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NYT's Simon Romero looks at Cumano in Venezuela, and the breakdown of water, electricity,  industry, and education systems in this city. How efforts to solve inequality without a grasp of how a modern economy works can lead to something worse. And how good intentions are not enough, lack of understanding and knowledge of of a government (Chavez and successors), on how industry, infrastructure for water and electricity, education and healthcare works is dangerous. Immersion in the rhetoric (Chavismo) makes things worse. Appeals to Simon Bolivar (history), mass communication (Alo Presidente), religious symbolism (socialist motherland and victory) and us vs them, (the marginalized poor and the established elites), mean little and take an entire nation backwards for making industrial progress and infrastructure building,  creating a strong modern economy. It in fact turns out to be dangerous and counterproductive, breaking up the very productive forces that are needed to build a modern economy. The Japanese visited and carefully studied the US transformation into an industrial advanced economy in the 1890's Meiji era, the Chinese visited and studied the Japanese plus the US transformation into industrial advanced economies in the 1990's, and Indians visited and studied the Japanese, Chinese, and American transformation into industrial advanced economies by 2014 in Gujarat State, to spread that model to all states to achieve the goal of building infrastructure, manufacturing, and modernization. America made some careful choices under Lincoln, TR, FDR, Truman and Eisenhower to achieve this transformation. Bringing factory labor, farmers, professional classes, and factory owners together under FDR with his first experiment in New York state building modern institutions with Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, and industrial interests, then repeating this across 51 states in the Union as president of the US. Frances Perkins documents this in her book "The Roosevelt I Know." ...

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Redford's "Downhill Racer" and the Sundance Film Festival's origins for low budget films that can be produced by independent producers. Redford learned from his experience in this early film and set about setting up a new location for struggling filmmakers to experiment in filmmaking at Park City, Utah. This was a period in which Redford bought land in Utah's mountains away from the Los Angeles and Santa Monica of his childhood days. With more of the city going into concrete and less green space Redford felt he could not relate to this sprawling city of highways and congested living.

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Ownership of stocks is more evenly spread out in the US population by 2023. During the pandemic younger people invested in stocks. WSJ graph of percentile of income and stock ownership shows  20-40th percentile of income households moving from 30% of households owning stocks to 40%, and 40-50th percentile of income households moving from 50% of households owning stocks to 60%. This means people in the middle incomes have built more household wealth  sharing in US stock gains of 16% in 2020, 27% in 2021, dropped 19% in 2022 and gained 24% in 2023. Recovery from the effects of free market policy experiments after Reagan that led to the 2009 financial crisis and shipping of factories overseas were met with a reverse response bringing factories home under Trump and Biden. Wage gains happened under Biden 2020-2024, and a Biden $1 trillion dollar infrastructure renovation adds to jobs and demand. Wealth in homes for US households increased on average from a low of 225,000 6 years after the financial crisis of 2009 to about $325,000 by 2022. This is part of a general recovery for the American people after the shocks of free market experiments with inadequate regulation and oversight by the government, and the neglect of manufacturing and communities dependent on manufacturing for employment and income with its uplifting of services sector that comes with it, the taxes that pay for public services also enhances community wellbeing through libraries, wellbeing, transport and other public services. ...

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President Xi's struggle to bring 43 million people out of extreme poverty in China in 3 years as shown in this BBC video. Xi Jinping's focus is on the people left out in the boom years in which the wealth gap expanded to astounding levels and many were left behind. Communist era society under Mao went for leveling up after the 20's and 30' capitalism under the Nationalists. Then came the Japanese invasion in 1931 and chaos out of which Mao built Communist China by 1947. The years with the Nixon opening in 1971 led to another experiment with capitalism to modernize China under Deng and Jiang Zemin in the 80's and 90's to this day after the experiment under Mao had collapsed by 1976. This led to a fading away of the Communist Party's ethos and reason for existence till its revival under Xi Jinping. For Jinping the efforts to guide China's progress started by Deng appeared to derail with the widening wealth and inequality gaps in China, the sense of corruption and misuse of power at local levels that people could see, and the gradual sense in America that the experiment of outsourcing manufacturing and jobs to China was failing for Americans. From 2013 to 2017 a complete rethinking was underway which shaped Jinping's ideas for the future for China. Some of it may be still underway after the realization that Russia and China had diverging views of the world also, following China's sense that the prolonged war in Ukraine affecting its relations with the European Union does not help a country such as China as a middle income country with large pockets of poverty. Russia was seen as a non colonial power in the Soviet era yet it was a major part of the western colonial powers that suppressed the first revolution for an independent China in 1901.   ...

