LyrArc Article Gist
Some of the concern about the economy comes from the economic damage done by the coronavirus. The longer the shutdowns continue the more the damage. About 17 million have filed claims for unemployment benefits. The WSJ consensus of 57 economists is that 14.4 million jobs will be lost in coming months, and the unemployment rate will rise to a record 13% in June, from a 50 year low of 3.5% in February. The earliest the economy could go back to the level in February 2020 is 27 months says the WSJ economist survey. The brighter side of this comes in two aspects of this pandemic recovery curve. By flattening the curve and strict testing, contact tracing and isolation till the vaccine is developed about half the jobs lost can be recovered by the end of summer, says Moody's Analytics. The vaccine a year from now or in 9 months by November 2020 would allow the economy to recover faster. A more optimistic view comes from Daiwa Capital Markets which predicts many of people laid off will be recalled quickly allowing the labor market to recover in 6 months by September or October 2020. Only finance and real estate might take longer but most of the industries where the vast majority of jobs are could be back on their feet. The credible evidence supporting this perspective of a rebound comes from Colorado and Washington which require large employers to specify whether layoffs are temporary or permanent, 70% this year are temporary. Compare this to the prior 2009 recession where this figure was less than 1%- as reported by WSJ. The big push in this direction will be the $2 trillion that the Trump administration and U.S. Congress have committed to this task. Even more so is the determination of president Trump to protect American workers at all costs, that every job counts, and that businesses without exception to get the money have to show that workers are retained. The very success of the aid is being judged by how quickly people are back to work. Now for a look at where the situation is today- Oxford Economics, a UK based forecasting and consulting firm, projects 27.9 million jobs lost with industries other than those ordered to close making up 8 to 10 million of that number. It projects April's report will will capture late March layoffs. It will show cuts to 3.4 million business services workers, including lawyers, software groups, architects and consultants, advertising professionals, in addition to 1.5 million non-essential healthcare workers, 100,000 information workers. One conclusion of this report is that the virus does not discriminate across business groups and business service workers are also affected. Many companies that were hiring will cancel that move and many will cut hours worked. Many of these business services are not a priority. Hospitals are affected too, as they cut elective surgical procedures and routine care that are major revenue sources. Some are now charging for telemedicine visits to maintain some revenue stream. State and local governments employ 20 million workers. As tax receipts decline these local governments will face choices of cutting payrolls and services without enough federal government relief. In a way laying off workers and having them take unemployment benefits shifts that burden to the federal government so that services for overtime to police and paramedics, retention and deployment of nurses in schools.    ...

