Committee of the CCP, China's Communist Party is shown in this report in the WSJ that requires strengthening the work in corporate governance of the United Front Work Departments. This applies to foreign companies according to this directive in September 2020. This report says the European Chamber of Commerce in China has said that "this would have a considerable impact on business sentiment, and could lead foreign companies to reconsider future and even current investments in China."

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China's economy expanded at 0.4% growth rate in the second quarter of 2020, according to the Bureau of National Statistics. It is not just the lockdowns that are dampening consumer sentiment.  US and EUropean demand for manufactured goods from Taiwan, South Korea and China is shrinking.

Youth unemployment is high with 20% of people 16 to 24 years without work. Some experts say the youth unemployment is increasing because companies are showing less interest in hiring and training new workers, or in investing in the future.

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US president's sweeping powers to use tariffs as a tool for policy when American people's jobs, communities, health, is threatened by fentanyl and concentration of manufacturing jobs in China, unfair trade by EU and Japan, is the issue presented to the US Supreme Court. The US president presented it in this way- tariffs as a foreign policy tool, not a way to impose economic policy in the form of a tax on American importers or buyers which is the power allocated to Congress by the US Constitution. Justices who mentioned these powers called them sweeping powers but would not say the word fentanyl or look back at the recalcitrant behaviour of Asian nations Japan and China when it comes to unfari trading practices, where the US could literally negotiate forever and get no result, or to the enormous concentration of manufacturing power and supply channels in China that not only ships out American jobs but leaves Americans at the mercy of foreign powers for cost of living. Nowhere was this more evident as during covid years and now in rare earths export restrictions from China. The Justices assumed it was just alright to ignore this or leave it unsaid.  The cost to American buyers is small because most of the tariffs are borne by foreign suppliers in China, Japan and Germany, who as in the case of automobiles unfairly benefitted for decades and are now bearing most of the cost of tariffs. The large business in the US have increased their margins so much in the 2020-2024 period that they are now bearing some of the cost of the tariffs, as reported in WSJ. So that inflation in the US is at 3.0 % in the US less than anticipated, when average tariffs are at about 10% overall, not what the headlines say of 15-20% because of the product exceptions made in the tariffs for each nation. Justice Roberts may be right when he says more care should be exercized in the placing of a tariff, but even Roberts and Justices Barrett, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and others know that the US has used this as a last resort, as a policy tool to protect the American people. Sweeping powers need care and caution as Justice Roberts stated- “power to impose tariffs on any product from any country in any amount for any length of time. It does seem like that’s a major authority."   ...

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A change in the tone of how the US sees China's military and nuclear weapons buildup in December 2025 from the US War Department as the US and China work to preserve a trade truce and better relations with planned US president DJT visit to Beijing in 2026. US has 3700 vs about China's 600 nuclear weapons growing to 1000 in coming years. US sees the Monroe Doctrine as its major foreign policy goal in 2026- US setting rules in the Western Hemisphere for Peace and Progress without the lawlessness of drug and people trafficking in Venezuela and Mexico of the last 2 decades across the Bush, Obama and Biden administrations. This is a major change in policy to ensure the safety and well being of American communities in 51 states of the Union, in addition to jobs and factory expansion across America by fighting unfair trade practices in the world economy.

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Biden sends Yellen and Blinken to Beijing in April 2024 to meet with premier Li Qiang and foreign minister Wang Yi to improve relations with China. Xi says China and the US can work through their differences including on Taiwan. As tensions increase in Europe with Ukraine and with another election cycle in the US, it is essential that the US, China, India and the EU work though differences on Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific, and plan ahead for a future peace settlement in Ukraine with the support of all nations, especially ones with which the US and EU, have a strong trading and economic relationship. China needs export markets as its construction industry stalls and increases investment in manufacturing. The US continuing strong investment in manufacturing in the US, continuing to trade with China on a level playing field. Both sides have economic interests, and interests of the world to advance peaceful cooperation. 

