LyrArc Article Gist
This is what Vice President Harris said from the South Lawn of the White House today about president Biden for an event of the NAACP- "In one term, he has already surpassed the legacy of most presidents who have served two terms in office. And I first came to know president Biden through his son Beau. We worked together as attorneys general in our states, and back then, Beau would often tell me stories about his dad. He would talk about the kind of father and the kind of man that Joe Biden is.

The qualities that Beau revered in his father are the same qualities that I have seen every day in our president, his honesty, his integrity, his commitment to his faith and his family, his big heart and his love, deep love of our country. And I am first-hand witness that every day our president, Joe Biden, fights for the American people, and we are deeply, deeply grateful for his service to our nation."

LyrArc Article Gist
Matt Garman, head of AI and Cloud Services at Amazon talks to Emma Tucker of the WSJ. Garman says Amazon was not slow, just being deliberate and thinking it through rather than coming up with something quickly as Microsoft had done with ChatGPT. He sees the need for regulation, only that it not create a situation where others including China go ahead and the US falls behind. This means that the US needs to coordinate AI rules with other countries including China, India, Russia, for comprehensive solutions on how AI is to be managed to work towards good.

On a five day week vs remote work Garman says Amazon takes the view that the creative work can best be done with humans interacting at the office. It sees this as essential for good work. On the 3 day week with 2 for remote work, the only problem he says is that everyone picks different 3 days and this leads to loss of human interaction at work.

LyrArc Article Gist
DJT's pick for head of the Drug Enforcement Administration Sheriff Chad Chronister of Florida says he is withdrawing because of the "gravity" of the job. He has 30 years of experience in law enforcement. The DEA has 10,000 employees and offices around the world with budget of $3 billion. Chronister's experience is mainly in the Tampa area and he felt the "gravity" of the job required him to reconsider. Cutting fentanyl flows from China and from Mexico will require a lot of experience and expertise.

LyrArc Article Gist
How career officers in the intelligence services helped bring about a reversal in the perception of Iran by the U.S. government. The result was to give diplomacy and other means a chance to work and reduce tensions in the Middle East.

LyrArc Article Gist
Mayor Bloomberg's last day in office. He jokes about using his library card after 4383 days in office and taking up running outdoors again. He thanks people around him for being the real problem solvers and on the ground soothers who made the city work for 12 years, that they not he worked at the real level where the real problems were. Like many others before him in America he says he will be able to look back and tell his kids, your father made an effort to make their lives and their childrens lives better. The day ends as he swipes his senior discount MetroCard and boards a No.4 train home to the Upper East Side.

LyrArc Article Gist
Emmanuel Macron graduated from Sciences Po University in 2004 with a degree in public affairs. He joins the Finance Ministry as an inspector and then buys himself out of government service contract by 2008 to join a private bank. He arranges an acquisition from Nestle and other business deals during this period. In 2012 he is appointed as deputy secretary general for the president's office after Francois Hollande a socialist is elected to the presidency. In 2014 he is offered the position of Minister of Industry and Digital Affairs in the second Manuel Valls government. He makes some changes to French government but opposes the wealth tax or tax on business, and is generally pro-business, though he acts as a member of the Socialist party.  He uses this period to build momentum for his own run for the presidency as support for Hollande falters having lost support from his working class base with Macron and Valls inspired changes.  Macron finally announces he will run for the presidency forming his own En Marche movement which he finances with his own fund raising. Throughout this period right up to the election in 2017 Macron has not run for public office. When he wins the presidency in that year he lacks the experience needed as the youngest president in French history at the age of 39. Like another young president Obama he handles his public image with the media for his En Marche movement promising to unblock France. This public image and his lack of experience makes him impervious to the social changes going on in France that lead to the yellow vest protests in 2018. This is a period when there are changes in the midwest as workers in Michigan and other midwestern states turn away from Hillary Clinton and Obama.  French workers are in the position of workers in the US with the decline of manufacturing, much of it shifted with the supply chain to China and Japan, and the gap opening between rural and urban tech educated areas. Macron follows Obama's quick rise from Senator to run for president yet lacks experience, and lacks sufficient grasp of the social changes with loss of manufacturing, the wide gaps between rural and urban tech educated people, conditions in the rural and farming areas. Macron survives this period, is reelected in 2022 with the help of socialist Melenchon voters. He says he will govern differently, less distant from average Frenchmen, but his instincts are to push for pension reform. At a time of cost of living crisis, and when the French budget office says the change in pension from 62 to 64 was not critical at the present time when inflation was hitting the public after the pandemic. Macron does this by Article 49 in the way he has done under the Manuel Valls government, by executive action alone. This time he faces a no confidence motion in parliament in March 2023 following some of the largest protests France has seen in years, with two thirds of the French according to FR24 opposing the change in pension law. Women see this as coming at a time when age discrimination hurts their chances of earning a living after 50 years of age.  Age discrimination is widespread in France, in a way it is not in Germany, say reports in the NYT. And with the cost of living crisis acts as a major hurdle for the average French person, if pensions are delayed without addressing these cultural issues in France. The result is that the protests have substance and Macron is seen as not sensitive to this at a time when he lacks a majority in parliament. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
McCain says he would meet with automakers in his first month in office and would be frank about his expectations on fuel efficient vehicles, showing that this issue is becoming significant as oil prices rise.