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The South China Morning Post, SCMP, looks at China at the 40th year of the great economic experiment  that changed China. This started with the Deng reforms by the then Chinese leader that opened up the economy in 1978. As this report points out in 1978 Deng Xiaoping's efforts at loosening the state control of the economy and business was actually a way to get out from the effects of the Cultural Revolution and prevent another Cultural Revolution. Deng was removed from office during the Cultural Revolution. Instead of unquestioned acceptance of Mao the new criterion was "Practice is the Sole Criterion for Testing Truth." In economic and business matters this was followed so that if it worked then the experiment was expanded, gradually giving life to the Chinese model of state capitalism, economic expansion under the state with the state supporting state corporations that operate in a market economy.  This means the Communist Party was to continue its control but with experimentation away from the planned economy in the coastal provinces of Guangdong and Fujian, and then into Shanghai. Experts close to Jiang Zemin, the next leader after Deng, say China's Communist state would not have survived without the changes started by premier Deng. Farmers still did not own the land but they were free to plant and own the yields for their efforts.  Deng established the Three Benefits Principle in 1992 trip to Guangdong, whatever helped increase productivity, increased the strength of the country and improved living standards was good, you did not judge it by whether it was socialist or capitalist. Jiang Zemin's work was to follow Deng's ideas and help negotiate the entry into World Trade Organization and set up the new economic regulations. Capitalists were allowed to join the Communist Party for the first time. State and local government ownership of land was turned into an advantage as this provided one of the critical inputs in terms of land for setting up new factories, with capital coming from savings, and other inputs of technology and investment coming from the U.S. after entry into the WTO brought American and European companies to China. A steady supply of labor poured in from the countryside and urbanization became a goal of Chinese development policies. Today India and other countries in Africa, Latin America, can look at the Chinese experience and effort and look for ways to modernize, urbanize and improve living standards, productivity and strength of their economy. One key is to experiment and look for what works that can then be expanded to other locations, and build on the advantages that may open up as the experiment makes progress. Following entry into WTO China was able to take advantage of overseas markets and build an edge in manufacturing, something that was not evident even in 1992.   ...

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The sense of conflict in China and US relations may not have developed in the shaping of Xi Jinping's thinking till the emergence of Mr. Trump. Jinping comes into the China shaped by Deng and Zemin after the collapse of the purely Communist experiment with modernization without access to western technologies and capital, and the experiment with American help. It is only after the realization that the Communist party had lost its sense of purpose in these years leading to the Bo Xilai episode, and the rhetoric of Mr. Trump against China, that the idea of first friction and then conflict emerged. The initial idea for Jinping before Trump was that this has worked for China- the experiment with the cooperation of the US in modernizing China. Trump's rhetoric and the Republican party's rhetoric about China stealing American jobs and technology after 2015 may have been targeted to win the election but it had an unintended effect after the tariffs of shaping Jinping's thinking about the future for China. Between the Bo Xi Lai episode in 2012 when it appeared he would be attempting to manipulate the Communist party's direction in unknown and unpredictable ways, Bo's trial in 2013 and the anticorruption campaign and the 2015 election campaign of Mr. Trump in the US, there must have been much soul searching in the party that shaped Jinping's thinking about the future for China after all the tumult of the 20th century starting with the Boxer rebellion in 1901. Stability is highly prized in China particularly for modernization. This perspective is important to grasp for world peace to be preserved with different coexisting perspectives about the world based on national as well as shared interests in issues such as climate change. US after its own disastrous experiment with capitalism that led to widening inequality of the kind not seen since Lincoln in the 1850's, the 2009 crisis, and the shift of jobs to China under a purely capitalist idea of how economies should function, had its own national interests in jobs, local manufacturing and Made in the USA. Once this process was underway after 2016 and grasped by president Biden after 2020, and supply chain reconstruction made the goal after covid, the US and China were on divergent economic and political paths.   That rethinking by Xi Jinping is not over as it may still be going on. The war in Ukraine may even convince Jinping and China's No. 2 leader Li Keqiang who studied the US constitution and American urbanization under mentors when he was in college, that Russia's prolongation of the war in Ukraine does not serve the interests of China. That risking relations with the European Union as Russia prolongs the war and finds itself in the complex problems of  a war it started, is not in China's interests in setting its own course for the future. ...