LyrArc Article Gist
By taking action in Venezuela in a way that benefits the Venezuelan people (and similar action in the long run interests of the Iranian people to dedicate most of the resources for development and increase share of oil revenues without discounting and removing sanctions ill effects on economy and quality of life) major new changes can improve quality of life in the world.  Venezuelan production which was 3 million barrels a day has declined to 900,000 without US investment and technological upgrades. With US investment this can be increased to put additional oil supplies on the market lost in the war with Iran and smaller traffic through the Straits of Hormuz. Venezuelan crude is best suited to US refineries which frees up shale oil for export to meet needs of India and Europe. China which had hyper growth through massive oil consumption would reduce its growth rate and its impact on climate change as it adjusts to the loss of 3 million barrels a day it no longer gets from Iran. Slower growth rate in China is good for the climate as it is the hyper growth of China that put the most pressure on climate even as Europe and the US had cut  fossil fuels consumption over the last decade. China made 2 coal plants a week and 95% of all new global coal construction in 2023. India needs additional oil supplies as it increases its growth rate from a much lower point of development (and electricity poverty) than China. By simply settling for normal development compared to hyper development targets( China has reached a point of Oil Fairness Percentage where each country gets to use the same percentage of oil as its population is as a percentage of world population- the number being about 17% for China for both, with the number being 18% for India and it having a shortfall of 12% based on its oil consumption being only 6% of the world total). China can reduce oil and coal consumption reducing pressure on oil prices and absorbing most of the impact from the loss of Iranian oil. China and Russia + (old Soviet territory) Canada, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, make up about 40% of the world's territorial landmass, would be large beneficiaries with improved climatic conditions from burning less coal. They are now highly developed countries and do not need hyper growth which requires China to build 2 coal plants a week and consume excessive amounts of crude oil and coal based on artificially set targets that make no sense by destroying the climate when no child in China lacks electricity to read. Marathon Philipps Valero with over half a million barrels of refining capacity for heavy Venezuelan crude can now put this to use using the imports by US of lower priced (by $9 to Brent crude) Venezuelan crude oil. In a few months of 2025 US has imported 280,000 barrels a day of Venezuelan crude in February 2026 alone some of it going to the large Valero refinery in Port Arthur, Texas. American oil refiners make larger margins using the Venezuelan crude than they make on light crude from shale oil producers in the US. What this does is to increase the supply of crude and refined oil products on the market as the light crude get shipped overseas to India and Europe- including countries like Spain which took in 100,000 barrels a day of shale crude from US in February 2026. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
This article in the New Yorker questions the judgement of CEO Reginald Jones in picking Jack Welch as CEO of General Electric in 1981. Over two decades Welch fired many of the company's employees, and built up the finance business with GE Capital, resulting in the near collapse of the company in the financial crisis of 2009. Welch's legacy happened during the period Reagan took office in 1980 when Welch was made new CEO and covers that period for three decades of the Reagan and post Reagan years that led to a period of deindustrialization of America as financial and speculative business took the place of manufacturing. Factories were shipped out to China and other countries and America lost its industrial base. It is only now that the damage done is being addressed as under president Biden GE Vernova is building turbines for energy and is called a purpose company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to accelerate the transition to clean energy. The other part new CEO Larry Culp heads as head of GE Aerospace, two separate companies. In 2018 it was taken off the Dow Jones Averages. This is a story that is true, and one that did great damage to America and the American people, to its workers and families, to it's factories and it's infrastructure. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
China's strategy appears to be to allow the transfer of TikTok ownership to an American consortium and focus it's efforts on renegotiating the 30% tariff on China and China's response of 10% on the US. China is making an effort to protect industries in China that have surplus production. China wants DJT to meet Xi for a Summit in Beijing instead of South Korea as the US has suggested. And Xi  offers to make a visit to Washington DC to improve relations. Scott Bessent and the USTR Greer in negotiations  with the Chinese trade negotiator Vice Premier of Economic Policy, He Lifeng, in Madrid, have come up with an agreement. The US COngress has passed legislation requiring the sale of TikTok to US owners because of sensitive information issues. China now reversed its policy in April when it opposed this as it now sees little advantage in that policy and can concentrate on better trade terms from DJT. A stumbling block is the flow of fentanyl for which DJT imposed 20% of the 30% tariff on China, the other 10% being standard for all countries. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
This objective look at the situation of Black Americans comes from a American -Jamaican. Educated in the West Indies and in Britain, Patterson is able to bring another perspective to look what has happened and what is the way forward. Here he is interviewed by the Harvard Gazette. Patterson is a professor of sociology at Harvard. A separate Saturday Essay by Orlando Patterson appears in the Wall Street Journal on June 6, 2020. Patterson points out that the big problem is de-ghettoization is not happening. Progress is not about integration first, it is about successful de-ghettoization taking place first, says Patterson.  And here he faults white liberals for not putting their money where their mouth is. For this to happen black families have to be able to move into suburbs. Strict zoning laws and limits to building moderately priced housing in some of the most liberal parts of the country keep out families wanting to move to the suburbs.  It is the social contact even side by side in suburbs with a leap in quality of housing and neighborhoods, schools, that can change people's own perceptions of themselves and their interactions with the communities around them. A lot of whites Patterson says have liberal views but when it comes down to making the concessions needed to make black lives better they are not willing to do that.   Patterson offers his own experience in Britain walking down a street in Cambridge. He lived on Trowbridge Street. He enjoyed walking through the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. And while walking he observed the easy interaction of black kids and white kids, and realized how different this was from the 1960's and 1970's. Having this sort of interaction comes from a more integrated setting, so that people grow up not having that awkwardness or lacking social contact.      ...

LyrArc Article Gist
This American asks how U.S. president Obama would feel if he found out that German intelligence agencies were monitoring his mobile phone for years even before he became president.

