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The World Vaccine Summit raises about $7 billion to immunize about 300 million children for polio, diphtheria and measles, over 5 years. Prime minister Boris Johnson who opened the summit called it "the greatest shared endeavour of our times." Bill Gates donated $1.6 billion and Britain pledged 1.65 billion pounds over 5 years, making Britain the largest donor. Mr. Trump also addressed the summit in virtual manner- "we will work hard, we will work strong... good luck, let's get the answer." Mr. Johnson called for renewing "the collective resolve."  Specifically he stated: " Just as we have great military alliances like NATO.... where countries collaborate on building their collective military defence, so we now need that sam spirit of collaboration and collective defense agains the common enemy of disease." Referring to failure of early warning systems for coronavirus with crucial weeks between Jan 6 to Feb 16 lost for the West with lack of international cooperation- "It will require a new international effort to cooperate on the surveillance and sharing of information- data is king- that can underpin a global alert system, so we can rapidly identify any future outbreak. And that will mean a rapid scale-up of our global capacity to respond."  ...

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What did the Justices say about US Birthright Citizenship? Here are the words of what the Justices said in the June 27 decision of the US Supreme Court 6-3 blocking the district courts from overruling the Executive Order of the US president. From the outset the Justices sought to decide - was the district court in a state deciding on a case with individual circumstances for the plaintiffs, even by a stretch of the imagination going to decide over the judgement of the Executive Branch what the law of the land should be? SC went though British law, and US law during its history and found no such understanding of the courts. "In each case, the District Court entered a “universal injunction”—an injunction barring executive officials from applying the Executive Order to anyone, not just the plaintiffs. And in each case, the Court of Appeals denied the Government’s request to stay the sweeping relief. The Government argues that the District Courts lacked equitable authority to impose universal relief and has filed three nearly identical emergency applications seeking partial stays to limit the preliminary injunctions to the plaintiffs in each case." The Court held- "Held: Universal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts. The Court grants the Government’s applications for a partial stay of the injunctions entered below." ...

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The Cleveland address and question answer session on July 10, 2011, showed Janet Yellen at her best. She was applauded several times for her answers especially for her emphasis on clarity. One question was about the use of the term"quantitative easing," couldn't the Fed have found a better word? Yellen pointed out that the Fed at the time used "buying of long term assets" as the phrase for that activity, after the media referred to it as "quantitative easing." That term stuck and the Fed ended up accepting the use of the term to refer to the Bernanke Fed's program. Yellen also said the buying of long term assets was intended to raise long term rates, and was different from the effort in Japan of buying short term assets that failed to stimulate the Japanese economy. Throughout Yellen was entirely comfortable making clear what she had in mind. At one point she was asked about the IMF director Lagarde's statement that the U.S. is better off not raising rates in 2015, because of the uncertain economic outlook in Europe, China and other places. Yellen's response was that this was one more view that she considered along with the views of several other Fed governors who had different views and reading of the economic situation. She emphasized that the increase in the rates will be very gradual, a position very consistent with her earlier statements, and this made the long tem path of interest rates more important said Yellen, than the particular time when the Fed first raised rates. For her clarity, empathy, and sound grasp of the economic situation, few Fed chairman have come close to Yellen, as was evident in the audience's grateful response. ...

