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If the wording in the Pew Research Survey were to include that only the government can tackle huge problems in climate change, infrastructure, and manufacturing, the over 50% of Americans that support government taking on these responsibilities might just as well be closer to 60-70 percent. The tide is turning as the whole culture since Reagan and the key adopters of Reagan's theory  successive Democratic administrations of Clinton and Obama is being reversed- Democrats and Independents supporting the change to get government to tackle these problems is up 15 percentage points. Another shift is the young people who are filled with frustration by the lack of government taking on a bigger role to solve problems such as climate change, manufacturing jobs in US, infrastructure rebuilding that only the government can do. 

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Climate change study from Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany published in Nature magazine retracted in December 2025. The study is an example of how such research when not done right can misrepresent situations leading to policy errors. Policy error under such misrepresentation can lead to errors such as a policy that excludes adjustments and a dual response to climate change and cost of living crisis attacking both on two fronts necessary today so soon after a disastrous pandemic and people living in scarcity not able to meet heating bills. What happened is that the study made predictions for 2100- which is impossible to do. Studied 1600 regions in the world. Showed decline of economic output by 62% in 2100. Did not mention that excluding Uzbekistan would make the reduction in growth 23%. It shows how overzealous work in one direction or the other can actually hurt the fight to address climate change and also tackle everday concerns like cost of living crisis. Recent reports in WSJ show how the approach of single focus has hurt economic growth in Germany and hobbled its industries. Other reports show how deprived and less deprived areas in the UK (also in the US) sit by side showing how decades of neglect of manufacturing and outshoring of factories have destroyed jobs and destroyed communities across Europe and the US, making them open to scourge such as fentanyl in the Nation's neighborhoods, and creating a climate of despair that feeds into other fears. Such as the fears of the surge of illegal migration promoted by traffickers and the influx of drug trafficking gangs in the Nation's neighborhoods. Such reports are then used by the World Bank and the Congressional Budget Office and central banks of 90 counties in the coalition Network for Greening of the Financial System, leading to distortions in policy actions, destroying the social consensus needed among wide sectors of the population in democracies in the EU and US and worldwide to address climate change and cost of living crises.  Leonie Wenz, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany says-“We broadly agree with the issues raised, and have made corrections to the underlying economic data and to our methodology to address them. These changes are too substantial for a correction of the original article in Nature.”   ...

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Prof. Cusumano of MIT, says that with the loss of Apple's Steve Jobs, the company has lost a great visionary, and it will be difficult for Apple's new CEO Time Cook to make up for this loss. Cusumano has talked to many Apple employees in 2013-2014, and is writing a book on innovation. In this piece Chen and Richtel point out the ways Tim Cook is trying to fill the role Jobs filled, by assembling a group of people within the company who can play the pioneering role for new products, and making new acquisitions such as the Beats acquisition to bring in outside talent. Cook pushed for the introduction of the iPad Air, which now accounts for 60% of all iPad sales. The constant push for the magic in new products that Steve Jobs obsessed with down to details, will be missing. Jobs met daily with design chief Jonathan Ive for lunch at the Cupertino headquarters. Cook meets Ive 3 times a week. And Jobs pulled all the pieces of the new product together in a way that others will have difficulty doing. Cook has brought a different dimension to leadership at Apple by talking about Apple in terms of "advancing humanity," talking about his own personal experiences in the South, and seeing racial discrimination barriers for minorities. He was challenged recently to address issues of working conditions at Apple supplier factories in China. Cook is bringing some manufacturing back to the U.S. with building of new plants in Arizona and Texas. These are areas which were gaps in Jobs record, which Cook is filling gradually, and asking shareholders, customers, to be patient....

