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What has happened that makes it so hard for Democrats Biden who stood on a picket line for the UAW autoworkers union, Harris fighting for workers, that they cannot easily convince workers that they are on their side? It is because compared to 1980 not the lowest income groups but the "downwardly mobile" white and other groups without college degrees have taken the brunt of the loss of manufacturing jobs. It is why the "zero-sum" stories of the former president have appeal to some workers who have lost the most from deindustrialization of the US. Even though Biden, and Harris, have fought hard and are putting in place the policies for the fight to reindustrialize America by taking old plants and modernizing them one by one across the country. No one has ever done this before including years in which the former president was in office. In these visual graphs it is easy to see the sharp decline in incomes and status in society of workers without college degrees as the economy changed after 1980 sending steel, auto and other industries to Asia. By 2024 these workers lives had been upended by the loss of these industries and the hope for income and place in society that existed in 1980. Every US president from Reagan through Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump had failed to address this. Biden was the first president to take this up but too much has happened with to reverse this in 4 years, the pandemic, inflation from loss of supply chains to Asia, and wages not keeping up with cost of living.  NYT's Badger, Gebeloff and Bhatia show analysis of the economy, incomes and jobs in 1980 vs the economy, incomes and jobs in 2024 for persons with a college degree and without a college degree.It shows the sharp differences in the eastern Midwestern states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania over 4 decades of job losses, loss of income status and self worth for men without college degrees. With their jobs in manufacturing disappearing also disappearing was the middle class lifestyle- of owning a house, having a cottage or boat in the countryside, and sending kids to college. ...

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Problems and opportunities for Air France -KLM as it tries toacquire Al Italia.

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Apple CEO Cook's blue collar roots in Alabama. He says he has worked at an aluminium factory in Virginia and a paper factory in Alabama, and grew up spending a lot of time in factories. Cook was hired by Steve Jobs to fix Apple's manufacturing operations after Jobs rejoined the company in 1997. At that time Apple's manufacturing plants had serious quality problems and high levels of rework in plants, and Apple had high levels of inventory. Cook was largely responsible for the new manufacturing setup at Apple. Jobs did not get it into the details of manufacturing- being more interested in the design aspects of the product- and people close to Apple say Jobs rarely visited Apple plants. This gives Cook greater credibility as Apple tries to change the way its products are made in China. Under Cook Apple has joined the Fair Labor Association and initiated FLA inspections of Foxconn plants making Apple products.

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Ellen Barry's interview with Yogi Nagendra in which Nagendra talks about meditation yoga and how it is practiced in India. Nagendra has known prime minister Modi since 1984 and has provided 4 yoga meetings to Mr. Modi and his ministers in Gujarat when he was Chief Minister of the state, till today as prime minister. This Yoga concentrates on meditation and tries to calm the mind as described in the Kena Upanishad (the classics of the Indian philosophy of Vedanta which form the basis of Yoga).

"The eye does not go there, nor speech, nor the mind. It is different from what is known, and what is unknown."

It is through constant and repeated practice that this meditation yoga can through concentration and yearning help one to reach a level of calmness that is a form of samadhi. Samadhi produces a level of calm and serenity mostly unknown to man.

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Ted Forstmann thinks we are in the second innings , and just at the beginning of the pain that will happen as the country tries to clear up the financial mess from easy money and errrors of the financial industry, pain that will lead to the overhaul of the country and the economy. The crisis taht started in October 2007 is just making its way in the early stages and expect a lot more to happen. He has a story that he was told by Warren Buffett about a country and an economy like ours that first there are the innovators, then there are the imitators, and last there are the idiots who enter the scene. This is what happened here. The ofcourse a lot of stupidity takes place. Curiously he does not find fault with anybody, not Greenspan who did not seee the consequences of a to easy monetary policy, not the financial industry that got us into this bind, or the consumer who borrowed heavily.

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Business Week tries a new idea. After 2 years of quiet development Business Week develops the Business Exchange as it calls it. It will have topic pages with topics like the 787 Dreamliner, Blackberry vs. Iphone, and so on. At this time publications are trying a lot of things like verticals, aggregation, user-generated content, popularity rankings, and also something like social networks. Each Business Exchange topic page links to articles and Blog posts from many sources including BW's competitors, with the contents updated automatically by a web crawler. Nearly all traditional news organizations offer only their own content, not taking on the role of an aggregator considering that as an invitation to readers to leave their websites. On Business Exchange a user can create a new page, choosing subject and title and brief introductory description, it would take 24 hours to get permission from BW for this. Objectionable posts would be taken down. Users can also post new material to a topic page. ...

