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Robert Putnam a 79 year old Professor of Public Policy at Harvard answers the question what is happening now- when everything seems to be stalling and solutions offered by parties of centre, right and left are all failing to deliver for improving lives of poor white people, black people, middle class white people. Failing to deliver on health care for all, on access to medicines, access to infrastructure, on access to public services. He sees this as a result of the over focus on "I' and on the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few people in the financial world or in Silicon Valley without concern for the needs of the country or the people.  Putnam compares this to the period of the 1870's onwards in America. when for several decades the emphasis was on selfish pursuit of money and wealth with everyone focussed on individual gain. It was only after this period brought America as a nation and the people of America into hard times people was the whole culture of "I" and overfocus on individual gain questioned and repudiated. The period of "we" began with Theodore Roosevelt breaking up the monopolies and Franklin Roosevelt fighting for a New Deal for American workers and the people of the United States. Putnam sees this happening again and America at a crucial juncture of repudiating the existing culture and values in the same way as it did in the past. The change in culture in America is part of a wider trend that includes all English speaking countries Britain, Canada, Australia and India. In all these countries the shift is towards rebuilding the culture that brings opportunities and hope to the working class and middle class, to rural areas, through a new vision for infrastructure, public services, healthcare and education. Putnam brings long experience studying the development of America starting with the book "Bowling Alone" published in 2000 which described the trend to rampant and unrestricted individualism in public and business life. In 2015 Putnam's "Our Kids" covered the issue of declining upward mobility and  failing to give opportunity for young people to make improvement in their social and economic aspects of their lives. The three books have extensive research and look at a lot of data making them academic of nature but they also serve a useful purpose. Any intuitive grasp of the situation also leads one to think in the same direction that the past carries lessons for the future, that there is a better way out, and that this situation cannot go on for much longer without damaging the nation and the people, not just America, but other English speaking nations Britain, Canada, Australia and India that share the same problems of lack of development, lack of infrastructure and services, and neglect of the common man, of everyman.   ...

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The emergence of a national party in India is the subject of this editorial in The Hindustan Times. The Indian National Congress led by Mohandas Gandhi led the way to transitional home rule in the 1930's under the British, independence in 1947, with the party running India till 1962 under Mr. Nehru, one of Gandhi's assistants. This was followed by a breakup of the party into different factions with one faction led by Nehru family forming governments under Indira Gandhi, and her son Rajiv Gandhi. This faction then lost its popularity in the Hindi speaking heartland of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and became a regional party with presence only in a few states of India and very little in the south. By 2014 a new party the Bharatiya Janata Party had emerged that had a strong presence in the Hindi speaking heartland of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and in the northeast of the country. It still lacked a strong presence in the south. This has happened in the 2020 Telengana elections, says Hindustan Times. By getting a strong performance in the Hyderabad region the BJP now has a strong presence in Telengana, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka where Bangalore is located. Only Kerala and the Tamilnadu region around Madras, have their own regional parties in government. In the east the Bihar elections showed BJP as the leading party to form government to push the development agenda in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. It is now well positioned to take this theme of rapid development to West Bengal state around the Kolakata (Calcutta) area, a state that has lagged far behind in development under a regional party that was an offshoot of the Indira Gandhi faction of the Congress party. As is common in India national political parties split into factional parties with infighting that split again into purely regional parties. This has further undermined the them of development through failed governance in India. The BJP under the current prime minister is now the exception to this because of its themes of health, governance and development, with Development at the top of the triangle supported by Health and Governance at the base of the triangle. The BJP which started out as a small business oriented upper caste party also changed its image under prime minister Modi. The slogan "Sab Ka Vikas, Sab Ke Saath," (Development for all, with all) has given the BJP support of the lower castes, the Scheduled class and the backward castes in India. This make it a truly national party with support across all socioeconomic and demographic groups. The prime minister's own background growing up working in his father's tea shop near a railway station in Gujarat has also given the party a new image of being with the working classes and the average man. His experience in Gujarat delivering on development projects and infrastructure, energy, has also given the word "development" new meaning for a modern India, very distant from the period when poor governance failed to deliver on development and modernization. Bold moves have cleared the way for a nationwide approach to development, yet decentralized, with rapid development based on accumulation of technologies, human skills, land and capital. A singular focus on the needs of the ordinary people is evident when the prime minister talks about the effect of firewood burning stoves used in cooking by hundreds of millions of rural women for their families. He says the smoke from burning this firewood in the home has the effect of smoking 400 cigarettes for each woman. Rarely has this happened since Mohandas Gandhi took up the situation of village women in the backcountry and lack of clothing in the period under the British.   ...