LyrArc Article Gist
WSJ on how America's political establishment lied about Covid's real origins in a Lab in Wuhan, China, after some in the American scientific community ignored prudent warnings about possible accidental release, and sent the virus from the US lab to a lab in Wuhan that was not fully prepared to handle it. In reality the Biden administration erred when it did not conduct an open assessment of what had happened, because this would have earned and kept the people's trust instead of dividing the country into vaccine believers and vaccine unbelievers.  Sections of the virologist community in the US and in China that promoted such research against the advice of others in the scientific community could have accepted their error with humility. The people of Asia have made great advances in this century- some call it the Asian century- great advances in manufacturing and in science. Yet they are not so fragile, the people in the Buddha lands and the land of Gandhi are not not so fragile that they could not accept that what they had achieved was on the shoulders of what hundreds of European scientists and inventors had done over three centuries since 1700. And that there was much to learn. The Chinese people and government can look with great self-respect for what they had achieved in the last 100 years not to need the condescension of the virologist community.  In a sense this divided the US people's perceptions of China, with half of the country skeptical about the virologist community's explanations accepted by the Biden administration. This was not in any way good for China and the Chinese people. In fact one can say that by handling this with an open mind would have clearly built more trust in China-US relations, and that China- US relations reached the lowest during the end of the Biden administration point with the Balloons incident. And recovered afterwards to this point of mutual respect under a frank president with candor and respect. This vaccine blunder also created further culture wars conflicts around the US, to ones based on race, LGBTQ, and other less consequential matters than the deindustrialization and loss of America's manufacturing base and its best jobs in huge numbers under the watch of Bush and Obama administrations, and their followers in the Republican and Democratic parties. What happened is that the country was split on race, gender, immigration, and belief in Christian values. Issues such as nuclear non proliferation (Iran) presented in ways that adversely affect the US. by calling it something else. In all such issues honesty is the best policy, dealing in a straight forward manner wiht the public is the best course, for reasons that are timeless and well recognized. Failure to do so on the part of the Elites only creates distrust of official explanations by the people of America. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Ram Ramadorai of Tata Consultancy Services talks about his cross cultural experiences setting up the American offices of TCS in New York, his interest in western classical music, his love of reading, and taking long walks by the ocean in Mumbai with his wife who is a vocalist. His years at UCLA getting a Masters degree in Computer Science, making his first trip to Los Angeles from India in 1969. How he joined NCR as a programmer testing codes for computers. Being a fan of the UCLA Bruins. His return to India in 1972 and joining TCS as a programmer in Mumbai. How he found amentor in TCS founder Faqir Chand Kolhi. He has helped the company grow to where it now has 130,000 employees. He travels 6 months of the year and he says his wife often travels with him.

LyrArc Article Gist
Southwest pioneered lower cost domestic travel under founder CEO Kelleher. It did not charge fees for checking in bags and seats were not assigned. This model is now being questioned as baggage fees are generating $1.3 billion at American, $1.2 billion at United and $1 billion at Delta Airlines. Even a smaller airline like Spirit generates $1 billion from baggage fees. Additional sources of income are passengers charged for seat selection. Southwest generates about $70 million from baggage fees and does not charge for seat selection. Southwest sees not charging for baggage as part of its culture and current management is not changing the status quo.

Other problems are that Boeing can deliver only a fourth of the plane Southwest ordered. As a result the airline is facing a crisis and Eliott Investment Management now owning 11% of the company is pushing for change including ouster of the CEO and the Board.

LyrArc Article Gist
Two statements by Republican leaders in Congress show the seriousness with which they are approaching the issue of hacking by Russia during the U.S. presidential election of 2016. Senator Mitch McConell: "The Russians are not our friends, we need to approach all these on the assumption the Russians do not wish us well," strongly condemning the hacking. Rep. Paul Ryan: "As I've said before, any foreign intervention in our elections is entirely unacceptable. And any intervention by Russia is especially problematic because, under President Putin, Russia has been an aggressor and undermines American interests."

