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Michelson, Mohawk artist from America's indigenous peoples projects Mohawk art on three tons of oyster shells. These oyster shells were present when Dutch settlers settled and unsettled in Michelson's words this part of New York's shoreline and New York Harbour. The shells are on loan from the Billion Oyster Project that aims to restore one billion live oysters to New York Harbour by 2035.  Michelson is preoccupied by the destruction of the indigenous environment by colonialism.

Shifts in perspective are taken in one gulp like in a painting and the motion in Native Storytelling, says Michelson.

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This report in The Guardian shows that nature can be prescribed as therapy by doctors taking a lot of pressure off the overburdened national health services of many countries. It is proven that even two hours of walks in nature settings can make a huge difference for mental health. Three decades of industrial progress and urbanization have left most countries with a new generation that has lost the benefits of this type of energizing and invigorating exercize, that does a ton of good for physical and mental health just when it is most needed during a massive pandemic.

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India's ruling BJP party wins 103 seats and is leading in one more seat in the 2018 Karnataka state assembly elections. This compares with 40 seats in the last election in 2013. The Congress party won 78 seats down from 122 seats in the 2013 election. A regional party Janata Dal won 37 seats. 113 seats are needed to have a majority and form the next government. The elections here could influence the national elections in 2019. India's tech city of Bangalore is the capital of Karnataka state. For the BJP Party is was critical to win the state as it prepares for the national elections in 2019 to advance its rapid infrastructure development program in India, and increase foreign investment in India's economy.

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House rules of order from the U.S. House of Representatives would have as presiding officer at the Republican National Convention, Speaker Paul Ryan. Efforts to change this were pushed back at a RNC meeting in Florida. Trump's representatives Manafort and Ben Carson attempted to repair damaged relations between the Republican National Committee, its chairman Vince Preibus, and Trump, at that meeting. The Manafort argument was that Trump's flaws were of personality not character, which would be easier to fix than that facing Hillary Clinton, yet many RNC members were skeptical of this. A April 2016 WSJ/NBC poll shows Hillary Clinton leading Trump 50% to 39%, by 11 points- the surprising finding is that the poll also shows 56% of both candidates support comes from voters anxious to avoid the alternative candidate.

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One of the good things after the pandemic is that people are going to spend more time in their home countries instead of travelling overseas, says this report in the DW.com. World tourism has grown too quickly and too fast in the last two decades. Places everywhere are becoming extremely congested. I remember visits to Paris, to Notre Dame cathedral and its surroundings, in the eighties and nineties and compare them to two decades later with regret that it has changed for the worse. By 2010 everyplace looked different, transport, hotels, streets were so congested as to make trips less exciting and less fun to do.  The question posed here is whether having 3 million less people travelling around the world is such a bad thing? It says the tourism industry has grown so quickly and so fast that it poses a danger to the environment, to the quiet of neighborhoods and cities, driving a commodities culture. As this writer says it drives locals away from the cities they have lived in for generations, and robs those who stay of the quiet lives they have enjoyed. In fact once the cities experienced so much less pollution during gradual reopening, and streets had less traffic, a lot of people turned to use bicycles. Bicycle lanes were replacing car traffic lanes. A return to calmer living with enjoyment of one's own neighborhoods and cities, and travel within one's own country, is becoming an attractive alternative. People now remember that it was the huge amount of airline traffic that spread the pandemic from cities in Asia to cities in Europe, and cities in America. It also spread quickly through tourist destinations inside Asia and Africa, and Latin America. Even some of the early clusters in Germany, Italy and the U.S. had their origins in the the spread of globalized supply chains in China, Germany, and Italy for automobiles. Auto industry business people traveled to places in or near Wuhan, then to Bavaria, and on to northern Italy in the global supply chain for automobile manufacturing.  As new nations like China and India with billions of people are added to world tourism this changes everything in a way never imagined before. This pandemic gives one a pause to rethink whether it was a good idea in the first place to seek fulfilment by travel outside one's own country, without first exploring it and one's own neighborhoods in a quieter setting. We travel to new places seeking fulfillment. There comes a time when the tourism today has become so big that it is not sustainable, safe or economical anymore. A rethink and new habits make sense.     ...