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Samsung's decision to focus on LCD Displays and improve existing technology, citing lack of demand for higher priced OLED Displays, leaves LG Display as the sole maker of next generation OLED Displays. OLED Displays allow the screens to be very thin and to be made in flexible forms with better colors. In this WSJ interveiw, Han Sang-beom, the head of LG Display division says how LG reached the decision to take the risks involved in making the large investments required. He says LG Display already has about 2 years of experience ahead of other companies which he sees as important to keep in preparing for the future market. He cites progress in reducing panel defects and production efficiency, moving up the learning curve, which is similiar to its early experience in developing LCD's. LG Display's strategy is to keep this lead for capabilities that will be needed for the new wearable devices, automobiles and new types of products. It sees other competitors who are developing OLED panels moving into manufacturing to help solve the problems related to cost reduction and product competitiveness. LG Displays production plans are for the second OLED plant with capacity for 26,400 sheets of mother glass a month to be ready by the end of 2015, following the first plant of 8000 sheets. Each sheet makes six 55 inch TV screens. LG's existing small screen business is highly dependent on demand from Apple. LG Display plans to continue focus on LCD mobile product screens while developing new flexible OLED mobile screens....

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The ruling in a 5-4 decision requires the EPA to consider cost when the agency makes environmental rules. It does not remove the regulations on mercury emissions and does not prohibit the EPA from setting rules. A lower court will have to rule on how the case should be handled. Its likely effect is for the EPA to consider the price for industry compliance in setting environmental rules. The majority decision wirtten by Justice Scalia says the EPA "must consider cost- including, most importantly, cost of compliance- before deciding whether regulation is appropriate and necessary." The current EPA environmental rules were set in 2012, and were put into effect in early 2015. During the early part of the process of setting the rules the EPA did not consider cost. But in the later stages the agency estimated costs of compliance for utility sector at $9.6 billion and public health benefits of at least $37 billion. Justice Elena Kagan alluded to this in her dissenting opinion. Some utilities have received an extension on installing scrubbers to remove mercury pollutants, and these plants would now receive more time. Of the 600 power plants the EPA regulates as part of the rule, 450 are coal fired plants. Of these 35% were given a 1 year extension for compliance. About 21 states heavily dependent on coal and power companies brought this case before the court. ...

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Caterpillar Inc. CEO and Chairman, Doug Oberhelman, discussed the acquisition of ERA Mining Machinery Ltd., a maker of roof supports for coal mines, acquired in June 2012 for $700 million. The acquisition was "botched" said Oberhelman, leading to the $580 million writedown for the 4th quarter of 2012 and the 55% drop in profits. Former managers of ERA misled Caterpillar about the condition of the business, and in Obherhelman's words "fabricated documentation to cover their tracks." Caterpillar later found inaccurate inventory data and improper revenue recognition. The move to acquire ERA Machinery was an effort to increase sales of mining equipment in China, the world's largest coal producer. As in the Autonomy acquisition by H-P the diligence in checking accounting and other data failed. Caterpillar lowered its forecast for 2013 based on slower growth in mining and decline in investment by mining companies. Mining companies are seeing management turnover over overextended mining projects that went sour. Revenue for 2013 is forecast at between $60 billion and $68 billion, compared to $65.88 billion in 2012. Analysts see risks in the forecast because mining equipment orders may not accelerate till 2015. Mining equipment forms a bigger part of Caterpillar sales and sales growth than construction machinery- sales of mining equipment increased by 14% to $5.78 billion in the 4th quarter 2012, even as sales of construction machinery declined 25% to $4.03 billion. In the U.S. construction machinery sales declined 17% to $1.45 billion in the 4th quarter 2012....

