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1041 elections in 2022 at American companies support unionized workplaces- protecting worker's rights during the pandemic
01/21/2023
The United Nations International Labor Organization calls for protecting workers rights and promoting decent work during a pandemic that devastated many workers. A new respect for unionized workplaces after decades of decline and respect for the dignity of work. Still the process of recovery has only started as only 10% of American workers are represented by unions, only 14 million workers.
Linked Articles
Trade Unions matter in a human-centred recovery from COVID-19
ILO 01/21/2023
Union Membership Rate Hits Record Low Despite Votes at Apple, Amazon, StarbucksWSJ 01/21/2023
Biden at Independence Hall Philadelphia in 2022 and Lincoln in 1861 on the way to the White House at the start of the Civil War- "Battle for the Soul of the Nation"
09/03/2022
At key points in the life of these United States of America- Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, TR and FDR, and now Biden, speak at Independence Hall in Philadelphia on the idea, that principle, in the Declaration for which they are willing to give their lives to defend. For the people of the world, the people of India, the rest of Asia, Africa, Latin America, Australia this has brought new meaning and hope since these words were written- "We believe that all men are created equal and they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." "It was that which gave promise that in due time the weight should be lifted from the shoulders of men, and they would all have an equal chance." (Lincoln)
Linked Articles
Biden delivers speech on "battle for the soul of the nation" in Philadelphia | full speech
YouTube 09/02/2022
Remarks by President Biden on the Continued Battle for the Soul of the Nation | The White HouseThe White House 12/24/2022
Softbank the epitome of massively distorted capital markets even as healthcare, childcare, manufacturing technolgies, infrastructure suffered severe lack of funding
08/08/2022
How Softbank became the epitome and poster child for the distorted capital markets of today is shown here in the WSJ. It is a sad story of how America and Europe failed to invest in its people with egregious harm to 900 million people as healthcare, childcare, manufacturing technologies and infrastructure were neglected.
Linked Articles
WSJ 08/08/2022
SoftBank Reports Record $23 Billion Quarterly Loss as Tech Downturn HitsWSJ 08/08/2022
Ashwini Bhide, 1995 IAS batch, tireless worker for the millions of Mumbai residents looking for better modern Rail
07/13/2022
Ashwini Bhide was the head of the Metro Rail project in Mumbai and the first woman to be profiled by WSJ in this way - as a tireless worker for getting modern Rail with the latest technology to Mumbai after decades in which millions of Mumbai residents had to put up with old, dilapidated, incomplete rail subway services. It is work that meets the aspirations of Young India and which would make Mohandas Gandhi proud a century later. It shows that India can deliver on the kind of infrastructure needed for making project Make in India work.
Linked Articles
Newsmaker | Fadnavis ensures pet Metro project on track, puts Ashwini Bhide back in driver’s seat
The Indian Express 07/13/2022
‘You Have to Actually Cut Open Mumbai’s Belly’—Inside One of the World’s Most Audacious Transit ProjectsWSJ 05/08/2023
Miscalculations by Putin's Russia and Neglect by Merkel and Bush-Obama- WSJ's Analysis of Events Leading to Ukraine war
04/03/2022
The highly detailed WSJ reports on events going back 20 years throw light on the failure of Merkel in Germany and Bush-Obama in the US to grasp the situation of Russia under Putin's nationalism and the miscalculations made by president Putin about the changing situation in Ukraine that had created a national identity. While Putin looked to history something different had emerged on the ground for the people of Ukraine that both German and Russian leaders failed to grasp as they continued to pursue economic integration. Business in Europe and the US had no clue what was happening, and how the situation was unraveling till the end. It is also leading to the unexpected effect of accelerating weaning western nations from fossil fuels, a goal of Glasgow's COP26 Climate Change Summit, the only constructive effect of the war.
