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Efforts to bring better wages and conditions to fast food business  through a law passed by Governor Newsom in California, to bring upward mobility and integration into the mainstream of society for millions of American families and children being opposed by McDonald's and Starbucks. Current wages are $15 a week which would bring a typical fast food worker $30,000 a year for a 40 hour week for 50 weeks. The poverty level for a family of five is $32,470 on the Healthcare.gov site for the USA. Are fast food business corporations saying that children of these families should be kept forever at below the poverty level set by the American government? Why? Are they saying that labor is subordinate to capital? Are they then going to go further to say that upward mobility shall forever be denied to millions of children in these families? On what grounds? Republicans say they are the party of Lincoln. Something more- What did Lincoln fight the Civil war for? The plantation economy of the South also denied labour and children of labour the rights of upward mobility. How did Lincoln win the civil war? By speaking up for the rights of free men everywhere in a land of abundant land and new future. "This is essentially a People's contest. On the side of the Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world, that form and substance and government, whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men- to lift artificial weights from all shoulders- to clear the path of laudable pursuit for all- to afford all, an unfettered start, and a fair chance in the race of life. Yielding to partial, and temporary departures, from necessity, this is the leading object of the government for whose existence we contend." July 4, 1861, Special Message to a special session of the US Congress. "Our adversaries have adopted some Declarations of Independence; in which unlike the old one, penned by Jefferson, they omit the words " all men are created equal."  Why? They have adopted a temporary national constitution, in the preamble of which unlike our  good old one signed by Washington, they omit "We, the People" and substitute "We, the deputies of the sovereign and independent States." Why? Why this deliberate pressing out of view, the rights of men and the authority of the people?"   ...

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US president DJT speaks at the Economic Club of Detroit, looking back at a year of rapid action on the US Border, Big Beautiful Bill, Tariffs action, Cutting Cost of Living action on several fronts, and action against drug/people trafficking by Venezuela, Mexico. Highlights of the speech which comes to a state that decided the 2016 election for DJT and which is the center of America's automobile industry started by Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan. He had restored the automobile industry to the days when it was the leader in the world and when names such as Henry Ford, Alfred Sloan of General Motors, were the envy of the world, by bringing auto manufacturing back from places like Mexico, Japan and Germany. Back to America after years of reckless outshoring by American business under the Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations, on the advice of equally reckless economists and advisors to these administrations. The president did not say this but this restoration continued in a different way for labor under the Biden administration that followed DJT policies but focused on the other side of the coin for the auto industry - protecting worker's wages by Biden standing on a picket line for the strike by unions for higher wages. After these wages were restored from years of outshoring and pressure on wages, the need to do the work of bringing companies back through tariffs on imports as leverage in tough negotiations with Japan, South Korea and Germany was left to DJT and his administration. The president stated clearly that the economists and predictions were proved wrong on tariffs as none of these predictions of tariffs passed on to American buyers have come true. As DJT made certain the companies not to lose their business in the US decided to avoid taking that road and acted to reduce their profit margins and costs. As Scott Bessent, a veteran of Wall Street and now Treasury Secretary who conducted these negotiations for DJT, has repeatedly pointed out the tariffs were a way to get these tough negotiators and their governments from Japan, S. Korea and Germany to cooperate. It is nowhere written in the code of fair conduct of nations that the US should helplessly after decades of letting these countries benefit put its workers out of work and its industries get destroyed, when the US was taking on the additional burden of protecting these nations from hostile neighbors. ...

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Einer Elhauge, professsor of law and founding director of the Petrie-Flom Center in Health Law Policy at Harvard University, says there are limits to Congressional powers under the Commerce clause such as enacting a law requiring Americans to eat broccoli. If the health care law required all Americans to subject themselves to health care this would be the case. But the law only requires all to buy insurance so that insurance can cover the costs of healthcare for all. He points to the "necessary and proper clause" as also authorizing the health care mandate. That clause gives Congress the power to pass laws that are "rationally related" to execution of constitutional powers, such as criminalizing the interference with mail, on the basis of the constitutional power to setup post offices. In this case the health care law mandate is related to the constitutional power to regulate premiums and prohibit rejecting the sick, says Elhauge.