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Tariffs policy is part of a renegotiation the US is conducting with China similar to that started with Japan by Lighthizer in the Reagan era as Deputy Trade Representative. It does not in any way have anything to do with the tariffs of Herbert Hoover in 1930 that gave tariffs a bad meaning. This is because tariffs were reduced since Harry Truman's efforts in 1945 by 2017 to 1.47% on average on total imported goods into the US and world trade makes up 63% of world GDP, so large is world trade today. What are Lighthizer- DJT tariffs trying to accomplish? As with Japan in the 1960-1970's it is intended to reverse the trends for China in 2000-2017 that allowed it to game the world trading system to gain an unfair advantage by dumping specific products into the US destroying American manufacturing and communities dependent on it. The US tariffs on Chinese goods proposed in 2024 by former USTR Robert Lighthizer come at a time when US tariffs are in 2023 only about 2.2% of all imported goods, $33 billion on 2333 billion of imported goods. In 2023 the total import duties or tariffs as a percentage of US total imported goods is about 2%, with total imported goods into the US from European Union 3%. and with total imported goods into the US from China about 19% matching China's about 19% on American imports into China. By the time the first tariffs were taken up by the DJT administration in 2017 the total tariffs the US had imposed on imported goods were down to an all time low of 1.47% of imported goods value, $33 billion out of $2333 billion in total imported goods. Compared to the 29-40% under Hoover Act of 1930 raised to 60%.  Today world trade makes up 62% of world GDP, in 1930 it made up 9% of World GDP.  In 2023 the total import duties or tariffs as a percentage of US total imported goods is about 2%, with total imported goods into the US from European Union 3%. and with total imported goods into the US from China about 19% matching China's about 19% on American imports into China.   ...

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This report in the WSJ points to president Biden's speech to a joint session of the US Congress that providing two years of free community college would "change the dynamic" for education in America taking the first step to correct a dangerous drop in college enrollment for young men in America and ensuring working class families have access to college education. The last thirty years of skewed wealth distribution, loss of manufacturing in America, have created alarming distortions in  the access to college education for working class families. Mrs. Biden is a fervent advocate for community college access in today's America, as a community college teacher for 30 years. Biden's $45.5 billion 5 year plan would waive tution for 2 years of public community college. States would have to opt-in to participate, and federal government would provide 100% funding in the first year, decreasing contribution by 5% each subsequent year, with states picking up rest of the cost. It is quite shocking that this is being dropped from the Biden $3.6 trillion Families and Workers Plan that is now being whittled down to $2 trillion. Not because it is not badly needed for American economic competitiveness, and helping workers and families. But because following narrow parochial interests the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities opposes it. And because the US Congress is evenly split between Democrats and Republicans 50-50 in the Senate. The Association of Independent Colleges sees a shift to community colleges and a sharp drop in its enrollment. Community colleges saw a dangerous drop in enrollment of 12% to 4.5 million students in 2020 from the spring of 2019, according to National Student Research Center. Never was a program more badly needed, as American men are alarmingly falling behind in enrollment. Here are some responses to the failure to take even the first steps to broaden college access so that America can return to economic competitiveness. "What kind of world do we want to live in?" Martha Kanter, College Promise. "That's kind of a devil's choice, isn't it? The whole system has to work from infant care all the way through." Senator Tina Smith, Democrat of Minnesota. This is because child care and children's education will be funded yet a struggling generation of college students will be left out. US Chamber of Commerce opposes a $45 billion program that is critical to American competitiveness with China and other countries. US Congress drops a program that at $45 billion is only about 2% of the $2 trillion package and which is critical to economic competitiveness. Former Republican Governor Bill Haslam of Tennessee supports community college access as a pillar of economic development and it passed the supermajority in 2014. Mike Krause, Republican former director of the state higher education commission says- "I have been surprised by the lack of enthusiasm for what is really a massive workforce development concept that also provides a path to the middle class. You'd think that would hold some appeal for Republicans and Democrats." The lack of clarity and concentration, lack of unity of purpose to get all vaccinated,  is visible in America's vaccination drive. That same lack of clarity and concentration, lack of unity of purpose, is visible in America's faltering efforts at correcting serious and alarming problems for access to college and American competitiveness in the world. Julie Bykowicz and Douglas Belkins wrote this article in the WSJ.   ...

