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This essay in the Economist magazine points out the special nature of the 2017 presidential election in France with the rejection of establishment candidates- Manuel Valls, Sarkozy, Juppe, and now Fillon. Fillon and Valls were prime ministers under Sarkozy and Hollande, from the Republican and Socialist parties respectively. With unemployment high in the areas outside the major cities their is a surge in support in these areas for the National Front. Emmanuel Macron, former Economy minister in the Hollande government, is the only candidate leading Marie Le Pen at this time. In a second round of voting he has to bring in centre right supporters and centre left voters and moderate voters, and appeal enough to working class voters, young unemployed people, offering hope for a better future to win this election against Le Pen. Economist magazine research shows support highest for Le Pen outside major cities in outlying areas, and for Macron in the major cities. There is also an education divide as seen in the U.S. election and Brexit referendum with less educated voters preferring the nationalist sentiment, church support sentiment fostered by the National Front.  ...

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US DJT Tariffs impact 1 year later- global trade has held up well with US unemployment at 4.4% and economic growth at 2.1%. China imports down from 20% in 2016 to 10% ten years later in 2026. For DJT that was a promise kept leading to a sharp decoupling of the US economy from the Chinese economy that was leading to huge trade deficits of 1 trillion dollars. Too much of the world's supply chain was tied up with manufacturing in China. It got so bad under Reagan, the two Bushes, Clinton/Obama that the US and EU were facing deindustrialization with huge risks to the future of the US and Europe as industrial powers. 150 years of industrialization and scientific advancement, the great achievements of Europe and the United States since 1860's was going up in smoke over reckless policies of Republican and Democratic elites who gave little thought and barely understood the long run effects of their policies and textbook theories of the economy. Most economists from ivy league universities got it completely wrong. ...

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Shraddha Pandey, Indian civil servant offers these thoughts to young women and men joining the Indian Administrative Service, IAS, now that women form 34% of the candidates who have passed the UPSC exams. The top four candidates are also women. This includes thoughts on showing one's soft and intelligent side which is the real source of strength in life, maternity leave acceptance similar to how an educational or other activity requires a short absence,  participation in chores by all genders at home that make it easier for women, and shared child care that create a healthy home.

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A new test for Prostate Cancer, a test with high accuracy being developed in Britain- in it are proteins shed by prostate tumors in urine are tested.  This test is planned with testing of 200,000 people in Britain with funding of 42 million pounds. It has 0.92 accuracy compared to 0.62-0.75 for the conventional PSA Test. This test tests a different set of proteins. PSA Test is known to have false positives and is not accurate. This will revolutionize the testing for prostate cancer, one of the main cancers affecting men.

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England's batsman Alastair Cook talks about the pitch in the Third Test at Ahmedabad. He says he would have had considerable difficulty facing the spin bowlers on that pitch in Ahmedabad. With a spinner in his groove, and men all around the bat, Cook says its hard to even get off the mark, with the noise from the stadium and constant scrutiny of the batsman's technique.

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Toyota reported a 77% drop in earnings in the first quarter of 2011, with a large loss in the Japanese operations. The strong yen trading at 81 yen to the dollar is a significant factor. And for the first time Toyota's CFO Satoshi Ozawa said "we have reached the limits of profitable Japan based production at 80 yen to the dollar." Japanese operatios lost $2.4 billion. Honda reported a 38% drop in earnings for the 1st quarter.

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White women have voted for Democrats only twice in 1964 and 1996, both times for southern Democrats, Lyndon Johnson from Texas in 1964 and Bill Clinton from Arkansas. Biden losing margin with white women was 11 percentage points Harris was 5 points. Knowing this it is not clear how the idea of depending on the women's vote was a reliable strategy. Considering that women also vote for the pocketbook, the economy and the cost of living issues were twice as important for Republican/Democrat women than other issues. Latino men margin for Clinton was 31 points, for Biden this dropped to 23 points, for Harris this dropped way down as Latino men swung sharply away from Democrats to give a plus 10 point margin for Trump a swing of 33 percentage points. Harris won Latino women by 22 points compared to 44 points for Clinton. The whole strategy Democrat women candidates trying to appeal to men, or use women as an offset for losses with men has not worked. Part of this is also that the economy is also a factor for women.    ...