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Surprisingly very little can be found on the internet on how the relationship between Apple's Tim Cook and Foxconn started and how it evolved over the two decades- a key to understanding the two decade rise of Apple since 1998 when Tim Cook, an Alabama engineer, joined Apple's Steve Jobs to rebuild an almost demolished Apple. It is also key to understanding the rise of China in manufacturing to the point of excluding all other countries, including the US, for major investments. It is also key to understanding how the social relations have been disrupted in the US, how the US workers and families suffered from outshoring on this massive scale never before seen in the US for 100 years of the Industrial Revolution since Lincoln in the 1860's. This has not significantly changed to this day as the US goes into the midterms to elect a new Congress. Mr. Trump ruffled sentiment on this issue but had little action or results to show for it to reverse this. Mr. Biden is making some headway as the US elects a new Congress in November 2022 to take up the tasks to restore American leadership in manufacturing and in technologies that support advanced manufacturing from semiconductors to renewable energy. What happens now depends on many things. Mr. Cook talks about intuition as a main driver along with preparation and hard work in his project which has done little for America and the American people, in the sense of how its communities look like, and how its families live, as they are largely excluded from Cook's Apple project. Even as it employs about 3 million workers of contract manufacturers, for the most part in China with Foxconn. Total employees in the US are 37,000 mostly highly paid engineers and technical workers. The 270,000 working in what it calls its ecosystem are mostly workers in retail stores paid much lower wages. Of manufacturing there is little on the scale in China. Not since the days of Lincoln in the 1960's who fought a civil war so that the rights of labour in the US were protected as seen in his message to Congress in the 1860's, and through the Industrial Revolution for 100 years, has something like this happened in the US. It is not about some manufacturing taking place in Asia, it is the sheer scale that excludes America from significant manufacturing, about 300,000 workers in the US mostly in lower paid retail jobs, and 3 million in China with contract manufacturers that is an aberration from history. It is about delegating an entire supply chain in manufacturing that constitutes this huge aberration.     ...

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Norris provides an insightful account into the research and thinking of Janet Yellen, the new chairwoman of the U.S. Federal Reserve. In her research work Fed chairwoman Yellen has placed importance on the long term unemployment rate and the difficulties workers unemployed for long period have in finding work. This is likely to determine Fed policy on interest rates as the unemployment rate inches closer to the Fed target of 6.5% set by Bernanke in Dec. 2012. Norris points out the emphasis Yelen has placed on this in speeches since being nominated to succeed Ben Bernanke at the Fed. In a recent speech Yellen emphasized that in the recession of the early 1980's median time unemployed people said they were unemployed was 12 weeks, which jumped to 25 weeks for about 6 months in 2010 and is at 17 weeks in the most recent jobs report. Another indicator Yellen has emphasized is labor's share of income in the nonfinancial corporate sector which remained between 66% and 61% from 1950 to early 2000's. This fell below 60% in 2005 and is at 57.1% barely budging from the 2011 figure. In papers written with George Ackerloff, Yellen has advanced the "fair-wage hypothesis," that workers do not do as good a job when wages are held down. Their research also shows its normal for workers in periods of recession to hold out against the lower salaries offered during recession periods, because these workers tend to fall behind newer workers hired with better wages later when the economy recovers. At the confirmation hearing Yellen made it clear that the Fed would do all it can to help the long term unemployed by creating a stronger job market, a job market where these workers would be drawn into work and employers provide job training as well as opportunities for advancement....