LyrArc Article Gist
EIA says half of the benefit of higher fuel efficiency standards for Automobiles 2010-2020 in US was lost because of SUV's and the incentivizing of SUV's in the 2006 CAFE standards have made things worse. The first SUV's came in the 1980's. By 2004 SUV's made up half of car sales and by 2025 outsold cars 2 to 1. What if we took all SUV's and large cars off the roads, or even some of these SUV's by deincentivizing of SUV's in the US CAFE corporate fuel efficiency standards? What would be the savings in crude oil and in carbon footprint? Would it be about the same as releasing an additional 400 million barrels of oil into the markets in addition to the 400 million barrels that are now released through EIA and member countries? This New Yorker essay touches on this idea. During the Iran war the volatile Middle East as a source of oil supplies is a major problem for countries. Some are rationing supplies and in one country 40 million children are not going to school for 2 weeks starting this week because of the sources of oil are so precarious, government offices will only have half of the employees, the rest working from home (almost like Covid pandemic). Many other countries face that situation. The International Energy Agency recently reported that, if “SUVs were an individual country, they would rank sixth in the world for absolute emissions in 2021, emitting over 900 million tonnes of CO2.” The agency says governments must redesign their CAFE standards and their policies so that it would reduce S.U.V. sales, tax gas guzzling vehicles. EIA cites governments in the EU doing this- “Some governments have already started introducing relevant measures, such as France and Germany, which have put a tax on large and high-emissions cars.” Within SUV's also there is an opportunity to reduce the size and make more efficient space utilization designs. Small savings also add up. One has to realize that the current freedom to use energy freely in places like the US with self sufficiency in oil comes with a sense of responsibility for using it wisely so that it can be exported to cut the trade deficit, precisely what the president is doing with India, to cut a trade deficit of $58 billion before it gets to $100 billion. Section 301 is already in place for investigations by the US of 18 countries for a new basis to use tariffs after the Supreme Court decision. A similar approach is taken with EU for hundreds of billions of reductions in trade deficit that will only strengthen the US dollar and the US economy in the long run , and be good for stock markets and jobs as it reduces oil prices and increases the manufacturing capacity/cost for the Nation. Europe, India and China can do the same. Remember that in 2010 SUV's made up 17% of total world sales, and by 2025 SUV's made up 46% of world vehicle sales. This would create another 400 million barrels for the oil markets, which would triple what was released through EIA  this week to 1.2 billion barrels and this would create 120 days of supply replacement for the 10 million b/d lost from Straits of Hormuz, and effectively end the Iran War as it would be clear that prices can be kept low even in the $50's. Essentially buying time till the SU can get more production in Venezuela and other parts of the world to replace much of the Middle Eastern oil that is ending up in a quagmire. This is the best way for the US and Europe, India, China to ensure jobs growth, economic growth with low cost crude oil in the $50 range and ensure much of the poorer countries like Egypt and Indonesia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, have access to oil at prices they can afford and eliminate poverty. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Roosevelt say experts was a great crisis manager but not great when it comes to policies to create jobs. His achievements were stabilizing the banking system with deposit insurance, government investment in banks, and restrictions on banking practices, creation of the SEC, and fireside chats that steadied the national mood. Unemployment when he took office in 1933 was 25% from 3% in 1929, and industrial production had dropped 40% since 1929. So FDR took office when a lot of the damage had already been done, compared to that Obama takes office earlier in this downturn. And Roosevelt did not fully grasp John Maynard Keynes's advice when he visited the White House in 1934. Keynes complained to Labor Secretary Ms. Perkins that he had thought the President was more literate economically speaking, while the President felt Keynes had a rigmarole of figures he did not understand. Roosevelt said of Keynes: "He must be a mathematician rather than a political economist." It took some time for government spending to take hold. Throughout the 1930's government spending remained around 20% as a share of the economy. Today its 35%. And the average unemployment stayed at stubborn 17% on average for the decade of the 1930's. It was not till the 1940's that things changed. Total government spending as a share of the economy reached 52% in 1942 with the onset of the war, and peaked at 70% in 1944 when the unemployment rate dropped to 1%. One lesson experts say is that its easier to stem unemployment and job losses by action earlier in the downward spiral through vigorous action by government. In retrospect because industrial production fell by 40% during the 1930's experts say Roosevelt was actually timid in his response. U.S. Fed chairman Bernanke is a student of this period and draws a similiar lesson from that period for vigorous action early in the crisis....