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Us stock market gains of 24% in 2023 are seen as a surprise after fears of Fed tightening leading to a downturn. Instead inflation has come down and with government investment in infrastructure and bringing factories back to the US, boosting US manufacturing, the US is building a stronger economy. A related WSJ article has graphs that show over 50% of US households owning stocks so that the gains in stocks since 2020 are now more widely shared in the US population. Along with wage gains and bringing down the cost of living and moderating housing costs it sets the stage for a recovery of America from the free market experiments that followed after Reagan leading to the 2009 financial crisis, neglect of manufacturing and shipping of factories overseas.

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Tim Cook is interviewed by Jenna McGregor of The Washington Post. He describes the problems he faces running Apple. He had expected Jobs to stay on as  chairman to continue leading the company even after the illness. Cook thought Jobs would "bounce" back. The death of Jobs was a big blow for Cook. Cook describes taking advice from Jobs's wife Lucerne at key moments. For tax issues before Congress he talked to Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, on political issues with Bill Clinton, and on personal issues with Anderson Cooper of CNN. The books he is reading include Mohandas Gandhi's "The Story of My Experiments with Truth," that he found at the Gandhi Ashram in Gujarat, India, on a recent visit. 

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In an Op-ed in the Washington Post Mehmet Oz, Head of Medicaid and Medicare says while banning use of Medicaid and Medicare funds for transgender medical procedures- "America’s children aren’t lab mice. They deserve quality care backed by sound evidence and should not be conscripted as test subjects in risky experiments that cause irreversible harm. Federal government is banning the use of Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program funds to subsidize sex-rejecting medical interventions for minors and prohibiting hospitals participating in Medicare and Medicaid from performing them. Dr Oz says "extraordinary interventions such as cross-sex hormones and double mastectomies require extraordinary evidence, especially when children are involved." He says the evidence is lacking and cites information from many countries. ...

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Experiment conducted at the Gujarat Electricity Board by researchers from MIT and Harvard on correcting the flaws in the audit process for compliance with pollution control regulations by heavily polluting plants. The experiment is conducted in the state of Gujarat in northwestern India. The heavy polluters faced a audit process where fees were paid out of a central fund, were told plants could be audited for a scond time for false reporting on pollutants emittted, and faced additional disincentives of cut off of electricity supplies for noncompliance in correct reporting. This type of improvement is relevant for pollution control in China, India, Indonesia and other developing countries with similiar reporting issues and non compliance with pollution laws. Noncompliance and cozy relationships with auditors and regulators is a major problem for implementing pollution laws in these countries.

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The efforts in Alsace on the border between Germay and France to make the European experiment work with two systems, cultural experiences and lifestyles. This happens at a time of high unemployment in French Alsace and many job openings in German Alsace for German speaking people of Alsace. The debate in France is underway on what things need to change for the French system to work taking into account cultures and different national experience. A keen awareness on both sides of the border- in German Emmendingen and French Selestat- that the European experiment works best when people on both sides of the border do well. It is also a microcosm of the debate underway in the larger European society with different cultures in Northern and Southern European countries, with a focus on improving competitiveness while respecting and not denigrating cultural differences. After reunification Germany faced high unemployment and the costs of unification, and made changes in the economy, with close cooperation between business, universities and the government. It is often forgotten that Germany's low unemployment took years to achieve. A similiar process is in its early stages in France....

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David McCoullough, dies at 89 years. He is the author of two best selling biographies of American presidents at crucial points in the American experiment on Harry Truman (1992) and John Adams (2001), for which he won 2 Pulitzer Prizes. He also won the National Book Award for- Path Between the Seas- the Making of the Panama Canal. He saw writing as painting in words, and writing as an art form, did extensive research so that his Truman book took 10 years, the Adams book 7 years. 