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The South China Morning Post, SCMP, looks at China at the 40th year of the great economic experiment  that changed China. This started with the Deng reforms by the then Chinese leader that opened up the economy in 1978. As this report points out in 1978 Deng Xiaoping's efforts at loosening the state control of the economy and business was actually a way to get out from the effects of the Cultural Revolution and prevent another Cultural Revolution. Deng was removed from office during the Cultural Revolution. Instead of unquestioned acceptance of Mao the new criterion was "Practice is the Sole Criterion for Testing Truth." In economic and business matters this was followed so that if it worked then the experiment was expanded, gradually giving life to the Chinese model of state capitalism, economic expansion under the state with the state supporting state corporations that operate in a market economy.  This means the Communist Party was to continue its control but with experimentation away from the planned economy in the coastal provinces of Guangdong and Fujian, and then into Shanghai. Experts close to Jiang Zemin, the next leader after Deng, say China's Communist state would not have survived without the changes started by premier Deng. Farmers still did not own the land but they were free to plant and own the yields for their efforts.  Deng established the Three Benefits Principle in 1992 trip to Guangdong, whatever helped increase productivity, increased the strength of the country and improved living standards was good, you did not judge it by whether it was socialist or capitalist. Jiang Zemin's work was to follow Deng's ideas and help negotiate the entry into World Trade Organization and set up the new economic regulations. Capitalists were allowed to join the Communist Party for the first time. State and local government ownership of land was turned into an advantage as this provided one of the critical inputs in terms of land for setting up new factories, with capital coming from savings, and other inputs of technology and investment coming from the U.S. after entry into the WTO brought American and European companies to China. A steady supply of labor poured in from the countryside and urbanization became a goal of Chinese development policies. Today India and other countries in Africa, Latin America, can look at the Chinese experience and effort and look for ways to modernize, urbanize and improve living standards, productivity and strength of their economy. One key is to experiment and look for what works that can then be expanded to other locations, and build on the advantages that may open up as the experiment makes progress. Following entry into WTO China was able to take advantage of overseas markets and build an edge in manufacturing, something that was not evident even in 1992.   ...

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Rick Rieder of Black Rock and David Kelly of  JP Morgan Chase and others sense that the US is entering a phase they call "the satellite economic phase in which there are no crash landings and takeoffs but steady orbiting in space. Less boom and bust and more steady growth for years is the new economy Biden is creating with huge investments in infrastructure and manufacturing and worker skills training that upgrade the workforce. Investments in health and education are part of this. This makes the US economy more resilient with government working both as a partner and agencies of the government that regulate and provide the rules for fairness and level playing field acting to prevent the booms and busts of the past such as the 2009 financial crisis and other crises. With China, EU, India, Japan+South Korea and the US, all 5 of the largest economies aligned to maintain steady growth for their people the prospect of war acting to reduce growth potential will also be managed in a setting that is needed following the pandemic. This will make both the Middle East and the Eastern European recurring crises to be toned down and a shift made to growth in these regions from the war ravaged periods of reckless behaviour of nation actors. This is a view now emerging among key people in the US economy such as Rieder Black Rock and Kelly JP Morgan. Both says the ways of understanding this and the terminology "soft landing" or "cylical, midcycle" are now outdated and no longer apply. Says Reider-“But one point to keep in mind is that satellites don’t land and maybe that is a better analogy for a modern advanced economy” like the United States.  ...