LyrArc Article Gist
GM CEO Wagoner was asked to resign by the Obama admninistration. The news was given Wagoner by Steven Rattner, who heads the auto industry task force setup by President Obama, at Rattner's office at Treasury. Mr Henderson, GM's Chief Operating Officer will fill in for Wagoner. When Wagoner assumed office in 2000 GM's stock price was $70, now it is $3.62, and GM capitalization is $2.21 billion in March 2009. Since 2004 GM has not earned aprofit, and has logged $82 billion in losses. Right upto the end the board of directors and lead directors backed Wagoner, even when the company was short of cash in the waning days of the Bush administration, and public opinion was very critical of the way management and unions had driven the company into the ground, all through this they held on, showing how hard it is to get an entrenched board and management doing things the wrong way. Now the Obama administration has taken years of festering issues in the auto industry and at auto companies head on. Not only Wagoner, the task force is working with GM to replace a majority of its directors. Kent Kresa a longtime director is to serve as chairman of GM. The President in a speech today on the auto industry said that he was rejecting the plans for restructuring provided by both GM and Chrysler. He is giving GM 60 days to come up with a new plan. The government would provide suffficient working capital for the next 60 days, during which time a revamped board and top management would have to come up with new restructuring plan. Obama made it clear that an expedited government sponsored bankruptcy was a clear option. And officials said that the inordinate amounts of debt at both GM and Chrysler have to be scrubbed, and bankruptcy would be "quick rinse" to rid the companies of much of their debt and contractual obligations. And the government would stand behind the warranties of both companies. For Chrysler the government is giving 30 daysto come up with a new plan, and time to reach an agreement for Fiat to work to revive Chrysler. And Obama reassured the public that FIat would have to repay the government before it could take money from the new Fiat run Chrysler out of the country. If Fiat and Chrysler reach an agreement and only then would the government step in with $6 billion in loans. If not Chrysler would be allowed to collapse....

LyrArc Article Gist
For two decades young computer specialists in their 30's have tried to say the right things to the American people to gain approval- with AI this is where it all ends. Watching Murthi and Altman on Stern's interview in WSJ one senses a lack of awareness that this is too big a technology to be handled by a few computerized work  specialists. Murthi says the right things with a faltering conviction, Altman lacks conviction, yet both cannot take on the responsibilities for AI on their shoulders. The chief technology officer of OpenAI takes over role of Interim CEO with the departure of Sam Altman. She graduated from the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth. She worked at Tesla before joining OpenAI. Murthi was in charge of Operations, managing the teams that delivered ChatGPT product in 2022, and handling the relationship with Microsoft which invested $13 billion for a 49% stake in OpenAI.

LyrArc Article Gist
Few will believe Jill Biden taught aclass on the day of her husband's inauguration as U.S. president. Times change and anew president takes office. With him is Jill Biden a dedicated teacher for all her life. She has two masters degrees and a doctoral degree on the problems in higher education with dropping out in community colleges in the U.S.

As the U.S. goes back to the days of the Truman presidency in 1952 when it was all about rebuilding the country- education and access to education, healthcare and access to healthcare, infrastructure and funding the infrastructure from bridges, roads, airports, terminals. A new focus takes shape.

LyrArc Article Gist
Criticism in the media for Justin Trudeau's carefully cultivated image and reuse of the family brand. After three years in office it slowly comes apart with revelations of poor judgement and promotion of rock star kind of image, without substance behind it. Promotion of gender equality, indigenous people, and other ideas did not have the conviction behind it that is needed, and the lack of forthrightness becomes evident. In the last two years the images of popular presidents in the media have come apart in countries from Brazil to Canada, with skepticism even in the U.S. and Britain for former presidents and prime ministers who carefully cultivated their image or simply popular in the media.