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China's plan to lift all birth restrictions by 2025. The one child policy was replaced with a two child policy, and now with a three child policy in 2021, as China's birth rate declined below the level needed for a stable population. The plan now is to lift all restrictions as the decline in population is expected to be very steep. Not enough young people to support a growing elderly population is a major problem for the economy. A mindset has developed over 70 years for one or two children that is seen as hard to change. Women now work and pursue careers, their expectations in life have changed. Couples are also finding it hard to get access to schools and afford the costs of education and home space needed for larger families. Housing in most cities is costly, making it harder to raise families. Attitudes are hard to change. Experts see little impact of the new policies. The three northeastern provinces suffered most in the shift to a market economy. This is where the drop in birthrates is very steep. The government will remove all birth restrictions in the northeast before applying it to the whole of China. ...

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The place is Spain, see adjacent article on places within Spain. If you know Spanish that is an added advantage to talk to the locals. It has changed over the years. In the 1990's one could go to Madrid and freely walk out of the Puerta de Atocha main train station there with little traffic. Over the years after the financial crisis Madrid and Spain suffered. Under PM Pedro it has recovered. Yet it is not the same with international tourism from China, India, US having made visits crowded and less friendly. There is the garbage can index for tourism that tells you something is wrong when garbage cans are overflowing- it happened as tourism jumped to France in the last 2 decades- with garbage overflowing outside Notre Dame before renovation. (After 1993 Japan removed all garbage cans from streets.) About 100 million tourist visited France in 2024 and 80 million to Spain. It brings $100 billion in tourism receipts to Spain and about $80 billion each for France and UK, so that it is a key source of revenue for countries. How to make trips that avoid the rush - careful planning for season and month, finding the right places depending on one's interests nature, history, science, or other, and avoiding tours as there are plenty of resources to do it on one's own, finding right places to stay and visit, using local transport, tram and speed trains in Europe, giving enough time for each place, talking to locals and taking a lesson on Rocket languages online which uses locals and practices word pronunciation so you sound like a local. ...

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Much of the cost of the Common Prosperity campaign of president Xi to increase access to healthcare, education and housing will fall on heavily indebted local governments in China, says WSJ. Today in 2022 these three education, healthcare and housing are moving beyond reach of ordinary Chinese because of rising costs and referred to as the "three big mountains." In education and housing the government has moved to improve access. Today parents like Ding Jianxiong in Beijing can give their children two extra hours of classes in school for not cost. It saves money and time compared to tutoring classes that the government is discouraging. Teachers have to work longer hours for this to happen and the cost is borne by local governments. Governments at provincial, municipal and county level finance 80%, 70%, and 60% of China's fiscal expenditures on education, healthcare and housing projects. Data from China's Finance Ministry shows local governments have built up $4 trillion in debt at end of 2020, up 20% from a year earlier, much of it to finance infrastructure projects in the last 20 years. This experts say is an underestimate with additional debt buried and camouflaged in financing vehicles, other forms of debt. In 2020 the central government restricted sales of land that were creating an overinflated housing market and driving cost of housing ever higher, depriving local governments of a principal source of revenues. Land sales are now down about 15% and falling. Experts say a new property tax could only bring in one fifth of what was derived through land sales by local governments. The result is a fundamental mismatch today between revenues and costs for local governments that has not been addressed. ...

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There is a major contraction in the supply of leased cars to the used car market. This used to be the major source of used cars on dealer's lots. The contraction is so large it will take years to fix, some say 2027. The contraction of leased cars is expected to be 23% from 2024 to 2025 for expiring 3 year leases. Another factor leased cars are a good deal to buy at the end of the lease seeing how sticky used car prices are these days. A 3 year old leased car now costs $28,000 up 45% since 2020, and for new cars it is $48,000 up 25% since 2020 This is significant because a key part of inflation is not only cost of groceries (eggs for example), it is also the cost of cars and housing. For cars used cars are a major part of it as it is basic transportation needed to get to work for a majority of Americans. There are Americans where a car breakdown leads to a loss of a job because it costs too much to repair and young people just don't have the money. Stories in WSJ now point to how DJT won in 2024 largely because of immigration, fentanyl and transgender, and the frustration with high inflation. The challenge is now for action where Mexico, Canada and China cut off fentanyl flows to be able to access the US market. It is also for finding a way to cut housing and car costs. ...

