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President Biden makes preparations for weeks with his aides for one of the biggest speeches of his presidency- the State of the Union Address to the US Congress on Tuesday, February 7. NYT looks at the preparation. Aides talk about a process in which the president spends weeks reading the drafts aloud, throwing out anything that is not readily understood. The president demands that the sentences be written clearly says the NYT, so that the whole country can grasp what he is saying. Mike Donilon, Bruce Reed, Anita Dunn, Steven Ricchetti, Vinay Reddy, are aides in this process. Reed guides policy related additions, and Donilon knows Biden's voice in returning to his humble roots. Reed ran Biden's office for 2 years to 2013, and Donilon shaped the message for the 2020 campaign- a fight for the soul of the nation. During crucial periods Washington, Lincoln and FDR's address to Congress shaped thinking in the US from the War of Independence, to the Civil War and the Great Depression, Biden's fight for the soul of the nation takes its place there. ...

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Asians are highly overrepresented. Hispanic communities are underrepresented in the UC California system colleges but still make up more than whites at 36% of the UC colleges. Whites make up about 17% and are also underepresented. There are imbalances all around and large investment is needed badly at the public school levels to motivate white and minority students who have fallen behind. Strengthening reading comprehension skills by pouring in new resources is a first and fundamental step to give whites and minorities a better chance- it can be done. There are three times as many white families that make less than $50,000 a year as Black and Hispanic families showing huge income gaps in the white segment. Universities by taking into account socioeconomic factors can help bring a more diverse socio economic class than a racially diverse class. This helps the white community after the outsourcing of US manufacturing and shrinking of the white middle class from being highly underrepresented in universities. The black communities have about 2% of the UC colleges with about 5% of the California population. ...

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This view in WSJ about Trump the candidate being no different in 2024 than eight years back in 2016, by Gerard Baker, gets 3813 Comments from Readers. It says Trump today in 2024 is no different than in 2016, only then he faced a candidate Hillary Clinton who had spent so much time in endless foreign travel as Secretary of State, that she had lost touch with the American people. In that situation Trump prevailed and that by only 90,000 votes in 3 states. Baker comes to this conclusion by reading carefully and objectively assessing the meaning of the Mar Lago interview that Trump gave last week. He says this time Trump is up against someone who is clearly in touch and and a seasoned politician. One that is able to give voters a chance to project on a clean slate whatever they want to see. This even though Kamala Harris has well known views from her days as Attorney General and Senator. Baker sees Trump lacking a coherent message and failing to provide a vision for the future, simply restating what was said before. ...

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James McIntyre's book about Gordon Brown, (title is Power with a Purpose) who like Jimmy Carter, was more respected in retirement for doing good work humbly and not getting into a revenue generating speaker's circuit or consulting, or boards of directors of companies. McIntyre looks at his career, the involvement of Mandelson as Business Secretary, the failures of Mandelson and Blair in New Labour, and Gordon Brown's failure to revive the Labour Party. The Times says Gordon Brown has grown in stature since leaving No. 10 Downing Street. Under Blair, Brown was No.2 and headed the British Treasury as finance minister. He only became prime minister at the end of his career during the 2008-2009 financial crisis. He started the effort to redefine Labour Party after Margaret Thatcher defeated the Labour candidate from Plymouth Mr. Foot and swept out socialist Labour and the trade unions. Then followed privatization and changes in the British economy which were followed by Reagan in the US by 1980. Through this period Brown and Blair tried to create the concept of New Labour which won in landslides as Britain switched back to Labour as the alternative. As the Blair magic withered Brown was left tackling the 2009 financial crisis but failed to define what Labour was- his Business secretary was Peter Mandelson who unlike Brown was in Labour but in for his own purpose and had a cynical attitude to politics as a way to retire in some privileged business position on boards of directors. The result is well known Cameron and the conservatives who were even less qualified than an earlier generation of Conservative politicians, their decision to call the Brexit referendum, the verdict of yes on Brexit leading to Cameron's replacement by Boris Johnson, and Britain having 4 prime ministers in a span of five years as discredited austerity drive was replaced by Keir Starmer's Labour. This project with McSweeney as Starmer's campaign manager cleared Labour of socialist outlook Corbyn supporters, won in a landslide in 2024, only to fail to define the purpose for which Labour stood for and Starmer's ratings dropping to new lows of 18% support as Reform UK's Farage took up the issue of migrants and the culture that enabled migrants to enter the UK. Britain has been let down by two generations of less competent, poorly qualified for public service politicians over three decades since the 1990's- through Blair/Brown, Cameron, Boris Johnson and left struggling with Keir Starmer. Sixty years after decolonization of an Empire in the 1960's, Britain has not gained in purpose and strength, only drifting along as new powers emerge in Asia and the world changes. ...