LyrArc Article Gist
Elected to the Politburo in 1980, Gorbachev became president of USSR in 1985. In the six year period to 1991 he launched a movement to free the USSR from the rigid constraints of communist party rule called Perestroika to improve productivity, freedoms and quality of life. He came from a peasant family with Ukrainian origins and was born in 1931 during the period of upheaval in Russia. The rapid removal of Soviet rule was something Russia was not able to adapt to in the early years with no experience in democratic process. By 2000 after drop in life expectancy and fall in the standard of living Mr. Putin emerged as president.  Russia's economy recovered under Putin's three terms till the miscalculations in the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, that were itself a result of a sense that Russia had lost something with the fall of the Soviet Union and the advancement of NATO and the European Union. Gorbachev's sense in his memoirs was that Russia would do best under democracy. Even in 2017 he wrote that Russia and its people were "ready for a real multiparty system, fair elections and a regular rotation of government." Yet he was too much of an optimist and not enough hands on to grasp that Russia was a large economy and safeguards had to be put in place for the rule of law to prevent lawless elements that could control companies, safeguards for the vulnerable sections of society such as pensioners and older people, and limited self government through elected assemblies and parliaments were needed for a decade before democracy to take roots. Gorbachev's knowledge of American and British democracies, constitutions and parliaments and their evolution over centuries was non existent, with little contact and education of this sort under the Czar or Soviets. The democracies in Germany and Japan were established with American power and extensive education, the Marshall Plan, and unlimited imports by the US from Japan to prevent economic catastrophes of the kind experienced by the Weimar Republic in Germany in the 1920's. No plan from western aid and assistance, limited self government of the people was introduced as training ground as in India. In India the British introduced limited self-government or Swaraj in the 1930's with elected assemblies in Indian states, in the pattern of Dominion states such as Canada and Australia. Mohandas Gandhi negotiated the rights of indentured Indians in South Africa in this arrangement and studied British law and constitutions. This led to the catastrophic failure of the rule of law in Russia after 1979, lawless elements emerging under Yeltsin  that controlled companies and the state, high unemployment, failure of the economy, and drop in life expectancy between 1979 and 2005. How this led to the Putin years and now led to the war in Ukraine is covered in more detail under the Lyrarc article on Gorbachev and how he is seen in Germany. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The question whether the source of the coronavirus that led to deaths of more than 1 million Americans is a lab leak at a Wuhan lab in China is still being checked. The Energy Department says that with  "low confidence" it emerged from a lab leak at Wuhan, China. Earlier in 2021 the FBI stated that it was the result of a lab leak not a natural transmission. The Energy Department runs many labs doing research in the field. Petroleum exports supported the allied war effort in two world wars says this report in the WSJ. Europe is shunning Russian oil after its invasion of Ukraine.