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Sofia Diego from the Southern European region of Spain and Portugal, says the idea of a multi-speed European Union as put forward by some in Brussels, including Jean-Claude Juncker, is not the answer- because at some point it makes the whole exercize of a united Europe futile with some countries choosing to ignore the very ideal of European unity. In fact she says we have come too far in that direction and it is necessary to pause and reflect what this means. France's leading presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron has called for a closer union as a better solution to eurozone financial stability with a tighter union. German public opinion and other opinion in the EU does not favor more concessions following Brexit. This opinion from a Southern European country shows how young people especially have developed a new attitude and feeling of togetherness as the European generation. Young people from all parts of Europe have a changed attitude compared to previous generation, and this is a valuable experience that needs to be nurtured with closer interaction to take the EU experiment to the next stage. ...

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Bank of Japan negative interest policies for two decades was a kind of experiment and a failed one, says this report in WSJ. It caused a form of financial repression where households were made to subsidize companies. Households lost net interest income in the period 2000-2020 in the amount of trillions of yen, says Deputy Governor Himino of BOJ, as interest on household savings was so low or negligible. A similar situation hurt savers and retired people in the US. With inflation at 2% Japan is ending its period of negative interest rates, a welcome change that will benefit tens of millions of people with household savings giving a return, including the 45 million retired people one third of the population who depend on savings income.

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China's handling of the surging stock market, and use of the market for debt ridden companies to reduce debt loads, is based on an erroneous assumption of how equity markets work. China's lack of experience with declining equity markets during China's experiment with its form of capitalism since 1990, is a serious handicap in 2015.

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Zero covid lockdowns have added to the sentiment seeing China as a less attractive location for foreign investment. American companies are seeing staff resign due the lockdowns and zero covid policy. About a fourth of companies in a US Chamber of Commerce survey see a 20% drop in sales in 2022. A similar situation is being seen for European companies in China. The other area of growth from property sector is not working anymore as there is a 59% drop in demand for new property units. Investors in the property sector fear  another situation like that of property developer Evergrande's collapse.  Similar to Japan by 2000 a lot of the government infrastructure for roads and rail and automobiles has already been built leaving less room for this sector to kick in. Investments are possible in AI, renewables, electric cars, and advanced technologies, with limited potential to tackle loss of jobs in other sectors such as construction and government financed infrastructure spending and in retail stores. Retail sales are hit by inflation and high gas prices. The result is that China's GDP may fall by 1% according to one estimate for this quarter from the previous year. For growth and foreign investment look to India where a surge in government financed infrastructure in construction of roads and rapid transit, fast rail, construction of housing, and rapid increase in use of mobile phones, automobiles, and appliances is taking place. A new logistics system is being built with a Master plan for the whole economy under Gati Shakti creating a whole new place for foreign investment in a country of 1.3 billion. With Indonesia and Bangladesh closely related to India this is a market of 1.8 billion people far surpassing China and built on values of democracy ingrained over 100 years since the experiments under the British of elected state assemblies. This happened under limited Hind Swaraj since 1930's when India was led by Mohandas Gandhi in these early experiments with democracy. Germany, France and the US have a lot in common with India and the ground is being prepared with improvements for extensive German, US foreign investment by the Modi administration.  ...