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10.5 million vehicles is the new number at GM for USA auto sales in 2009. GM has consistently predicted a scenario for auto sales that is much higher than it has turned out to be, leading to a lack of proactive speedy decisionmaking where needed to close plants, get financing and other steps needed to pull the company out of trouble. This new lower number may also turn out to be higher than actual because figures for inventories, unemployment, foreclosures, consumer spending, exports, all are worsening.

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Japan, this report shows was in a weak position and was willing to concede- its auto industry could absorb a 15% tariff but the rest of it's economy must be protected. Any economic weakness would be exposed and conditions mght deteriorate in the Japanese economy by letting things go past August 1 and steep tariffs. Luttnick's idea of investment fund was supported by Japan for investing $400-$550 billion in the US with 50% of profits going to the US. Earlier NYT report by Ana Swanson shows the American side of the deal where Howard Luttnick, with experience as a bond trader and on Wall Street, came up with the unconventional idea of an investment fund knowing that the LDP facing elections and  fearing loss of  its majority was unwilling to give DJT what he wanted on some trade issues. Japanese negotiators decided that giving some way on auto tariffs accepting a 15% flat tariff on auto imports was one way to accomodate the Americans and protect other Japanese industries exports from steep tariffs. One would not know this from reading the WSJ, but DJT with Luttnick, Bessent and Greer as negotiators with Akazawa and Ishiba of Japan have won a historic and significant win for America in creating a level playing field in trade. It also sets a precedent for all other trade deals.  ...

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Years of low prices for soybeans and corn with competition from Russia and Brazil, combined with tariff war with China roiling agricultural markets, are leading to the highest bankruptcies in a decade for farmers in the U.S. in 2019. Dairy farmers are hit too with low milk prices.

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Leonhardt of the NYT provides a useful look at several graphs showing how the last 2 decades have seen an accelerated level of inequality as most of the gains in income have gone to less than one person of the population. Income gains of the majority of the American people have dwindled leading to alarming levels of inequality. The nation has not yet come to grips with the problem, says Leonhardt, as the Republican healthcare bills actually hurt the elderly and most vulnerable in the population. The Trump budget used double counting, supporting tax cuts that were based on faulty accounting, raising debt for future generations.

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Anthropic's settlement for $1.5 billion at $3000 a book, and it's efforts in Education that conflict with the Nation's need to get 4th graders to Read and Learn. Anthropic's website shows it trying to get into Education and to measure the Economic Index from effects of AI. Yet the pretensions to goodwill for the public cause is not supported by facts, facts that the AI companies have nothing to show for the dismal situation for Global Literacy that is the case today. Literacy in the US that is dismal with about two thirds of 4th graders not able to read and comprehend the English language at a level of proficiency in American schools. These AI purveyors care only for the money they can make using vast amounts of electricity for these servers, and pretensions for public purpose are intended to smooth their access to public resources not some genuine interest in whether kids can read, which requires the hard work of the teachers in the public and private schools of this Nation and others in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa. The Movement for Global Literacy is Lyrarc's effort to support reading and learning and Lyrarc serves this purpose without such massive funding and without charging for the public service to the Nation and to other Nations in the world community. Anthropic settlement of $1.5 billion at $3000 a book for its AI bots use of copyrighted books, can lead to future litigation for OpenAI model that consumes vast amounts of data. Anthropic was founded by siblings Daniela and Dario Amodei after leaving OpenAI in 2021 in San Francisco. It hired Google Books Turvey to scan books for its large language models on a massive scale to train Claude its version of OpenAI's ChatGPT.  An investment of $4 billion by Amazon and additional $2 billion by Google provided funding. In this way it is a competitor to Microsoft funded OpenAI which made early advances in AI.  This article in WSJ says by making the settlement for $1.5 billion Anthropic is trying to make it harder for Open AI to scan material easily without paying for the access and thus blocking it's rival.   ...

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Tulsi Gabbard's views on surveillance and use of Section 702 for intelligence are covered in this editorial of WSJ which says she is not fully qualified for the role of heading the Intelligence agency.

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Budget cuts leading to cutting of gym classes in American schools.