Linked Articles
Vladimir Putin’s 20-Year March to War in Ukraine—and How the West Mishandled It
WSJ 04/01/2022
Russian Strategy in Ukraine Shifts After Setbacks, and a Lengthy War LoomsWSJ 04/01/2022
Deforestation- is the pledge at COP26 Glasgow a bit too late for Indonesian rainforest?
11/02/2021
This is one of the amazing links in Lyrarc because it shows WSJ article from 2007 noted by Lyrarc that year, showing UN maps on deforestation in Borneo island in Indonesia for 2000, 2005, 2020. By 2020 most of the rainforest is shown as gone. Deforestation and climate ecologist Clare Rewcastle Brown, sister in law of former British prime minister Gordon Brown, from Britain, recalls colonial days in Sarawak, north Borneo Island, where her father was a police officer. And how much of the canopy of forest from that part of Malaysia was disappearing. She continued her protests from outside Malaysia in 2013 as reported by NYT and noted in Lyrarc that year. This is an amazing story of how deforestation of some of the last rain forests in the world took place at a time when awareness of climate change was sorely lacking in 2007-2013, and how by 2020 the rain forests in Borneo may have already disappeared from planet earth to combat climate change. One woman's fight and a fight that is still on after world leaders took a pledge to end deforestation on the planet by 2030 including Russia, Brazil, Indonesia, China, and the US, and a UN report that had the foresight to show a rainforest disappearing in 2007 in Tom Wright's WSJ report from Surabaya, Indonesia the same year.
Linked Articles
WSJ 07/03/2007
Barred From Malaysia, but Still Connecting With Critical JabsNew York Times 08/16/2013
Vaccines that took 40 years to develop- vaccines for malaria and coronavirus
10/17/2021
In a world of short run startups it is important to remember that our lives truly depend on the work done by scientists over decades. The stories of the scientists who developed the vaccine for malaria and the vaccine for mRNA technologies embedded in Pfizer vaccine.
Linked Articles
The Vaccine That Took 40 Years to Make - The Journal. - WSJ Podcasts
WSJ 10/17/2021
Their coronavirus vaccine candidate has made them billionaires. This modest German Turkish couple doesn’t own a car.Washington Post 10/17/2021
Armies of accountants, lawyers, financial experts and the problem of tax evasion, money laundering, that reaches $3.6 trillion worldwide
10/06/2021
Years of revelations have not changed the way the system operates. Inertia is instituionalized and the political system is available for hire, says a professor at the University of Sheffield.
Linked Articles
Too big to jail: why the crackdowns on dodgy finance have been so ineffective | Prem Sikka
The Guardian 10/06/2021
How Accounting Giants Craft Favorable Tax Rules From Inside GovernmentNYTimes.com 09/19/2021
How America is building a new chip manufacturing industry at home
07/22/2021
After years of neglect of manufacturing Intel Corp and other companies are building a new chip industry, as America reverses years of decline in manufacturing at home. The importance of manufacturing technologies and years of cumulative expertise in developing new technologies, are now seen as critical for American leadership. US president Biden pushed for these changes, leading to a new CEO and a U turn by Intel Corp.
Linked Articles
Intel CEO’s Chip-Building Plan Has a $50 Billion-Plus Price Tag
WSJ 07/16/2021
The World Relies on One Chip Maker in Taiwan, Leaving Everyone VulnerableWSJ 06/19/2021
Biden's Address to Congress 2021
05/05/2021
Biden announces his $1.8 trillion Families Plan in his speech to Congress in April 2021. It is meant to help struggling families, women, workers and students.
Linked Articles
Biden’s Speech to Congress: Full Transcript
NYTimes.com 04/30/2021
Video: President Biden’s Joint Session AddressNYTimes.com 04/30/2021
Jeff Bezos and Andy Jassy- the relentless focus at Amazon from books to online retail, from Kindle e-reader to cloud computing
02/04/2021
Linked Articles
Amazon: End of an era but also the dawn of a new day
The Times 02/04/2021
Profile: Andy Jassy, the new Amazon boss taking over from Jeff BezosThe Times 02/04/2021
Coronavirus employment shock for women
12/24/2020
Women are hit hard by the coronavirus when it comes to working lives, as these reports show.
