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Charlie's Main Street Cafe in Minot, N. Dakota once served Dwight Eisenhower when he was visiting the Garrison Dam. It was run by Greek immigrants then. It is now run by Korean immigrants. Geewon Anderson is keeping it the same version of small town Americana that it was all these years down to the pictures on the wall and the menu of meat and potatoes.

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Guardian Bikes in Indiana factory was shifted in reshoring to the US in 2022. By 2026 it hopes to change the situation from 90% Chinese parts to 60% of the parts made in the US and prices still within reach for American buyers of $199-$399 for childrens bikes. Other bike makers are hesitating, and some have moved to Taiwan from China.

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Sharp drop in reading ability at American schools by 2026.

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A 20% drop in Canadian tourists but European tourism is holding up decently considering the steps needed to control the migration problems at the American borders. Most of this is affecting border regions with Canada not the rest of the nation.

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People from academia meeting at Howard University's African American Economic Summit see a disturbing picture for improving the economic condition for black people in the U.S. Black unemployment at 13.8% is almost twice the rate for whites of 7%, according to government figures. Estimates of wealth disparity between whites and blacks of 20 to 1, declining black homeownership after the surge in foreclosures which hurt minorities badly, and lower savings after the 2008 financial crisis paint a bleak picture The outlook says participants is a bigger concern, not only have disparities widened, the future looks uncertain at best with further widening of the disparities a serious possibility.

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Mixed race population in America increased to 31 million or 10% in 2024. At one time in the early twentieth century Irish and Italians were considered "Non-white." With assimilation both were considered white. Asians were not allowed to be US citizens till 1952. Gradually things have changed. America is now grappling with the idea of white and non white in a mixed category because of intermarriage between Latinos, White Europeans, Blacks and Asians. Gender, socioeconomic status, education, culture, are more differentiating factors than just race in 2024.

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With the strong jobs growth report in September the US Federal Reserve, America's central bank, is expected to increase interest rates by 0.75% at its meeting on Nov. 1-2. That will be the fourth interest rate increase in 4 consecutive meetings of the Fed. It is designed to tackle inflation yet it also reverses the period of low interest rates for savers that extended from 2000 to 2020. This period covered two crises one created by irresponsible behaviour of banks in the financial crisis of 2000 and the second a natural health disaster from the pandemic when interest rates were brought down to zero as a policy response. During that period savers who suffered decline in savings with little interest income and lower income groups were hit by both the financial crises, employment gaps that hurt income and savings, and the shift of jobs overseas as jobs were shifted to China and American manufacturing declined. Economic policy was determined in that period by economists who failed to grasp the dangers to American manufacturing, to American communities with loss of jobs from offshoring, rising inequality that fragmented society.   This has changed under the Fed run by Mr. Powell first appointed by Mr. Trump and now renominated by Mr. Trump, who is not an economist and brings a very different mindset to central banking, going with common sense about what works for average Americans. a sense of humility, and down to earth about American workers and American manufacturing and its place in America. ...

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The $6.3 billion settlement of Bank of America for mortgage securities and acquisition of Merrill Lynch under Ken Lewis. This settlement is for a lawsuit for troubled mortgage securities sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before the 2008 financial crisis. It was filed by the regulator Federal Housing Finance Agency.

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The Trader Monthly embodied a certain Wall Street trader culture that was unlike anything that the national values we as anation have valued and handed down for generations. It was not only about extravagant outrageously large earnings and flamboyant spending but a sense that these people were a special breed of winners. A $300,000 turntable was not the only thing that characterized this culture. In 2006 Trader Monthly took into its hall of Fame a Chicago mercantile Trader and described him admiringly as " aconqueror, physically imposing, and at times, verbally abusive. Clad in his signature white jacket, he would crush anyone who dared to cross him or tried to pick his pocket." And the justification for all this was that traders delivered. Except that many of these gamblers and overaggressive complex people who had somehow lost the Christian ethic of their forefathers, had helped messed up the delicate gears that work the capitalist economy in positive ways, and caused a massive misallocation of capital that would bring grief for years to come through high unemployment, closing small businesses, and dislocations of the nation's economy. ...

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Le Monde asks what is the role of religion in the founding of the US from the time of Mayflower Compact 1620 by Calvinist preachers? Two books published after the failure of the Spanish Armada naval invasion of Britain under Queen Elizabeth in 1588 set the stage for an alternative colonization of America and Britain's effort to contest the Americas against the Catholic monarchs of Spain. Agnes Delahaye, Prof of American Civilization at Lumiere University Lyon 2, in France, describes this in an interview in Le Monde. Her book is Adventurers, Puritans, Pilgrims, Amerca's Founding Myths. The first book in 1583 that set the stage for English exploration in the Americas is- A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies by a Dominican missionary, Bartolome de las Casas, and says the Spanish solders tarnished and ruined their Christian duty. The second in 1584 was Discourse of Western Planting by Richard Hakluyt showed Queen Elizabeth with the true religious conviction and practice against the Spanish "black legend," of conquest, and unChristian treatment of native Americans. The Pilgrim Fathers and the migration on the Mayflower and other British ships came through this movement. The settlers around 1600 came from small Calvinist congregations under Brewster and Robinson. Mayflower Compact was the constitutional document in 1620 setting forth their aims. ...

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US president DJT in his State of the Union made immigration a major issue saying Democrats could not be trusted with Borders after the disasters of recent years. The president told Congress in his State of the Union address 2026-

“If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support: The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens—not illegal aliens."

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A Peking University economics professor who believes that China should take the best of western institutions not just its technologies and management makes his views public on the internet. He will be removed form his teaching position at Peking University by the end of this year. He is offered a teaching position at Wellesley College in Massachusetts in the U.S. Other Amercan Universities with ties to Chinese Universities have remained silent on his situation, says Xia Yeliang. His wife continues to work in accounting at the University. China's leaders see it as acceptable to work within the system to make improvements but not make the views public in the western media because this creates a bad impression of the party and the country, as Xia Yeliang is told by the party chief at Peking University.

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Competing oligopolies or Competition? American capitalism in reality is a mix of both. Government's role in American economy shifting from higher in the Great Depression to low in Globalization and now back to supporting business to compete with China/India/Germany's Subsidized Capitalism. This WSJ piece that take a circle around the bases for a home run is in reality not a true reflection of America's management of it's economy over the last 200 years since 1825. There is a high degree of individualism, yes because it is a land that is forever expanding on sparsely populated Indian territory in the west starting under Jefferson and Washington at the Ohio/Pennsylvania frontier. By 1900 there is the emergence of the great corporations and monopolies, oligopolies with TR's busting of monopolies by 1920, and much of that structure is still there in 2025, with some obsolescence for changing technology. Oligopolies in information technologies simply absorb the small companies, and government is itself run by powerful lobbying as in the pharma industry to the sheer and alarming detriment of all Americans. ...

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High 2025 ACA premiums showing the failure of Obama patchwork on the failing US healthcare system.

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You cannot build a economy that works for the middle class and for all parts of the population on casinos. That is the message from Nevada. Other sectors of the economy, including manufacturing are needed.