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Japan's energy efficient industry is a role model for the western world and for India and China. For years Japan has had a national consensus on consuming less energy an industry has focused on developing energy efficent technologies and investing in it even when oil prices were low. Japan wants to now contribute to the world in this area at the G8 summit on the island of Hokkaido. According to the International Energy Agency in Paris, Japan consumes half as much energy per dollar worth of economic activity as the European Union or the United States, and one-eighth as much as India or China in 2005. According to the Japanese Economic Ministry data corporate Japan has kept its energy consumption annually at a billion barrels of oil since the early 1970's even as the country's economy doubled in size during the 1970's and 1980's. The Japanese steel industry invested $45 billion dollars between 1972 to 2006 in developing energy saving technologies, according to the Japan Iron and Steel Federation. By capturing heat and gases that go into waste JFE Steel at its Keihin mill on Tokyo Bay uses it to power generators that produce 90% of the plant's electricity. The Japanese government is now pushing an initiative that sets Japan's level of energy conservation as targets of global industries. For instance the group leader of JFE's climate change policy group says that by adopting Japanese conservation technologies the global steel industry could reduce carbon emissions by 300 million tons a year. The sector approach advocated by Japan means setting the same numerical goals for all companies in an industry, regardless of location. At next week's summit meeting Japan willl back an initiative that sets its conservation induced energy levels as the new standards for global industries. This will also promote the sale and use of Japanese energy saving technologies around the world....

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Questions raised about the government's committment to serious health care reform. New leaders of China who took power in 2002 and 2003 with concern for the poor, did not put discuss reform till 2006 and during this crisis there isn't the urgency that is needed. Recent documents, says the Economist, that were circulated secretly within the bureaucracy for 3 weeks before being made public, provide no clear target about how much people would be reimbursed for medical treatment. The other concern is that the central government provides only 40% of the 850 billion yuan allocated for additional spending on health care in the years 2009-2011. This is about $125 billion. Burt local governments may not be keen on spending on health care as officials are still judged by how much they can boost employment and GDP growth. Over three years the central government's annual share of the additional spending on health care of 850 billion yuan is 111 billion yuan, according to Caijing, a business magazine.But the 2009 budget on health care is 118 billion yuan, so its not clear that things add up. The central government's additional spending in each of the 3 years is only $16 billion. How this can provide help to the 200 million uninsured, the insured who still pay a large amount for health care, and pay for essential pharmaceuticals on a list prepared by the government, and pay a portion of the expensive diagnostic tests that hospitals like to make money from, is not clear. The whole system will have to be overhauled so that hospitals do not have the incentive to prescribe these expensive tests and pills that cost more. The government says it will be 2020 when 90% of Chinese are covered by agovernment financed health insurance system- 11 years away. This only means that domestic consumption may remain depressed for a decade or so. With export markets collapsing, this leaves China dependent on infrastructure spending for growth for a long time, and lower growth rates with higher unemployment. ...

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Novax vaccine could be a game changer for the poor countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Novax has 90% efficacy overall and 93% effectiveness against the UK, South Africa and Brazil variants. The Delta variant was not there during the trials. Novavax has signed an agreement to provide 1.1 billion doses to Covax, the organization which is designed to send vaccines to poor countries. India has contracted through Serum Institute of India to make 100 million doses. UK has ordered 60 million doses that may be sent to the developing world.

Novavax vaccine goes for regulatory approval in the third quarter of 2021.

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This analysis of coal use using graphs shows a clear move away from coal in the world, except for two growth markets China and India which account for 60% of the increase in coal use since 2008. India has gone black in its shift to increasing use of coal. China has begun the shift away from coal to address the smog over large urban areas, poor air quality and health impact of coal use. Because China used five times the coal used by India in 2017, the overall impact in China and India is showing a shift away from coal to hydropower, other renewables including solar energy. It is likely that India will make the shift following China's example in the future. 

The trend is clear when one looks at the incremental terawatt hour and where it comes from. The shift is clear to renewables, hydropower, and non fossil uses in the rest of the World and China which account for most of the coal use in the world.

 

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Decades of investment in infrastructure and manufacturing have given China a strong grip on manufacturing. China's economy depends on exports with sluggish domestic demand. One economist in Hong Kong says Vietnam is the key, if tariffs are placed on Vietnam it will be tough he says, because Chinese goods enter the US from third countries.

In 2025 China's world trade is imbalanced to an extraordinarily large degree, hurting thriving manufacturing communities around the world, and depends on a concentration of port logistics, manufacturing and lack of fair trade practices, that allow $3.5 trillion in exports while taking in only $2.5 trillion in imports. By 2008 America was waking up to this, DJT actually flagged it a decade later, Biden realized this, in the second term what appears like a whirlwind 100 days is really action on many fronts that is coming one to two decades late. 