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Both sides are presenting the issue differently creating confusion. Many Misconceptions- 1. The Department of Education did not exist before president Carter set it up in 1976. 2. It does not run Education in the US. It mostly administers student financial aid programs. These could be run by the Department of Treasury where they belong.  3. Reagan called the education department as creating "a bureaucratic boontoggle."  4. The goal of Republicans is to take education back to the states. Well run states can then run it better than by one agency setting rules and responsibility lying in the states anyway, but creating a perception of diffused responsibility so that no one can be held accountable for the woeful state of American education. Math and reading comprehension skills for students 8-15 years at different grade levels from 4th grade are dismal. US ranks low across developed countries in math and reading comprehension skills. 5. It is about sending education back to the states and parents where it belongs. Once states compete there will be an effort to  copy the initiatives of states delivering better results in math and reading comprehension. 6. Lyrarc Movement for Global Literacy is for creating high levels of ability in math and reading for children 7 to 16 years for strong foundational skills. 7. Everything starts with parents and a home that nurtures these skills and a home environment that is supportive and this can be possible across income groups given the motivation and seriousness. ...

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This opinion in the Hindusthan Times points out that prime minister Modi's speech at Kozhikode following a militant attack in Kashmir in September 2016, reflects a long standing policy since the late 1970's of Congress party and BJP or Janata party administrations. The idea is to encourage cross border exchanges to reduce tensions. The emphasis in back channel talks between India and Pakistan also emphasize the idea of CBM, cross border movement. The prime minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, has also expressed in the past the importance of cross border movement and trade as ways to improve the economies of both countries. The idea of building up trade and increased exchanges between the two countries is supported also by the U.S. and other western countries. The example of Ireland and Northern Ireland where trade and cross border exchanges are considered important by all parties after Brexit, is an example of how important this is.

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Republicans win at least 7 new seats in the U.S. Senate to take control of the Senate and both houses of Congress in the 2014 midterm elections. Republicans had a 9 seat gain in the House to be close to 245 seats. Republicans won Senate seats in Colorado, Georgia, Arkansas, Kansas, and in West Virgina for the first time since 1956. Democrats had one of their few wins in the New Hampshire Senate election. About $4 billion were spent on the election with both parties evenly matched.

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Indian prime minister's speech in the Rajya Sabha, India's upper house of parliament presented the government's ideas behind the reforms in the agricultural farm laws. He made the point that the mandis for minimum support price or MSP will always be there, so that farmers looking for MSP would always be covered. "MSP tha, MSP hai, MSP rahega,"  his words in Hindi. Some of the main points are covered here in The Times of India. Many governments in India in the past have talked about reforming Indian agriculture. During the administration of Lyndon Johnson after famines and food shortages in India effort was made for the Green Revolution. Lal Bahadu Shastri, prime minister took up the work of the first development phase in 1965 to benefit Indian agriculture. The speech cited the work of Shastri for the Green Revolution that made India self sufficient in food grain production. India benefitted from American scientists mainly agronomist researcher Norman Borlaug. The prime minister cited the words of Manmohan Singh, Congress party prime minister preceding him, who had emphasized how important it was to bring changes to Indian agriculture. "Modi implemented what Manmohan said, You should be proud."   Manmohan Singh had said- "There are several rigidities in the whole market since the 1930's which prevent our farmers from selling their produce where they get the highest rate of return. It is our intention to remove all the handicaps that come in the way of India to become one large common market."  Other parts of the speech said about the new agriculture laws- "There are many laws. every law is amended in a few years. We are not static. Change is tradition. We should talk to the protesters, implement the changes. I will take the abuses. You take the benefit from the new laws. We can move ahead together... There are old people sitting in the cold, it is not right." The government has stated it will hold the new agriculture laws for 18 months and the Supreme Court has appointed a committee on the laws. In his speech Mr. Modi said that there was nobody to look after the small and marginal farmers, and asked who will speak for the 12 crores or 120 million marginal farmers who own less than 2 hectares of land.  In fact it was a call from these small and marginal farmers that led to Jawaharlal Nehru, son of a British trained lawyer Motilal Nehru, to join the struggle for Indian independence. This is shown in his autobiography written from jail in 1934-35.  At the time the British simply used the Indian police trained and run by the British Army to silence farm or agrarian unrest from small farmers. Nehru was asked in a phone call to come to one of the locations of the unrest during the early years. The bedrock of Gandhi's movement for independence was villages in which marginal farmers lived lives without making enough. When Vivekandanda talked about India's hundreds of millions living in poverty he was speaking of small farmers who then were a majority of the population of the country. Charan Singh, a former prime minister in 1970-80,  said that 68% of farmers were small and marginal farmers who owned less than 2 hectares of land. The government crop insurance scheme was changed to make it farmer friendly, PM Kisan scheme to empower the farmer. The Indian Rails initiative is intended to speed agricultural produce to locations throughout India taking produce from locations in southern India to places as far Kolkata. This is opening up new opportunities for farmers to increase incomes.   ...

