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The WSJ Editorial Board speaking for the business community traditional Republican groups finally takes up the election on issues of policy difference between Trump run Republican party and Harris run Democratic Party which it should have from Day One. The former president says something that has never happened in the last hundred years- policy will be decided after the election depending on what he decides to do. Cost of Living action is No 1 on voter priorities. "Drill, Baby Drill," is the whole Republican party platform for cost of living action. What is the Harris Democrats policy plan for cost of living action? WSJ says it is spending blowouts that caused inflation, the Green New Deal, entitlement expansions and student loan forgiveness.The real reason for the increase in cost of living comes from the overconcentration of supply chain by American business in China, on which every president Bush, Obama, Trump, did little or nothing. The lack of an effective vaccination program and ineffective vaccines in China by 2021 and 2022 led to the loss of the supplies from China leading to shortages for automobiles parts and other supplies and surge in prices in 2021-2023. Powell and the US central bank correctly raised rates but cautiously and waited for this to correct, president Biden brought manufacturing home through huge investments called the "spending blowout" that brought down the inflation from 9% to 3%. Some of that "spending blowout" went to chips and science to correct the errors of American Business and Reagan-Friedman theory of the Republican party that created this problem with a culture of utter  indifference to the ultimate costs of who makes what and where. The Inflation Reduction Act also tackled higher health and other costs paid by American workers and families, and invested in public services and in repairing the dilapidated crumbling American infrastructure. Are Republicans saying let the roads, bridges, airports, built in the 1940-1960's heyday of American industrialization as China and India's is now, let them crumble? What do the educated minds of the WSJ Board say about coal in China and India and their effects on their massive use multiple times that of US and EU in history, is it not damaging to the environment and why the Chinese realized the health in North China with coal winter use was worse than in South China cut their coal use. Are they saying lets burn fossil fuels and ignore, and if investment has to be made in solar who is going to do it? Is it Ok for Republicans thet we just import from China all our solar panels indefinitely into the future. "Green New Deal" is just a perjorative term, policy has to be made thoughtfully and without prejudice or bias of any sort for the best that we can do for the American people, ignoring so called "right" or "left." Doing what is right, what makes sense, is a lot harder.     ...

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Isaacson's new book on Musk says Musk's story is a cautionary tale. The compulsion to be drama magnet or mean are not prized traits, say others.  More sinister (the hell) is celebrating a culture that does not respect the need for worklife balance, of respect for nutrition and exercize for good health. Musk's methods which he calls "algorithm", a word known more for obscurity than meaning, are nothing new. For years as the US, Japan and China, now India have innovated there is a focus on simplifying things, and to do this questioning the existing way of doing things by breaking down the existing method into pieces and reorganizing the pieces of the puzzle leaving out unneeded pieces. What is the key to his success as it was for Jobs at Apple is creating a culture in which people would invest in and take risks for innovation at the high end of the price spectrum. Jobs used design and new stuff like the iPod and iPad, iPhone to do this. Musk does this through playing the role of a social media icon but a dangerous one that does not respect worklife balance and good health habits of nutrition, exercize and mindfulness. In processes this can give you a process that takes less time and money- how India's moon mission and rover Chandrayan 3 was done for $78 million showing these work practices of Musk are nothing new, and universally adopted by successful companies and nations. Newer ask your employees to do what you would not do, is also adopted by the best managers. By turning it into a mantra it obscures the fact that America today is a country of massive inequalities where two thirds of 4th graders cannot pass ACT reading test and half of retirees have zero savings, working people and families face a cost of living and health crisis and are badly neglected. How does it help to role model as an icon and popularize a culture that tolerates and accepts such conditions that would leave men deeply troubled, including America's leaders Washington, Lincoln and FDR if they were alive today. ...

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Canada has still not figured out a way to assimilate the 800 or so Indian bands, who are the native peoples of Canada, and still help them keep their languages, cultures and traditions, and independent existence. The bureaucratic structures set up to adminster the Indian Act and post colonial policies act as another hurdle to creating apolicy that fits in with the new values of a new generation of multicultural Canadians.

