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At the core 66% of people in the US, UK and in Germany, 77% in France, Italy and Spain  in Pew Research in 2024 see the need for big economic changes. Inequality increase are often automatically seen as correlated with deterioration in standard of living. However in practice cost of living concerns and opportunity to do something about it can move in the opposite direction to inequality increases. Cost of living can improve based on gas and electricity prices and access to housing with lower interest rates independent of whether government is or is not intervening in the economy. Some interventions may not work as in the supply side shocks in prices from Covid lockdowns or simply exhaust people's patience without sufficient timely correction. A disquiet index can also move in a different direction from inequality increases when cost of living raises disquiet levels for people, and cultural issues such as transgender in schools create  additional disquiet. Failure to get bipartisanship may leave inequality issues unresolved as happens with one group student loan borrowers stuck in repayment.  In this sense inequality is only one goal and can be elusive if the overall goal of reducing disquiet index are left unresolved. A better quality of life can be achieved in other ways- as with the effort for "a rising tide lifts all boats." This can include the ripple effect of international politics where issues spill over into the US creating cultural disquiet on campuses as happened in 2024 with Israel Gaza conflict. The interplay of local and international starts adding complexity that adds to disquiet index for people in all levels of society.   ...

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BBC looks at the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 that allocates waters of 6 rivers. Waters of three rivers in the east going to India, and 80% of waters of three western rivers including the Indus river going to Pakistan. Both countries are required to share waters data to manage agriculture. India is upstream for these rivers.  In the same way China is upstream of the river Brahmaputra in India and is building dams in Tibet to control flow of water downstream to India. There is no treaty for the Brahmaputra between India and China as China has occupied Tibet since 1950's and acquired Aksai Chin in the Kashmir region from Pakistan. Before 1950 for ten centuries Tibet region was a distant land mostly unreachable from China and China was never in control of Tibet. Kashmir region for 15 out of 18 centuries since 100 BC was a land of Vedic, Buddhist Shiva cultures. For China the occupation of Tibet on the borders of India creates a situation that is not sustainable for long and stretches resources at a time when India is rapidly building the same level of infrastructure on its side of the border. Chinese people in the provinces bordering Tibet have shown little interest in moving to the vastly different high country of Tibet. At some point in history not too distant by 2050, China (and Japan) will revert to its Buddhist religion and culture and with respect for Buddhist culture see Sarnath, Kushinagar, and Bodh Gaya more as sacred pilgrimage places in India, a common heritage with India to be treasured and revered. Something the Europeans and Americans cannot comprehend, the depth and breath of Vedic Buddhist and Shiv culture in Asia. ...

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This WSJ report by Collins, Belkin, Parti and Whyte takes an indepth look at the issues surrounding anti-semitism on US campuses, in particular UC Berkeley, U Penn, Harvard, Columbia universities. It looks at what happened in the first term and how with the Gaza war the issues of antisemitism on US campuses increased and the DJT administration, Education Secretary McMahon, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon, and domestic advisers in the Trump administration, decided it was time to rein in the antisemitism seen at top ranked universities.  On the campus of UC Berkeley in Feb 2019, Hayden Williams was a young conservative activist who set up a table to recruit students to Turning Point USA. He was punched in the face in an argument which attracted media attention. DJT said at the time that "we got to do something about this." In meetings with Hayden Trump discussed actions such as cutting off federal funding to universities with free speech violations. This is the genesis of the current action says WSJ where Harvard faces cut offs of funding for lack of action to control antisemitism on campus and the president asking Harvard to stop enrollment of international students. Some international students have been involved in the activism tending towards antisemitism.  There is also the sense that some universities are admitting far too many, as many as 40% of the enrolment, from overseas students- a form of neglect of local American students, who now have less access to the resources that the federal government is giving to these universities which they should be entitled to as Americans. U Chicago, Harvard and Penn are in the 30%+ range for overseas students and Columbia around 40%. ...

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Spanish footballer Rodri Fernandez is one of those rare players for his humility and simple living. He studied business and economics at university while playing at Villa Real and stayed in dorm accomodation so as not to miss a class. He does not use social media as he says he does not need friends on the internet. He drove a second hand Vauxhall Corsa that he bought from an elderly lady, a car was simply a way to get from A to B. He enjoyed being with his class friends on the sofa.  It all speaks so much about Rodri and about Spanish football. 

See the Premier League's Oct 29, 2024 30 minute You Tube interview by British soccer player Frank Lampard of Rodri Fernandez, to see him up close and how he plays the game.

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The Times looks at the Australian performance against India 3-1 Test Series Win. England plays both teams, in June-July 2025 against India, and in November for the Ashes against Australia.