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Fomer Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says America needs to take up a vigorous foreign policy in his book "Worthy Fights." Both Panetta and Hillary Clinton, and Gen. Dempsey of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Petraeus of the CIA, supported U.S. taking a strong stand in Syria by supporting Syrian opposition forces in the summer of 2011 and were overruled by president Obama and his election advisers because of the approaching 2012 election. Here Mark Landler provides more insights into Hillary Clinton's deeply held belief shared with Panetta that the U.S. had to take strong action where necessary to deter foes, to get into the ring to use Panetta's expression. The U.S. support for action in Libya to support Britain and France comes from the efforts of Clinton, and any lack of followup one of president Obama's errors in foreign policy. In April 2016 president Obama said that he considered his failure to followup in Libya to help the new Libyan government his biggest mistake in his presidency. Here Mark Landler looks at Hillary Clinton's entire career as showing a conviction and belief on the need for action where necessary in the U.S. global engagement. Compared to the bluster of the candidates Trump, Cruz and Sanders, with little experience to back this up in their careers in real estate, law or the Senate , Landler says Clinton is the last remaining hawk. Here he describes Hillary Clinton's contact and empathy for the troops from her trip to the American base in Tuzla, Bosnia, in March 1996. In fact many have forgotten that Yugoslavia is what it is today after the Milosevic years and the ethnic wars with Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, members of the EU and Serbia negotiating to enter EU, because of the bombing campaign taken by Bill Clinton through NATO in 1999 to prevent ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, and peacemaking following the Bosnian War using diplomat Holbrooke to negotiate the 1995 Dayton Accords. Here Landler describes the meetings with Gen. Keane who pushed for the troop surge that worked in Iraq under president George W. Bush. Clinton supported Keane's proposal made in April 2015, for a no-fly-zone in Syria that would help opposition forces till a settlement could be negotiated. Keane pointed out to Clinton that there was a flaw in Obama's policies- that negotiation would work only if the no-fly-zone was used to support opposition forces. By the end of 2015 Hillary Clinton publicly adopted this position. During a period when Americans are weary of foreign entanglements but understand the need to provide leadership where needed, Hillary Clinton, provides a balance between the pendulum swinging too sharply in one direction in the Bush years and in another direction in the Obama years, says Landler. A view also articulated by Leon Panetta, who was chief of staff for President Clinton during the Bosnian conflict and the Dayton Accords, where the U.S. showed strength of purpose in war and also in negotiating the peace without major entanglements....

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This NYT report by Christina Jewett looks at the conflicts of interest when pharmaceutical companies donate to institutions that advise on health policy, to research and technology institutes such as the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, Medicine. It says the White House and Congress have relied on such scientific advisory groups for policy responses. National Academies is an independent non-governmental institution chartered by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, to serve as an independent adviser to the nation on science and medicine. Here the chief scientist for the University of Colorado Center of Bioethics and Humanities offers his thoughts on the conflict of interest and the damage caused in health policies to the American public.

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Marty Makary, John Hopkins surgeon, is the DJT nomnee for head of the US Food and Drug Administration, FDA. Here a colleague of his at John Hopkins offers her experience working with Makary.  Leanna Wen says Makary is concerned about plastics, dyes, preservatives and chemicals that are entering our bodies and causing disease. Diseases that were not so prevalent one or two generations back are widespread today, says Makary. Makary wants to know why. Why has obesity quadrupled among young people in the US?Makary is also asking questions about why rates of childhood obesity are 5 times lower in Japan. Makary tell this Post reporter that ultra processed foods that are loaded with chemicals such as preservatives, artificial dyes and thickeners , take up 60% of calories Americans consume. This and poor food habits of today can cause diabetes, cancer, heart attacks and dementia. Pesticides and microplastics can cause early onset Alzheimer's and autoimmune diseases, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorders. Makary wants medicine practiced in the US to direct resources to prevention, not simply hand out medicines with increasingly risky side effects. ...