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Peter Hotex of Baylor Medicine in the US is a pioneer and leader in getting low cost traditional vaccines to billions in Africa, Asia and Latin America.  Here Peter Hotez of the Baylor College of Medicine Tropical School is interviewed in The Hindu. He talks about how the new mRNA vaccines are "shiny toys" pushed forward in the US in 2020 under innovation drives, and that the vaccines made by traditional methods are just as effective and provide lasting protection. Without vaccinating the entire world population including the billions of people living in Africa, Asia and Latin America, there will be no end in sight for the pandemic, he says, and the best way to do this is through vaccines made by traditional methods, methods used by Bharat Biotech for Covaxin and Biological E for its vaccine. He said mRNA is a brand new technology  and "it will take years to scale it up to make 9 billion doses" of vaccine for poor countries. Baylor has developed the vaccine technology using traditional methods such as yeast fermentation expression technology used for Recombiannt Hepatitis-B vaccine. Its been around for 40 years. Baylor will transfer the technology to Indonesia, India, Bangladesh, all over the world. He says in terms of virus neutralizing anti-body immune responses it is as effective as the mRNA vaccines. Hotez is critical of some pharma companies- "the rest of them want to bicker about patents. we're not going to go down that direction." Baylor is providing its technology for manufacture to companies to fill the need in poor countries, without patent protection or quibbling about legal things such as indemnities, says Hotez. Hotez also thing recombinant protein technologies vaccine with its traditional approach could also overcome vaccine hesitancy, a key factor for unvaccinated in Europe and US which have stuck to mRNA vaccines. The newer technology behind mRNA could make parents hesitate to vaccinate their children with these technologies, and also be a part of the mental attitude of unvaccinated adults having hesitancy.   ...

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Kerala state of 35 million people who speak the language Malayalam, is one of the rare places today that has only 4 deaths from coronavirus, 524 cases confirmed and no community transmission. Here the Guardian looks at the reasons why. The Health minister KK Shailaja started very early on January 23, with a meeting of her rapid response team when the virus was still in China.  She setup a control room and instructed Kerala's 14 districts to do this on Jan. 24. When the first case arrived on Jan. 27 on a plane from Wuhan, Kerala had already adopted the WHO  protocol of test, trace, isolate and support. These passengers were checked for temperature, tested and quarantined. With some at a nearby hospital and others in home isolation. This is all the more amazing considering that Kerala is a state in southern India on the west coast that has a large number of people living and working overseas. Many are in the Gulf countries and the arrival of these refugees could have triggered a second outbreak. This was prevented by careful testing, and contact tracing of clusters.  When one group was evasive and concealed information from an airport surveillance team -arriving from Venice, Italy,  in late Feb- a case was detected back to them.  Contact tracers tracked down all of the hundreds whom they had been in contact with and quarantined them.  By 23 March all flights to 4 Kerala airports from overseas were stopped, including Cochin and Trivandrum. On March 25 India went into lockdown.  Some of the achievements in Kerala include quarantining 170,000 people early. with strict surveillance, which is now down to 21,000. Accomodating and feeding 150,000 migrant workers from other states, before returning them on charter trains to their home areas. A big reason for the success is the high literacy rate in the state. A big emphasis on education and healthcare is a part of the Kerala model. Shailaja is a secondary school teacher, and Health minister. From the days since independence of India in 1947 the state has a strong socialist tradition of taking care of the basics- health, education and public services. It also generates a part of its GDP with income from workers who are overseas.  Another reason for the success in dealing with coronavirus is experience. The state had a virus epidemic called Nipah in 2018 which has become the story for a movie called Virus in Malayalam. There is decentralized public health system in the state and people value their health care facilities, understand and trust the health care authorites. There are hospitals at every level of administration and 10 medical colleges. But trust and education, experience tackling the virus before, are key. Kerala is showing that poor countries can deal effectively with the virus, and create a better life by adopting the right model of creating good societies that value education, healthcare services, better economic structures and distribution of wealth, and  a degree of trust and responsibility found in a state that values public spiritedness. ...

