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Efforts in 2014 by Jizhong Energy Company to reduce pollution in the city of Xingtai, population 7.6 million, by closing down the worst polluting plants and installing new equipment. The World Bank put the cost of pollution, including cancer and other health problems, at 9% of gross national income in 2009. The Ministry of Environmental Protection estimates 3.5% of GDP as the cost of pollution in 2010. Xingtai's pollution levels have been recorded by air quality monitors at as high as 30 times China's national standard. Government figures show the PM2.5 in the city's air is 150 micrograms per cubic meter over the last 12 months, more than 4 times the national standard. To get some idea what this means, consider that Fresno, California, with the highest pollution level in the U.S. had PM2.5 level of 18 micrograms per cubic meter. To show it is serious the central government requires the city to post pollution figures online, down to individual smokestacks and exhaust ports.

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Washington Post reporters Clement and Gushkin with research and polling experience at Pew Research Center give the results of the Post-ABC News poll taken before the State of the Union 2023 address by president Biden. It shows what president Biden has said about his  investment spending of trillions of dollars in America's crumbling infrastructure, in new manufacturing for chips, advanced technologies, R&D, electric charging stations, EV vehicles, renewable energy. "Folks we are just getting started." The investments are taking place quickly because today there many projects ready for investment. Yet it takes time for the manufacturing plants to be built, new expressways and bridges to be built. The poll shows not enough people know- only a third of people know about two thirds do not know. That Mr.Biden is aware of this is apparent. He says-"It is one thing to have passed it all- now we have to make sure we're on it every single day. Not a joke." And on Jan 26, saying "Implementing it so people can see what we've delivered and give it to them directly."  This is why president Biden used his State of the Union address to make the points directly to the American people. This is also seen in his recent speech to a union audience when he told workers- Mr. Trump used infrastructure as a punchline, Biden turned it into a decade only headline. Creating well paying jobs and doing this while cutting the deficit by trillions of dollars. To give the contrast Mr. Biden told workers and working families the spending cuts proposed by the Republican House of Representatives were according to Moody's likely to result in a loss of 780,000 jobs.    ...

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Orhan Pamuk, internationally known Turkish writer, gives a photographic story about walking around in Istanbul seeing the natural yellow light along the streets and shops in different neighborhoods. This is before the shift to bright white light from new light bulbs changes the look of the streets. Orhan Pamuk has a humility in his writing, touching so many readers. So much like America's Walt Whitman, to whom we owe the name Lyrarc, formed from the first three letters of two constellations Whitman saw in the night sky over the St Lawrence river in northern Quebec in 1880. Pamuk describes the changes in these neighborhoods, in places that he walked through in the 1980's, 1990's and today. For the first time walking through difficult poorer neighborhoods made possible by a body guard assigned by the government. He sees the social transformation of the European parts of Istanbul in winter walks that started in 2016. Gives us this photograph of a Syrian immigrant woman looking for help on a street in Istanbul. Istanbul remolded by Syrian and other Arab immigrants, by nationalist sentiment. He writes so much like Whitman about Brooklyn and New York,  that beguiling feeling that he got from the nightscape in Istanbul during his brisk walks in the city, that curious energy to which he felt closer during these walks. Much like Whitman writes in Crossing Brooklyn Ferry (1891) about the hundreds and hundreds of people crossing by ferry boat being more curious to him and being more in his meditations than they would ever suppose. Orhan Pamuk is a real human ambassador for Turkey in today's chaotic, confusing Middle East. He was the 2006 Nobel Prize Winner for Literature.  ...

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"This nation was founded on a simple yet profound principle: No one is above the law. Not the president of the United States. Not a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. No one. But the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision on July 1 to grant presidents broad immunity from prosecution for crimes they commit in office means there are virtually no limits on what a president can do. The only limits will be those that are self-imposed by the person occupying the Oval Office.  "I served as a U.S. senator for 36 years, including as chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee. I have overseen more Supreme Court nominations as senator, vice president and president than anyone living today. I have great respect for our institutions and the separation of powers.What is happening now is not normal, and it undermines the public’s confidence in the court’s decisions, including those impacting personal freedoms. We now stand in a breach.That’s why — in the face of increasing threats to America’s democratic institutions — I am calling for three bold reforms to restore trust and accountability to the court and our democracy.First, I am calling for a constitutional amendment called the No One Is Above the Law Amendment." ...