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  The hundreds of billions of dollars these American AI people talked about are needed to rebuild the nation's infrastructure, schools, water, housing, education, healthcare and other needs that directly raise living standards. DeepSeak is the AI model of Liang Wenfeng's $8 billion hedge fund Deep-Flyer. It does what Microsoft's OpenAI does at a tiny fraction of the cost. It proves that smaller competitors with less funding can tackle AI. This includes AI Mistral from France and AI startups from India and other countries.  Another immediate effect of DeepSeek as an open AI model is to provide serious competition for Nvidia and OpenAI and the big spenders such as Google, Meta Platforms that seek to dominate every niche in the IT world. It proves that the latest cutting edge chips such as Nvidia are not needed and that one can come up with other methods and software to do what others can do without the latest and most powerful chips that cost a lot lot more by huge magnitude. It is what happened in the Space Race to put satellites in space- the entities that can do it at less cost such as the Indian space program entities are the ones that dominate the field- cost matters. The hundreds of billions of dollars these American AI people talked about are needed to rebuild the nation's infrastructure, schools, water, housing, education, healthcare and other needs that directly raise living standards. ...

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American manufacturers are importing more of the parts that go into each product. According to Susan Houseman, a senior economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute in Kalamazoo, Michigan, the imported portion for these parts is up to 25% from 17%. Even the Bureau of Economic Analysis figure of the share of GDP coming from manufacturing is overstated, says Houseman. That figure was 11.2% for 2009, but is closer to 10.5% if all the imported components are included instead of being counted as domestically made. This is down from 14.2% ten years ago, and about 30% in the 1950's. There is deep concern that the manufacturing decline has weakened America. Houseman says that one cannot separate manufacturing from innovation, and she asks if America can continue to be strong in R&D with a shrunken manufacturing base. James Jordan of the Interstate Maglev project, says Maglev- which uses special magnets to levitate and propel high-speed trains- was invented in the United States. Today equipment for that technology is manufactured and used in Japan, and innovation in high speed trains is taking place in Japan and Germany. The decline in manufacturing is shockingly large. From 1979 employment in manufacturing went down by 8.1 million to 11.6 million, with the largest drop occurring in the last ten years. With it America is losing something significant- all the knowhow and skills that go into making things. Today the airplane wings for several Boeing airliners are made in Japan and shipped here. In a not too distant past these wings would have been built here, and workers with the knowhow and skills for these critical components were part of Boeing's workforce....

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Galston focusses attention on the major problem facing democracies in Europe and the U.S.- that of providing decent paying jobs and improved economic prospects for lower and middle income households. He cites the surveys from the Pew Research Report and the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics showing how middle income households median net income remains stuck at levels of 1997, and lower income households at levels of 1996. The median net worth of American households adjusted for inflation presents an alarming picture of being at $96,000 in 1983 and $98,000 in 2013 for middle income families, and being at the level of $12,000 for lower income families the level of 1975. Most of the new jobs as much as 95% are being created in the low wage service sector and the BLS statistics show the future looking much the same- with huge numbers of low wage jobs, fewer decent manufacturing jobs because of automation and jobs shifts to low cost locations overseas, remaining manufacturing jobs in the U.S shrinking by another 800,000 to 7% of the workforce by 2025. The result is the alarming rise of populist politicians like Trump in the U.S., Le Pen in France , and populist politicians in Hungary and Poland. Cultural liberals in the Democratic Party and the Republican establishment are both threatened by the rise of cultural illiberalism, xenophobia, and nationalism, as economic anxiety increases, and fears of terrorism and immigrants add to this anxiety. Progressive tendencies in the Republican party since the days of Theodore Roosevelt and of professional elites in the Democratic Party could become endangered if no serious effort is made to come up with solutions to the problems these trends present. The disconnect between the concerns of the working and middle class and the professional elites as the gap widens and the social compact in America and Europe breaks apart, means a new mindset will be required in America and Europe to deal with this. ...

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Americans in retirement are able to rebuild their savings with interest on money market funds of over 5%. This is the result of 5% percentage points of consecutive rate increases by Jay Powell's Fed. In addition about $121 billion went to savers as they faced $151 billion in higher interest rate costs on mortgages and loans. The result with a strong labor market and lower inflation of about 3% is an economy that is resilient and can provide the 5 or 7 plus  years of growth needed for America to meet the challenges it faces with its allies in the EU, Asia and Latin America, Africa- to tackle climate change, to rebuild America's crumbling infrastructure, to invest in education and healthcare, to improve worker incomes, and build its manufacturing at home into a strong thriving sector for good paying worker incomes.