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Alan Meltzer is a respected voice on US Federal Reserve policies since the time Paul Volcker was Fed chairman He says the Bernanke Fed is making some serious policy mistakes. The first is concentrating on near term events, such as business response to Obama administration policies, over which it has little influence, while neglecting the long term consequences of its policies. The second is its effort to tackle unemployment by interpreting its mandate as a dual mandate of tackling both unemployment and inflation. By tackling one at a time, he says, the Fed is likely to fail totally. The US is unlikely to not feel the inflation that is going on around the world. By ignoring the changes in money supply growth the Fed is making another mistake. His advice is for the Fed to increase interest rates it controls to 1%, to signal that it is aware of inflation risks. Second, the Fed should annonce a specific, detailed plan explaining how it will reduce $900 billon of the $1 trillion banks continue to hold in excess of the legally required reserves. Third, the Fed should end QE II, the most recent round of treasury bond purchases. Meltzer says if the Fed waited for two more months in Nov 2010, it would have found that a double dip recession was not about to occcur and it could have held off from pursuing QE II. Meltzer emphasizes that slow growth and unemployment is not a monetary problem, because of the ample liquidity already in the financial system. Uncertainty about government policy and the future direction has been clarified by the election which will help put the economy back on track. Philadelphia Fed chairman expresses similiar views in other articles and an interview with O'Grady of WSJ....

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Here are the 10 drugs with their negotiated prices for one-month supply: Januvia treats diabetes. The negotiated price is $113 (£103), down 79%. Fiasp, Fiasp FlexTouch, Fiasp PenFill, NovoLog, NovoLog FlexPen, NovoLog PenFill: These are insulin medications, treat diabetes. The negotiated price is $119, down 76%. Farxiga treats diabetes, heart failure and chronic kidney disease. The negotiated price is $178.50, down 68 %. Enbrel treats rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. The negotiated price is $2,355, down 67%. Jardiance treats diabetes, heart failure and chronic kidney disease. The negotiated price is $197, down 66%. Stelara treats psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. The negotiated price is $4,695, down 66%. Xarelto prevents and treats blood clots and reduces risk of coronary or peripheral artery disease. The negotiated price is $197, down 62%. Eliquis prevents and treats blood clots. The negotiated price is $23, down 56%. Entresto treats heart failure. The negotiated price is $628, down 53%. Imbruvica treats blood cancers. The negotiated price is $9,319, down 38%. ...

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The high cost of fines is likely to affect recapitalization of UK banks. Fines for Libor-rigging and compensations for customers on Payment Protection Insurance may cost the UK banking industry about 20 billion pounds, says Nixon. Other fines such as the $1.9 billion fine for money laundering activities of HSBC have to be added to this. This means less money for meeting stronger capital requirements and for lending to business and households. Higher compliance costs will mean higher costs in future years. HSBC estimates of the anti money laundering systems are about $990 million a year. The Bank of England has raised concerns about the need for additional capital to safeguard British banks.

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In his annual budget speech to Parliament, chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, said things are much worse than appeared 5 months ago. Britain will have to borrow 57 billion more pounds, and the budget deficit is to reach 175 billion pounds or $255 billion. The British economy will shrink 3.5% thisyear instead of the 1.25 percent predicted in November, 2008 This is the highest deficit of any nation in the G-20. Britain's net borrowing is exppected to reach 11.9 percent of GDPin 2010, and finances can't be balanced before 2016. In March 73,000 jobs were lost for a total unemployed of 1.46 million. With smaller numbers of people paying income taxes, and smaller corporate tax revenues, the revenues are just not there for Britain to spend heavily to make its way out of this recession. The renewable energy projects like wind farms and biotechnology are small, and shows the government has difficulty paying for larger programs. In an effort to increase revenures the government imposed a tax of 50%, up from the current 40%, on individuals earning more than 150,000 pounds, which was promptly criticized by the British Chambers of Commerce as a disincentive to bring talent to London as a world financial center. Darling also added acar-scrapping scheme like the one in Germany. Opposition leader David Cameron said in Parliament "everyone can see the utter mess this government made of the British economy. Our children will be in poverty for decades." ...

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By carrying only 150,000 passengers of its normally 42.4 million passengers and grounding all but a few aircraft Ryanair Europe's largest airline, will show a loss of 100 million pounds. It will resume operations by July when it expects about half of the 42.4 million passengers for the quarter. Routes will be cut and prices adjusted with profits expected by September 2020. It expects full recovery of the airline industry to take about 2 years. For the financial year ending March 2021 it expects about 100 million passengers for the year down from 154 million passengers normal for the year. Ryanair is one of the only airlines that was able to plan this far. It has laid off one sixth of its 18,000 staff.