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For years economists and finance people left this hidden and obscured, the common sense understanding that higher interest rates in an economy based on better education with investments in infrastructure and manufacturing as Biden has put in place today would actually stimulate the economy. Why? David Uberti rightly points out this is household wealth growing larger with investment in CD's and savings accounts, dividend paying stocks at higher interest rates. Consider this important fact -Americans have earned $3.7 trillion in the first quarter alone in interest and dividends. This is $770 billion larger than in 2019, according to Commerce Department. In the last quarter of 2023 Americans had the largest wealth ever held in stocks, real estate, and other assets such as pensions, according to the Federal Reserve. Charles Schwab of the brokerage company he founded in 1971 stated this as a major loss for the American people and the economy when zero interest rates were used to tackle the problems created by greed and poor behaviors of banks in the 2009 crisis, Schwab was talking about something real. Hit the country with war burdens for Middle East wars of Reagan, Bush, Obama and Trump by taking away funds from infrastructure and education, healthcare and you have two burdens -2009 financial crisis created by banks and wars that reduce the household wealth and the capacity of the American economy to grow and create needed jobs to reduce standard of life/quality of life in the US. A third burden fell heavily on pensioners and elderly depriving them of interest and dividends with zero interest rates that no economist wanted to talk about for 30 years including  the previous administrations since 1990.  ...

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Values of St Augustine are to be celebrated with Vance, and of Mohandas Gandhi with Harris. Then why the discord? End wars (Biden ending the war in Afghanistan). End migrant incursions Harris pledge to sign the Lankford-Biden legislation into law that fixes asylum entry and Closes the Border with Mexico. Cost of living that hurts the needy and middle class the most. As Applebaum writes about Housing costs Trump has no plan, Harris is willing to put government resources into it. Republicans have their hands tied by a hands off government that is supposed to do nothing and hope everything will work out. That is without corporate housing company greed in a system that doesn/t work -they set the prices too high. As Kristof writes about in the NYT the Republicans will not support paid marital leave, will not support child care assistance, will not support cuts to high pharmaceutical costs, making healthcare unaffordable even to the middle class not to speak of the lower income working class. And will not support investment in the infrastructure that is crumbling around us even as the infrastructure is crumbling around us, like the bridge in Baltimore that went down in minutes. Trump used infrastructure issue in 2016 and rightly so, and talked about it being Infrastructure Week every week, yet did nothing for infrastructure, nothing serious until Biden in 2016-2020. This a continuing project for Harris. Part of this is to end the wars (Biden's efforts in Afghanistan ending it). And end the migrants incursions, Harris 's pledge to sign the Lankford-Biden immigration bill that fixes asylum entry and closes the US Border with Mexico. ...

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Inozemtsev of the Institute of Post-Industrial Studies in Moscow, asks the question wht if the Russian economy shows no growth in 2017, and 2015-2016 become the beginning of a serious downturn. If oil prices remain low for an extended period as now looks likely with factors such as shale oil technologies, Iranian oil, and Saudi policy, playing an increasingly long term role, Russia could face some of the problems former finance minister, Alexei Kudrin, other business leaders including head of Sberbank, warned about. A major problem that Inozemtsev points to is the change in the business climate for foreign investment in 2012-2016 as the Russian economy looks more inward, and the departure of many foreign companies. During the period 2000-2008, a major boost to the economy came from foreign investment which brought with it management and technological improvements. No emerging market country, including China, can have a bright future without access to new technologies and investments from foreign investment. The current period starting in 2009 stands in sharp contrast to the earlier period with the Russian economy lacking the boost from foreign investment, facing capital outflows, and international conflicts creating a long term effect on oil prices. Russia needed time to move its economy away from commodity dependence through technological improvements and investment, yet this does not appear to be happening, raising serious questions....