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Weiner calls Franklin the "Least Dead" of the Founding Fathers of America. "Least Dead" for whom? Of pop cultures, TikTok, Facebook, social media and the rest? Benjamin Franklin is one of the founding fathers who was most revered, and who with his diplomatic activity secured French support for George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and the American cause in 1776. It was the French cannon, and the French Navy that made it possible for Washington to move his armies north and surround the British at Yorktown, Virginia ending the War of Independence. Weiner writes that Franklin is the most approachable one of the founding fathers, one you can talk with, one you would most likely want to have a beer with. Franklin is also the most interesting. Franklin's experiments with electricity are the earliest pioneering efforts of the scientific revolution of the 19th century that set Europe apart from Asia, and the scientific revolution of the 20th century that set America apart from the rest of the world. Franklin is not just a founding father, he is the founder of the US Post Office which was the radio and internet of its period making communication possible over long distances. Franklin was the first Postmaster General in 1775 and set up the US postal system. Franklin set up the first circulating library in 1731 and the University of Pennsylvania- the first fire department in Philadelphia. He was president of the state of Pennsylvania after Independence. There is a great deal of ignorance about the founding fathers no less in places like the entrance to the Smithsonian institution in Washington DC of all places, where no mention is made of Franklin as an Abolitionist, quite the reverse- Franklin's scientific mind and his modern thinking had no place for the European institution of slavery in the 1500-1800 period. Franklin was the president of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery. Eric Weiner, is author of  "Ben and Me- In Search of a Founder's Formula for a Long and Useful Life." This is the second article in a series by NYT on America's 250th Anniversary for the Declaration of Independence. Weiner travels from Boston to London, and from Philadelphia to Paris along the sea route taken by Franklin to the Brittany coast in December 1776 with his 2 grandchildren, one of 7 voyages crossing the Atlantic. By 1781 Franklin had his first meeting with French King Louis XVI at Versailles. The US Mission and Franklin's home was located in the hillside village of Passy a few hours from Paris, where the clean country air and water helped revive him. He crosses the Atlantic again in 1783 when the Peace Treaty is signed by Franklin. Weiner is 70 in 2026 and writes that Franklin grew more serene with age even with some ailments, was loved in France, and returned to America for his final voyage home with his 2 grand children in 1785. A life well lived something for all Americans to aspire and emulate, and loved by his country. ...

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Freedman reviews the new book "Work Rules," by Google's head of People Operations. He describes Google's unique approach to finding people, which relies on a sample test instead of a resume. Google uses its own recruting staff trained in its own methods and stays away from recruiters. Its not enough that Google gets about 2 million applicants a year. Google prefers to hire a student who has worked hard to get to the top of his class to a Ivy League student who did well in his class. Applicants have to show determination to complete a job, putting importance on resilience and tenacity to get over difficulties. Applicants who will try stretch goals using their imagination and experiment are considered to be more valuable. Google looks for candidates on its own, using recruting staff sending out emails and making contacts to people in other places and countries, to find the right kind of people for the company.

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Britain and other parts of Europe from France to Netherlands take another look at the racism during the period of British, Dutch and French rule in India, Indonesia and Indochina, as well as in British East Africa, French West Africa, South Africa where Gandhi began his Satyagraha before coming back to India.

Gandhi's Story of My Experiments With Truth is an autobiography that provides glimpses of life in South Africa and his life from childhood to 1921. It was published in Gandhi's journal Navjivan from 1925 to 1929. It also gives one a real feel of how he experienced the impact of the British Empire and ideas he derived from John Ruskin during the period he spent in London, and the gradual evolution of his philosophy of preserving the dignity of the individual in the context of the ideals of Vedanta and the Indian Upanishads.

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The Obama Center in Jackson Park, Chicago, is a 20 acre complex opening on June 19, 2026, built by Todd Williams Billie Tsien Architects. The Obamas chose land that was once use for the World Columbian Exposition World Fair. Using public space was controversial, made up for by a new branch of the Chicago Public Library, a basketball court and playgrounds. The most controversial part is the Obamalisk (obelisk type) tower which is as dour as one can get. One of Obama's speeches with letters on the tower top the architect says is not legible, but thats just fine he says, as if it is empty rhetoric. Or as Kennicott says just rhetoric, ornament, did all those words 17 years back really matter or were they merely oratorical good vibes. So much has happened since then that Kennicott rightly looks at the new Obama Tower with skepticism of what Obama ever accomplished. In healthcare the Obamacare plan is now not working or being replaced. Obama continued the wars Bush started, were they really that different.  At every turn from the entry there are questions like this. At the entry itself with the Declaration of Independence there is a display of unequal treatment, questioning the very experiment of Jefferson, Washington, by placing their formative ideas for a new society that had already been born in Britain with the abolition of slavery in 1772 with Somerset vs Stewart. Ben Franklin forming the Abolition of Slavery Society in Pennsylvania as early as 1775 and becoming its president in 1787. None of the founders get any credit for envisioning a different society, than they had to live in, and which even Abe Lincoln struggled with from 1850's till the Emancipation as way to win the Civil War. The entry to the Smithsonian has done the same. Yet it is this same document the Declaration which says "All men are created equal and they are endowed by their creator with some inalienable rights, life liberty and the pursuit of happiness,"  that has inspired  and given new hope to hundreds of millions of Chinese and Indians, Africans, and other Asians by 1900 and 1950, the vast majority of people on the planet. Philip Kennicott of the Washington Post asks the questions over and over in this report-  was America sleeping when it should have been alert? Lighthizer and Jamieson says this on this page that 5 million jobs were lost, economic growth was down by 1% to 2% instead of 3% of the period 1960-2000, and $20 trillion in America's wealth transferred overseas by the combination of Bush-Obama in the 2000-2020 period, manufacturing decimated, wages stagnant, America's working class communities destroyed, all the while this high minded rhetoric went on. As Kennicott says the period of rhetoric and oratory is gone, in the past, the presidency merely decades of decadence of America's elites as Marco Rubio says in a new book. ...