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France's presidential candidate Marie Le Pen, who received about 20% of the vote in the first round of elections in 2012, says she will cast a blank vote in the runoff. This shows her disdain for Sarkozy and Hollande, particularly Sarkozy's policies in his first term in office.

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Manufacturing output falls at the fastest pace in five years raising questions about the British economy. There was a 1.4% drop in manufacturing output in April 2018, and pressure on sterling.

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Paying one cent more for every pound of tomatoes picked by farm workers from central America has been resisted by Burger King and other fast food chains and by the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange. Taco Bell and McDoalds have signed up for this increase. The extra cent per pound is the first pay increase workers have received in 30 years. A picker would have to fill 15 of 32 pound buckets an hour to earn Florida's minimum wage of $6.79 even with the one cent increase per pound.

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The merger of US Airways and American Airlines moves ahead after an antitrust settlement with the U.S. government with only limited concessions by the two airlines. As part of the settlement the newly merged airline will give up slots for 17 daily round trip flights at La Guardia airport in New York (a 7% reduction in departures) and 52 round trips at Reagan National in Washington DC (a 15% reduction). This is expected to increase competition from lowcost carriers at these airports. Overall the deal is a good one for the merged airlines as it still keeps most of the profitable routes at these airports and also keeps most of its flights intact- affecting only 112 of 6500 daily flights. The two airlines conducted a strong lobbying effort winning support from 8 big city mayors, 183 members of Congress and with support from 100,000 mostly unionized employees.

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Sony takes up a big recycling initiative to offset pound for pound every new product of Sony sold with a recycled Sony product.

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The Leveson Report on newspaper ethics and practices in Britain calls for a parliamentary statute to support a new body to replace existing self-regulation efforts. The Press Complaints Commission would be replaced with a new body with tougher investigative powers and independent of newspaper influence, and fines ranging upto 1.6 million pounds.

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Bo Xilai is given a sentence of life in prison by the Intermediate People's Court in the eastern city of Jian. He was found guilty on all counts for embezzlement, corruption, and abuse of power. All money received illegally is being confiscated including a house in Cannes in the south of France.

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Supreme Court protects parent opt out of LGBTQ stories and requiring age verification for porn sites. Texas was where the civil rights movement got its support from president LBJ, a Democrat and FDR follower. And still Texas vote for the age verification for porn sites was voted for with support being 164-1. Yet Elena Kagan, who was a Harvard legal scholar, now Supreme Court Justice did not support this decision, and offered a flaky and irresponsible dissent- “Carefully drawn age verification laws stand a real chance of surviving.” What about the harm done to minors while the scholars quibble about legal writing. Kagan was in elite schools all her life, Hunter high school in NYC, Princeton Worcester Oxford, Harvard Law School,  and deputy assistant to Clinton, before Clinton's economic aide Summers picked her for Harvard Law School Dean, and Obama picked her for SC Justice. In 2025 these elitist backgrounds have failed, and are failing to address the problems of the Nation in a direct common sense way as faced by ordinary Americans and even by the 164 of 165 members of the Texas state legislature, which is saying a lot. A search shows failure of Google and of AI after search of 10 pages on Google no mention is found that the vote in Texas legislature was 164 to 1. Parents have to protect their rights and 22 states are now passing this law. ...