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Germany Economy Minister Peter Altmaier says Germany expects a shallower recession. GDP in 2020  is expected to be down by 5.8% much lower than the 10-15% in other countries. Exports in June were up by 15% to China and down by 20% to the U.S. Economies of Spain and the UK are expected to see twice the decline in GDP in 2020. Italy and Germany are seeing a increase in manufacturing output, Spain and France a decline. 

Still Germany remains exposed to other trading partners than China, such as the U.S. and Britain, total exports are expected to be down 12% in 2020. About 11% of workers are using short term work subsidies to stay at home. Cases of the virus are surging in France and Spain. In Germany there is a surge but it is slowing since last week. Mr. Altmaier thinks Germany can avoid a second lockdown.

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Deteriorating China Iran relations as the oil imports from Iran for China face US tariffs of 25% on China's exports to US, and US economic relations far more significant for the Chinese economy. China gets somwhere between 1.4 to 1.6 million barrels aday from Iran (80% of Iran's oil exports) into Shandong refiners at $10 below Brent crude prices. Another 400 mbd comes from Venezuela to China. This means $30 billion comes to Iran from oil sales to China at $59 a barrel, and $8 billion for Venezuela from oil sales to China. This has financed much of the bellicose policies towards the US in the western hemisphere and in the Gulf region. Iran's bellicose policies in the Middle East, its nuclear policy, are now seen by China as a distraction and  detract from good economic relations with the US. China $400 billion oil deal 25 year cooperation agreement signed in 2021 was signed under the Biden administration and China today faces a completely different situation in 2026. Even China's relations with Russia are not the same as the US builds better relations with Russia. A wind down of the Ukraine war would change the situation completely and ensure peace in Europe including Russia, as the US works with the EU to meet future challenges having learned from this experience in Europe (Ukraine dividing Europe) and in the Western hemisphere (drug/ migrant. trafficking). When historians write this chapter of the inflows of capital from advanced West to Arab countries and the Gulf region they will write about the huge contrast between China/India's efforts to modernize and these nations where much of that capital was wasted in wars and conflicts and in grandiose projects that made no material difference to the standard of living and quality of life of the vast number of ordinary people. Once the oil dividend is gone with fossil fuels replaced with renewable energy by 2035-2040 this opportunity to advance is lost for the Arab and Gulf region. ...

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There were 2.5 million encounters at the US Border in Trump's first term says the BBC, under Biden's first term this number quadrupled to 10 million. Had the Biden administration done what it did for China policy and tariffs, quietly leaving them in place and tried sincerely to listen and work with Republicans, replaced Mayorkas in 2021 June when the migrant numbers reached 200,000 far surpassing the 150,000 high under DJT, and negotiated a new law by the end of 2021, this would have stopped asylum, added resources and closed the border in a timely delivery of needed action.

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Meg Gentle, who helped build the first LNG terminal for Cherniere Inc. in the Gulf Coast of the US for export of natural gas extracted in the US, is now switching to work in green hydrogen production. The first facility goes up in Texas by 202 7after an experimental project in Chile. WSJ shows many former fossil fuel executives are taking this route to green hydrogen. Gentle says the nascent green hydrogen industry is similar to the beginnings of natural gas. She says there are all the same elements in both. And that the new companies can go from one plant to create a new transformation just like that done for LNG. A chief technology officer of Airbus, a head of GE Europe and China, and an Italian from Eni Enel are also working at green hydrogen companies. What has turned an historically uneconomic business into a possibly profitable business are subsidies from president Biden put in place for clean energy. These subsidies now cover 60% of the cost of green hydrogen, says the WSJ. Green hydrogen requires permiting, infrastructure, financing, customer agreements, similar to the fossil fuel industry. Many are joining for the challenge as green hydrogen when converted into a liquid for transport can't carry as much energy as fossil fuels. About 120 startups raised $2.6 billion in 2022, a 50% jump from 2021. The GE executive says no one has done this on scale making the opportunity enormous. ...