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People are looking at their neighbors and in their neighborhood, and at their friends. If someone loses a job, it influences how they respond. They read things in the print media, and see people leading frugal lifestyles and tips on how to save, how to grow your ownvegetables and save here and save there for children's tutions and for arainy day. In this way even those who have secure jobs and good incomes are changing their lifestyle and how they look at things. They are also not likey to believe anything anybody says about things getting better, until they see things are different in their neighborhoods. It also makes sense to be frugal, especially after the overspending and bad habits of previous years. There may be a yearning to go back to frugal and responsible ways of their parents and their grandparents, the memories and the stories they heard from childhood may still be alive and a return to these ways seen as desirable behaviours. In this way frugal and thrift can become a lifestyle of many people in this country....

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Kazakhstan tries to get a bigger share from the oil companies drilling in its territory.

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The concerns over far right parties expelling immigrants in states such as Thuringia has caused a wave of protests across Germany including Berlin and other cities in January 2024. It is also impacting the East where anti immigrant sentiment is based. Germany has a shortage of workers in parts of Germany that formed the Federal Republic before reunification- immigrants fill these gaps. The East has not been the success story it was supposed to be because reunification of the Federal Republic and the GDR (Communist East Germany around Leipzig and East Berlin) led to a flight of young people to the western parts for jobs and opportunities. Leading to a mostly older and retired population in the east -leaving it struggling and feeling unwanted. This is the background of the anti immigrant sentiment in the east where there are far fewer immigrants than in the western and central regions. Resentment about being ignored as settled around the immigrant issue in the east even as Germany has benefitted through some of the middle class educated immigrants from Turkey and from Ukraine, and Syria. Similar resentment has taken place in parts of England in the north which led to fear of immigrants being used by Tories party leading to Brexit. In a similar way in France in the north, and in the US with neglect of rural areas and factory communities in the east and midwest. The communities that were left out that have made choices with far right as in Britain have ended up with leaders from immigrant families that have accomplished little or much in the reverse direction for the English people in the north. The leaders of Germany, Britain, the US, the Nordic countries such as Denmark, and gradually in France have learned that it is right to go back to their roots, that they had forgotten where they came from and are now fighting for the dignity of workers (Schulz), standing in picket lines for the autoworkers (Biden), and following the Biden example in the UK (Starmer). With it comes the realization that this started with the Thatcher and Reagan era that created the conditions and culture that were repeatedly embraced by Democrats in the US, Labor in Britain and Social Democrats in Germany alike leading to financial crises and levels of inequality and lack of educational opportunity not seen since the Great Depression. With it by 2024 comes the unwinding of the economics and culture of the Reagan era. Even in China and India the shift is away from that culture as the economies of these countries with half of humanity are shifted to serve a broad base and to include rural, agricultural and other parts of the population. It shows that the educated parts of the population in these countries have the ability to create the conditions that in Lincoln's words are for the people, by the people, of the people, for a brighter future, if only they will try hard enough for their children's and grand children's sake.  ...

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Vote rigging and other problems in Nigerian state elections, as the outgoing government tries to stay in power.

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Volvo tries to win younger crowd with ads showing young couples having fun rather than families and safety.

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Full time workers in Sweden have the right to take leave for 6 months to do something they want to do, including starting a new business. This includes taking care of a relative or study leave. Workers can come back after 6 months to resume their old job. Employers cannot say no except for special reasons.  This leave has the support of employers, unions and the government. In Sweden's unique culture which emphasizes work-life balance workers taking 6 month leave of absence can get back to their old jobs smoothly.  In Sweden it is very hard to fire an employee who is permanent. So that once an employee has permanent status there is very little incentive to leave to do something else. The 6 month leave option lets workers try out something different or start a business without incurring career risk in addition to financial risk. Workers are more comfortable venturing out when they know they can come back to their old job and are not risking their careers. This BBC report shows profiles several new business owners who took 6 month leave to start a new venture they were passionate about. The way this happens is that an employee first tries out an idea in his spare time while he works full time. When he is comfortable making the move he can take the 6 month leave to devote time to it full time. Experts say Sweden is the only country in the world to give this right to leave to start a new business. In 2017 175,000 people took this leave compared to 163,000 in 2007, according to Statistics Sweden. During this period registration of new companies shot up from 27,000 to 48,000. ...