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David Brooks of the NYT describes the approach taken by British prime minister David Cameron and his Conservative Party government to help the working class poor in Britain, and tackle the social roots of poverty. He says an American adaptation similar to this is badly needed in the Republican Party, with the candidates in the election providing solutions from an old rulebook. Only after Trump's popularity with appeals to less educated older Americans has the Republican leadership responded, with Speaker Ryan helping organize a forum on poverty under the Jack Kemp Foundation- emphasis was placed on education, work, opportunity and accountability for anti-poverty programs in the discussion moderated by Ryan and Senator Tim Scott. Less attention was paid to the other social aspects mentioned here by Brooks, and cited by Cameron when he described the inadequacy of traditional solutions from the right and left of the political spectrum. Cameron outlined the principles of his anti-poverty plans called "Life Chances Strategy," in a speech on Jan. 11, 2016, in north London, with the entrie transcript on the gov.uk website. Cameron acknowledged in the speech that social issues including single parent families, and other social problems such as long term unemployment, can make it harder for some people to use self-reliance and personal responsibility in a growing economy as a way to grasp opportunities. Cameron proposes a combination of economic, social and job growth strategies. His second term plans include 30 hours a week of free childcare for 3 and 4 year olds so both parents can work, parental maternity leave, expansion of Troubled Families Program, in addition to the introduction of National Living Wage, tax cuts, universal credit. In tackling social aspects of the problem Cameron cited the need for development in the early years of childhood, the huge importance of family, social connections and experiences, informal mentors, cultural experiences, broadenend horizons, that enable young people to acquire language skills, character and resilience. Second term projects include expanding reach of high performing schools to deprived areas, emphasis on core English, math, science, history, geography Ebacc skills, a 1 billion pound investment in the National Citizens Service by 2021, a plan to transform housing estates including rebuilding from scratch, additional 1 billion pounds to provide mental health treatment including treatment within 2 weeks in homes and communities. Throughout Cameron's "Life Chances strategy" is aimed at tackling not just the material dimensions of poverty, but also what he describes is broken in Britain- "the paucity of opportunity."...

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Inflation in the European Union is being pushed up by higher profit margins of companies as they push up prices. Wage pay rise is only part of the problem, says Mr. Panetta, an executive board member of the ECB. Profit margins at public companies in the eurozone were pushed up from 7.2% in 2019 before the pandemic to 8.5% for the year through March 2023. A similar situation exists in the US. Companies could be increasing prices to make up for input price rises, anticipating future price inceases, or with market power to take advantage of  the situation, says Panetta. Panetta says his job on the 6 member executive board team of ECB is to look at all the causes of inflation. He has found sectors where even when input prices are decreasing profit margins and profit are increasing, a cause for concern. At a conference in Frankfurt last week Panetta pointed out that about half of the pressure for inflation came from wages, the other half from rising profits. In Europe wages rise is slower than in the US. It is also seen that market power of European companies was higher than in the US last year.  ...

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Looking back Mohandas Gandhi's effort to prevent separate electorates was an important contribution to today's rapid industrial development and modernization of India. Delivery of infrastructure, education, healthcare and other improvements could not have been delivered as they are today with weak governments. Gandhi understood clearly the effects of divide and rule and how this had led to over one hundred years of disinvestment in India by 1900. Even after 1950 it took another 70 years for governments to follow the experience of Japan and China and rapidly modernize. Separate electorates as suggested by Ambedkar for lower castes would only further weaken India, as would communal representation of that type. Not integrating the one third of India that was under princely states would have had the same effect. Sardar Patel grasped clearly the effects of not integrating these princely states would continue the effects of divide and rule. In this way the foresight and wisdom of Gandhi and Patel have given a new generation of leaders the sound fundamentals on which to build a modernized nation, the largest democracy, and a nation with a young population that is fulfilling the aspirations of its young people. ...

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British prime minister Boris Johnson will visit India in January at the invitation of Indian prime minister Modi. It is the first bilateral visit of Mr. Johnson since taking office. Johnson says he really looks forward to the trip and delivering on the quantum leap to create jobs and growth for the two countries. He has invited Modi to the G7 Summit in London as a guest nation along with Australia and South Korea. Mr. Johnson will also host a climate change summit. This is the first visit to India by a British prime minister since John Major. Because of the historical relationship and the British Commonwealth of nations, and as leaders in the English speaking world, both countries have a lot in common. The parliamentary system India adopted comes from Britain. India's role in the Indian ocean as a maritime power alongside Britain and Australia also comes from the period when Britain was the preeminent maritime power in the world. Indian companies in UK have $41 billion pounds in sales and half a million British jobs come from Indian companies. India also is UK's biggest partner in pharmaceuticals, making 50% of the world's vaccines. ...