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Health officials around the world, companies, governments, and schools are creating health policy on the fly, and prefer to err on the side of caution in setting policy. The American government said that it would deny entry to foreign citizens who traveled to China in past 14 days, and American citizens returning from Hubei province, china, will be quarantined for 14 days. Major airlines have stopped flights to China. Nothing like this has happened before. A major public health experiment in setting policy is underway, mostly preferring lockdown or quarantine as preferred method. 

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The 65 million Americans called generation X sandwiched between baby boomers and the millenials are one that are also the 401 K experiment generation, and ones that experienced both the 2009 corporate greed and recklessness caused financial crisis and the pandemic. And experience financial anxiety at a different level.  Without the steady pension checks of their parents these Generation X middle aged people with their 401 K's are much worse off. This is the group Biden Harris, and Biden Walz, has to assuage and bring back up. The 2009 financial crisis left many in disarray with loss of jobs or lack of pay increases, or part time work. Many have not recovered after the pandemic delivered another blow to finances and cost of living surprises. Median household wealth of Generation X people 45 years to 54 years old was $250,000 in 2022, 7% lower than that of baby boomers in 2007, the only age group that experienced drop in median wealth. 

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A short biography of one of India's best leaders after Gokhale, Tilak, Vivekananda, Mohandas Gandhi. He may well be the best leader of India after 1950- who set India on the course to modernization and becoming one of the 3 largest economies in the world. Without him one would find it hard to imagine Modi having the opportunity to make the experiment of modernization in Gujarat state in 2000, that is now being carried out throughout India. Nehru's leadership held great promise but like Mao's failed to achieve the modernizaton and rapid economic progress that both the Indian and Chinese people sought and aspired to. Much of this is achieved through hard work, and ambitious efforts, steady planning and investment, in cooperation with America and Europe. China in 2025 is with it's efforts to bring Taiwan into the PRC, is a different China than the one that modernized working with US, Germany and Japan over 2 decades. India under the leadership of Vajpayee and now Modi is in a position to work in cooperation with the US and Germany, Japan for modernization and rapid economic progress to show the vitality and strength of the parliamentary systems that have evolved from the British model for 500 years since 1500 and the scientific advancement that happened after the Renaissance in Europe after 1600. ...

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In this New Yorker essay after Biden's Soul of the Nation speech at Independence Hall Philadelphia, Jelani Cobb stated in the New Yorker that it was a speech made not just for the midterms in 2022, but for setting the country back on the path it has followed since Washington and Jefferson, Lincoln and FDR, to once more as in the times past through civil war, through depression, through world wars, to restore the ideas of equality and democracy when they were under assault. Biden said- This is where we set in motion the most extraordinary experiment with self-government the world has ever known with three simple words, "We the People." "We the People." These two documents and the ideas they embody- Equality and Democracy- are the rock on which this nation is built. They are why for two centuries America has been a beacon tho the world." As I stand here tonight, equality and democracy are under assault. We do ourselves no favor to pretend otherwise." ...