Boland takes 10 wickets in the SCG Test. Bumrah goes for scans following an injury with too much resting on his pace bowling for the Indian team. Batsmen in both teams except Head and Jaiswal disappoint. MCG and SCG cricket grounds see record numbers attending the Test matches. India takes the first Test match in style then falls apart. Neither the Australians or the Indians are convincing. Pant's lack of patience at the MCG leads to a loss for India and the Australians scrape through at the SCG with Bumrah out of the game, this is how Mike Atherton of The Times sees the Test Series Australia won. 

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What this tennis report is not saying is that only a generation ago the drop shot was standard and a key part of the game. The base line hitters era is now gone as player after player from Europe is shifting to the way tennis was always played with a great mix of shots. This drop shot or the related shot the lob was normal when Ile Nastase, Newcombe, Rosewall and Laver played in the 1970's and 1980's, games this reviewer watched late into the night at tennis tournaments in the US and Canada. It was because of the range of strokes that tennis was fun to watch and became popular at the time. The reason is that drop shots, lobs, take skills, timing, mixing shots with speed and with touches, and requiring a keen sense of the flow.

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Italy vs. Brazil in World Cup Soccer 1982 in Barcelona. Memories from that game in which Paolo Rossi of Italy scores a hat trick to knock Brazil out of the World Cup. With the passing away of Rossi this report looks at the legends of the game. Rossi also scored the opening goal in a 3 to 1 win for Italy against Germany in Madrid. 

Amazingly Rossi was seen as coming out in personal redemption after getting a 3 year suspension from the game for a match fixing scandal of 1980.  When it was reduced to 2 years Rossi got the opportunity to redeem himself. The World Cup Soccer was to be held in Spain only a few months after he started playing again. Rossi was declared unfit to play and did not score in the first three pool matches. Then came the Brazil game. Followed by 2 goals in the 2-0 win over Poland in the semi final. And then on to play Germany in the final with the opening goal. 

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England just had to stay calm, after Denmark went ahead 1-0 in the first 30 minutes, says this analysis of the Euro soccer semi final game with Denmark. Coach Southgate remained calm and had his players settle down. Eventually the stronger English bench wore the Danish players down. Harvey Kane scored on a penalty kick in the first part of extra time. Jack Grealish, Jordan Henderson, and Phil Foden were brought in and provided the energy on the English side that eventually prevailed. With the better overall bench and team England had to learn the lesson of staying calm through the early part of the game so that their deeper skills in the game could find expression.

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World leaders including president Obama attend the funeral of Israel's former president Shimon Peres. He is known for negotiating the Oslo Peace Accords in 1994. He was a protege of prime minister Ben Gurion, and has served as prime minister, defense minister and foreign minister, and been part of the Israel's key events since independence in 1948. President Obama  said the work of Shimon Peres remains unfinished. "Now this work is in the hands of Israel's next generation, in the hands of Israel's next generation and its friends." In the years following the 1994 accords the peace process went astray, and trust has not been restored.

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The last West Indies captain to lead a formidable West Indies team was Richie RIchardson. Sandip G of the Indian Express writes from Antigua about Richardson's early batting experiences at school and how he evolved facing fast bowlers. RIchardson started out idolizing legendary batsmen like Rohan Kanhai who were steady batsmen and batted in Test matches for days.    It was an early experience with his coach who put on fast bowlers at school to Richardson at bat, that got Richardson started on his trademark cut shot. Fearing for his life Richardson closed his eyes and hit one out of the field that was lost forever. Soon he became known as "the fastest blade in the Caribbean," for the way he could strike at fast bowling. Richardson says its not like he became good at the cut stroke overnight. He would practice the shot 1000 times a day.  It was Rohan Kanhai from Guyana who once said that you have to put every poor delivery away to the boundary and some good ones too, making the bowlers think. Flashing blade and canny, were words used for Kanhai. This was true for Richardson too with his cut shot. Today as he is perfecting his golf game or when his motivation dips he has only to look back over his shoulder to the high walls of his house, to his backyard where he practiced the cut shot, and all that drive and energy from that time would come back to him. ...

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Russian forces in Port Arthur (Dalian, Lushun) like the other European colonial powers in Tientsin took part in the joint operations of Japan, Britain, France, US, and Germany in the invasion of Peking in mid July 1901. Under the Soviet era China was an ally of the Soviet Union yet there was a strong sense of independent action that led to the breakdown of the relationship between Krushchev and Mao in the 1960's. This may be true also today as the European conflict in Ukraine may not be in China's interest of developing its economy and continuing on the path of modernity it adopted throughout the events of the 1930's to the 1990's to today. This report from that period shows the Russian army under Colonel Anisimov and General Stessel rescuing British admiral Seymour's force near Tientsin. The Russian forces under Russian Admiral Hildebrand played a leading role in the battle of the Taku forts that followed in late June 1901. The forces at Tientsin under Admiral Alekseev of about 8000 are mostly Russian. On 19 July 1901, Russia's General Linevich assumes control of the joint Japanese, Russian, British and French forces that conducted the campaign towards Peking.  The American version of the events in China in 1901 is given by Cornell University Prof. David Silbey in his 2010 book- The Boxer Rebellion, The Great Game in China. It shows the depressed condition of China at the time and the struggle to free China of the opium of British traders and conversions by Christian missionaries that undermined Chinese culture and society. The rebellion of 1901 is similar in China's history to the events of 1857 in India with the rebellion against British rule.    ...