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Honda's showing a drop of 86% in profits for 1st quarter shows the weakness in the auto business as higher raw material costs and in the case of the Japanese maker higher yen make a dent in profits. Ford's stock up almost 15% in a day after release of is quarter earnings of $100 million is down almost 9% in one day after the profit guidance from Honda looked grim.

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Tobacco use has reached levels of catastrophe in Jordan as a major public health crisis develops. This Guardian report says there is influence of Big Tobacco in developing countries. About 80% of men in Jordan use tobacco or smoke cigarettes, according to a government and WHO study, smoking an average of 23 cigarettes a day. This could soon spike rates for cancer and other lung diseases, and warnings of a future public health catastrophe comes from the Amman King Hussein Cancer Center.  Indonesia is one of the other nations with high level of tobacco use. In countries in Europe and America where tobacco use is controlled there are restrictions on advertising and efforts to control use which are less prevalent in developing countries that put there health systems more at risk from lung diseases. This is true even of countries such as India and China, where a lot remains to be done. At one time Japan also suffered from this problem. Revenues to the state from tobacco and other financial interests, as well as lack of strong public health protection agencies is a problem that needs to be tackled for public health. In China about 50% of men smoke and there are 300 million smokers, with one third of tobacco consumption in the world in China. In India the figures are 234 million and 47% of men smoke, with the highest smoking at 80% in Kolkata and over 70% in the northeastern states. The damage from this to public health is enormous. In China the China National Tobacco Corporation CNTC is the state run tobacco company, the third largest company by profits in China. In India the largest tobacco company is Imperial Tobacco Company ITC. Tobacco was brought to India and China by the Portuguese from Brazil 400 years ago and may have taken the most lives in the two countries over that period. ...

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Susie Wiles 11 Vanity Fair Interviews December 2026- " the conspiracy theorist is JD Vance the "absolute right wing zealot" is Russell Vought and "the odd, odd duck" is Elon Musk. The president DJT is someone like Susie's dad Pat Summerall a legendary sportcaster. Susie she thinks she "knows big personalities" because of her experience with her father. What happens? Susie says she warned the president from everything that includes announcement of the tariffs that early in the Spring just after being elected when there were diagreements within the administration, just wait a bit she suggested, but that has not happened with decision after decision, including retribution for so called enemies. Susie says she doesn't blame the president from knowing how he weas treated. "Not me."

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Susie Wiles 11 Vanity Fair Interviews December 2026- " the conspiracy theorist is JD Vance the "absolute right wing zealot" is Russell Vought and "the odd, odd duck" is Elon Musk. The president DJT is someone like Susie's dad Pat Summerall a legendary sportcaster. Susie she thinks she "knows big personalities" because of her experience with her father. What happens? Susie says she warned the president from everything that includes announcement of the tariffs that early in the Spring just after being elected when there were diagreements within the administration, just wait a bit she suggested, but that has not happened with decision after decision, including retribution for so called enemies. Susie says she doesn't blame the president from knowing how he weas treated. "Not me."

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Hear this America- Trumps call to end tax on social security benefits is a HUGE MISTAKE. It will result in seniors getting an average of about $560 now in exchange for a cut in social security by 25% in 2033 only 9 years from now, and Medicare insolvency 6 years from now. The insolvency dates and cuts are estimates of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Senator Larson says Trump's plan to end tax on social security benefits is "a fatal mistake," because it does not make up for the lost revenue.The Committee for Responsible Federal Budget, bipartisan budget evaluation says it will bring forward by 6 years Medicare insolvency from 2037 to 2031 just 6 years from now, and advance Social Security Fund insolvency by 1 year from 2034 to 2033. It will lead to a cut in Social Security benefits of 25% in 2033 which would have dangerous and tragic consequences for seniors in America pushing many into poverty.

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S&P 500 up 5% in 2025 by June 27 2025 recovering 20% form lows after tariffs. Scott Bessent had promised agreement in place by July this date will be extended  yet confidence has returned that the agreements will be put in place after German chancellor Merz met with DJT at the White House. With Germany leading the way the biggest of the agreements with EU could be put in place. Additional agreements would come with India and China, and Japan, South Korea.