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US Representative Katherine Tai sets out the policy of the Biden administration on trade with China. The policy is simply to keep Trump administration policy on tariffs in place and seek dialogue with China. This report in the WSJ explains what this means.  The Biden administration is preparing a long term policy to restore American leadership in the world in technology, trade and industry. This means as in semiconductors providing $52 billion to assist US firms to make semiconductors at home. The US will build a new supply chain that is resilient and brings more of the critical technologies in manufacturing back to the US. Where Mr. Trump was the initiator of a new policy on trade but lacked a long term vision Mr Biden is giving the Trump policies new vigor and shape and a long term vision of belief in America's role in the world. He is doing this by building on America's key strength - its people. The only way to do this is to invest massively after three decades of disinvestment under previous administrations. This comes in the shape of the $3.5 trillion plan for infrastructure and the Families and Workers Plan. Biden is also building stronger relationships with allies Australia, Britain, Japan, India, and Germany for trade, supply chain, and defense.   ...

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Brian Deese and other economists remind us that the government is still not able to negotiate the prices of drugs with pharmaceutical companies something that government was instructed not to do under a Republican administration with a George W. Bush administration rule that has hurt millions of Americans since 2003. In fact December 3, 2003 may be a day of ignominy for Americans who face high cost of pharmaceutical drugs, and actions that send money from the pockets of government that would go into fixing aging infrastructure, and from pockets of ordinary Americans that would go into meeting the cost of living to improve ease of living. President Biden without the needed majorities in Congress was able to only specify certain drugs on which negotiation could take place. There is a need to cut pharmaceutical costs for the American public, there is a need to be like everybody else in the community of nations in Europe and Asia that pay only so much for pharmaceuticals not many times more. Making the US worse off than Indians and Chinese who can access these drugs and find it affordable for most of the people of 3 billion in these countries. The contrast makes one question what is a developed and a developing country as what has happened in the last 3 decades in America has turned this  question on its head- with irresponsible presidents and irresponsible Congress. ...

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Lee Hockstader, writes the European Affairs column in The Washington Post. He visits the city of Wolfsburg, a town founded by the Nazis for their "strength through Joy," program. VW is cutting a fourth of its German jobs over 5 years, about 35,000 employees. Half of the 120,000 people in Wolfsburg work for VW. Germany faces deindustrialization as a result of its dependence on heavy industry, on automobiles, chemicals, metallurgical engineering. Its failure to digitize and to move ahead in AI and software presents a problem. While countries such as China surged ahead with bold investments in EV vehicles VW was slow to respond. Japan pushed forward in hybrids. India in digitizing fast. Cost of labor have caught up to inflation and rising, electricity costs are up, and profits from Chinese production are vanishing with China's BYD and Geely, and other Chinese auto companies taking away VW and GM market share. VW's US Tennessee EV plant faces an uncertain future with loss of EV subsidies by DJT executive orders. In the US the effects of deindustrialization underway were covered up for decades by Compliant Media and Economists with the idea that it brought consumers lower prices, a facade for not saying that labor was more compliant in Asia after a period of job banks in Detroit and other hindrances put up by labor in the US in the 1970's souring management. That generation and period is gone and America badly needs to get its act together. Here in Wolfsburg the schools supported by VW like the Wolfsburg New School will lose VW funding as well as the public services in the city from lower tax revenues. This is what happened in the US catching up to the last of the industrial players of the twentieth century now facing a competitive China and a future competitive India.   ...