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At the height of the Eurozone crisis in December 2011, David Brooks points out that it is important not to forget what the Germans are saying in this crisis. They are arguing for truth in accounting, which the government in Greece failed to do, and which may have more to do with negative opinion in the media and with the public in Germany about Greece than any other factor. They are arguing against speculative excesses that enabled Greece to borrow recklessly. And they are making the argument that the only way to put the finances of the eurozone on a sound basis is to have the financial discipline that is necessary for a sound currency. Anthony Faiola pointed out recently that one estimate for tax evasion in Italy is $340 billion a year- Washington Post, 11/25/2011. Greece has a similiar problem, which needs to be addressed. This view has credibility and the backing of every principle of sound financial practices, irrespective of country or region. For ordinary Germans who have gone through years of wage restraint during the period of high unemployment, their attitude is captured in one German workers response to Greece's situation - when she said there are "poor children in Germany also." Years after reunification were a difficult experience for Germany, and left parts of the country still affected by the experience. The period of high unemployment is still a fresh memory, as the economic recovery is fairly recent. There is a feeling that the situation is precarious, depending on exports, as the 2009 downturn showed. These facts remain even when one considers the criticism levelled at Germany. Germany benefitted from the bubble in the economies of Southern Europe through surging exports- from a currency that was undervalued in relation to neighbors- because of the common currency. German banks lent heavily to Greece, Ireland, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, along with French and British banks, and bear responsibility for reckless lending and not doing due diligence for loans to Greece and other countries. Germany also carries the burden of memories of hyperinflation in the 1920's, and the sense along with France that partnership is necessary for peace in Europe. Germany's position on austerity measures also has one underlying weakness - if this leads to shrinking economies in southern Europe in the name of fianncial discipline, then the plan fails as tax revenues decline and budget deficits increase. Given this experience Germany faces the challenge of convincing neighbors of the need for good governance and sound spending practices for long term stability of the currency, even as it leads the effort for providing short term funding. In the short run this reaps criticism for Germany, including criticism for some members such as Greece having to leave the euro as a way to regain competitiveness and growth. Experts have suggested that this would be a better option for Greece than a shrinking economy after strong austerity measures, and the referendum proposed by former prime minister Papandreou on strict austerity measures is likely to have gone in this direction. ...

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The problems Shanghai residents are facing during the covid lockdown in 2022. The experience of a 34 year old technology worker in Shanghai who is sent to a quarantine center in a 16 hour bus ride shows the difficulties people are facing in Shanghai, China. The zero covid policy is affecting the economy and the daily lives of people in China. In the US Democrats shifted away from strict covid protocols in 2021 after realizing that there were economic costs and costs for daily living of ordinary people, with lockdowns becoming less frequent in states such as Michigan, New York and California.

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The problems of vaccine access in Africa affect us all - this is the simple truth. Here the NYT gives letters from people on the frontlines, healthcare workers in Africa who in one situation in the Sudan had over 4000 people arrive some by canoe through floods and had only 545 vaccines. Africa Centers for CDC show 79% of people in Africa will take the vaccination. Vaccine access for Africa is something that should be on the top of the list for Biden in the US, Johnson in UK, Modi in India, Scholz in Germany, and for all world leaders.

 

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Elon Musk and others who say MBA's are a problem for America. MBA training does not bring  the creativity and original ideas and doer approach America so desperately needs today. Asking Business school professors or lecturers about their opinion on MBA's does not make sense as this is how they earn their living. Musk is outspoken about this- "I think there is a MBA-ization of America, which I think is maybe not that great. There should be more focus on the product or service itself, less time on board meetings, less time on financials."

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This fascinating story in the NYT looks at how the game of baseball in the US took over Japan in the way the English game of cricket took over India and Australia. A Maine native Horace Wilson from near Portland, is said to be the person who taught baseball to students at Kaisei Gakko (that became Tokyo University) in 1872. The National High School baseball Championships grip Japan with 3782 schools participating. Ichiro Suzuki, a Japanese baseball player, says it is popular in Japan because it requires more than speed and strength, it requires use of the intellect and sharp thinking.

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Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina wins a third consecutive term in office, winning 288 seats in parliament. Sheikh Hasina's Awami League was challenged in this election by a coalition of parties after her main opponent Khaleda Zia was jailed earlier in 2018 for corruption and was barred from running in the election. Hasina is the daughter of independence leader Mujibur Rahman. Khaleda Zia is the widow of a military commander who founded the BNP party. Both have alternated in office- with Hasina in office for the last decade having run Bangladesh focusing on development and economic growth that was about 6% each year over the decade.

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Inida' slowdown from 9% to 6.7% growth rate is mainly the result of lower private consumption says the Economis, as the contribution to growth of private consumption dropped by half in 2008. Which is why it sees the handouts to consumers through tax cuts and welfare spending making sense in the short run, even as India's finances are stretched. After a 36% increase in government spending in this budget, the fiscal deficit is estimated to be 12% in 2009, including "off-budget" items. Increasing the efficiency of the fertilizer subsiies by putting it directly in farmer's hands instead of fertilizer makers is a priority, as this takes up 1.5% of GDP.

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Morgenson cites Paul Diggle, property economist at Capital Economics in London, about why the $26 billion mortgage settlement between the state attorneys general, the U.S. government and the large U.S. banks is unlikely to make much difference to the foreclosure problems in the housing market. The agreement provides for reducing principal by $17 billion over 3 years for homeowners under water. Diggle points out that $17 billion is a drop compared to what is needed, because 11 million homeowners are now under water on their loans to the amount of $700 billion. The $17 billion is a mere 2.4% of the negative equity of $700 billion.