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Former U.S. Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, says the attacks on Charlie Hebdo weekly in France were the result of an intelligence failure. The 2 brothers who conducted the attacks were already on a U.S. no-fly list. The U.S. has already alerted European authorites to about 3000 European citizens, about 1000 from France, who went to Syria to fight with Islamic State. Panettta says there is much room for improvement when it comes to tracking of individuals returning from conflicts in the Middle East, and making certain that the U.S. and Europeans are at the top of their game when it comes to security. Operationally the U.S. and Europeans need to be working together and being aggressive about individuals who have a history in these places in the Middle East.

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The collapse of the zloty, losing half its value against the Swiss franc is proving to be traumatic for Polish consumers who took out loans in Swiss francs for property, cars, consumer goods. In the past the zloty had soared in value and it was cheaper to pay off the loans in Swiss francs which had lower interest rates. Now with the zloty losing so much value it is proving very difficult to pay off these loans. What was once seen as a win-win game, says a economic advisor to Poland's President, now is turning into a risky currency gamble. He says that people were taking risks without knowing the consequences and what they were getting into, much like homeowners in the US getting into risky subprime loans.

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As farm product rotted on farms because of a lack of buyers, India has come up with new ways of getting farm agricultural product to buyers in urban areas. The Indian government has approved online sales direct from farmers to buyers outside the country. Within the country enterprising farmers  and app developers for farm produce sales directly to consumers in cities are changing the way agricultural produce distribution works. This report in the Guardian shows how sales are being made from remote Meghalaya state to buyers in cities for product ranging from turmeric, pineapple, jackfruit, and cashew. Prices are about 70% higher helping boost farmers incomes.  Several states have relaxed rules allowing farmers to sell anywhere in the country.  In other parts of the country this is happening with a proliferation of such apps creating a virtual marketplace. Other examples are a grape orchard farm in Gudahalli with sales made in Bengaluru at 30 apartment complexes. One site founder in Chandigarh says he has in 2 months sold 20,000 tons of produce ranging from avocados of the Nilgiris to papaya from Chattisgarh. His app Harvesting Farmer Network also helps with packaging and delivery. In other developments Gaia Agritech is helping farmers on the Konkan coast in Maharashtra hit hard by a pause in exports, sell to housing societies in Pune and Mumbai. This is part of a broader debate in India after coronavirus pandemic. One idea is that people have a family farmer just like they have a family doctor, encouraging organic agriculture, fresh produce for healthier living. By helping farmers it makes for a better economy, as about a sixth of India's GDP comes from farmers and most of the jobs are in farming and agricultural economy. ...

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Create small, more transparent financial institutions out of the big banks by breaking these big banks up and selling them to private equity. These big banks are too big to save, too big to manage, andprone to taking excessive risk, thus damaging the economy. Craft policy and antitrust laws so that no financial firms become too large, as this has been proven to create risks for the whole economy. Do this by dividing banks up regionally or by type of business. TARP simply contimues the old game of big banks and financial institutions. These are the views of Paul Krugman and Simon Johnson presented to the Joint Economic Committee of Congress on April 21, 2009. Also on the panel Kansas City Fed President Thomas Hoenig who said policy measures have focussed too heavily on propping up big institutions like AIG.

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Chinese people's and Chinese government's initial intolerance of protests on Tibet and seeing this as anti-Chinese especially as the Olympics are seen as a chance for China to be accepted by other countries and other peoples. This extreme sensitivity to any criticism even if its fair and helps Chinese people make corrections in policy like talking to the Dalai Lama is seen as not constructive. And nationalism can lead in different unpredictable directions. There were protests against Carrefour stores, a French retailer, which the government later calmed down. It would only create a negative image for foreign investment in China.