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Spain's prime minister Pedro Sanchez calls a snap election in Spain after the defeat of his minority government in a parliamentary budget vote. The Catalan party withdrew support leading to the collapse of the government. Twelve Catalan leaders are on trial in Madrid for arranging an independence referendum.

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With some aspects of Marie Le Pen's programme possibly violating the French Constitution and some parts of the programme leading to France being forced to leave the European Union, what was not looked at carefully in the first round vote is now happening for the second round. The Le Pen draft law on "immigration, identity and citizenship," is seen by multiple analyses cited by The Guradian, as violating the principles of equality enshrined in the French Constitution. Constitutional experts say this would also violate European law and lead to a progressive or indirect exit from the European Union. Le Pen's proposal to lower the retirement age to 60 was coming under scathing scrutiny, with Jean Tirole, the 2014 Nobel prize winner in Economics saying it would cost 68 billion euros and "permanently impoverish the country." Countries such as Brazil that lowered the retirement age in this manner have found that it seriously affects public finances, leading to the deep economic crisis in Brazil following the commodity price collapse a few years ago. Macron has moved in the opposite direction to raise the retirement age gradually and now with a proposed national consensus, at the cost of losing some support, simply to shore up public finances. So that needed investments in infrastructure and climate change can be made. For this reason it may become evident to undecided voters that Le Pen's proposals have some serious flaws if implemented, weakening the French economy and yet not tackling the deeper problems of younger people. These problems The Guardian says in a separate report are the precarious and low pay jobs, asset based inequality, and rural urban regional differences developing as a result of the offshoring of manufacturing to China, and are common to Britain, France, Germany, and the US. These problems are beginning to be addressed after the lessons learned from the pandemic by western nations.   ...

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The widely respected finance minister of South Africa, Pravin Gordhan, is fired leading to calls for the resignation of president Jacob Zuma, and a call for a no confidence vote in parliament by the opposition parties. The Rand drops by 5% after the news of the resignation. This news comes as South Africa's business community and the CEO initiative were making efforts to stabilize the rand and avoid new credit downgrades for the South African currency. 

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The Tories are seen shifting their position from working with the unions during the pandemic and Boris Johnson's position that there would be no return to the period of "low wages, low skills, and low productivity," in this analysis in The Guardian. Faced with risks of higher inflation in Britain the conservatives have shifted to supporting no more than a 3% wage increase for rail workers in the face of 8% increase in inflation in Britain in 2022. Rail airline, other workers,, and the government now are on opposite sides on wages after joining together during the pandemic. Shortages of workers have pushed up wages in some sectors but others are lagging behind including transport workers, leading to the rail strike and other strikes of public sector workers.

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The difficult situation facing a six term Congressman from New York who is the new Minority Leader in the US House of Representatives. Mr Hakim Jeffries faces a difficult debt ceiling vote in the US Congress during his first year as Leader for the Democratic party in the House. All 213 Democrats have signed a special petition that would force a vote in the House if the debt ceiling negotiations fail. This is 5 votes short. The vote would then require 5 moderate House Republican members to support it for it to pass. The idea is that only if push comes to shove and no agreement is reached leading to financially disastrous results for Americans in which they would be blamed by their constituents for not acting, moderates from states like New York might join the Democrats.

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President Biden says he opposed reducing minimum sentences for crimes in Washington D.C. such as carjackings, as proposed by a new law in D.C. Biden says Republican efforts to block that legislation would bring that to his desk and he would not veto the Republican proposal blocking reducing sentences. Crime is up 40% in Washington D.C say police. In the New York election for Congress, and in the recent Chicago mayoral election crime was an issue for Republicans leading to losses for Democrats and for Lori Lightfoot in Chicago. Biden wants to focus on the major issues for workers and families in the country, on infrastructure, jobs, inflation, and the US economy, and not let his plan for America's renewal lose focus because Republicans are able to make crime an issue.

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The US Air Force plans to order 100 planes of the B21 Stealth Bomber at $700 million each. This aircraft is made at Plant 21 in Palmdale, California. The development of this plane was kept hidden for seven years even to families with someone working at the plant. It is made by Northrop Grumman. The previous version of the plane was the B2 Spirit of which only 21 were made leading to a high cost of $2 billon per plane. These planes last for many years. The B52 bombers of the Vietnam era are still in use. Their cost is prohibitive for most countries. During the period after the collapse of the Soviet Union investment in these bombers declined. With new risks emerging for NATO in Europe and in Asia this aircraft is seen as an American deterrent.