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The marketing of the iPhone 6 in the U.S., China and global markets helps Apple widen its lead over competitors in 2015. Apple sales were 47.5 million iPhones in the 2nd quarter 2015, increasing by 35% over the prior year quarter. Apple is also gaining sales from buyers switching from Android phones. Apple's iPhone sales now make up 63% of its sales, compared with 53% in the same quarter in 2014. Sales of iPhones increased 59% to $31.37 billion as the average selling price went up by $100 to $662.42. Apple remained above the fray, and actually increased average selling price to $662, as Xiaomi sold quality Android phones at near cost in China hitting Samsung sales and margins hard, and leaving unsold inventory for Samsung in China. Rarely has a company dominated its business in this manner from the standpoint of profits with only about 20% of the market in smartphones. Apple profits in the 2nd quarter were $10.7 billion, increasing from $7.74 billion in the prior year quarter. The iPad unit sales declined by 18% for the 2nd quarter 2015, the sixth quarter of such declines and fewer customers upgrading. The iPad has also not taken off in the workplace. Mac unit sales were up 9%, even though the PC market declined in units by 9.5% globally for the quarter. Apple shares up 39% in 2015, fell by 6.7% over concerns about slowing China sales....

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New regulations permit foreign investors to invest at least $100 million to setup multibrand retail operations in cities with populations of more than 1 millon people. Foreign multibrand retailers are at this time not permitted to directly invest in domestic retailers selling to consumers. A government panel "the Committee of Secretaries," proposed the change, which now goes to the federal cabinet for approval. The change means international retailers like Wal-Mart can sell to Indian consumers through partnerships with Indian retailers, and can own upto 51% of such local joint ventures. Of the investment at least half must go to setting up back-end infrastructure such as cold storage and laboratories. India has a huge retail market of an estimated $450 billion but much of the retail sector has fragmented smaller operations and mom and pop stores. Tata, Reliance, Bharti, Godrej and other local companies have made an effort to change this and formed alliances with Tesco, Wal-Mart, and other international retailers. One of the pressing needs is the building of back up infrastructure- cold storage, retail facilities, etc. This change means Wal-Mart, Carrefour, Metro AG can now enter the retail market. The prior efforts of these companies were restricted to wholesale stores such as Metro Cash & Carry India Pvt. Ltd, Wal-Mart's technical support for Bharti's retail brand of Easyday stores, and UK based Tesco's back-end support to Trent Ltd's Star Bazaar stores....

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S&P said it will maintain India's credit rating of triple B minus, the lowest investment grade rating, yet it may downgrade it to "junk status" in the next 2 years. S&P said this could happen "if the external position continues to deteriorate, growth prospects diminish, or progress on fiscal reforms remains slow in a weakened political setting. India's growth rate declined to 6.9% in the year ending March 31, 2012, down from 8.4% the prior year. The problem is that India's current account deficit is growing rapidly with the high import bill for energy supplies. The current account deficit is now at 4% of GDP. The trade deficit increased to $185 billion in this fiscal year, up 56% over the prior year. Additional problems are finding ways to finance the deficit with foreign capital, as European banks are pulling back during the current eurozone crisis. Commerce Secretary Rahul Khullar says this could be a big problem. Net foreign capital investment is declining rapidly from $72 billion in February 2012 to $387 million in March, with a net outflow of $27 million in the April 1-25 period. The budget deficit, which has drawn the attention of the RBI, India's central bank, and of S&P, is at 5.9% of GDP for fiscal year ending March 31, 2012. This is larger than the government target of 4.6%. The government has set a deficit target of 5.1% of GDP for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2013....