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Even if a automobile part for assembly is manufactured in the U.S., the subparts may be sourced overseas. This makes it extremely difficult to pinpoint the country of manufacture. Toyota Siena is 90% sourced with US and Canadian parts according to the U.S. National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration. The Ford Mustang 2005 by contrast uses 65 %US and Canadian parts according to NHTSA. There is a publicity war between the US makers and the Japanese with commercials arguing about who is more American. According to the Japanese Automobile Manufacturers Association $28 billion is the amount of cumulative investment in N. America and $45 billion is the amount of annual purchases of parts, so that 67% of the Japanese brand cars sold in N. America are made there. A graph from National HighwayTraffic Safety Association shows the Average percentage of auto parts made in the US and Canada for cars sold in N. America. It shows 2 interesting things. 1. That the US makers GM and Ford are closer to 80% and the Japanese makers Toyota and Honda are about 70%. So American makers still have more American content. Note though that Nissan is only around 54 % domestic content, significantly lower. Its always been a much weaker competitor than Toyota, and its sales recently have been sluggish in the US. The Koreans are not shown here but its quite possible that their content is closer to Nissans than to Toyota or lower than Nissans. So all foreign plants may not be the same. Notice the change in Toyota from 52% domestic content to 70% domestic content, from 2000 to 2005,an 18% jump which could only result from a deliberate strategy anticipating the controversy of who is truly American and who isn't. 2. In contrast GM has definitely shifted from 92% to 80% and rapidly moving in the opposite direction than Toyota. The sea change currently underway in the American auto parts industry is in the background, with Delphi looking to increasing manufacture and sourcing overseas particularly Asia (China, India etc), to bring down costs and be competitive in a globalizing auto parts industry. In the future as Delphi shifts overseas and GM procures from China and India one could see a continuing rapid shift to higher overseas content to add the cost savings directly to GM and Ford's bottom line. ...

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Philip Alston, UN expert on extreme poverty and professor at New York University School of Law, says most of the progress on poverty that the UN agencies  and elites talk about is based on one country China. In the rest of the world, in Latin America, in Africa, and in other countries in Asia the situation is not any better than it was in 1990. About half of the world's population 3.4 billion people live on less than $5.50 a day, and this is not much changed since 1990. The improvements in China could also mean that the situation has worsened in other parts of the world. The pandemic has taken the lid off the situation in Latin America with Mexico, Brazil, Colombia and other places there showing extreme weakness.  Alston studied this as UN's representative for looking at extreme poverty 2014-2020. He is clear in describing what happened. The World Bank he says set $1.90 a day for poverty line, artificially low and what will not pay for housing or food even. He calls it "scandalously unambitious as a benchmark" what would pay for "a mere miserable subsistence." By using this he says a devastating effect is being allowed to happen as more of the investment is drawn into a pro-growth narrative which pushes allocation of capital in the direction where it profits short term speculative capital and profits rather than the long term investments in health, education and public services that are vital for any country. The improvements in China have also come at the expense of communities in Europe and the U.S. as industries were being shifted with their jobs overseas since 1990, first imperceptibly and then in waves after 2000, which leaves millions exposed to poverty and social decay for the first time in history in the advanced countries. It is an unhealthy and destabilizing situation. Alston's other points are that the so called progress narrative has been used to drown out the appalling effects of policies that misallocate capital away from the vast numbers of people. And in doing this he says it has entirely upended or turned upside down the social contract with the people. From Carl Sandburg's "The People Yes" in the 1950's after the tragedies of war we have come to "The People No." Nothing could be more reprehensible than capital being allocated for dog walking apps and other speculative investments by investment funds pooling hundreds of billions of dollars when basic sanitation services, health care investments are neglected in countries like Brazil, and smaller towns and communities are being systematically uprooted for jobs and social services over three decades in advanced countries in parts of Europe and the U.S.   ...