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Rising home prices are leading to higher property taxes in Colorado. A surge of new people coming to Colorado has meant higher property taxes of much as 40% for those already living in the state. David Chen talked to residents in the state and found a retiree, a former X-Ray technician retired for 20 years, facing a 20% rise in property taxes in Littleton, Colorado, and having to sell some of her stuff to meet the higher cost. For retirees in Colorado and across the Rocky mountain states- where people have moved to from California and the Northeast  paying higher prices for homes- living on Social Security checks is particularly hard these days. In Montana property taxes went up by 40-50% in some counties in 2023. Democrat Governor Polis says just because your home price goes up by 40% does't mean you have 40% more cash to pay taxes, your income may be up 10-12%. For retirees on Social Security checks alone it is only the inflation coverage in those checks. The situation is also true for Arizona and Utah with many newcomers and the trend for hybrid work adding to it. ...

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The sympathy Mohandas Gandhi had for the textile mill workers of Lancashire and their admiration for him is shown here in the Indian Express. Gandhi visited one Lancashire mill in 1931and was received with much enthusiasm with the crowd saying "Three cheers for Mr. Gandeye... hip hip.. Hurrah!" When British elections were called in 1945 the workers of Lancashire voted for Labour and Mr. Attlee and turned out Mr. Churchill. Mr. Attlee immediately started the negotiations for Gandhi's Hind Swaraj, the independence of India. This is a reminder of how Mohandas Gandhi would have viewed the globalization of the last 2 decades that ripped out manufacturing communities in the US and Europe in what is now seen as a failed supply chain that failed American workers and families. As the US and Europe build a new supply chain with the partners in the Free World including India, with the countries of Latin America, Asia and Africa, only the foundations of the new supply chain that build a better life for American, European and foreign workers and families is sound in principle and deserves the Free World's support. ...

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The investigation into behaviour of the head of the Brexit department, and Justice Secretary, British deputy prime minister under Sunak, shows the tense relationship between the British Civil Service and the government. The official investigation by Adam Tolley KC found that Raab branded civil servant's work "utterly useless" and "woeful," says this report in The Guardian. Tolley rejected claims by Conservative MP's that civil servants were "snowflakes" and stressed that he did not find "any lack of resilience" among civil servants who "had many years of experience" working with ministers. What the report shows is that the entire Brexit process, the brusque nature with which one of the finest civil services in the world was handled by Conservatives pushing for Brexit and for other policies of the Conservatives, has led to a crisis in its operations. Much needs to be done to restore a level of confidence that civil servants deserve as part of the long tradition in which the British Civil Service has done much of the ablest work of the government of the British Isles over decades going back to the nineteenth century. ...

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China's rapid construction in the Doklam plateau of Bhutan is covered in this report in WSJ. This is a small corridor of territory that connects parts of India to its northeast. PM Modi recently visited Bhutan and India has a security treaty with Bhutan which adjoins populated regions of India in the northern Ganges region. History is being repeated with China intervening in the northernmost regions of Indian Himalayas in 1950- 2024 at great distance from China's population centers in mainland China in the way Japan intervened in the far northern regions of China in the 1870-1945 period. Modern road and aircraft connections have made this possible for China- yet today India is building its own road and aircraft capabilities rapidly so that in the long run not much is to be gained for China in the Himalayan region where it has not had a presence since the early Buddhist period of Bodhidharma that brought Buddhism to China from India in the 5th century. It is a reminder that both suffered from colonialism and are struggling to find a path that benefits their peoples, that eventually rejects the path Japan had found to lead nowhere. ...