LyrArc Article Gist
This interview with Donald Trump by the publisher, editors and columnists of The Washington Post, Ryan Jr., Hiatt, Lane, Marcus, Diehl, Armai, Attiah, provides an exceptional insight into the views of Donald Trump on domestic and foreign policy, on his campaign for president. It is the result of an effort to get Trump to state his policies on different issues without the fuzziness in which Trump has carried out his campaign, often taking different sides of the same issue. In some situations Trump is pressed hard on his positions or controversial statements, to clarify what he has not clarified in the burst of media attention Trump received in the past 6 months, especially on television media. First some myths and realities. A recent March 19, 2016, issue of the Economist cites the Pew Trust in showing that only about 17% of eligible Republican voters voted in the primaries. A person watching television news media coverage on Fox News, CNN, or MSNBC, would get the impression that the voter turnout was tremendous- this is not confirmed by the Pew Trust survey. The Economist points out that had the other eligible voters cast their ballots and even if Trump had a share of these votes, the results might look different. With a highly fragmented vote in the Republican primaries, and about half of the vote going to candidates other than Trump, Trump's voter support would add up to about 8-9% of eligible Republican voters based on the Pew Survey results. The question here would be is this a representative sample of the U.S. or of the Republican Party. And is one likely to make false generalizations about the nature of the Republican party from such a limited sample of voter opinion. Is voter sentiment inadequately reflected, and results hopelessly skewed because of the lack of good candidates in the Republican Party, and Trump's tactical rhetoric appealing to a group of working class Americans left out in the technological progress of the last decade. In the process is the hard work of the founders of the Republic, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison and the framers of the Constitution being undone by a minority of disaffected voters with legitimate grievances on distribution of economic benefits of the technological progress, trade and global manufacturing networks- with a level of divisive rhetoric and decline in levels of public debate rarely seen. These are the clarifications sought from Trump and his response. Attiah raises the question of divisive rhetoric on minorities Hispanics and Black people- Trump says he is only talking about people here illegally, that he gets support from Hispanics here legally. He turns the question to Muslims and says there is a serious problem there that means being careful about how people are being admitted into the U.S. Questions about Trump's controversial statements about a wall with Mexico are not raised. Ryan pushes hard on the question of the libel laws standard that Trump says he is going to change, asking whether this would happen if Trump thinks the reporting "is wrong" but there is no malice. Trump wants the reporting to be fair for him, that reporters call him to check if he did this or that and why, before writing stuff about him, and he sees the reporting from the Post as very bad about him. He says his lawyers would have to tell the media, that he believes he should loosen up the standards so that this kind of coverage does not continue. On ISIS Trump pulls back when asked by Diehl about statements that suggested he would send the number of troops the generals wanted on the ground- estimated at 20,000 to 30,000- saying he would find it very, very, difficult to do that. On a nuclear option for ISIS Trump says he does not favor that. Suggesting that Trump like the other candidates in the election know there are no easy ways to tackle ISIS. Trump would rely on other countries in the region for help with troops on the ground, something that president Obama also favors, with limited results. Diehl also pushes hard on NATO- Trump says hundreds of billions of dollars are going to NATO and the whole burden for defending South Korea falls on the U.S. when it is not now a rich country that it once was. Diehl corrects him by saying for the public record that its not hundreds of billions, and South Korea, Japan pay 50% of the cost for defending their region. Trump wants to see 100% for the Korean peninsula defense borne by the South Koreans and Japan. Trump seees NATO as a good concept but needing more help from Germany, Poland, Baltics. At one point the Washington Post journalists tell Trump this is a position he shares with president Obama. Trump responds to questions from Hiatt about how he would handle the situations in black communities such as Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore, Maryland. Trump says he feels law enforcement is important and should play a big role in preventing the destruction of property from day one. He says jobs are what hurts inner cities but offers no solution about how to get the jobs lost in the steel industry for Baltimore, black neighborhoods sitting ironically next to the John Hopkins high technology university complex. Trump brings up the response that jobs could be created if the U.S. simply did not spend money on supporting nationbuilding overseas, a policy that president Obama has supported, and which the public has favored in the U.S. As Holman Jenkins brings up in a column on March 22, 2016 in the Wall Street Journal, these policies are being pursued today, and most of these jobs are not coming back so how would Trump bring them back or do anything about it, especially when Chinese workers in China's factories are being displaced by robotics in places such as Hon Hai factories. The more one thinks about it many of things Trump is saying are already being done, and there are no new solutions Mr. Trump has for today's problems of lack of upward mobility for the middle and working class- a priority for Sanders and Clinton also, not just for Trump. As a television personality and a candidate with a understanding of voter concerns, Trump artfully voices voter concerns of working class Americans for problems that defy easy solutions. Are there risks with Trump's approach that Trump has failed to think through or grasp? Does the unpredictable behaviour Trump suggests that would get allies thinking and trade partners responding lead to unpredictable consequences? Divisive rhetoric creates additional distractions in tackling the problems of the middle class and working class Americans. Divisive rhetoric within the NATO alliance would create additional distractions in tackling the problems of defending the European Union, such as using the very show of unpredictability. Diehl pushes Trump on this question. Would trade threats to China lead to a withdrawal from the Senkaku Islands by China? Trump says he thinks this would cause the Chinese to retreat . What if the Chinese see it differently, in their relations with Japan and South Korea, with a long difficult history, not necessarily in their relations with the U.S. Would a trade war hurt the global economy, and hurt confidence in U.S. fianncial markets just when the U.S. and European economies are staging a recovery, and when the economes of China, Japan and India are in a sensitive phase? These questions could not be raised because of time constraints, but must be on the minds of the editors of the Post and the WSJ, coming from different ends of the political spectrum. How would this help tackle the problem of upward mobility for working class Americans that all the candidates in the presidential election share? ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Till 1997 there was a limit on how many and what drug ads could be placed on television. During the year Bill Clinton was president  the US Food and Drug Administration under Acting Commissioner Michael Friedman is reported by the WSJ as opening up American television for a flood of drug advertising that is damaging for the Nation's health leading to overuse of drugs in the US for three decades. 31% of ads on US evening television news programs are from drug brands in 2024. DJT said while appointing RFK Jr as Secretary of Health and Human Services- Drugmakers and  big food companies, “have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation.” RFK Jr. says- "We are one of only two countries in the world that allow pharmaceutical companies to advertise directly to consumers on television. US and New Zealand. Everybody agrees it is a bad idea. Not surprisingly, Americans consume more pharmaceutical products than anyone else on the planet. As I said earlier on my first day in office I will issue an executive order banning pharmaceutical advertising on television." ...