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Share of US Counties where 95% of Kindergarteners are vaccinated against Measles drops to 28% from 50% in Washington Post Investigation of 44 states December 2025. 95% vaccination rate is what experts say is needed for "herd immunity" or overall protection in a class. Washington Post examination of data shows marked deterioration from 2018-2019 school year to 2024-2025 school year data and public records. That is 5.3 million children are exposed from lack of herd immunity from measles now compared to 3.5 million children earlier increase of 1.8 million children. This Wash. Post investigation shows 19,000 schools are exposed and one can go to this article to find on a map how your school district and country are doing in the 44 states. A big problem is emerging from public skepticism and politics in vaccination. For generations schools required vaccination proof- by 1980 all 50 states had laws covering students first entering school. And caught in vaccine politics legislatures are creating religious and other exemptions that have weakened laws. Wash. Post says it's examination shows not a single County in Idaho, Louisiana, Oregon Tennessee, Utah, and Wisconsin meet the 50% vaccinated requirement for measles required for herd immunity. This could mean more of these diseases will be brought back home including whooping cough to affect elderly and infants. Democratic districts such as in St Louis and Chicago also see drop in measles vaccination rates. In the sense that newly decolonized countries since 1950 such as China and India have emerged with good health systems and mandated vaccination , other public health action, there is a great need for the US to focus on bringing back the public awareness that existed after the 1940's in the US that resulted in significant advances in public health in the US in the FDR, Eisenhower, Kennedy, LBJ and Reagan administrations. It shows there is no victory in public health. A lot of work needs to be done, as much of the gains can get undone by events and public awareness is necessary. As pharmaceuticals, chemicals and plastics and bad nutritional habits took over American lives there is an effort under Kennedy at HHS to tackle that health crisis, but it brings with it challenges that date from the pandemic and different responses in different parts of the US to mandatory vaccination which also have to be met through education not social media. ...

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President Trump extends the U.S. lockdown for social distancing till April 30, on the advice of health experts. China meanwhile resumes industrial production and schools reopen. Factories, offices and retail outlets were shutdown for 2 months nearly nationwide in China. The U.S. has a social distancing lockdown not a complete quarantine of hotspots such as New York, New Jersey. Mr. Trump planned to quarantine New York but faced opposition from the governors of New York and New Jersey, including possible legal challenges. U.S. governors have acted imposing travel restrictions to their states from hotspots in other places in the country, forcing people traveling to self-isolate, stopping vehicles with out of state license plates and asking them to stay away. The U.S. cases have jumped from 100 in early March to 143,000 as of March 28, 2020, and 2514 deaths, according to John Hopkins. New estimates from president Trump and his team of experts are for the peak to be reached by April 15, and recovery gradually taking place by June 1, 2020. Based on the timeline in China shown below the time from the first set of 27 cases by December 15 to March 28 when China's factories were back to work and schools reopened across the country, is a period of 75 days. Based on this president Trump's timeline of June 1 for recovery has some foundation. China quarantined strictly compared to the U.S. yet in the early days it had no warning which the U.S. had in particular from Italy. The Trump administration by extending social distancing and lockdown restrictions till April 30 without a strict quarantine of the East coast areas yet with states outside imposing their own restrictions for outsiders, is doing what other countries such as China, South Korea, have to control this epidemic. The first coronavirus case was reported on November 17, 2019 according to the South China Morning Post, By December 15, the number of cases had reached 15. On December 27 on a single day 180 cases were recorded and the Head of the Respiratory Department at Hubei Provincial Hospital reported this to health authorites in China, according to the South China Morning Post, based on data collected in China.   ...