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A WSJ/NBC poll in Oct 2013 shows U.S. Congressional leaders Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid have some of the highest negative ratings ever. U.S. president Obama has high disapproval ratings. Close to 35% of men voters would go with a alternative candidate. This is the highest disaffection level in two decades. Voters prefer someone who is populist, pragmatic and non-ideological.

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Japan will become the first country to issue climate bonds to finance action against climate change. This will bring in private capital. Japan will issue $5 billion in climate bonds (800 billion yen). A total of 20 trillion yen of climate bonds, sovereign debt securities, will be issued.

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Japan's vice finance minister for international affairs, Mitsuhiro Furusawa, emphasizes that Japan's effort to revive the economy is exactly what the IMF and the international community have been looking for Japan to do. The effort is designed with the primary objective of fighting deflation. The yen has declined by 15% since the new administration of prime minister Abe assumed power Dec. 26, 2012. It now is at 99 yen to the dollar compared to 80 yen to the dollar in 2012. At 80 yen to the dollar the IMF considered the yen "moderately overvalued." Furusawa assumed the new position recently. His previous position was IMF executive director 2010-2012. In that position he assisted IMF managing director, Christine Lagarde, in efforts to manage the sovereign debt crisis in the eurozone.

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The WSJ's Ben Worthen interviews Meg Whitman, the new CEO of H-P. Whitman says she will execute strategy consistently and will provide a steady hand on the tiller. Some of the points she made were- it took a number of years for H-P to get to this situation, and it will take a number of years to get out of it. It takes about five years to get things to turn around, with gradual progress. Whitman says H-P is a hardware company, and could not become a software company even if it tried to. She has put her arms around the company's products, and H-P has people with deep knowledge of the company's products who she talks to. Her plan is to move faster into tablets with Windows 8. For the printer business growth is expected because H-P's estimate is that 200 billion incremental pages will be shifting from Heidelberg presses to Web printing, with a shift from analog to digital.

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Softbank the epitome or synonym of waste on a huge scale of capital allocation for the last 2 decades in massively distorted capital markets when healthcare, childcare, manufacturing technologies and infrastructure is suffering from lack of funding, is hit with a loss of $23 billion for the second quarter which was one and half times the loss of the first quarter. As the WSJ reports Softbank and Masayoshi Sen was delirious in his own words during the tech booms of the last 20 years and its founder talked about bigger and bigger capital allocation even as productivity of capital declined rapidly. This happened astonishingly with little restraint in capital markets shown by participants even as healthcare in the ten years before the pandemic was not adequately funded, and education, infrastructure, manufacturing technologies were neglected which would have provided better returns on capital and served the interests of the American people and the world in a way that would have been said was well done had this been done. This went on astonishingly right into the pandemic period. Investments of about $50 billion were made in tech startup companies in 2021.  ...

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Lower volatility in oil prices as a result of a new stream of shale oil supplies at competitive prices is good for oil producers and for consumers. This report in the WSJ shows that volatility and swings in oil prices have gone down with the ability of shale producers to respond to price signals or geopolitical situations and increase supplies. Shale producers can increase supplies in months compared to the years it would take for oil producers in offshore drilling. The new technologies in shale rigs have tripled production since 2011 for the same number of rigs operating in the U.S. Permian Basin from West Texas to New Mexico. The core producers can now supply and be profitable at $40 a barrel.  Supply cuts from OPEC and Russia as currently the policy of both countries mean inventories do not rise too high. And geopolitical problems such as Yemeni attacks on Saudi oil facilities, the reinstated sanctions on Iran by the Trump administration that reduce oil supplies, Venezuela's problems, can be met by increased supplies from the U.S. shale industry in a short time to prevent inventories from dropping too much.      ...

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Galston of the Brookings Institution says globalization has hurt workers in manufacturing with job losses and declining incomes. It has produced outcomes that have favored some industries such as tech, and not others such as automobiles which in the past helped create the broad middle class by offering good paying jobs to people with less than a college education. Immigration has created an issue that political leaders outside of the main parties have appealed to in France, the U.S. and Britain. The result is a polarization in the voters that has rarely been seen to this extent before. The middle class in the period from the 1950's to the 1980's is not the middle class that we see today in Europe and the U.S. The 2008 financial crisis added to the problems with the slow and uncertain recovery for some groups such as white men, the less educated, students, and people on minimum wage.