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All sectors of the U.S. economy see an increase in hiring, including retail, transportation, healthcare and manufacturing, as the economy adds 288,000 jobs in June, according to the Labor Department. Manufacturing added 16,000 jobs, transportation 17,000 and the public sector increased jobs by 26,000. Hiring also picked up for high school graduates compared to the poor record in 2013. In 2013 one Barclays economist says the jobs for high school graduates at this point were declining by 16,000 a month on yearly basis. He says employers are now adding 29,000 jobs for high school graduates a month in 2014. The unemployment for high school graduates declined to 5.8% in June 2014, for persons with some college education or an associate degree 5.0%, for college graduates 3.3%. Barclay's estimate is that the U.S. added an average of 231,000 jobs a month for the first half of 2014. The inflation rate remains at about 2%, giving the U.S. Fed more flexibility in setting rates to support jobs growth. The lower unemployment rate of 6.1% understates the underemployment, as a more accurate measure of employment which includes people working part time because they cannot find jobs is at 12.1%. The proportion of Americans in the labor force is also at a 36 year low of 62.8%. These two indicators for unemployment, unemployment including people working parttime, and the proportion of Americans in the labor force, combined with inflation, are the main indicators Fed chairmam Yellen is looking at....

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Blinder, a Professor of Economics at Princeton, and former Vice Chairman of the Fed, always supported Sheila Bair's efforts at FDIC to help reduce forclosures. He says, Secretary Paulson has released little of the TARP money for reducing foreclosures and helping homeowners and none of it went to buying up troubled mortgage assets. So he argues the nations mortgage crisis, which is at the root of its problems goes on. The government that gave us Katrina and the Iraq war will now give us the TARP program, which apart from supporting the banks has done little to address the other serious problems that it had been approved for. And no conditions were made with the banks that required them to continue lending, all it accomplished is unfreeze the credit markets, a serious objective but clearly not sufficient to address the underlying causes of this crisis. Martin Feldstein, Professor of Economics at Harvard, has also repeatedly this year, from the early months of 2008, called for help to homeowners to reduce foreclosures. Little in the way of his counsel is being heeded, even though he has represented Republican administrations including Reagan and Bush in the past. Clearly too many conflicting interests stalled any progress, and the repeated crises since summer left Secretary Paulson and Fed Chairman more of a role putting out fires or forestalling dangerous developments in financial markets, than setting serious policy measures in place. ...

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Of the people asked the question "what issue do you see as the most important for health care" 44% in a NBC/WSJ poll said they considered Cost as the biggest issue, and 37% said that they considered the Uninsured as the biggest issue, 11% said quality of care was the biggest issue. The President is focussing on cost as he develops the health care plan. He is also saying that to provide health care for all and cover the uninsured without controlling costs would break the bank. Another thing that the White House shows it has learned from previous failed attempts, is that it is doing this with an open Health Care Forum with participation of different sides in the health care discussion. Clinton's effort in 1993 ran into problems because it was developed secretively, and without much discussion, and little effort to get different people's views. The previous attempt also waited too long after the election, and this time the President is moving quickly when he enjoys large popular support. Its also true now that there is serious concern especially in this downturn of what a threat spiralling costs of health care are becoming to the future prosperity of the American people. This time the leaders in Congress are setting an aggressive schedule to get health care palns legislation on the floor by June and get a floor vote in August 2009....