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Chris Buckley of the NYT looks at selected speeches of president Xi of China to military officers during the first 5 years 2012 to 2017 but fails to look at the China Xi Jinping faced in these years. It was a period of change in China when it was not clear which direction China would take after the messy experiment with free markets under a socialist state controlled system led by the CCP. That period from 1990 onwards led to hypergrowth in China that modernized China yet shifted American and European manufacturing to China alienating working class communities in the western countries. It hurt China also through widespread contamination of air and water, and widespread corruption and decline of the CCP. The Bo Xilai demagogic effort to subvert the system from inside happened by 2012 endangering the system itself from the inside while it responded to the pressures created by the experiment with free market from corruption, regional inequality, and other problems. ...

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A new report on American driving habits by Samantha Gross and Aaron Brady of Cambridge Energy Associates shows that finally the gasoline price increases are beginning to bite the consumer and American drivers are changing their habits. After increasing from about2.5 trillion miles of total vehicle miles travelled by Americans in 1998 to about 3.0 trillion miles in 2007 the last 6 months are showing a downward trend for the first time. In the late 1970's and early 1980's something similar happened with a deep recession, rising gasoline prices and improved fuel efficiency standards, during this period gasoline consumption declined by 12 % accordingt o CEA. What is different now? For one thing the environmental issues are a big factor now and they take a new meaning as developing countries like India China Brazil and Rusia as well as other countries with much larger numbers of people than the US and Europe are now part of the car buying and electricity using peoples of the world. Its impossible both for the environment and for resource supplies to meet the needs of billions of new people joining the global economy and western ways of living without doing something radically different. And he problem is immediate as China becomes the second largest car buying country and India is not far behind with an explosion in Nano sales expected in the next few years, and the huge demands on electricity in these countries meaning burning huge amounts of coal to generate this electricity and create global environmental problems. All this makes the 70's and early eighties period remotely relevant. We are looking at something hugely different and 21st century defining now as its clear fuel has to be conserved and resources shared between the western world and the developing world, and technology moved forward quickly to meet the needs of a new world of Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas all bundled into one both by the global ecoomy and the way business operates and by the needs of people everywhere. And the media and public perceptions may be just catching up to these changes which are already taking place on the lands and under the feet of millions of people around the world. Some clues to what might have happened. Americans spent 4.5% of their after tax income on transportation fuels in 1981 according to Global Insight, a forecasting firm, and this went down to 1.9% in 1998, and is back up to 4% now in 2008. In California and more affluent areas of the country where the incomes are higher and gasoline prices are higher over 4% is spent on transportation fuels, whereas in areas of Alabama and Mississippi in the poorest areas where gasoline is less expensive this is over 16% according to the New York Times interactive graphic. During this period 1998 to 2008 demand increased for gasoline, in terms of the number of miles driven went up by 25% from 2.5 trillion miles driven to 3.0 trillion miles driven, and the sales of large pickup trucks and SUV's soared to make them the largest number of vehicles sold each year. At 1.9% of after tax income nationally, transportation fuels were cheap and consumers reacted rationally by splurging on gasoline in the USA. As a sobering note to all this sign of improvement in conservation of fuel the miles driven are still at about 3.0 trillion miles the high reached last year 2007. It will take a lag of a couple of years before a changing fleet to smaller vehicles and more fuel efficient vehicles and better driving habits and conserving fuel habits to make itself felt in transportation fuel usage across the USA and this requires prices at least at these levels to make the change seen as necessary to meet global needs and global environment....