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Why this recession will be deeper and more prolonged than the mild ones of 1991 and 2001. In a paper Rogoff and Reinhart argue that this will be a significant and protracted slowdown. Goldman's Jan Hatzius thinks that the other industries outside banking and housing are in much better shape, and because they did not hire so much since 2001, may not retrench that much. And Gordon at Northwestern University sees exports, which are twice as large as construction in the GDP, should continue to grow strongly easing the housing decline. But he sees pressure on retail sales with higher energy costs and mortgage related troubles.

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This may be the most important work of the DJT administration by 2027 into 2028 elections.  WSJ calls it the soda wars, when it is the slow destruction of America. As JFK and RFK well knew when they made fitness a goal for America in 1960- health is not built on sodas. Today with such high obesity, sodas and its likes, it is about the slow destruction of America.  MALA make America Live Again starts here. “When a taxpayer is putting money into SNAP, are they OK with us using their tax dollars to feed really bad food and sugary drinks to children, who perhaps need something more nutritious?” Right now it is the biggest item for schools in most states for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Plan. Passed by Congress in 1964 the original bill for SNAP excluded sodas and luxury drinks, but had Sodas added back in by the Senate. By lobbyists even in 1964? SNAP schools program falls under the Agriculture Department. Democrats as well as Republicans appointed Agriculture Secretaries and not one took the action to get sodas excluded, to let states request sodas be excluded and approve it, not the Democrat a Carter, a Clinton, or an Obama, or a Republican a Reagan, a Bush, or a Trump (first term) took the necessary action. In 2025 Brooke Rollins is Agriculture Department Secretary. Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee has seen the damage sodas can cause in her family. Rollins on her first day in office has finally acted- after 61 years when the original intentions of the SNAP bill's creators were confounded in the Senate.  On her first full day in office, urging them to propose pilot programs testing changes to food aid. Rollins sent governors a letter to ask for the removal of sodas from schools food aid program.   ...

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The 1985 hit "Small Town" by John Mellencamp is about Seymour, Indiana. Republican State Representative Jim Lucas says the city of Seymour welcomes immigrants legally here who are properly vetted. The concern is about migrants not vetted and not legally here. At a recent city council meeting Lucas attended it was decided not to go ahead with an economic development agenda. Says Lucas- “However, Seymour has changed drastically in just the past few years, and many of us are obviously concerned about the direction we are headed,” he added. New immigrant cases or migrant arrivals for Jackson county, Indiana, where Seymour is located went up to 435 in 2024 from 66 in 2021. It is at that point that the welcome center idea ran into opposition in this small town in Indiana, an hour from Indianapolis population 21,000 in Jackson County. As the town's population mix changes - it was 1% Hispanic in 1990, then 5% Hispanic in 2000- jumping in two decades of Bush-Obama-Trump-Biden to 25% Hispanic, questions besides economic about the sense of uneasiness of resident came up. Also of cultural literacy of the state of Indiana, and of the history of the state within the Union forged by Washington and Lincoln, FDR and Eisenhower, and of Wendell Wilkie of Elwood, Indiana. Unemployment rate for Jackson County is 3.3%, median income $63,000, home ownership 57%. Issues were not about the economy alone, and about how many immigrants could be absorbed and the cultural and language literacy of arriving migrants. There were issues about the perceived crime rate (metrics show traffic related offenses were up), and about drawing too much of the school's resources as English learning went up slowing learning in the schools. Republican State Representative Jim Lucas says it is crowding the health care clinic downtown with immigrants. ...

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Intel's new CEO was the CEO of Cadence Design Systems 2008-2021 which makes software for integrated circuits and systems on chips.   Coming from Malaysia and Singapore Tan got his Masters in Nuclear Engineering from MIT and founded Walden International in 1987. Making early investments in China's chip industry when China's chip industry was just starting in the 1990's, Tan's company participated in  40% of the chip industry investments in China made from the US between 2017-2021. Some of this is covered in a WSJ report from 2021 shown alongside. He served on the boards of China's Semiconductor Manufacturing and Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment.  A parallel to this is Morris Chang who after degrees at MIT started the semiconductor industry in Taiwan. A period back then in which the US chip industry dependent on market forces and without hidden government subsidies was eclipsed by new ventures in first Taiwan, then South Korea and China. During a period in which technologies were freely transferred with no long term grasp of the consequences to American technological leadership, and chip industry in the US. It was allowed to decline by administrations of Bush and Obama since 2000, ceding dominance through lack of investment in manufacturing technologies. In chips and science capitalism and market forces leave American companies to the mercy of markets when government support overseas is not matched by government support in the US to create an absolutely essential level playing field.  The US then feels the lack of synergyistic energies that go from chips to other advanced industries and technologies. Textbook economics from Dartmouth or Ivy Leagues is with totally theoretical stuff about comparitive advantage no help, and created the current situation for America in chips and science where a whole industry was ceded.  ...