Linked Articles
Covid-19 Is Pushing Women Out of Work. Just Look at Italy.
WSJ 12/21/2020
Coronavirus Employment Shock Hits Women Harder Than MenWSJ 05/15/2020
A new dawn for American manufacturing
12/15/2020
After three decades of decline American manufacturing reached a low point in 2020. Yet negative trends of low capital investment, lack of supply chain onshore, lack of investment in new technologies, are now being reversed. The warnings of the Trump administration are having an effect. There is now hope for a bright future with new investment and new technologies to regain U.S. leadership in manufacturing that it held for most of the twentieth century.
Linked Articles
U.S. Manufacturing: Why 2020 Was the Bottom of a Long Decline
WSJ 12/15/2020
The Covid Crisis Taught David Farr the Power and Limits of LeadershipWSJ 12/04/2020
How the transition from the Soviet Union in 1985-1989 was mismanaged by Gorbachev leading to a 40% drop in GDP, 2000% inflation, drop in life expectancy , worse than the US Great Depression in the 1930's
09/03/2022
It is not commonly known in the US how bad the collapse was in Russia after 1989. An understanding of this in the US and Europe not just of the Fall of the Berlin Wall and its effect on Eastern Europe and West Germany, is needed to get a complete understanding of what happened and the events leading up to the war in Ukraine and threats to US and the EU. It also helps in framing solutions for the future that include lessons learned.
Linked Articles
Mikhail Gorbachev, Germany's most beloved Russian, has died | DW | 31.08.2022
DW.COM 08/31/2022
Opinion | Wonking Out: The Nightmare After GorbachevNYTimes.com 09/03/2022
Common sense and wisdom for passage to India Pakistan trade after the floods in 2022 with one third of Pakistan under water
08/30/2022
In 2012 Michael Boskin, who helped George W. Bush, with the NAFTA North American Free Trade Agreement, wrote this article in the WSJ about the normal trade using trade models that take into account the advantage of cross border trade and size of economies would be 20 times the $2.7 billion in trade between India and Pakistan in 2012. This would be $50 billion. This would have increased to $100 billion by 2020 under normal trade. Instead in the year of the 2022 floods when Pakistan is one third under water, and cross border trade never made more sense, the OEC data show trade at less than $300 million or one three hundredth portion of what trade could be if normalized.
Linked Articles
Pakistan: Food prices soar amid floods | DW | 30.08.2022
DW.COM 08/30/2022
Michael Boskin: A Passage to India-Pakistan PeaceWSJ 04/15/2012
Years of hyper growth followed by slight or shrinking growth in China
07/31/2022
For years China pushed hyper growth without correctly understanding the sources of that hyper growth and its consequences in the long run. Communities in the US and the EU simply could not cope with the hyper shift of factories from local regions to China that created the hyper growth in China. Local governments in China and self interested investment banks in the US and Eu pushed for this growth and the central government failed to act with restraining action. The result is alienated public in the US and EU, intense trade and competitive frictions and permanent damage to friendly US China, US EU relations. The domestic side of this hyper growth was the overdependence on the property sector which was asked to carry a bigger burden for development leading to the crisis today with local governments strained for financing by $900 billion as reported in WSJ today July 31. 2022. This did not need to happen. China entered this experiment with capitalism without restraining action with very little knowledge of the market economy and how it operates correctly only with restraining and corrective action in the interests of the whole people of the country. Too much has gone wrong for peoples on either side, the unintended effects and consequences in the simple unbridled pursuit of self-interest alone.