LyrArc Article Gist
There is a sense of cognitive dissonance in the states of former East Germany, known as the GDR or German Democratic Republic in the Soviet Union period from 1950's to 1990. The 5 states that formed the GDR continued to build close ties with Russia after the fall of the Berlin Wall, in the perception that this would build good long term relations. The crisis in Ukraine with border states of the Soviet Union opting in favor of close ties with the European Union and not Russia have disrupted the economic relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and Russia. As long as Russia needed the economic ties to build its economy and standard of living the political issues posed by NATO expansion and EU expansion were set aside by Putin and political parties within Russia. The very ties that were supposed to usher in an era of peace in Europe helped strengthen the Russian and Chinese economies. Leading to a point where these two economies were strong enough by 2021 in the midst of the waning pandemic to  assert themselves on political issues where serious differences existed such as expansion of NATO and Taiwan. When the economic relations such as making China a manufacturing powerhouse  was the path taken by American and European business in 1990's, business interests were focused on the declining quality and high wages demanded by unions and workers in the US and Germany. This could be personally witnessed at Apple's factory in Colorado Springs where quality was failing badly in the 1990's. Apple when Steve Jobs returned in 1997 adopted a China manufacturing strategy when its manufacturing operations in the US failed to deliver the quality and cost structure needed for it to expand. The high margins with low costs of manufacturing in China was the strategy adopted by Steve Jobs to compete with Microsoft and turbocharge its expansion. Soon other companies followed. A similar process happened in economic ties with Russia on a smaller scale. Two decades of such expansion whittled down American manufacturing, hurt American workers, hurt European manufacturing and European workers.  This process could not continue- yellow vest protests in France, the protest vote in US midwestern states in recent elections, the protest votes in German elections and fragmentation of parties, made this clear. The US imposed trade tariffs on Chinese products and moved to restrict flow of technologies to China under the Trump administration, accelerated by the Biden administration. President Xi was once of the view that China's ties with the US were important "thousand fold" in the period as late as 2010. Yet this lopsided trade relationship was not beneficial to American workers or American interests as a technologically advanced leader. It is true that American workers and engineers at Apple had failed to ensure American quality competitiveness in the 1980's into 1990's, yet no advanced country or its business can come up with a false narrative that cedes its manufacturing leadership and jobs for the working class of its country. That false narrative is being challenged today by Mr. Biden, Mr. Scholz, and all American and German political parties, and by Mr. Modi with Atman Nirbhar Bharat for local manufacturing. The integration one sees of the port of Hamburg as Chinese export hub with China's economy is one aspect of what has happened. A new leadership is taking its place in Europe and in America that sees clearly the false narrative. The visit of the new Danish prime minister to India is the beginning of the effort to set up a new logistics relationship with South and South East Asia, as Denmark's Maersk is a world leader in shipping logistics for exports and manufacturing. The planned Noida logistics center outside of New Delhi under Gati Shakti integrated development is part of the change happening today as a new supply chain is being built. The unwinding of the one sided trade relationship with China, and its related relationship on energy with Russia, led to the changing perception in Russia and China of the value of the relationship. Political relations superseded economic and cultural relations during Putin's second phase and Xi's second phase with assertive attitudes on NATO, and on Hong Kong, Taiwan under Xi and Putin 2.0. As could be expected Germany and the US were caught flat footed as leaders who were cast in the mold of Putin as a Soviet representative in Dresden, and Xi with his father leading the Communist struggle in the 1930's and 1940's against Chiangkaishek, acted in ways that reflected the Soviet period. Chiang left for Taiwan in 1948 when Mao-tse-tung setup the People's Republic of China. Taiwan and Hong Kong remained important in the perceptions of Xi 2.0, in the effort to build "China Dream" and erase last vestiges of what in Soviet times were seen as western colonialism. US and EU particularly Business and the new IT telecom Business failed to grasp these matters, and historical events such as the opium wars of the 1850's. Business and cultural interests lacked both the inclination to learn and the knowledge of these events in Chinese history and its relations with colonial powers Britain and Japan, and also Russia. In 1900 the Boxer rebellion against ceding Chinese ports to colonial powers Britain, Japan, Russia, ended with permanent colonial settlements in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tsingtao, other Chinese ports. Chinese rejuvenation in the mind of leaders such as Xi from the second generation of Communist leadership, means putting this behind, leading to the action taken in Hong Kong. In some ways as some observers have commented it is as much a problem of the sluggishness of American and European thinking, particularly business interests including in Taiwan, post British Hong Kong, and ignorance of recent Chinese history which was mistakenly thought not to exist or forgotten. This is as much of a problem as the action taken by Putin and moves by Xi Jinping. The great democracies such as India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, were ignored as American and European business interests integrated the American and German economies with China's. In terms of population the population of these regions and related parts of South East Asia such as Malaysia and Vietnam which have a shared cultural history is about 1.5 times the population of China. Travelling through the parts of India's largest state Uttar Pradesh, an Madhya Pradesh one finds how much American and European business interests have failed both their own interests, their own workers and failed the great democracies of the world, by not only not investing in the democracies of Asia, and also of Africa and Latin America and bought into a narrative of China which no longer holds true and may never have been true all along. This is starkly evident in a once in a century pandemic in these great democracies of the world. These democracies have been left to fend for themselves during the pandemic and their leaders facing false narratives in the media such as the BBC and American media outlets even on issues such as vaccination of the largest part of the world's people.           ...