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Ann Lee a former investment banker and now adjunct Professor at New York University, gives us facts that show the smaller banks that lend to small and medium sized businesses in the country are being closed by the FDIC. According to ADP small business that employs between 1 to 49 people, accounts for 48 million jobs, those between 50 and 499 employees account for 42 million jobs, and large business for only 17 million jobs. Without access to capital these small and medium sized businesses will continue to layoff employees, creating a vicious cycle of falling credit and demand. According to Automatic Data Processing's August employment report large business shed 60,000 jobs, medium sized business 116,000 jobs and small businesses shed 122,000 jobs. These smaller banks says Lee have done most of the lending to small and medium sized businesses. And overall lending has dropped from pre-crisis levels. Treasury's Capital Purchase Monthly Lending Report shows that banks that received government money actually reduced loan balance by $54 billion. According to reports issued by major credit rating agencies $700 billion of asset backed securities were underwitten in 2007. In 2009 only $10 billion was issued. This has a significant impact in every area. Banks have no incentive to lend with all the bad nonperforming loans on their books. They only hope that over time renegotiated loan terms would enable to recover these loans. But this might take a decade says Lee, if this is similiar to other crises like the one in Japan. She says what the banks do to make money is to borrow virtually unlimited amounts from the Fed at near zero rates and earn money from the spread when they lend to the Treasury. Does our current banking system make sense she asks. Banks are not investing in economic activity, in real products and services,but engaged in agovernment backed shell game that enriches bankers at the expense of everyone else. She says that the banking lobby may prevail in preventing the nationalization of the banking system, but this will not prevent questions about the status quo and its assumptions from arising if the recovery and regulatory reforms fail. ...

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It took action by DJT for what Canada and Mexico could have done from common sense. This is an unconventional use of tariffs by the US. Yet this was an unconventional situation in which the US under several administrations Republican and Democrat Clinton-Bush-Obama, allowed the situation at the Border leave the US in a deteriorating situation with its neighbors to the north and south. Canada and Mexico could have acted before the 25% yet they did not act till the tariff was imposed. A situation such as this cannot be found in the history of the United States of America from its founding in 1776, not in 225 years has the US seen such loss of life from fentanyl and drugs crossing its borders, or the constant flow of illegal migration, neglect of its auto industry and jobs in the US. DJT stated on Truth Social media site-"Canada has agreed to ensure we have a secure Northern Border. I am very pleased with this initial outcome, and the Tariffs announced on Saturday will be paused for a 30 day period to see whether or not a final Economic deal with Canada can be structured." "Fairness for all!"   ...

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The Trump Accounts for children born 2025-2028 and the Dell $6.5 billion expansion to include earlier born children may be one of the single biggest actions to rebuild the bank accounts of the next generation. It looks at the shrivelled bank accounts of today's older generation with lack of enough savings for a medical crisis and says it has got to be different from now on. The median bank account of Americans over 65 and over is $13400 which means there is little for medical health emergencies and little for needs of older Americans. Median means half have less and half have more than $13400. This is astounding for the wealthiest nation at a time when the total wealth is the highest ever in history. This report by WSJ unfortunately does not mention this at all and dwells on how this is an opportunity for banks and investment companies to get in the door to get your business. DJT as US president with a mandate from lower income Americans has designed this so that it shows the value of careful investments of small seed money. With $1000 to begin with from the government, added amounts from parents and grandparents and invested in a mutual fund that tracks the S&P 500 it will grow with the economy for 18 years, doubling two to three times on the way. It would provide funds for education increasing enrollment in higher education, increase financial literacy by showing how money grows in broad S&P 500 type index funds such as Vanguard type funds. Much of the shriveling of bank accounts for the shocking figure of $13400 median for American 65+ year olds is a result of job losses, high health care costs, wage decline  with factories outshored, hits from 2009 financial crisis caused by bank irresponsible behaviour, drug epidemics and fentanyl allowed to pour into the country, covid pandemic and stock bubbles, decline in higher education enrollment, other. The US president DJT is seeing his mandate as one that reverses these adverse situations one by one to take America back to post war prosperity and rising incomes, rising bank acocunt savings and rising hopes and aspirations for the next generation. ...