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A gradual deterioration in people's confidence in government from illegal activities was the threat XI Jinping saw early by 2013, after over 60 years of a single party running China. It has affected his entire outlook on what China's policy needs to be for its long term interest in modernization. A reminder is this account by Chinese state media that says Tomorrow Group run by a Chinese Canadian illegally collected $45 billion in deposits. Illegal collecting of deposits is connected to collecting on false pretenses money for investment or real estate without proper licenses. Shanghai Intermediate Court says $100 million was given to government officials. This company was dismantled between 2016 and 2020 and was run by a 50 year old Canadian Chinese businessman. It included 4 insurers, 2 trust firms, 2 securities firms and a futures company. Other such scandals including for stock manipulation were revealed by 2016. Xi Jinping was made president in 2013. He realized the danger to China of the extent to which the country's economy was exposed to illegal activity in business and what this could do to the country if the Communist party- the only party that China has known since 1900 and Japanese imperialist invasion other than the Nationalist Koumintang party-lost the confidence of the people and failed. The Nationalists party collapsed because of such illegal activities that profited a small group of business people and led to deep discontent in China in the 1930's and 1940's, the period when the Japanese overran most of China and setup puppet regimes. Corruption Control in Authoritarian Regimes- Lessons from East Asia by Cambridge University Press points out that this type of illegal activity led to the delegitimization of the Nationalists party which ruled parts of China not overrun by the Japanese during the period 1920 to 1949. This led to defeat to the Communists in the Civil war with little that even US help under General Joe Stilwell could reverse shown in Barbara Tuchman's book Stilwell and the American Experience in China. The US had not chosen to work with the Nationalists under Stillwell's leadership and Stilwell was even asked to resign by the Nationalists because he protested these illegal activities that undermined confidence in the government and made FDR deeply uneasy about the relationship with the Nationalists. Xi Jinping understood very well that this could happen again if these types of illegal activities were allowed to continue leading to policies he has pursued since 2013. He grasped that this would leave China without strong leadership at a time that was critical for its modernization. ...

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Report on Climate Science put out by the US Energy Department in 2025 questioning the severity and impending nature of climate change effects. It is challenged by scientists who believe in the severity and impending nature of climate change, quite the opposite. Koonin, a Fellow at the Hoover Instituion at Stanford describes the work and its conclusions. He says the research is peer reviewed and looks at 200 years of climate research. Some of the conclusions- That climate change models claiming catastrophic situations are ultra sensitive and lead to extreme scenarios.  It talks about climate variability, and model deficiencies, data limitations. And says data for climate over continental US show no long term trends for extreme weather events. Global sea level rise of 8 inches since 1800 is not disputed but it says US tide gauge data shows no long term acceleration in warming globe.  On one point there has been agreement even in the Biden administration- what the US does to cut emissions will little effect the global changes in warming- because of coal use by China and India defended as needed for electricity for two billion people, an essential need. Thus the desire for a calculated tradeoff which lets the US take advantage of its abundance of oil and gas to reduce the cost of living for ordinary Americans, also an essential need. Because of the declining cost of natural gas vs coal, coal is in gradual phase out, and declining cost of solar means Germany, China, India are making the shift to solar, and nuclear energy provides another option. The difference is that the DJT administration is taking government out of the effort and letting the private sector work out building of renewable sources. Government is not always the answer as electric cars are likely to make more gains in 2026 than under the Biden administration because of VW, Mercedes, BYD, Ford and GM coming up with cars that can do close to 500 miles on one charge and the cost of an EV down to about $30,000 to $40,000. ...

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About one third of cars in China will be electric cars by the end of 2023 from one fourth today. Compare this with 6% of cars being electric in the US. EU, US and Japan are far behind. Toyota has only now ramped up EV's with a new CEO. In the domestic Chinese market 80% of EV's are made by Chinese auto manufacturers, And this could go up to 90%.  This means the share of the Chinese market for German and US manufacturers is actually shrinking. Chinese buyers now prefer Chinese brands over foreign brands. Over 4 decades says Keith Bradsher in NYT the US and European auto manufacturers trained a whole generation of Chinese auto engineers who now work for Chinese electric auto makers. This is one market in which China has built a formidable capacity. This is also a big contribution to cutting emissions from fossil fuel powered cars after China's massive use of fossil fuels over two decades worsening climate change.