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As the final Republican tax bill is debated in Congress on December 19, 2017, Senator Bob Casey cited the following points from the Joint Committee on Taxation Report on the floor of the Senate.  1. Americans building their hopes that their pay checks in February 2018 will be increasing are in for a big disappointment said Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, a senior member of the Finance Committee. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimate is that for the 57 million families making less than 100,000 dollars a year the tax cuts in the Republican legislation will either not reduce their taxes or reduce the taxes by about $100 a year. 2. The bill does little for the big tasks facing America of rebuilding failing infrastructure. Senator Casey cited 4500 bridges needing repair or replacement in Pennsylvania alone. It also does little for health care access for middle class families and is likely to lead to 10% increase in health care premiums. Affordability of college and other hurdles of middle class and working class families remain unaddressed.   3. The $9 billion in the estate tax cuts would finance the Children's Health Insurance program which has expired.  4. The $36 billion in tax cuts for corporations comes at a time when corporate profits are at the highest they have been in 15 years, according to Vanguard founder Bogle. He also points out that wages as a percentage of GDP are the lowest in 15 years. The tax cuts in the Republican bill are not likely to correct this imbalance.  5. The share of GDP of people making more than one million dollars in 1980 was 11%, this is up now in 2017 to 20%. This has led to questions about the wisdom of these tax cuts which disproportionately benefit a very small percentage of Americans who do not need these tax cuts, and come with significant sacrifices for the middle class in terms of what is available in public services, and the cost to their children as infrastructure and access to health and education is made more distant because of a growing U.S. debt from this tax cut. The big problem then with this bill is that it further damages intergenerational mobility in the U.S., undermining the foundation of a democratic society. Damage has already happened in the past three decades as Federal Reserve chairman Janet Yellen pointed out at a conference on Economic Opportunity and Inequality on Oct. 17, 2014, saying-"The past several decades have seen the most sustained rise in inequality since the 19th century after more than 40 years of narrowing inequality following the Great Depression." This is why there is substantial agreement in the media from the Wall Street Journal's Greg Ip to Krugman in the New York Times that the bill fails to correct a harmful trend, and goes further in the wrong direction for a democratic society.       ...

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Lyrarc.com's Movement for Global Literacy and its knowledge site open to all has major relevance for today. That 30% of Americans read zero books is a clear warning sign for Democracy in the idea of "We the People," and the Economy benefitting all, in the US. The use of libraries follows political, income and demographic patterns is shown in a You Gov poll research. There is a gap of 10% between the 30% library use at incomes over $100,000 vs 20% at incomes below $50,000. The gap widens with political inclination to 13% when party preference is considered with 30% Democratic and 17% Republican- not a good state of affairs for the Nation.  In general the top 50% of the population gets to libraries split evenly between frequent and less frequent users. The bottom 50% with rarely using or no use at all. This is the crux of the problem- literacy of all kinds should correlate with the use of libraries and books and digital use.  Digital use happens with iPads and laptops searching Wikipedia and knowledge sites such as Lyrarc.com outside of libraries, and this is part of the picture. What library use gives is not a full picture yet one with these wide variations an indication of how the political life of the Nation should be turned in constructive ways for broad based participation in a knowledge society. ...

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Which dilapidated or broken road and bridge infrastructure will be rebuilt first under president Biden's plan? The WSJ looks at the $110 billion in new funding over 5 years to do this. In addition $66 billion for rail, and $39 billion for public transit. So much needs to be done. The list goes on and on. The head of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation, Mr. Tymon, says projects that were not going to get done in 6 years will now get done in 2 years. This is the big difference today, compared to the period under president Obama when little got done. After president Trump put a big spotlight on broken American infrastructure enough of a consensus exists to get on with the work in a big way. Normally the federal government provides about 50% of the funding for state highway and bridge projects. Take Rhode Island, Biden's bill would provide $300 million a year over 5 years, over $60 million over previous yearly levels. Of Rhode Island's 777 bridges 19% are deficient or dilapidated. The longer the bridge is deficient the costlier it becomes to fix. Bad infrastructure affects industry in multiple ways, a problem ignored for too long. Some of them date back to 1903, some to 1958.  In Woonsocket Rhode Island, 5 older bridges are deficient that are vital for local companies, including textile mill, and plastics manufacturer.  One deficient bridge at Naval Station, Newport, to Quonset Business Park with 200 companies is handling steady truck traffic. These are critical bridges for manufacturing says the city's Mayor.  Another state Missouri shows how the Biden investment will change infrastructure in the states. Annual capital funding of $1 billion will go to $1.5 billion over 5 years, says the Director of Missouri's Department of Transportation. That puts within reach all $3 billion of wish list projects that were considered high priorities. ...