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WSJ says that administration officials are considering aplan whereby on the first day of bankruptcy the government would announce the setting up of a "new GM" with Chevrolet, Cadillac, and good assets as part of it and a separate "old GM" that would hold the bad assets, retiree and health care obligations, Hummer and Saturn. The "good" GM would have responsibility for $20 billion in government loans. THe old GM could stay in bankruptcy for longer till buyers are found for parts of it or as it is wound down, with proceeds from the sales of assets going to creditors claims. WSJ sources familiar with the developments and the administration's views say that the administration prefers this route, and GM will likely will be forced into filing for bankruptcy protection in mid-May. That would be 45 days into the 60 day period President Obama has given GM to come up with a new plan that will work. The submitted plan was rejected by Obama's team on grounds that the assumptions for sales were too optimistic, none of the concessions from bondholders and the UAW that were needed had been made, the Chevy Volt was not going to pe price competitive, and fuel efficient car production was not a critical part of the plan. The government has asked Fiat to scale back its planned ownership of Chrysler to 20%, as part of an agreement for more government loans....

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The transformation of Fiat Auto. Marchionne relying on "my kids", getting good people throughout the Fiat global operations and outside of a younger generation, who were open to doing things in a new way. He had the courage to unassumingly go about the business of remaking Fiat, by removing middle and upper managers who produced a kind of paralysis or sclerosis in Fiat, making change impossible after years of a failed culture embedding itself. And in their place he brought in an energetic courageous bunch of younger managers and designers. It would be fair to say that he tore up the old plans, tore up the old organization charts, tore up the car plans and designs in the pipeline, tore up the failed models and put in place new ones- the Bravo for the Stilo, and tore up the old management, put in new people and tasks and wedded them in an informal way, with their own culture developing along the way. The were teams and their tasks, all wedded together in an informal arrangement, in close proximity, with informal communication. Marchionne saw his role as helping people reach decisions, setting stretch goals, and encouraging levels below him to take responsibility and make courageous decisions. He saw the Cinquicento as his version of the Apple iPod, and benchmarked Fiat against Apple, so he was looking outside the auto industry for people to emulate and for new ideas. He himself was from outside the auto industry. ...

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What is liquidity, Roche the author of "New Monetarism", asks. And points to all the credit that was created and moved off the bank's balance sheets and onto the balance sheets of nonbank financial intermediaries. This changed the very nature of credit as in this manner a theoretically infinite amount of credit could be created. Credit that is not supported by real money, because as credit soars real money remains the same or grows slightly. The whole traditional notion of liquidity had changed. What is suggested is that central banks can do litttle about it because whats on the balance sheets of the financial intermediaries is not going to go away and Citigroup in fact put that back on its balance sheet after Vikram Pandit took over at Citigroup. And this means that banks will be lending much less from now on and setting aside money for the bad loans as well as for any new loans they make shrinking the pool of available money to lend significantly in 2008 and beyond. Significantly China is mentioned as the next place to watch as the bubble that might pop with bad effects for the global economy. The exchange rate in China keeps Chinese goods from costing more and the US consumer bubble kept soaking up imports from China both of which will now go in reverse. And the Chinese stock market bubble is also something to watch that might pop....

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How Sonatrach of Algeria is working in joint relationships with Statoil-Hydro of Norway, both national oil companies, who are creating a new pattern in bringing capital and technology resources of national oil companies together to tackle projects throughout the world. Statoil for example, has been invited to work with Gazprom on Shtokman gas field project in the Barents Sea. This alliance has taken may forms including Statol taking a 10% ownership in the Algerian Petroleum Institute and setting up a training program which has already trained 6000 Algerian Sonatrach employees in western health and safety standards. This Institute trains Algerian engineers. As Statoil and Sonatrach look outside for new exploration as their reserves are declining, they are working together in different parts of the world. Sonatrach and Statoil-Hydro launched a successful joint bid for 2 offshore gas deposits in Egypt. And Statoil has given Sonatrach equity in one of its North Sea gas fields and given it capacity at a liquefied natural-gas import terminal in Cove Point, Maryland. Algeria has set goals of having international reserves account for 30% of its production by 2015 by taking exploration tracts in places like Libya. Note that this type of collaboration is increasing. PFC Energy a consulting firm says that were 2 such deals for technical cooperaton and sharing access to resources and markets in 2000, in 2006 there were 16. So expect more of this type of collaboration and joint work....