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During a public dialogue during the federal government's open day German Chancellor Scholz takes time to go over the origins of the war in Europe as he understands it. Of Russia acting "clearly with the intention of conquering its neighboring country," in an imperialist manner. Here is what he said- On Nato During talks before the war started in February when he met Putin in Moscow Scholz assured Putin that Ukraine would not join NATO "in the next 30 years." NATO was never a threat to Russia even though Putin says NATO's increasing eastward expansion was to the detriment of Russia's interests. On the origins of the war in Europe- Scholz says Putin launched the war for "completely absurd reasons." During his talks with Putin for example he says Putin told him that Belarus and Ukraine should not be independent states. "This is a war that Putin, Russia, started, clearly with the intention of conquering its neighboring country. I think that was the original goal." "Putin actually had the idea of swiping a felt-tip pen across the European landscape and then saying, 'This is mine and this is yours.' " Something Germany could not accept. Scholz condemns Putin's imperialism. He compares Russia's actions to the early days of imperialism. Scholz was reported to be reading Cambridge historian Brendan Simms book Europe- The Struggle for Supremacy in Europe from 1453 to the Present, before the war started. Simms shows a Europe that fought intermittent wars for supremacy between European powers Spain, Britain, Dutch, French, Germany, Austria- Hungary, Russia, Sweden over most of the period 1450 to 1950. The last part of the period was marked from 1850 to 1900 by an openly imperialist land grab for territory in Africa and Asia between Britain, France, Japan and Germany.  The period 1950 to 2000 marked by the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union and China.    On planning for the war in advance- DW.com reports that Olaf Scholz is convinced that Putin planned this war long before the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. On the future of the war- Scholz says he will not end the dialogue with Putin. Scholz and Germany, Biden and the US want to show that the imperialist type of expansion into neighboring states is no longer accepted, not for Russia or China. Scholz says Russia is currently engaged in gaining territory in eastern Ukraine, but it is not certain that it will stay that way, so giving in is not a sensible strategy.  Ukraine needs the Black Sea ports and the area around Kherson on the Dnieper river to maintain its economy through exports of foodgrains. There is international consensus that these exports are essential to most of Africa and other parts of the world. The war in the remaining part of 2022 into the winter is being fought in this area. Another area of international consensus is that of the refugees mostly women and children in other parts of eastern Europe, and the displaced people within Ukraine moving from the east and south to the west. For the first time the US and Germany are providing Ukraine with the air defense systems that it needs to protect refugees, something that was missing for the many early months of the war leading to millions of refugees inside and outside Ukraine.       ...

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Even with the growth strategies of the Abe administration in 2014, projections of the IMF show growth rate for Japan are at 1.0% for 2015, compared to 3% for the U.S., 2.5% for UK, and 1.6% for Germany. The Third Arrow in prime minister Abe's Three Arrows program now follows the implementation of the other two Arrows- monetary easing and public works spending. Abe is faced with the task of convincing foreign and domestic investors that he can implement a winning growth strategy for Japan. The plan announced in June 2014 is an effort to overcome barriers to growth with a strategy that will work. The core of the plan is to cut the corporate tax rate from 35.64% to below 30% in the next couple of years. The corporations are expected to do their part to improve corporate governance and return on equity, so that shareholders, domestic and foreign investors, have more incentives to invest in the Japanese stock market. Analysts and economists say this plan has attractive features. It asks Japanese companies to increase ROE and ROI to global levels through a Tokyo Stock Exchange corporate governance code. Companies listed on TSE and not following the code will have to come up with reasons why they are failing to do so. Some analysts say this would increase the value of companies. Companies are more likely to make investments with cash that is not being invested. The plan includes measures for bringing more women into the workforce, which is seen as a serious committment to women. In addition to increasing the number of child care centers, this plan includes tax revisions that benefit women joining the workforce. Increased representation for women at the executive level is also part of this plan. Hiroshige Seko, a top adviser to Abe, says importance was given to execution for results, so that a score of 80 with definite results was preferred to an uncertain attempt to get a 100. To do this some compromises were made. The plan for special economic zones is still in the drafting stage as discussion is just beginning. A shakeup of the Central Union of Agricultural Cooperatives and more flexible medical care will be taken up gradually. The efforts to increase ROI, ROE, and improve corporate governance were initiated from the time of the Koizumi administration, and the latest plan may bring results after over a decade of effort in this direction....