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China's tariffs on US products could be called self-respect tariffs as US exports to China are small compared to China's $1 trillion surplus a year. $143 billion mainly oilseeds and grains! US business not willing to rely on US labor created the outshoring that built Chinese industrial growth, shipping out technology in the process, that created this situation. Consultants to Apple at the time such as myself bringing Total Quality of Management from Japan to the US, could see the failure of production quality at the Colorado Springs plant just before Steve Jobs returned to the company in 1998. About 20-25% of PC product was defective on the production lines seen with my own eyes. Looking back I believe it was not just the workers but the managers and engineering that needed to guide and motivate the workers with new ways to build in quality control. These were the days when Apple's Steve Jobs hired Tim Cook to revamp production and ship it to China. American workers got blamed. Yet as Jim Carlton shows in "Apple the Inside Story of Intrigue, Egomania, and Business Blunders," by 1996 a new German CEO Michael Spindler 1993-1996 had driven the company to the ground. The struggle with Microsoft gave Jobs an idea- by shifting production to a low cost location he could make the high margins to outinvest all competitors with new products-ipods, iphones, ipads. There is nothing wrong with American workers and their craftsmanship. Timeline- Steve Jobs returns to Apple 1997-1998 Tim Cook is hired from Compaq to revamp manufacturing in 1998 1999-2000 - the strategy is made to shift all of the production to China. Jobs could generate the margins and quality to challenge Microsoft, and profits to invest in new products 2020 -   the weakness of the strategy is apparent with supply side shock for chips and computers with the pandemic stopping shipping 2024 - after taking small steps to shift production to India does little to shift back to America 2025- Apple facing serious tariffs and the country's mood shifting to Make in the USA tells the new US president DJT it will invest $500 billion to shift production back to America. ...

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Samuelson points to the risks to the American economic growth from excessive health care costs. This is hurting take home pay and shows up in consumer spending. It is hurting government spending in other areas such as needed infrastructure spending and efforts to reduce the deficit. This hurts private capital investment to create jobs because of lower demand from constricted consumer spending. The U.S. budget has as its largest single expense 27% on health care compared to 20% on defense the next largest expense, with growth in health care spending taking this to one third of the budget in coming years. Without addressing health care, says Samuelson, the Supercommitte in Congress even if successful at deficit reduction will basically have failed to do its job, and it did not have the time, resources or conviction to do this. According to a new study from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), U.S. healthcare spending per person is $7,960 per person in 2009. This compares with Norway $5,352, Britain $3,487, France $3, 978, an OECD average of $3,233. Life expectancy in the U.S. is 78.2 years, compared to Japan 83 years, OECD average of 79.5 years. Chile and the Czech Republic have life expectancy equal to the U.S. Except for cancer care where the five year survival rate is 89.3% in the U.S. and the OECD average is 83.5%, the U.S. lags far behind in much needed critical areas such as diabetes and asthma. Rates of emergency hospitalization for asthma are 3 times that in France and 6 times that in Germany and Italy. The U.S. has fewer doctors per thousand population and higher cost per medical procedure- with more frequent use of the costliest procedures- creating a supply shortage that induces higher prices, and less preventive and early action care through physician visits. The number of practicing U.S. doctors is 2.4 per thousand population in the U.S. compared to 3.1 per thousand for the OECD average; and number of annual doctor consultations 3.9 per capita in the U.S. versus 6.5 for the OECD average. Appendectomy cost $7,962 in the U.S., $5,004 in Canada and $2,943 in Germany. Coronary angioplasty cost $14,378 in the U.S., compared to $9,296 in Sweden, and $7,027 in France. Knee replacement cost $14,946 in the U.S., $12,424 in France, and $9,910 in Canada. Knee replacements, angioplasties and MRI exams are twice as common in the U.S. compared to the OECD countries. ...

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The WSJ's Susan Carey's interview with Doug Parker, the CEO of US Airways, on the difficult days before the merger with American Airlines was approved by the U.S. Justice Department. In the days prior to this, Parker says he had a big job to do to convince skeptical managers at both airlines that the deal would go through.