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A open conversation with the NYT's Baker, Schmidt and Haberman by president Trump in mid July 2017. This conversation of the president with the NYT is remarkable for its frankness about people close to the president during the election campaign, particularly Jeff Sessions of Alabama. Sessions was the only leading Senator in Congress who supported Mr. Trump from the beginning. Southern states came out heavily for Mr. Trump as part of the traditional Republican base. Trump says of Sessions that had he known Sessions was going to recuse himself from the Russia investigation he would not have appointed Sessions as the new Attorney General. About Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein Trump says he should never have appointed Mueller as Special Counsel. The president also says Mueller should stay only with information related to Russia and not stray from that to delve into Trump's finances. During the election efforts were made to get Mr. Trump to disclose more about his finances as a real estate businessman- most of these efforts failed and not much is known about president Trump's finances. The president says he never said he would order the Justice Department to fire Mr. Mueller, yet he left open this possiblility, according to the NYT, as the president feels it has affected the first 6 months of the Trump presidency. This interview with president Trump was published on July 20, 2017, the day after an editorial in the WSJ by the Editorial Board of the Journal on July 19, 2017, calling for transparency from president Trump on the Russia investigation. This was an exceptional and powerful editorial by its editorial board telling president Trump that he must tell everything he knows now or face the risk of losing public confidence, and risk his presidency. It said that president Trump was wrong to think that his larger than life personality and social media role could insulate him from the effects of this lack of transparency. ...

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China's effort to tie Vietnam and Malaysia to its economic system- will it work? China has trade worth $982 billion with 10 neighbors in South East Asia compared to trade of $786 billion with EU and $688 billion with US.

Some of that $982 billion is product shipped to Vietnam by China, assembled there and shipped to the US. This is why DJT/USTR put 46% tariff on Vietnam, now reduced to 10% for 90 days till negotiations. President Xi of China visited Hanoi, Vietnam, to sign 45 bilateral cooperation agreements to bind Vietnam closer to China's state run capitalist system. At the same time premier Lam of Vietnam is seeking negotiations with US and has talked to president Trump. What is going on? Vietnam hope to have ties to both US and China. Will it work?

 

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DJT takes action sending in the Marines to Los Angeles to guard federal buildings, stop rioting June 10, 2025. At a White House briefing on fires including the fires in Los Angeles, US president DJT says the situation could have gone on for days as it did in Minneapolis when he acted after 7-8 days and the governor failed to call in the National Guard. DJT says he has seen this before and this is why he acted quickly before rioting destroyed the parts of Los Angeles that had survived the fires. 

Kristi Noem, the Homeland Secretary, a former governor, says action will be taken to enforce the nation's laws and that the comments by Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum that encouraged the protesters in contempt for US law enforcement were inappropriate and needed to be condemned.

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The Economist points out that the last thing President Obama needs - when he has serious domestic and foreign policy goals- is another Vietnam. Just as Bush's presidency was seriously affected by Iraq, Obama's presidency it says would be seriously affected by Afghanistan. And the Economist emphasizes as General Chrystal's chief conclusion: "an insurgency cannot be defeated by aforeign army alone." It points to General Chrystal's view that success means winning the support of the people, and the loss of faith in the government of Karzai. Obama and Biden will have noted this as they have growing doubts of their own about the widespread fraud seen in the Afghan election. Ground reports from Afghanistan support this assessment about acomplete loss of support for the Karzai government. See Intelilinks.

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General McChrystal gets the support he is looking for against the Taliban in Afghanistan, as Gates, Obama and Clinton, make the decision to continue backing the Karzai government, even though it is very unpopular and the ground reports suggest that this would be amistake. It was NATO that announced the support because the Obama administration had deep concerns about the Karzai government. The US and the UN representative Kai Eide wanted to see arunoff for the elections but the "assumption" that he would be reelected suggests the Obama administration, the UN representative, and the UK and Canadian foreign ministers in ameeting have decided to continue the war in Afghanistan on Karzai's side.