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A chaotic return of school children to school in September 2021 in most of Europe and America, because of a lack of clear statement on the rules to be followed for mask use, social distancing, and testing. Most children are also returning to school without vaccination.  It is also happening at this time in September when the Delta variant is spreading. US president Biden's decision for vaccine mandate for 100 million or two thirds of American workers comes at this time of uncertainty in schools about the future and coronavirus variant. In the US rules are being set school district by school district, at a time when vaccines are not approved for children under 12 years. One leading school administrator in the US says "it's as chaotic as you can get."

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After the first round of elections Mauricio Macri threw his support to Milei. Macri was president from 2015 to 2019 when pro-market reforms led to unrestrained borrowing from overseas investors. It failed leading to high inflation and turning to the IMF for loan of $57 billion. Any time there is a drought or agriculture in Pampas fails reserves dry up as in 2016 and again recently. Macri was ousted in the next election and replaced by Peronist Fernandez. The problems persist with a return to Macri and Milei who was just elected president turning to dollarization when the country lacks the $9 billion needed to convert pesos to US dollars. Argentina has net reserves of $20 billion, borrowing from China of $17 billion and net reserves of  negative $10 billion. 

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Republican Speaker Johnson is setting Saturday April 20, 2024 votes in the US Congress for Ukraine-Israel aid in a weekend vote, as Israel and Ukraine face growing threats. Basically the bill Democrats passed in the Senate gets split up into 3 parts for that $95 billion in aid bill to be voted on individually for each part separately for Ukraine, for Israel, for Taiwan. A fourth bill would be for Ukraine aid as a loan, and a measure leading to national ban on TikTok.

"We're not the world's policeman, but we are going to do the right thing. And I think Congress is going to take an important stand."

"We have improved the process and policy. Every member of Congress gets to vote his conscience."

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Strack of DW.com reports on the 2016 CDU convention where Merkel received 89.5% of the vote. Merkel receives applause for the burqa ban, and her denunciation of populist hate sentiment, of Islamism and parallel societies, parallel cultures. The best passages of Merkel's speech says Strack, were about reunification, about how she started in politics from the natural sciences, her start at SPD, then shifting  quickly to the "Democratic Beginning" leading to the CDU. "Head into the open," "that is where freedom is," and says Strack she had the hall listening to a chancellor speaking with emotion when in the past she has been cool and reserved. Parallels to the 1994 campaign of Kohl for a fourth term when enthusiasm came only from "generation" Kohl are being made.

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This is about Governor Newsom, Biden, Michigan and what the Media just doesn't get. Governor Newsom said in South Haven, Michigan yesterday- "I believe in this man. I believe in his character. I believe that he has been one of the most transformative presidents in our lifetime." One has to go back to FDR and Truman to understand Biden. FDR and Woodrow Wilson were the leading transformative presidents of the last one hundred years. FDR and Truman had to overcome many problems to provide the leadership America needed in critical times as the nation turned from a largely agricultural country to and industrial nation, through wars and economic upheavals. Biden is tackling one of these difficult periods in the Nation's history and is bringing exceptional experience, conviction and ability to this task.

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The Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and Deputy Chair, Nanette Baragan, Adriano Espaillat ,say "we stand with president Joe Biden and vice president Kamala Harris." There are 43 members in that group. Biden also had a good conversation Monday night with 60 members of the CBC Congressional Black Caucus. The CBC offered full support to Biden and Harris and the CBC called for efforts to invest in housing and invest in the Black Community. Every member of CBC praised Biden. Senator Patty Murray, president pro tempore of the Senate, asked Biden to be more forceful and energetic- "There is such a case to be prosecuted against Trump, president Biden has to lead the charge making that case." She also praised Biden for leading a "historic" first term.

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In a game where the physical push and shove happened abundantly with many fouls including some involving Toni Kroos and leading to the sending off of Pedri, the Spaniards simply were the more resilient side. Spain led for most of the regular play period with a goal from Dani Olmo from a Yamal pass. Wirtz scored for Germany only in the 86th minute with a scramble taking place in front of goal. Spain were the better team overall and scored in extra time in what was a quarter final game but could have been the final, such was the intensity displayed by Germany who were seen by their fans as not having the determination to win in other games. Spain simply had some of the best players- Rodrigo, Yamal , Olmo and Morata and the play was relentless on both sides.