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Thomas Hoenig was Governor of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank for 20 years. Here he talks about the dangers of "too big to fail" with Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times. He is due to retire at the age of 65 in 2011. Hoeinig has stood for conservative safe financial practices for U.S. financial institutions throughout his 20 year old career, and cautioned against extending the government safety net for banks that engage in risky financial activities including derivatives trading. And essential element of safe financial practice and part of necessary market discipline, he has pointed consistently, is the fear that taking on risky activities or acting recklessly has a price- creditors can take out their funds if they see a banks as unsafe, and the financial institution may have to be broken up or closed. He joins Alan Meltzer in his criticism of Federal Reserve policies under first Greenspan and then Bernanke that take on the job of stimulating the economy and creating jobs through a very loose monetary policy after the collapse of a bubble. Hoenig sees the role of the Fed in such situations as a neutral player. The reason say Meltzer and Hoenig is that the Fed has not given enough thought and attention to the long term consequences of its policies. What were the consequences of the low rate policies in 2003 asks Hoenig? It promoted another bubble and the mortgage meltdown of 2008. What were the consequences of QE II asks Meltzer in an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal on August 11, 2011, "The Folly of Economic Short-Termism?" It has failed to revive the economy or reduce unemployment. Hoenig also points to questions of fairness and equity that arise when banks are treated differently and farmers, seniors and other groups are asked to make sacrifices....

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The U.S. Defense Department awards Boeing a $30 billion contract for aerial refueling tankers. The first phase of this deal requires building 18 aircraft by 2017. EADS, the European supplier that lost out on its bid, had planned to build the planes in Mobile, Alabama, EADS had support of some southern states. Boeing sent a design based on its 767 commercial aircraft. This gives new life to Boeing's 767 program which was launched in 1982 and is seeing declining orders- down to 50 orders. Boeing says this supports 50,000 manufacturing jobs at Boeing plants in Washington and Kansas, and at suppliers around the country. EADS said it would have brought jobs to the Gulf region and keep 48,000 Americans employed.

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The revolving door at the U.S. financial markets regulator, the S.E.C., and lax enforcement, as S.E.C. officals take up jobs at law firms and financial institutions. Here Inspector General Kotz and Senator Grassley provide many examples of revolving door practices at the S.E.C., with officials taking up positions and bringing their expertise to private firms being regulated in the same fields and specialized areas.

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About half of people in Britain in a recent poll taken during the second wave of coronavirus say they see a negative impact on mental health. Depression is affecting a fifth of the population in Britain. It has never been more important to be kind to each other and ourselves as the second wave hits a weary and fatigue stricken society.  People found many activities and hobbies to do during the 6 week lockdown period and there was an expectation that spring would bring better conditions. During the second wave of coronavirus there is a sense of a dreary period that goes on through Christmas. The uncertainty from the U.S. elections, Brexit in Britain, the reopening in countries such as India, the loss of jobs and income in countries that range from severe in Brazil, Mexico and Argentina to moderate in China, adds to the anxiety of daily life with surging cases. Creating what amounts to a low grade depressive effect during the second wave that needs to be addressed by the authorites, by health agencies, and in other ways, says this report in The Times. ...

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Experts say about 110,000 votes separate Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the three states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania that decided the 2016 presidential election in the U.S. giving Trump the win. Post election reflection in the Democratic party points to a disconnect between the establishment in both parties and the white working class. It is described as something that was not thought enough about even though as pointed out in Lyrarc, and in The Washington Post by columnists, and in news coverage about the inequality movement long before Bernie Sanders appeared in 2015. In the period when banks were favored over millions of homeowners facing foreclosure in 2010-2014, the surging stock market and the zero to to half percent interest on savings that hurt savings of most of the working class and lower middle class without stock investments, and the continuing problems in communities facing job losses from trade for the third decade. The hollowing out of the regions in Ontario from job losses from the Canadian industry helped Justin Trudeau win the Canadian election. In this election it helped Trump in crucial midwestern states, combined with a degree of indifference shown by establishment Democrats. Former Vermont governor Howard Dean is planning to run for chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Bernie Sanders says he backs Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison to be the next chair of the DNC. Jeff Weaver, campaign manager for Sanders, says the problem lies in what has been clear for some time now "that the centrist wing of the democratic party has no standing with working class and middle class  voters in this country." In 2016 only 51% of union households supported Clinton the lowest since 1980, 43% supported Trump. Obama won 59% of union households in 2008 and 58% in 2012 to 40% for Republican Romney. Trump picked up 3% of union households, Clinton lost 7% of union households, creating about a 10 point gap that would be magnified in industrial states where union jobs are concentrated, for about 18% of the people who voted in the election, enough to create the shortfall in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsyslvania. Fed chairman Janet Yellen pointed out the problems at an Inequality conference in Boston in 2014, pretty stark in its reminder that inequality had surged to levels not seen since the depression of the thirties, with 62 million households having a net worth of $11,000. Krugman and other economists had pointed this out on the pages of the NYT. Yet the post election reflection in the media is as if this is some special insight when it was clear for all to see, and covered in depth in Lyrarc for years since 2008. There is voter fatigue after 8 years of one party in power as pointed out by Obama campaign strategist, David Axelrod. The loss of union enthusiasm made the task of  a third term for the Democratic party even more difficult.     ...