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This report in the WSJ gives the background and positions taken by Patriarch Krill of the Russian Orthodox Church, and his support for the war in Ukraine as part of Russian lands nationalism. Russian lands nationalism is an idea that comes from the beginnings of the Russian version of Christianity that had its origins in Kviv Ukraine in the 10th century. Patriarch Krill has had a varied role questioning some some state policies and then backing off and supporting the state says WSJ. In 2011 patriarch Krill stood up for protesters critical of manipulation in parliamentary elections that year. Patriarch Krill grew up in the years of Soviet rule and was 24 in 1970 when he began his work in the church. He was rector of a seminary in Leningrad by 1984 and after being critical of the Soviets and war in Afghanistan was sent to Smolensk says this report in WSJ. After he returned he worked with the Soviet state, and after voicing concerns in 2011 about parliamentary elections described as manipulated he has supported the Russian state as it becomes assertive about Russian lands nationalism. To understand the Orthodox Church in Russia one has to know its presence in the post Soviet period. About 63% of Russians belong to the Orthodox Church. It also includes Ukrainians. After Crimean invasion by Russia the Ukrainian Orthodox Church that makes up one third of the Russian Orthodox parishes was recognized as a separate church by Patriarch Bartholomev of Constantinople. Patriarch Bartholomev and Pope Francis the two leaders of the eastern and western churches in Constantinople and Rome have been critical of Patriarch Krill and his support for the war and the idea of Russian lands nationalism. Since the war some parishes in Russia have signed a letter opposing the killing of brothers in Christ and one parish leader was fined $500 for his statements. There is now intense debate among Russians about what this war means in bringing conflict on brotherly peoples about their preferences in 2022 for aligning with Europeans in the western part of Europe. For most of Europe in the 21st century there is a big change, in the countries near the Baltic sea in Northern Europe, in countries in the middle of Europe, in Eastern Europe, the 21st century is seen as a time when states and peoples are making their own choices about freedom and what their preferences are particularly the young people. They no longer understand or conform to ideas of the earlier period or centuries. And this is what has made Ukrainian young people oblivious about what Russian lands nationalism means and its relevance today. Buddhism is today not prevalent in South Korea a democratic state and in China a Communist state in the way it existed for centuries. For it to be relevant people need to begin to believe in it as in Japan or Sri Lanka or Thailand. In the 21st century young people are making different choices and this may well be where the Ukraine war shows that people's choices count particularly in the 21st century, and it has little to do with the west or the US or NATO or even Russia. ...

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Chinese views on the India war of 1962 are shown at the Beijing Military Museum in a display effort "One Hundred Questions on the China-India Border Self-Defense Counterattack."  China's PLA on its 95th anniversary looks at the 33 day war and calls it a "counterattack." It also says China withdrew because its goals were accomplished of getting back the territory it lost since August 1959 to India, that on the Indian side "the decision making was in the hands of civilian officials who did not understand the military at all," and called it "chaotic." It also brings up the international situation that Russia supported both China and India in the conflict and India had the US on its side. It says PLA withdrew because of the difficulty of supplying the military in the Arunachal region at a great distance from China particularly after the famine that resulted from the Great Leap Forward. Today there is a clear chain of command and joint work by the Indian Air force and the Army, infrastructure to support mountain operations being built at rapid speed, and building of modern defense manufacturing capabilities for the airforce and army as shown at the Defense Expo in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, this week.  One of the first aspects of the border that one sees in the region is how close it is to large population cities and towns in India and how remote it is from large population towns and cities in China. In this sense China after the experience with Russian conflict before 1900, later a large Japanese invasion in 1931and 1937 appears to have responded to its period of semi-colonialism with an aggressive policy of extending its frontiers to regions that were throughout history acting as large buffers between India and China- such being the case of Tibet which was occupied in the 1950's leading to the war with India and a border dispute that had never existed before in history. Other aspects today are that in 1962 the PLA had fought the war against the Japanese and the war agains the Americans in Korea all within a 20 year period. In 2022 China has focused for 50 years on modernizing its economy. The supply chain in the Ukraine war showed shortcomings in the Russian army, and the difficulties of supplying forces at great distances. There is also the question of morale when it is about  miles of icy terrain at heights over 10,000 feet, thousands of miles away from major population cities and towns in China- for reasons of Russian and Japanese semicolonialism behaviour not to be found in regions that had never seen large armies in history such as Tibet or Arunachal or the Himalayan border regions. The distances tell much of the story- the distance from Shanghai, Shenzen or Beijing, to Tibet is over 4000 kilometers and the border region with India additional thousands of kilometers over some of the most rugged terrain on earth with only remote mountain communities existing in the most difficult environments.       ...