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Thomas Bach is a German fencing athlete who won the Olympic Gold medal. He is from Wurzburg, Germany and was elected in 2013, in office as International Olympic Committee president till 2025. In the new election in 2025 Bach supported Coventry of Zimbabwe, a winner of the gold medal in swimming for the job, over a candidate from Spain whose father Samaranch held the same job, and COE a candidate from Britain. Other candidates were from Japan and France. The process of voting and the people voting is not representative of the world's people. As countries such as Germany and Spain are dominant. Britain and France, China and India have never elected a representative from their country as IOC president in the 20th century or the 21st. IOC presidents are there for long periods, as long as 20 years. Avery Brundage of the US was IOC president from 1952-1972  for 20 years followed by Morris of Ireland for 7 years. Following this in 1980 another 20 year term for a Spanish businessman Antonio Samaranch, whose son tried to run in 2025. In 2001 12 years for a Belgian Jacques Rogge, followed by another 12 years for German Thomas Bach.  In 20th century no one from France or Greece, no one from India or China has been elected IOC president and the election process is an insider's affair, even thought the games are watched in China, India and other parts of the world by hundreds of millions of people. ...

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Mr. Trump says he will wear a mask on a visit to soldiers at Army's Walter Reed Hospital. Trump says its "a very appropriate thing. I have no problem with a mask." As cases hit 3 million in the U.S., close to 1 million in India and Russia, Mr. Trump joins the movement for masks worldwide. Early on Mr. Trump  took up the issue of transmission from Wuhan by banning flights from China, failed to get WHO and China to respond quickly to the pandemic requests from U.S. by providing information and allowing a team to visit Wuhan quickly in January. A stumbling block appeared within the health ministry in the U.S. with poor leadership which Trump had to overcome by relying on Vice President Pence to lead the stop coronavirus team at the White House.   Trump's reopening decision came under criticism and he says he had to balance the damage to jobs and economic well being that also affected health. Some of the states and young people responded in ways that led to public gatherings that have led to surges in the south and the western states such as Calfornia. The WSJ reported that in Los Angeles County on June 20 half a million people went to bars after they reopened, showing that culturally even counties in states like California lacked what is accepted good sense. For instance Tokyo bars were paid by the Japanese government not to reopen, according to one report. By wearing a mask Trump is simply acknowledging facts about transmission - a German study shows 40% reduction in cases with face coverings. ...

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Friedman reviews Acemoglu and Robinson's new book, "Why Nations Fail." Acemoglu says that nations fail when wealth and opportunities are concentrated in the hands of few people, that a condition for societies to succeed is to create opportunities for more people. For this to happen it is important to create inclusive political and economic institutions. This is an important insight, but for Western society this is an insight as old as Adam Smith when he pointed out the importance of this aspect of western societies after the feudal period in his "Wealth of Nations." For Smith it was the failure to create inclusive societies that led to the gradual unravelling of societies in the river valleys of the Yangste and the Ganges, in China and India, of increasing poverty and the gradual disappearance of what constituted the middle class in India and China. Chapter 8 titled "Of Wages and Labor" in the "Wealth of Nations" makes specific reference to this.

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500 million tons of plastics are produced today compared to 250 million tons in 2004. Califonria sued Exxon Mobil in Sept 2024 for overhyping the promise of recycling. In reality says NYT's Hiroko Tabuchi only some of it gets recycled- an astounding low rate of 30% getting recycled- and the rest 70% of 500 million tons or 350 million tons ending up incinerated or in landfills or ending up in the environment on coastlines. The NAPCOR is association for PET resources, PET standing for single use plastic the kind you have in water or soda bottles. It is presenting the promise of recycling and the importance of these bottles for hydrating, without stating that there are alternatives.  All the time this is going on the threat to public health for the people, for us all, gets larger. Note that even developing nations such as India have the prime minister himself take up the campaign against microplastics, plastics bags and bottles, as Mr. Narendra Modi has done in India. A conference in Busan South Korea is discussing a global plastics treaty to end this plastics threat to health and the land we live in. It shows how regulation is needed in a capital-ist economy because companies and jobs at companies of 70 plastics and recycling companies are at stake and so is the public health, our health and our land, its coastlines and waters. ...