Linked Articles
China’s Economy Tested by Strained City Finances
WSJ 07/31/2022
China’s Manufacturing Sector Unexpectedly Contracts Amid Weak Demand, Covid LockdownsWSJ 07/31/2022
On the occasion of Mr. Biden's launch of Indo-Pacific Economic Framework bringing together workers and families of America, Europe and India
06/01/2022
In 1931 Gandhi visited the Lancashire textile mill in Darwen owned by Quaker and Socialist Davies family. This BBC account of that visit shows the enthusiasm of workers in Lancashire for "Gandeye" and how Gandhi felt the workers treated him as one of their own. Only 14 years later the same workers and families voted in Labour and Clement Atlee who immediately started the negotiations with Gandhi for Hind Swaraj and the independence of India. It shows how Gandhi would look at the economic alliances and new supply chain president Biden announced and Mr. Scholz of Germany called for at the Hanover Trade Fair in 2022 - that the sound foundation for a new supply chain is the interests of American and European workers and families, as well as interests of workers and families in partner countries such as India in the Free World.
Linked Articles
When Gandhi met Darwen's mill workers
BBC News 06/01/2022
Gandhi Jayanti 2018 special: When Mahatma Gandhi was welcomed by textile mill workers of LancashireThe Indian Express 06/01/2022
De Klerk, Desmond Tutu, Mandela and the New South Africa
12/27/2021
South Africa's amazing transformation into a racially harmonious society, with people of black, white, Afrikaans, English Afrikaans, Indian, building a new South Africa owes a lot to the leadership, humility, and vision of De Klerk and Desmond Tutu, as well as Nelson Mandela. South Africa's experience offers a new sense of hope that no matter what the difficulties involved one can pull together people of different backgrounds and cultures into a united country. It is in keeping with the best ideals of Britain and of India's Mohandas Gandhi who started his work in Cape Town, South Africa.
Linked Articles
Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Who Helped End Apartheid, Dies
WSJ 12/26/2021
Legacy of FW de Klerk, South Africa's last leader under apartheid | DW | 11.11.2021DW.COM 11/11/2021
The situation of chronic or endemic coronavirus in places with high vaccination rates - Portugal and New York City
10/25/2021
Chronic or endemic coronavirus in New York with 76% fully vaccinated and Portugal with 85% fully vaccinated is a situation in some places. This still means 15-25% of people that are unvaccinated are at risk and with vaccine protection waning without a booster shot the risk of a fourth or a third of the population still at risk. The lifting of preventive steps such as social distancing, masking and other actions plus the shift to indoor, reopening of schools and colleges, could still lead to a surge.
Linked Articles
Endemic Covid-19 Has Arrived in Portugal. This Is What It Looks Like.
WSJ 10/24/2021
New York City Inches Toward Covid-19 Becoming EndemicWSJ 10/25/2021
The Hong Kong, Taiwan crises and American risks in existing supply chains and manufacturing arrangements
10/06/2021
The crises in Hong Kong and Taiwan lead to a reevaluation of existing supply chain and manufacturing arrangements by the Biden administration. The coronavirus pandemic with over 700,000 deaths in the US and a large number of deaths in Europe and India are leading to a new awareness of the importance of manufacturing at home and not depending on far flung supply chains. Public perceptions have changed yet American companies continue to operate as before without an awareness of the changes in public perceptions.
Linked Articles
U.S. Trade Policy Adapts to a China That Will Never Change
WSJ 10/06/2021
China Would Be Able to Launch Attack on Taiwan by 2025, Island’s Defense Minister WarnsWSJ 10/06/2021
American men - losing the battle to get a university education
09/21/2021
The percentage of men at universities in America falls to an all time low of 40% creating shock waves about problems related to the cost of education, failing social safety nets, and social issues during the pandemic.