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The WSJ/Vistage U.S. Small Business Confidence Index ends 2013 at a new high of 108.4 reflecting optimism of small business owners. The Index for 2013 shows a sharp drop by November 2012 to about 82 followed by a sharp increase for Dec. 2013 to about 94, and a similiar pattern is observed as it declines to about 95 in October 2013 and increases to 108.4 in December 2013. The sequester and deadlock in talks by Nov. 2012, and the government shutdown and its resolution by Dec. 2013 are likely causes. The Dec. 2013 Ryan-Murray budget agreement points the way out of political uncertainty that Vanguard CEO McNabb pointed to as a primary obstacle to investment and growth. This may be the strongest indicator of what lies ahead for 2014- 52% of 937 small business owners surveyed online in the Index in Dec. 2013, say the economy has improved in 2013, an increase from 36% in 2012. And 38% say they expect conditions to be still better in 2014, from the prior years 27%. Small business owners polled have sales less than $20 million and fewer than 500 employees. They are the main engine for growth in employment. Loten cites small business owners in construction and other industries who have increased hiring and expect to see a significant improvement in 2014. One owner who represents the pattern taken by small business, cut back employees by 2010, and held back on investment till 2012, increased investment in 2013 and is now expanding. Availability of credit with improved bottom lines and banks more willing to lend will be another positive in 2014-2015....

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As Dr Harsh Vardhan, India's representative and Health Minister, takes on responsibilities as the Chairman of the Executive Board of the World Health Organization this can be said about this critical juncture.The WHO is going through soul searching and a reevaluation of how it has implemented the vision of its founders during the closing years of a world torn apart  by war in 1945, and actual founding in 1946.  At the UN conference in San Francisco in 1945, Dr. Szeming Sze of China, Dr. Geraldo da Paula Souza of Brazil and Karl Ewang of Norway, were keen to set up an international organization for cooperation on health. The Indian representative was Arcot Ramaswamy Mudaliar, a member of Winston Churchill's War Cabinet, who chaired the committee on economic and social problems. He was the president of the Economic and Social Council which called for an international health conference in Feb. 1946. It was at that conference on 19 June 1946 that the World Health Conference came into being. A native of Madras he then returned to Mysore as chief minister. The vision at the time for international cooperation on problems such as smallpox which killed 2 million people each year were quite different from the fast moving epidemics with international travel in 2020. Today 4.4 billion passengers traveled by air in 2018, according to International Travel Association, 100 times compared to less than 40 million in 1950, and about 10 times the 400 million when Nixon's visit opened up China in 1972. The world we live in is different and the World Health Organization needs to be redesigned for the 21st century. The entire process of how the WHO operates has to be rethought. Immediate steps include- 1. The appointment by Executive Board should be reinstated as this is more representative of the world population and the major centres of advanced public health, including the major countries. Throughout its life the WHO made appointments through the Executive Board not by election. The election in 2019 by 200 countries was actually not representative of the world population as it gave India, Brazil and other early founders at the 1945-46 conferences only 1 vote each with population of 1.2 billion and 210 million, the same as tiny countries Barbados population 385,000 and Laos 7 million. 2. Reassessment of the entire process in which nations are requested to give permission of teams from major countries in Europe, North America and Asia, major population centres, so that the 6-7 week delay between the U.S. request to China for a special team to go to Wuhan on January 6, 2020 and the permission granted Feb 16, a costly delay of 7 weeks which added millions of cases and hundreds of thousands of deaths. In a super fast moving pandemic with international sports stadiums and 4 billion air passengers spreading it like wild fire around the world, there is little room for error, every day counts. Never should this happen again, as Dr. Sze Szeming China's representative said once in 1945 we must learn from mistakes, as mistakes were made in the years before World War II that were costly for China, India, North and South America, Other Asia, Africa, large population centres. 3. As was the effort then in 1946 and the early years, the effort to keep the staffing positions of leadership in the World Health Organization should be kept far from politics. Very experienced and capable people are needed from major countries with long records of public health experience and committed to the huge task, as was the vision of the founders.     ...

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Berlin's most famous hospital. Half of Germany's Nobel prize winners for medicine and physiology worked at Berlin Charite Hospital. It was setup in 1710, by 1810 it was a medical university, and today a leading world medical centre. Mr. Navalny is being treated here. It is also a centre in the fight against the pandemic.

Here DW.com gives pictures of the hospital over the 300 years of history. It was part of the controversial period in Germany in the thirties and was part of the GDR after 1945. It was part of the fight against the Ebola virus in 2005 and now leads the fight in Germany against the coronavirus, showing how Germans can play a international role that brings dignity to the German people.

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A poll by Societe Generale of investors before the ECB action on Jan 22, 2015, shows expectation of the ECB targeting a rate of 1.00-1.10 euros to the U.S. dollar. Peripheral European yields are seen as underpricing the ECB move.