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About 600 US and European company brands are leaving Russia. This report in the WSJ shows how ordinary Russians are coping with jobs in limbo. Many of these companies are continuing to pay employees but jobs remain uncertain. This includes companies like Sweden's IKEA that are popular in Russia. As western sanctions make operating difficult companies future is uncertain. This is creating anti-Western sentiment particularly in the rural areas which use mostly Russian made products and which are Putin's main source of support. Even Russians who question the attacks on Ukraine are skeptical how the withdrawal of these companies helps find a solution for Ukraine. This is happening even as the errors made by 4 term German chancellor of increasing the dependence of Germany on Russian energy supplies from 36% during Putin's annexation of Crimea to 55% today are becoming abundantly clear.That makes an energy embargo on Russia difficult for Europe, with German business saying this would be "catastrophic" because it is unprepared even though this alone provides about $1 billion a day to Putin's Russia. Meanwhile EU and other western leaders call attention to India's drawing 1-2% of its energy supplies from Russia even though one month of Indian imports is equal to just one afternoon of European oil and gas imports from Russia. India has done more than Merkel's Germany to meet the need for humanitarian vaccine assistance for the poor countries of Asia and Africa, Middle East, and is now engaged in meeting the needs of the world for foodgrains after the fallout from an Ukraine crisis that is a result of emboldening of Russia from Merkel's policies.  ...

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This BBC report looks at the hundreds of thousands of jobs being created by Biden through clean energy investments and manufacturing across the US,  including in Republican held states. This is changing the economy in places like Dalton, Georgia offering new hope for the future after decades of neglect under Republican and Democratic administrations of Bush, Obama and Trump. It is only president Biden who has turned things around on infrastructure and manufacturing in America, and done something about it. With trillions of dollars in investment in infrastructure, clean energy and manufacturing this will change the face of America. Biden said this in the debate, yet most media people don't get it, and have their heads stuck in the past unable to see the great changes that are happening in America for the first time, changes that will shape the decades ahead.