Linked Articles
Opinion | Why Men Are Disappearing on Campus
WSJ 09/19/2021
A Generation of American Men Give Up on College: ‘I Just Feel Lost’WSJ 09/06/2021
The origins of the coronavirus and the 2018 NIH lifting of a US ban on virus research that increases transmissibility
06/04/2021
Dr. Fauci, NIH, HHS, lifted the ban on research and manipulation of virus in lab settings in 2018 The role played by the Cambridge Group of scientists who opposed lifting the ban on gain of function research for surveillance purposes. The US public and the public in the world in India, Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America unaware of what was going on. The devastating effects of the coronavirus in 202 and 2021 and the lack of a vaccine in 2020, lack of a vaccine in sufficient quantities in 2021. The paltry benefits of surveillance compared to the great risks of something going wrong, as pointed out by the Cambridge Group. Why was it ignored in 2018. Who makes decisions for public health in the world. Can the US make decisions for India, the people in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Does even the US public know about it, much less the public in the world at large. What power is given by the US Constitution to US government agencies on matters of public health. How are a few individuals at HHS and NIH accountable to the public in the US and the world at large.
Linked Articles
Opinion | Anthony Fauci and the Wuhan Lab
WSJ 06/03/2021
Ban on gain-of-function studies endsThe Lancet Infectious Diseases 06/04/2021
"Feierabend"- disconnecting from work the German way, the need of the times during a year of remote work 2021
04/23/2021
"Feierabend" simply means disconnecting in German so that one has time to renew and revive oneself. At 4.00 pm or 5.00 pm one simply disconnects from work and gets on the bike for a ride or does something else. Can British and American cultures learn from their German or European counterparts? Ireland has passed a law calling for this disconnect requiring it because of the huge negative impact on mental health of remote work that has no structures. Microsoft has recognized this issue in 2020. More needs to be done by companies than to simply shift this burden,shift this task on someone else, or to workers who have no idea what working from home requires. Associations and other groups also need to get involved.
Linked Articles
Right to disconnect is vital for future health of home workers
04/23/2021
How 'Feierabend' helps Germans disconnect from the workdayBBC News 07/12/2022
America's self-reliant economy - Biden with Trumpian undertones
01/21/2021
The Biden administration is seen as continuing the efforts of president Trump to pursue American interests in trade, technology, American workers and business to restore America's leadership role in the free world to what it was in the 1950's. Biden from Delaware is in the same tradition as president Harry Truman from Missouri in that period. Because of Biden's age this could be a one term presidency, and strange as it may sound it could be a presidency of Trump in foreign affairs and trade, technological leadership, without the rhetoric, and a socially cohesive presidency of Democrats in the tradition of Harry Truman. What then to make of all the fights of the Trump presidency? Much of this can be seen as an effort to break the status quo which did not benefit American workers.
Linked Articles
Biden’s Economic Team Charts a New Course for Globalization, With Trumpian Undertones
WSJ 12/01/2020
Trump touts record of ‘no new wars’, standing up to China in farewell addressFrance 24 01/21/2021
Robert Lighthizer and the fight to make Made In America the new symbol of American revival
12/18/2020
Robert Lighthizer talks about the efforts under the Trump administration to bring American manufacturing back to where it was in the days after World War II, and restore the rights and dignity of American workers. For three decades the U.S. lost jobs and allowed its manufacturing to be outsourced hurting American workers and reducing the manufacturing base of the U.S. The efforts to ensure fairness in trade also protects American workers and manufacturing at home.
Linked Articles
How to Make Trade Work for Workers
Foreign Affairs 12/18/2020
We're proud of what we've done, says Trump's trade chiefBBC News 12/17/2020
We took a different way to help millions around the world build educated informed mindsets that affects and shapes their lives. For a future that is open, global and digital, with everyone having access to high quality information. We believe in the renewal of America, renewal of Europe, the renewal of India, the rest of Asia, Latin America and Africa. The renewal of our supply chains, health, education, infrastructure, as we rebuild our countries after the pandemic. Literacy and knowledge we believe cannot thrive and grow in a world of web bots, web crawlers, or AI. This requires human curiosity, human learning, and human imagination. We take as inspiration the saying- “One has to be free, and as broad as sky. One has to have a mind that is crystal clear, only then can truth shine in it.” Every contribution whether big or small is precious- in this crisis and ahead.
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