LyrArc Article Gist
10% tariff on Canada's exports to the US after Ontario Reagan ad misrepresenting trade facts is aired on television. The ad seeks to show US tariffs in the light of the Smoot Hawley tariffs of the 1930's, when the tariffs today date back to Reagan's use of tariffs when Asian partners (at that time Japan in the 1980's) followed unfair trade practices to the detriment of American workers and industry. The US Trade Representative who acted for Reagan was Lighthizer, the same USTR who worked for DJT in the first term to fight the unfair trading practices of China, and whose deputy USTR Jamieson is now the USTR in DJT second term negotiating with Asian partners. Tariffs ae being used as an additional tookl in the toolbox by DJT and Lighthizer/Jamieson to counter the unfair trading practices of other nations, which includes partners of the US such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and EU. It also includes nations such as Switzerland who ignored US interests in trade whie having open access to the US market. Most of these nations know that these practices harmful to world trade exist, only Canada, China and some other countries have pretended they do not exist and they are the so called "champions of free trade." These nations attempt to make DJT appear to be doing this on whim when this is an issue in trade relations between the US and Asian partners, the EU, and Canada/Mexico for the last 50 years. DJT pointed this out- “The sole purpose of this FRAUD was Canada’s hope that the United States Supreme Court will come to their “rescue” on Tariffs that they have used for years to hurt the United States,” Mr. Trump said in a social media post Saturday afternoon. “Because of their serious misrepresentation of the facts, and hostile act, I am increasing the Tariff on Canada by 10% over and above what they are paying now. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Juarez, the city across from El Paso, has done well in the last 10 months with 27,000 jobs added in the maquiladoras. These foreign owned factories continue to attract business interest even with a drug war raging in the background. The reason is that Juarez connects straight to American Interstate highways and this makes it possible to deliver goods in 3-4 weeks in some cases from the time of order compared to 10 weeks for China. And wages can run as low as $4.21 an hour. Companies get incentives in the tax treatment and worker training is supported by the local government.

LyrArc Article Gist
Rationing of energy would happen if Russia completely cuts off gas supplies to Europe. Prices would essentially become meaningless, says this report. Supplies coming through Ukraine are limited to 18% with the rest of the 38% Russia supplies to European Union coming through other countries or new pipelines. LNG supplies from the US are increasing but not enough infrastructure has been built for this. This may explain also why Russia is acting now on NATO enlargement that it sees as its concern. Increasing shift to LNG and other supplies would make EU less dependent on Russia. NATO countries are also not spending enough on defense with Germany not yet at 2% and Scholz only going up to 1.5%. Russia has modernized its defense capabilities by comparison, the US mired too much in localized wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Russia was never "a regional power" as Mr. Obama had said with a vague understanding of European history, even while America's resources were wasted in two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq where American interests were not involved. Today the realization is that European Union and American leadership had failed under leadership of Merkel, Macron and in the Bush and Obama years. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Senior Republicans Wicker and McConnell both push for the putting pieces of the defense puzzle in place so that American can offer leadership to the world in the 21st century. Biden has put pieces of the puzzle on the economic front, these are the pieces in defense and security. On D-Day 80 senior Republican leader Mitch McConnell cautions against the lethargy of so called left parties and the isolationist tendencies of so called right parties. He says America should put preparedness first, that the better part of valor is to build credible defenses before they are necessary so that American leadership is not doubted further as it has been before. He commends the plan put forward by Roger Wicker in the US Congress Senate Armed Services Committee. The plan calls for raising defense spending to about 5% from 2.9% now over 5-7 years, with $55 billion more in 2025. Wicker says the military has a backlog of $180 billion just for maintenance. For the Navy 357 new ships by 2035, for the Air Force 340 additional fighters. This in light of China's additions and in light of the Russian economy being put into a position for a long term conflict with NATO over Ukraine.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Anti Immigration sentiment is not new - it has just changed racial stereotypes from arguing against southern and eastern Europeans and barring Asians for "quality" in 1890-1970 to today's heated debates about Latin American nationalities.  Pew Research ( and the adjoining MPI) show highly relevant US Immigration history. Pew Research shows the foreign born share of the American population is at 13.8 percent. It reached 14.8% percent by 1890,  brought down in the interwar period by 1970 to 5 percent. It has gone back up- the wave of immigration blocked from successive Acts keeping out Chinese (1882), Japanese (1924) and all Asians(1924) has changed to include Asian migration under policies of John F. Kennedy. Pew Research shows in 2022  10.6 million immigrants living in the US were born in Mexico, making up 23% of all immigrants. This is 3.2% of the US population of 335 million in 2024 according to the Census Bureau. The promise of president Harris to sign the legislation negotiated with Republicans in Congress (Senator Lankford) in March to close the Border would remove this distraction from cost of living, housing, and climate challenges. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The takeaway from Calgary to go big and go bold applies to American cities. Calgary's downtown like many downtowns in large cities in the US had about 30% vacant office space. The 2014 oil price crash had already hit the city before the pandemic hit. Calgary responded with a plan to convert 6 million square feet of vacant office space into apartments. Developers were to be given $75 per square foot as an incentive out of a $200 million fund setup by the city. Calgary is now a fourth of the way through this transformation after getting broad community buy-in and support. Permitting process is less than 2 months.