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In this essay in Der Spiegel, Charles Hawley says that the Trump movement has become a movement of patriotic downtrodden whites, with a whole range of interests-of extreme right talk show hosts, Tea Party politicians, white power supremacists, those left out by globalization in the working class especially in the midwestern states. The danger he says is that this movement of which Trump has become a part, rejects the narrative on which America is based of the Constitution and the Founding Fathers establishing a country based on principles of "the inalienable rights of man," that have evolved through the years to include black people, women, and minorities.  To put this in perspective, president Obama writing for The Economist magazine in October 2016, puts this movement in a different context- that of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, Know Nothing Movement of the 1800's, the anti-Asian sentiment in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, periods when anti-immigrant or anti-foreign sentiment gained prominence. Obama's view is that it is not fundamentally economic. In this he is right in that some of the forces on the far right do not stem from globalization. Yet he would be missing a great deal if he did not address the economic problems for the middle and working class that have given such views the support of a broad segment of the population, especially in some midwestern and older industrial states compared to say the economy of California or New York. Obama is aware of the problems in his essay as he points to the problems of workers trying to get a decent wage, of job losses through globalization, and the aggravation of these problems by the financial crisis of 2008 when some of the potential physicists and engineers as he calls them went into the financial sector to create faulty mortgages. Yet he goes back to the free trade and global networks of supply chains as having reduced global poverty, without showing a keen awareness of how it has through a combination of events and decades of policy indifference to manufacturing communities in the U.S.- as documented by experts and shown in Lyrarc, with David Autor and Gordon Hansen in the WSJ, 2016- 08-16. A Gallup Study, WSJ, 2016-05-16, supports Obama's assertion by showing that many of Trump supporters are actually self-employed and not in economic distress. Yet the movement would not have taken its proportions without the merging of different groups particularly largely disadvantaged working class voters, and fortunately Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, have a better sense of this than the president. It is by their efforts that income and wealth disparities can be tackled in a way that restores the social fusion of all parts of society- in Hillary Clinton's emphatic words in the final debate by "growing the middle," growing the middle class. This is the task of the next decade, or possibly two decades. (For Gallup study see WSJ, How Economic Anxieties Explain Trump's Appeal- And Where They Fall Short, Nick Timiraos, 08-16-2016. And for Autor, Hanson, see Tallying the Toll of U.S.-China Trade, Justin Lahart, 08-27-2011)   ...

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See these really remarkable black and white pictures of what happens in a period of decay for industrialized economies as old industries die out- as happened in the UK,  in the US with communities left without hope. Only now with Biden and Starmer a new sense of purpose for the US and UK to correct what went woefully wrong- no plans for transition to new industries and outshoring of the nation's industrial base. This exhibition of 20/20 of photos taken by Kilip and Smith in black and white is at the Parr Gallery in Bristol, UK- you can see it here by clicking on original article right now. It is the failure to plan for the transition that has led the Conservatives from Thatcher onwards to the situation today, and a similar situation in the US from Reagan onwards. The haphazard transition has let China take the lead in new industries with government support. Only now is America under Biden making a real transition and backing up new industries for factory jobs with government support and planning for the next 10 years. Britain with the Conservatives in charge is without a clue and financially strapped- the mood in Birtiain is now for Labour under Starmer to right things the way Biden is doing in the US.  ...

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Marking the sixth straight month of declines the US consumer price index rose by 6.5% over a year earlier in Dec. 2023. This is down from 7.1% in November and 9.1% in June. The US central bank chairman Jay Powell is resolutely pursuing anti inflation policy. Retail sales, manufacturing output and home sales declined in November. Exports and imports also declined. Prices fell for products such as autos and computers. Job and wage growth slowed. Tackling service inflation is the next challenge for the US Fed and Jay Powell says the WSJ.

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The coronavirus variant surge has led to burnout for frontline medical workers in the US. It has been calamitous for the mental health of public health workers in the US. These are the data analysts, policy advisors and other workers in public health departments. Many have quit their job as reported here in The Guardian. A CDC survey of 26,000 public health workers in the US shows about half have problems of mental health. Public health workers have to face problems with elected officials as well as public resentment on issues such as vaccination.

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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
The Labor Department statistics show unemployment dropped from 8.9% to 8.2%, however at the same time GDP growth for the 1st quarter only reached an estimated 2.1%, only slightly higher than the economy's potential of 2%, the figure for growth used by Fed chairman Bernanke. This has puzzled Bernanke because there was just not enough growth to account for the drop in the unemployment rate. A lower jobs number of 120,000 for jobs created in March 2012 gives the Fed chairman only a short time to respond with another version of the Operation Twist, before election season begins in earnest with the Fed wanting to stay neutral, says Lahart. Other reports suggest that the U.S. Federal Reserve having come under criticism for being too interventionist may decide to wait longer.