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The Indian economy grows at 6.3% in the third quarter of 2017. The demonetization, and new GST tax plan, had slowed the economic growth to 5.7% in the second quarter of 2017. Higher economic growth is important to generate the jobs needed as 10 million young people join the workforce each year. The Modi government responded to the slowdown by accelerating spending on infrastructure- a $100 billion spending plan on roads and highways, and $32 billion cash infusion for state run banks with the effort to clean up the bad loans in the banking system. 

Elections in prime minister Modi's home state of Gujarat are coming up and this will give some indication of voter sentiment in 2017. The Pew Research Survey in 2017 shows Modi's personal popularity is high and continues to bolster the government's prospects.

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The 2010 census reveals significant changes in the population mix in the U.S. The number of Hispanic people increased significantly, especially so in the under 18 age group. The Hispanic population went up by 43%, increasing to 50.5 million in 2010, compared to 35.3 million in 2000. Overall Hispanics make up 16% of the U.S. population of 308.7 million. One of the striking facts in the change is that children under age of 18 make up one third of the Hispanic population compared to one fifth for the white population. Texas by itself added 979,000 people under age 18, with 931,000 being Hispanic. 92% of the population growth since 2000-of 25.1 million- came from minorities of all kinds. And mixed race is another major category with nine million people. Asian American population also increased, especially in major cities such as San Francisco, San Jose and New York. Overall 63.7% of people identified as white, 16.3% as Hispanic, 12.2% as black, 4.7% as Asian, 0.7% as American Indian or Alaska natives. New York and Washington saw black populations decline. Detroit dropped out of the top ten cities replaced by San Jose. Chicago's population declined, New York's went up by 2% to 8.2 million people. ...

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George Bush's legacy in a strong US-India relationship built during the years Bush and Manmohan Singh were the leaders of the two countries. A relationship that owed much to Bush's conviction about the value of partnership with real democracies, with much of the traditions and features common to Britain and the United States and the English speaking peoples. Manmohan Singh's genuine respect for Bush and his policy of building India-US relations, including the nuclear agreement with India.

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A slight shift in American opinion favoring a deal with Iran is shown in a WSJ/NBC poll in July 2015 compared to the poll in April 2015. Support for reaching a nuclear deal with Iran remains stable at 36% in both polls, the opposed drops by 6 percentage points to 17% from 23%, and the percentage of people who say they do not know enough to formulate an opinion goes up to 46% from 40%. The intricacies of a nuclear technology deal and the sites involved lead to a high percentage of don't know enough to give an opinion. Factors hindering a deal include inspection of military sites, and Iranian intentions. Factors favoring reaching a deal now is the risk that this would mean Iran would go back into isolation and the opportunity to work with moderates might be lost. The Rouhani administration was an effort by voters to elect a government that could ease or remove sanctions to improve the economy and living conditions- its failure would lead to Iran losing an opportunity to open up to the world. The pressure from the U.S. Congress and Israel served to push for a verifiable and effective agreement to control development of nuclear technology for weapons systems. Behavioural factors involved are the very young population in Iran which has no memories about the period before the revolution in 1979- 70% of the population of 74 million are people under the age of 35. This group is eager for ties to the outside and could change Iran's outlook and policies int the future towards moderation. Risks in not reaching a deal also include the possibility of the Saudis developing nuclear technology and nuclear proliferation. Winners from a deal because of the flow of Iranian oil to world markets and a period of extended low oil prices are the U.S., Europe, China and India. Germany gains new markets to replace the growth in the Russian market after sanctions. Lifting of an arms embargo, an added risk in the last days of the talks, would be mitigated by making the lifting of that embargo very gradual....