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This look at China and leaders Mao, Chou-en-lai, Deng, Xi Jinping through the lens of the Hoover Institution series on authoritarianism "The Party's Interest Come First," by Hoover research fellow Turgian makes the same errors as is evident from expert at Oxford University/ Kennedy School Rana Shantasil Mitter of Indian descent. Which is to see China as an academic, not by immersing oneself in China of 1890- 1950 into the lives of China's millions of ordinary people. And how is one to immerse oneself into these lives. One can do this through the eyes of General Stilwell who loved and immersed himself in China like it could be said no other American of that period in Barbara Tuchman's well researched account of this China of 1890-1950.  One clue to this is also that Tuchman unlike Torgian or Mitter by a long shot is the only writer who met Mao in Beijing in the 1970's. In 1971 she met Mao and made observations on the lives of the people in "Notes from China- If Mao had met Roosevelt in 1945." As a result of Tuchman's account of Stilwell's personal experience of China since 1900's being lost to most Americans, there is no concept of what China had experienced with the gradual collapse of China's economy and politcal structures, its defense as China, like India, and Asia as a whole failed to experience the opening up to science and technology and modern ways of thought since 1600. The results were catastrophic for the Chinese people and for the people of India leading to economic destruction on a scale unknown in history and lives shortened and reduced by poverty.  ...

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Mark Landler of the NYT points out that president Trump has neglected all the conventions followed by American presidents abroad during his meeting in Helsinki with Russian president Putin. At the meeting both presidents in unison denied the conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies and the Justice Department investigation. Nothing resembling this has happened with a U.S. president on foreign soil.

 

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  John Foster Dulles view of Asia as stated in Foreign Affairs was very different from the decolonization happening in Asia and may ultimately brought the US into expansion of the Vietnam War without the necessary caution and the overthrow of elected governments in Iran. Donald Rumsfeld's view of the Middle East brought the US into the Sunni-Shia conflicts of the twentieth century. Two faculty members at South Korean Universities make a case for South Korea going nuclear in Foreign Affairs. Foreign Affairs reaches a small group of people who follow foreign affairs who carry on debates on issues that can lead to foreign wars. A wider debate than this is needed on vital issues that affect the 400 million people in the US and Canada and the 500 million in European Union and Britain. Articles in Foreign Affairs can tilt the direction of American policy leading to involvement in conflicts overseas which are not in the US interest instead of educating the population on international affairs which is something very different. George Washington and the founding fathers cautioned against such tendencies.     ...

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Jens Spahn, CDU leader and minister in Merkel's government says it is OK for Germany to leave the European Commission for Human Rights if it is slow to grasp that refugee status is about protection and also about how many asylum claims the people of a country are comfortable with. Denmark, Poland, Hungary and Austria, the UK and the US, and many Germans now feel this way and feel unease at the high levels of migration asylum, illegal and other that they face. Migration to Germany slowed but has picked up again. Failed states, economic distress, civil wars,  in Africa and Latin America have led to illegal immigration from Syria, Libya, North Africa, Arab world, Afghanistan, Central American countries and Venezuela. Is Asylum automatic? Are there decisions that have to be made in Europe and America if whole states are mismanaged or face climate distress or gang conflict leading to mass migration? These questions have to be debated and not decided by a Merkel at whim or some other leader. ...

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An old rundown dilapidated U.S. military base that was set up at a time when ox carts rolled down Seoul streets in 1965 closes down in 2019 as the Trump administration reviews the costly commitments made during a different time. America is not withdrawing as troops will be relocated at a new base 50 miles south of Seoul. The effort is designed to consolidate American operations in South Korea, and have South Korea share the cost.

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The U.S. unemployment rate drops from 5.8% in Nov. 2014 to 5.6% in Dec. 2014, according to the Labor Department. But hourly earnings failed to register growth. Average hourly earnings declined in Dec. 2014 from the prior month, and increased by only 1.7% over the prior year, just a little bit above the inflation rate of 1.3%. Overall 2.95 million jobs were created in 2014. Yet 8.7 million Americans looking for a job could not find one. The U.S. Federal Reserve officials see tepid wage growth as a sign of slack in the labor market. The Dec. 16-17 Fed meeting minutes show that "most participants saw no clear evidence of a broad based acceleration in wages." The labor force participation rate is also stuck at a low level- 62.7% in Dec. 2014. The U-unemployment rate that includes involuntary part time workers and workers marginally attached to the labor force was at 11.2% in Dec. 2014. This includes workers too discouraged to look for work and people working parttime because they could not get full time work. It is steadily dropping from 16.6% in 2010 to 14.4% by 2012, 13.1% by 2013, and now 11.2% in 2014, showing steady improvement but still high....