LyrArc Article Gist
India makes the largest deal for commercial aircraft in aviation history by buying 470 planes from Airbus and Boeing. 250 Airbus jets and 220 Boeing airplanes. American Airlines ordered 460 planes in 2011. WSJ says based on list prices the Boeing orders is for $45.9 billion and the total order is for $85 billion. The White House announced the Boeing deal. The Airbus deal was announced by pm Modi and France's president Macron. The purchase was made by Air India. India is now the fastest growing aviation market in the world.

Airbus increased deliveries by 6%, and Boeing by 41% in 2022, as air travel and aircraft sales increased following the pandemic.

LyrArc Article Gist
American viewing habits are changing quickly. Streaming services and cable TV are now at the point where streaming has 34% of viewers and cable TV has 34% of viewers. Streaming is growing at the rate of 22% a year and cable TV is declining at 9% a year. Broadcast TV has 21% of viewers and is declining at 10% a year. Streaming services are You Tube, Reuters for news events and entertainment streaming is done by Netflix, Apple TV and Amazon.

This means fewer and fewer viewers will follow the news channels, such as MSNBC, Fox News, ABC, CBS and more will be communicated on You Tube and internet news services.

LyrArc Article Gist
Another significant development in this crisis, is how small businesses got addicted to credit card debt as a way to operate for ongoing expenses of the small business, from a small nursery, to abed and breakfast or a solo law practice. There are an estimated 27.2 million small businesses who are supposed to be one of the growth engines of the economy. Credit card debt when banks are tightening up credit and businesses are unable to meet expenses, is extremely costly because of the underlying usurious nature of the industry in the US and lax regulation. It will only push more businesses, that have acquired the bad habit of credit cards to finance operations, into bankruptcy. There were 5 million business credit cards in 2000. By 2009 after Visa Inc, American Express Co, and MasterCard Inc. and Discover Financial Services Inc. pushed these cards aggressively, using a new credit scoring system that looked less at the business and more at personal credit scores, the number jumped six fold to what Nilsen Reports estimates as 29 million business credit cards. The spending on these cards jumped for this period four fold, from $70 billion to $296 billion. As the average debt on each credit card jumped so did the likelihood of some of these card holders difficulties. Missed payments could lead to interest rates for some card holders jumping to 30+% from initial rates of 7-8%, all in the last 12 months. This makes small businesses less likely to create the jobs they created in the past, and one more troublespot in this economy....

LyrArc Article Gist
To president Joe Biden the Democrats instincts of FDR and Truman, with the focus on building better lives for workers and families, comes naturally. Biden takes the Democratic Party back to what it was in the 1930's to the 1960's. Just today the Labor Department showed 336,000 jobs added and the unemployment rate steady at 3.8% for 2 years, 32 months of jobs growth. Brooks offers a clue on how this is happening- president Biden has aggressively directed American capital and resources to where it is needed most, in counties red or blue where economic growth has suffered in the past. Yet 57% of people polled cited by Brooks say the economy is in poor shape. There are another 14 months to go and the economy will get even stronger with the capital allocation and Biden economic policies of Build Better and America First. Workers and families will see real and tangible improvements in their lives in 2024.