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Textualism or strict interpretation of the Constitution word for word may be back but one can never be sure. No sooner is one decision made in a certain direction with a particular approach to the law whether it be textualism or something else it then comes up for rethinking a few years later, under a different approach to the law or from a new angle. This is the law practiced in most British style courts of law including the US.  Former Justice Breyer of the US Supreme Court replaced by his law clerk Ketanji Jackson, is interviewed by NYT's Adam Liptak. Today so much is written about Breyer as a non textualist, and Gorsuch, Kavanaugh recent additions to the Court as textualist or strict interpreters of the Constitution based on when it was written with what intent. Yet as thinking individuals who like the rest of the American people grow in their understanding all Justices cannot be categorized  in this way. Breyer says he worked with retired Justices Kennedy and Souter and found them to be willing and keen on hearing all angles. Then it has to be said that both Kavanaugh and Gorsuch were law clerks for Kennedy. Much of American law at the highest court actually is no better than any other human creation - it tries to approximate as best one can the people of the US. Sotomayor coming from Puerto Rican descent, Ketanji Jackson from minority black, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch from Georgetown preparatory schools where Kavanaugh's paternal grandfather attended Yale something even JFK could not claim, Chief Justice Roberts coming from a company professional type background, Barrett a professor at a Catholic university, Kagan with a Bostonian JFK style background, Alito old Italian and Clarence old minority black background. Breyer retired recently to make way for a younger judge, Judge Ketanji Jackson who was law clerk to Breyer. Breyer is writing a new book which he hopes the conservatives on the Supreme Court will read- Justices Kavanaugh, Barrett and Gorsuch. The book coming out March 26 has the title- Reading the Constitution- Why I Chose Pragmatism not Textualism. He hope these Justices will read the book and say their colleague was making sense, would say that it was not a bad point. ...

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Paul Ryan asks President Obama to put forward his plan for deficit reduction the day after the passage of the August 2, 2011 Debt Ceiling and Deficit Reduction bill in Congress. Ryan points out that health care cost increases are on an unsustainable path with costs going up by 8% in 2011 and projected to go up by 8.5% in 2012. The Obama Health Care legislation tries in Ryan's view the same failed bureaucratic efforts of the past to cut health care costs. Without a genuine and sure plan to cut costs the only way to pay for Medicare with new mandates is to increase taxes again and again. He cites the CBO's Long Term Outlook in June that total tax revenues would have to double by 2050 to finance the current rate of spending on Medicare and other programs. For Ryan the failure of the Obama administration to come up with its own plan for deficit reduction after passing the Health Care legislation- with expanded mandates and no certain cost control in the reform - is the most difficult to swallow. ...

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Frank Rich on the ticking bomb in the banking system and the bank lobbying that has kept reform from happening. Phil Angelides leads the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission which is due to begin hearings soon. But says Rich, Angelides who is following in the footsteps of Ferdinand Pecora who investigated the 1929 crash as chief counsel of the Senate committee that did the investigating, will have to deal with a lot of resistance as he tries to alert the public to the need for action before a new crisis develops. For this to happen there will be aneed for more awareness of what happened, and a serious investigation, and prosecutions where necessary. Interestingly National City Bank was investigated then by Pecora. It is the predecessor of today's Citibank. At the time National City repackaged bad Latin American debt as new securities which it sold eaily to investors who later lost badly. Weill and Rubin at Citigroup made a series of bad decisions at Citigroup leading to huge losses at the bank, for which they have not accepted responsibility....

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Greek unemployment is up to 11% and this does not reflect the women who are not registering as unemployed. About 100,000 public sector workers will be let go by 2013 as the austeity plan takes effect. The three year reform programme from the IMF, the European Commission and the ECB tries to cut the budget deficit from 13.6% to 2.7% of GDP in a quick three years even as the econmy is shrinking. The criticism of Germany is relatively less, but there is strong resentment in Greece for the IMF program with 60% of Greeks opposing it. And in Germany Merkel faces voter resentment of having to pay for other EU member countries mistakes in the election in North Rhine-Westphalia, where her CDU and FDP coalition faces a tough challenge. Intenationally Merkel is facing tough criticism for waffling as the euro currency faced a serious threat. The whole European Union plan was being put to the test resulting in the size of the bailout growing from $60 billon to $160 billion in a few weeks, many experts calling it ineptitude....