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Over 50% of Israelis support Iran war, only 30% oppose. As Israelis see it Iran under religious clerics is the only real threat to Israel in 2025 because of Iran's policy of proxies for attacking Israel in Lebanon and in Gaza, and because of it's development of nuclear weapons and openly threatening Israel. The US involvement in Iranian politics dates from the Dulles and Eisenhower era with the CIA's involvement in the overthrow of the democratically elected Iranian prime minister Mossadegh in 1953. Working with British intelligence and for British oil interests, US oil interests, the US made a serious mistake as seen from today's perspective. The moral is British or French colonial policy stay from it America- George Washington himself would advise. Israel is paying the price and is asked to correct what was done by the British in Iran since 1850's- to bring back a peaceful democracy with the kind of struggles even Greece experienced. The unelected wholly unrepresentative government of the Shah who was put in the place of a democratically elected government was a serious mistake. The British and French colonialism and oil interests of Britain plus American oil companies have led to US getting on the wrong side of the Vietnamese people in the war in Vietnam against the French that ended at the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. It had repercussions in the Vietnam war under Kennedy and Johnson. This has happened in the case of Iran where the US has gained so little and lost so much in lives and resources sunk in the ensuing was in Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Yemen. The European Union suffered from the huge migrant flow from Syria with splits in its ranks. The distractions of these 30 years through Reagan and Rumsfeld who supported Hussein in Iraq against Iran in a balancing act is now foolishness, of elder Bush as he diverted attention to a long desert war in Kuwait, of Bush and then Obama in Afghanistan, who wasted enormous resources and impoverished the American people. Leaving legacy wars for Trump and Biden to handle. After Vietnam another failed chapter of Iran in the US for the American people by incompetent leaders who were taken in by French and British colonial and oil interests in wrong directions.   ...

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This fascinating story in the NYT looks at how the game of baseball in the US took over Japan in the way the English game of cricket took over India and Australia. A Maine native Horace Wilson from near Portland, is said to be the person who taught baseball to students at Kaisei Gakko (that became Tokyo University) in 1872. The National High School baseball Championships grip Japan with 3782 schools participating. Ichiro Suzuki, a Japanese baseball player, says it is popular in Japan because it requires more than speed and strength, it requires use of the intellect and sharp thinking.

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Softbank, Japan's leading search engine company, has a 34% stake in Alibaba. It also persuaded Alibaba's founder Jack Ma to start e-commerce site Taobao. Softbank will start a service in 2010 which connects Taobao to its Tahoo portal in Japan. Softbank owns a 35% stake in Oak Pacific Interactive which owns the popular social networking and game playing sites RenRen and Kaixin.com. Softbank's strategy in China is to concentrate on e-commerce, local social networking sites and online games. This avoids hitting a wall of government censorship which has hampered progres in China for Google and a number of other sites. Other steps taken by Softbank's founder are to work with respected local partners. Jack Ma sits on Softbank's board and Son sits on Alibaba's board. Softbank sees its mobile business connected to internet growth because mobile users are increasingly using the internet, and Softbank is a mobile carrier.

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Business Week's Michael Lewis has some serious questions and a message for investment bank Goldman. His questions- ACA was incompetent which is why it was chosen as CDO (collaterized debt obligation) manager. ACA was chosen by Goldman precisely because it did not know what it was doing and lost $900 million in the process. So too IKB, the dull witted German bank which lost $150 million. Goldman did not lose $100 million on the Abacus deal because Goldman was shorting the subprime market by March 2007 the time of the Abacus deal. Knowing this requires transparency of all dealings of Goldman's proprietary trading desk to understand real losses. Fab Tourre, the 27 year old Frenchman, is just a kid in this game. The real name behind this is Jonathan Egol. Who is this guy who clearly knew the subprime market was doomed in 2006 in remarks he made at the time.

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Kylian Mbappe was seen at his best recently as he scored France's only goal in a difficult game with Austria in the Nations League when it had fallen behind 0-1.

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Friedman suggests a 2009 book "Generation in Waiting," edited by Navtej Dhillon and Tarik Yousef, as giving a real insight into what is happening in Egypt. It says that the great change that is occurring in Arab society is not about political Islam, but about a "generational game" in which over 100 million young Arabs are fighting stifling economic and political strucutres that have taken away their freedoms, provide the poorest education systems, the highest unemployment rates and the biggest income gaps of any society in the the world. ElBaradei tells Friedman that the Arab states of today are nothing but a collection of failed states who give nothing to humanity or science, and this because the people are not taught to think or act and are given an inferior education, in a part of the world that experienced in the past a high level of learning and made contributions in the arts, humanities and science.

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Russia's parliament voted to ratify Russia's entry into the World Trade Organization by a vote of 238 to 208. Opposition was led by the Communist party. The head of the Economic Expert Group in Moscow, Evsey Gurvich, says the new rules are important for Russia as Russia has no rules of the game today, the new rules will enhance competition. President Putin described the change in this way: "We joined the WTO because our economy is highly dependent on the external market in terms of both production and consumption. Excessive protectionism invariably leads to stagnation, low quality and high prices." The result from loss of revenue with lower tariffs is a loss of revenue of $5.7 billion in 2013, and $7.8 billion in 2014, according to Economic Development minister Belousov. The financial crisis of 2008-2009 convinced Putin that Russia had to participate in the decisions about the world economy because of the direct impact this has on Russia.