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What is behind the anti-vaccine movement in the US? This NYT report looks at some of its unlikely origins- the anti-vaccine efforts of Robert Kennedy's son, Robert Kennedy Jr.. Mr. Kennedy is planning to run against Mr. Biden for the White House. Kennedy's opposition to vaccine's is traced back to his getting involved in cases as an environmental lawyer. Parents who had intellectually disabled children from other chemicals asked Kennedy to look into vaccines. Around 2010 Thimerosal, a mercury based preservative which been used for many years to prevent bacteria from growing in multiple dose vials of vaccine, was suspected to cause autism.  Already by 1999 the American Academy of Pediatrics, federal health agencies and pharmaceutical manufacturers agreed that thimerosal should be removed from childhood vaccines.  Yet it is still used, says this report.  This led to Mr. Kennedy's getting into vaccines in general by the time of the pandemic. He had a book out that was critical of Dr. Faucci, during the pandemic. Mr. Kennedy cautioned about the unintended effects of vaccines. He has another book out called the Wuhan Coverup that looks into the origins of the coronavirus. It refers to research conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology that was funded by the US. Mr. Kennedy believes that more transparency is needed on decisions made in the health care sector, and that critical views need to be aired for the public to be able to decide the right course of action. Vaccination is generally supported by people in America though there is a subsection of people who have concerns about side effects. On issues outside of vaccination there is a sense that America's health sector needs more transparency.     ...

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AP News describes Biden's long association with Irish poets W.B. Yeats and Seamus Haney. In an earlier presidential run in 2008 he said- "I believe with every fibre of my being that we have a chance to make hope and history rhyme." In the 2020 campaign this happened and Biden believes today that this is reflected in the hearts and sentiments of the vast majority of the American people. 

Haney's poem uses these words in a translation of the Greek playwright Sophocles. From Haney's The Cure at Troy:

"History says don't hope On this side of the Grave

But then the longed for tidal wave of justice can rise up. And hope and history rhyme." 

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Consumer Financial Protection Bureau comes out of a playbook of one party that supported no changes in the Financial system in the US and no consequences for financial wrongdoing in the mortgage and banking speculation financial crisis of 2009 that upended the world's financial system. The Obama administration did little to tackle the root causes of the crisis and no serious consequences for financial wrongdoing. With financial interests vested in the structure of both parties work in the financial business could go on as usual with minor changes such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and financial settlements of no serious consequence. Along with this rural areas, farmers and agriculture were given less priority than Silicon Valley during the years of the Obama administration 2008-2016. The passion for a serious overhaul stems from the sense of injustice suffered by rural America and by tens of millions of middle class Americans who took the first blows with patches of period of less work or parttime work at low wages in a battered economy in the aftermath years of the global financial crisis caused by irresponsible bankers in the years 2010-2014. This strained finances and savings only to be followed in 2019 by the Covid pandemic imposing more strains on finances of American middle class and working class people. ...

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Pat Gelsinger is right about "fighting for every inch" at Intel for everyday manufacturing chips that make up our lives, to not let market forces swinging wildly in different directions one moment this way the other way the next, decimate American Manufacturing. Regulators have a job to do to protect America's vital interests and of its people. AI surge for Nvidia make it a one trillion company one day and briefly a two trillion dollar company for a day. In 1998 only a small $15 million loan from Iramijiri of Japanese videogame company Sega helped Nvidia founder Jensen Huang survive when it took a hard turn and a design failed. Huang even says in WSJ he would not start the company if he did this again as market forces can be crippling for personal lives as well. What does this all mean? The Biden Administration has a plan to revive America's chip making genius and innovation that has driven America from 40% of the manufacturing of chips to 5%. Intel is right at the heart of this plan. The Chips and Science law will do this including $8.5 billion for Intel manufacturing which Pat Gelsinger is pushing forward for Intel Corp.  Here comes a company that has outsourced Manufacturing entirely- Qualcomm to takeover Intel. It knows nothing about Manufacturing, it cares nothing about American Manufacturing and loss of leadership in Manufacturing, and for the millions of people who work in America in factories and research facilities related to manufacturing design.  ...