LyrArc Article Gist
Friedrich Merz quit Black Rock investment firm recently to head back into politics of the CDU. During the years after 2000 Merz was eclipsed by Angela Merkel for leadership of the CDU. He is known for jobs he has done in the finance sector including privatization of state bank WestLB.

Another candidate for leadership is Peter Altmaier, a close associate of Merkel who has assisted her throughout her terms in office. He worked for the European Union before entering the Bundestag in 1994. 

Jens Spahn, 39 years old, is health minister and entered the Bundestag in 2002. He is also a top candidate for the CDU.

LyrArc Article Gist
The UK's Office of National Statistics said construction output fell by 3.7% in the first quarter of 2012, compared to prior year. Output fell 3%. The revised decline in GDP for the first quarter is 0.3%.

LyrArc Article Gist
The effects of a surge in income volatility for middle class families, many doing back office jobs and one parent losing a job since the recession of 2008. The difficulties of living from paycheck to paycheck.

LyrArc Article Gist
India's vaccination drive which has passed one billion vaccinations is one of the great stories of our time. This report in DW.com looks at vaccination drive in a region that is densely forested. It is in central India in the state of Chhattisgarh with about 30 million people and about 7 million tribal people living in dense forests that make up 40% of the state's territory.  One such place is the Dandakaranya forest, Sukma district, 500 kilometres from the state captial of Raipur. It takes an arduous journey just to get to this place which has no electricity, no potable water and no road connectivity.  Block development officer Kapil Kashyap from Sukma tells DW.com how they worked hard, won trust among villagers and brought basic medical services to them. Astonishingly with such effort to overcome vaccine hesitancy, 95% of the people in the village here had their first shot, and 40% received two doses. It is such a kind of effort in every district that prime minister Modi has called for in the unrelenting effort needed to vaccinate fully 1.3 billion Indians. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Chief Justice Roberts and President Obama both excelled at Harvard Law School, one as managing editor of the Law Review and the other as President of the Law Review. One raised in suburban Indiana, and going to small Catholic boarding school started 5 years earlier by Chicago and Indiana businessmen like his father, a steel company executive. The other fatherless trying to construct his own identity at a school in Hawaii founded in 1841 to educate the children of white missionaries. Roberts adminstered the oath of office to Obama in January 2009.

LyrArc Article Gist
GDP expanded at 3.5% in the fourth quarter of 2016, according to the Turkey Statistics Office. This follows a contraction by 1.8% in the third quarter of 2016. For the full year the GDP growth is 2.9 percent, a decline from the 6.1% in 2015. In 2015 Turkey gained from lower oil prices. This was offset in 2016 by the politics in the region- the increased instability in the country following a crackdown on the opposition and media, internal conflict in the Kurdish region which appeared for a time to be leading to peaceful settlement. As a result tourism revenues declined by 30% and this was offset by increased government spending. The uncertainty before the referendum also leads to decline in foreign investment and investment by domestic firms.

LyrArc Article Gist
Just five prime ministers have remained in office for more than 5 years in Japan since 1945. Prime minister Yoshihide Suga's popularity dropped to 26% from high sixties since September 16 of last year. Five candidates are trying to lead the LDP party. Another period of uncertain revolving door politics appears to be the prospect. This would mean a weak effort in vaccinations and in tackling the coronavirus pandemic. 

Just as in Europe and the US, in Japan there are effects of the pandemic, economic downturn, widening social disparity, plus a contracting population. Yukio Hatoyama, Yoshhide Suga, and Shinzo Abe in his first term served for short periods of one year or less since 2012. There is a perceived need for the older leaders to retire from politics and let a younger generation tackle the problems the country faces as in Europe.

LyrArc Article Gist
Bill Veghte, who has 20 years of experience with Microsoft and helped launch Windows 7, is the new chief strategy officer under CEO Meg Whitman. Veghte will also head the cloud computing and webOS mobile operating system initiatives at H-P in the new position.

LyrArc Article Gist
Airbus announced a 6.1% increase in the price of its A320neo medium distance jets. Overall prices for Airbus aircraft were up 3.9% on average, according to the company's chief operating officer. The higher price increase on the A320neo reflects strong demand for the aircraft.

LyrArc Article Gist
A sense that Putin takes office for this third term as president at a time when younger urban educated people in Russia, who have no memory of Putin's experiences in the postwar period, do not share his ideas.