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Justin Leverenz of the Oppenheimer Developing Markets Fund has seen the fund grow in five years from $3.9 billion to $41 billion in 2014. With the risk posed to developing markets economies from volatile capital inflows the fund is now closed to new investors. Often the mutual funds would buy and sell the same companies creating volatile inflows, and worse with sudden outflows as India experienced with slowing growth. Returns were 27% over 3 years 2010-2013, but have slowed to 2% to date in 2014 with the emerging markets crisis in early 2014. Leverenz is a quiet person and stays away from the limelight. He works solo without a team of analysts and tries to get a first hand feel for the companies he invests in by visiting and talking to the people at the companies. He travels for 6 months of the year, and has developed early relationships with fast growing Chinese internet companies Baidu and Tencent. He sees strong growth in India under the Modi administration, in China, and in Turkey....

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Barrack Obama's speech on closing Guantanomo, on the constitution and its abiding values and principles by which he would like to live by and be guided by, in making the decisions on various issues related to national security. " I stand here today as someone whose own life was made possible by these documents. My father came to these shores in search of the promise that they offered. My mother made me rise before dawn to learn their thruths when I lived as achild in aforeign land. My own American journey was paved by gernerations of citizens who gave meaning to those simple words-- "to form a more perfect union." WIth that Obama in his characteristic style addressed the fears, the passions, and dangers presented by the response America makes to global terrorism. And tries to find in the founding documents,- to which he refers again and again- and inside his own inner sense of what it takes to honor those documents and the principles enshrined in them, the guidance of how he should lead the country....

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Consumer lending went down by 1.7% in October 2009 according to Federal Reserve data. A WSJ analysis of Fed data shows corporate and consumer credit markets have shrunk by 7% or $1.5 trillion in the 2 years through early November 2009. And ont he other hand the Treasury debt outstanding has gone up quickjly by 40% as the governmet tries to finance large deficits. The market for every type pf bond has recovered from the crisis, and money is going into the markets, but this does not mean more money is flowing into the economy. The tighter lending results in consumers and businesses more reluctant to hire and invest. Mohamed El-Erian, CEO of Pacific Inestment Management Company says this means the US econom will grow at 1.5% to 2% ayear compared to the 3% growth that is typical for healthy growth. Says Erian: "the idea that we have reset to where we came from is false. It is abumpy journeyto anew destination with significant long-term effects."

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg offers some advice to young people- In a marraige she says it helps sometimes to be a bit tone deaf. To ignore that remark someone made or comment which if reacted to would only make one feel worse. Who knows it was not meant that way, and maybe did not reflect the whole way that person felt, or even was transitory, This advice she got from her mother in law. Another piece of advice was from her father in law, to stop worrying and find a way to manage, find a way to do it, for something you want to do but are not sure you can. Something she learned from her colleagues in the court including Justice Scalia, was to get over it, not to spend time thinking about comments that are made or some things that happen in the course of one's daily life that one thinks shouldn't have happened.

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British Air tries to handle the transition to the new terminal at Heathrow but its been a stormy transition as the baggage handling system fails.

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This editorial from the Editorial Board of the WSJ calls on president Trump and the Trump family to adopt an attitude of radical transparency. It points out that a major reason Hillary Clinton lost the election in 2016 was because of the failure to establish a needed level of trust with the American people. It goes over the history of the Clinton administration and finds a failure to reveal all the facts early on that led to a long grueling search for these facts by the media and prosecutors. It says president Trump should learn from this lesson. The meetings of Trump Jr. with a Russian official are cited  as an example of a very badly handled situation with the slow and continuous unraveling of the story in the media because of this lack of transparency. This editorial makes a strong call for a complete U turn of how the Trump administration has handled this type of story. It says the Republican party may not stand with Trump if popularity ratings currently at 36% drop lower and the party sees a danger of losing the House of Representatives in the next election. If this happens a Democratic Party with the House could investigate the matters involved, and a strategy of transparency now is the best strategy, says WSJ. This includes not calling everything to the contrary, leaks and other stories critical of the Trump handling of events as "fake news." It says president Trump is wrong to think that his larger than life personality and social media followers is sufficient to insulate him from all this, to make him in the words of the Journal bigger than the Presidency itself. Realities are realities, it says and its a tough world of Washington politics in which the president finds himself in, which offers little respite, and has humbled many presidents.   ...

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Turkmenistan with a new leader tries to diversify its export routes to as many countries as possible promising a share to Europe, Russia, India and China.