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UN projections show median age of Chinese citizens will overtake that of Americans in 2020. Yet China's median income is only a quarter of that in the U.S. Life expectancy in China today is 76, very close to that in America. In 1960 a Chinese person born that year had life expectancy of 44 years.  China is aging at the pace of Japan, and a bit slower than South Korea, but wealth per capita was three times higher in South Korea and Japan than China when the aging accelerated. A Chinese woman fertility rate today is 1.6 compared to 4.6 in 1973. A prominent Chinese economist says in a recent report that median age in China in 2050 will be nearly 50 compared to 42 in America and 38 in India. WSJ cites figures showing China will have gone from 9 working age adults per retired person in 2000 to just two by 2050. So how to pay for retirement of all these workers today? Government spending on retirement is a tenth of GDP, about half the level in older wealthier countries, and increase in spending will impact growth. Today this is about 6.2% potential growth rate. It also pushes wages up with a shortage of workers in cities such as Shenzen and X'ian even with the use of new technology and robots in factories.  Solutions are to raise retirement age currently set at 60 years, increasing labor force participation of women as Japan has done, and increasing productivity. China has transferred 10% equity stakes in four state owned financial firms to the national pension fund to shore up its finances as estimates from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences show it running out of money in 2035. Traditionally children supported families in old age but the one child policy leads to situations where the child is working or in another city. In Suzhou near Shanghai, a retirement business sends 1800 helpers to private homes and 130,000 retired people, in a new trend. The city administration of Shanghai plans 400 neighborhood care centres for elderly by 2022, with health clinics, drop in facilities, and homes. 12,000 elderly people use one centrre in central Shanghai area of Changning. ...

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David Gelles interviews heads of companies in his column for the New York Times called Corner Office. Here he talks about CEO's frquently bringing up the topic of meditation in his interviews. Gelles practices meditation and mindfulness since his college years when he spent junior year in India at Buddhist monasteries and retreats as part of the Antioch Buddhist Studies Program. He is also the author of columns in the NYT on meditation and mindfulness.  The head of Salesforce, Marc Benioff, tells Gelles that meditation practice helps him step back and listen deeply with a beginners mind aware of the present moment. Benioff has set up meditation rooms in Salesforce Tower in San Francisco, and invites Buddhist monks to his house.  After a skiing accident in 2004 Marc Bertolini, head of insurance company Aetna recovered using meditation practice. He setup mindfulness classes at Aetna and says this has changed the corporate culture for the better with efforts for improvement and people coming up to him with new ideas.  Designer Eileen Fisher practices meditation and this has helped her in business as she set goals to improve factory conditions for clothing workers in China. The head of Hyatt Hotels says mindfulness is helpful in bringing empathy in relations through the practice of being in the present. He made mindfulness the key part of the company's Wellness programs. Google, Ford and McKinsey now offer meditation programs in the office. Similar trends are taking place in Europe. When asked about a company's responsibility to society, Benioff of Salesforce says his company is part of the whole that includes society, that we are all connected and part of the one.     ...

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The need to increase the reading of non-fiction books. The problems with TikTok video, You Tube video and social media as distractions. Even Wikipedia reference is giving one bits and pieces of information. Only an effort to read and read books expands one's horizons and learning. The irony of getting a bachelor's degree at 22 years and then stopping reading except an occasional book across most of the people in the US, Europe, India and other nations.

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The U.S. ranked first in an annual survey of executives rating places with favorable prospects for foreign direct investment. The survey by consulting firm A.T. Kearney has questions for executives of 302 large companies, all with sales above $500 million, about how likely they are to invest in countries over 2013-2015. It was done in October and November of 2012. On a scale of 0 to 3, the U.S. scored 2.09, China 2.02, Brazil 1.97, Canada 1.86, India 1.85, followed closely by Australia and Germany at 1.83 and the UK at 1.81. Mexico and Singapore are at No. 9 and 10 with 1.77. The survey shows the U.S., and Mexico gaining, China and India slipping, and English speaking countries UK, Australia and Singapore, as part of the 6 that are English speaking of the top 10 countries. Brazil's hosting of the Olympics and World Cup helped it maintain its position. The emerging market countries performance has slipped further since the survey, including Brazil, and the U.S. has made further gains in investor sentiment. The unrest among young people in Turkey, India, China, and Brazil as seen in street protests and credit financed booms may have further affected investor sentiment. The increase in natural gas production, revival of the midwestern economies, and a recovering housing market have boosted the U.S. economic prospects compared to emerging markets and the eurozone....