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Manufacturing and building plants related to Green energy is a better path for Nevada to meet the needs of the people of the state. Dependence on casinos and the hospitality industry has hurt Nevada. The Redwood Materials plant near Reno, Nevada, is an example of this effort. It is a sprawling 300 acre facility that recycles old smartphones and other discarded items into materials for electric cars and other products.

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Sweden's elections show that the problems of crime, immigration, and healthcare affect the northern European countries. Sweden's Social Democrats are still the largest party. Sweden Democrats anti-immigration party gets about 20% of the vote,. The Moderate Party becomes the third largest party with its leader choosing to form a government of the centre right parties if these parties get a slight majority in the final results.

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It never made sense to make soap 13,000 miles away in China and ship it to the US, and reflected everything that had gone wrong in a once thriving America and how business had lost common sense. Bath and Body Works is correcting that, as shown here in the WSJ. Yet this is 2023, and so many opportunities for doing this were missed already. It took the pandemic to bring some common sense.

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A big change in the new Tax Law is the doubling of the Standard Tax deduction to $12,000 per person and $24,000 for a married couple filing jointly, if itemized deductions are not used. State and local income tax deduction is limited to $10,000. This will shift 20 million more people to not use itemized deductions. There will no longer be value in charitable deductions if one is using the standard deduction.

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The investigation of Special Counsel Robert Mueller now looks into president Trump's business interests and efforts made to secure financing and permits to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. This comes from information provided by Mr. Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen. The timing of these contacts show this to be taking place about the time of the presidential campaign and earlier statements to be misleading.

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British prime minister Theresa May calls a surprise general election for June 8, 2017, with the hope of winning a new mandate for Brexit negotiations larger than the slim 17 vote majority in the House of Commons. Experts say the disarray in the Labor Party improves chances of Ms. May winning a large parliamentary majority. A YouGov PLC poll shows Conservatives at 44% support, Labor at only 23% and Liberals at 12%.

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Eurozone data shows the GDP growth far outpaced the U.S.. In the first quarter GDP growth was 0.5% from the prior year, the annualized rate at 1.8% compared to 0.7% for the U.S.. European stocks are benefiting from the recovery in the eurozone. A global recovery in inflation is also helping, with political risk fading. Recovery is also taking place in parts of southern Europe, with 3% growth in Spain.

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A health care practitioner says the real problem is the high cost of medical care in the U.S. when compared to other countries. She points out that the Obama bill in 2008 did not take effective steps to bring down the cost of health care before enacting legislation to cover the uninsured, leading to higher premiums for the middle class. The link between healthcare and profits is seen as the main problem. 

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The Chinese negotiating team after the changes in the organization at the senior ranks of the government under Jinping lacks the experience in trade matters of the U.S. team led by Robert Lighthizer. Liu He who leads China's negotiating team is an economist who has the confidence of president Xi Jinping. Lighthizer is a veteran of trade negotiations going back to negotiations he held with the Japanese under the Reagan administration.

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Matt Rudd gives this excellent story on what it is like for dads in today's hectic ever busy work and business environment that takes little account of the needs of family and children. As work consumes most of dad's time, work-life balance is seriously affected, leading to stress and inability to cope with family, wife and children. Rudd gives examples and a quiz as food for thought.

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The U.S. House of Representatives votes 420-0 calling for public release of the Mueller report on the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. The probe by Special Counsel Mueller looked into whether anyone in the Trump circle aided Russian meddling in the election. The unanimous vote is a result of the public support for releasing the report. Mostly all Democrats and 80% of Republicans support its public release.

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In a meeting charged with emotion Theresa May says she will not run again as a way to get support from a pro-Brexit MP's faction in her party that includes Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees Moog. Some members of this faction support exiting the EU even if it means no-deal is reached on future relations between the EU and Britain including agreement on membership in the customs union.

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Prime minister Netanyahu of Israel says he will call snap elections if secular and religious parties in his centre right alliance do not come together to form a new government. Likud lacks the 61 seats for a majority in parliament resulting in negotiations with other religious and secular parties that back Netanyahu. Mr. Lieberman one of the secular party leaders says the ultra orthodox must serve in the military with other Israelis.

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Germany's chancellor gives her support to French president Macron's call for agreement before the summer holidays on a 750 billion euro rescue package. Merkel told 27 leaders of EU countries Europe faces "very, very difficult times" and even said that she was not sure the gravity of the situation was truly understood. The value of the economies of some states could drop by 10% in 2020.

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The new national security law put forward for Hong Kong in China gives key powers to Beijing to enforce national security In Hong Kong. A dedicated national security office will be setup in Hong Kong to make assessments, advise and supervise local authorites. This is seen as a move to unravel the legal autonomy Hong Kong had under earlier agreements with the UK that resulted in the transfer to China.

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Locals trying to do what they can using sugarcane buoys and barriers to soak up some of the 1500 tons of oil still on the leaking oil tanker. A French ship from Reunion island is the only help on the way. Mitsui OSK Lines owns the ship in Japan. It has recovered only 1500 tons of oil so far. No one knows why oil tankers can come so close to inhabited islands.

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Japan's GDP fell by 7.8% in the second quarter of 2020 compared with previous quarter. By comparison for U.S. economy GDP was down 9.5% for that quarter. In Japan the increase in the national sales tax from 8% to 10% in October 2019 had already caused a contraction in the economy. It is uncertain how much the second wave of the pandemic will affect the economic recovery.

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Global oil demand is expected to shrink in first quarter 2020, for the first time in 10 years, according to the International Energy Agency. China made up three fourths of growth in oil demand in 2019. The border closures, flight cancellations, and factory closures, are affecting Chinese oil consumption as a result of the coronavirus. China's growth in first quarter is expected to be 3-4% than a year earlier.

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One cannot imagine that this city is Hong Kong. It shows how the coronavirus is having some unexpected effects and interesting experiments. About 800,000 students are going through a 2 month school closure. The response is to setup a crash course in digital learning. Schools are sending lessons and assignments to students to online. Live video interactions are being conducted. Parents are involved in intensive home schooling efforts using digital learning.

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On Jan 19, 2023 the US hit its debt ceiling of $31.4 trillion. Republicans control the House of Representatives by only a few votes after a strong showing in midterms by Democrats who control the Senate. A small section of the Republican party insists that raising the debt ceiling- a task performed by the House of Representatives- should only be done with serious cuts to Biden programs to help workers and families during a cost of living crisis. Biden says he will not negotiate, simply won't.  This report in NYT by Jim Tankersley, says president Biden in the last resort could resort to the 14th Amendment which says: "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions shall not be questioned." What this means is that in the last resort if Republicans insist on serious cuts because of a faction within the party, and not because the whole party supports it, Mr. Biden could continue public borrowings to pay social security and make other payments. Moody's says this would lead to a rise in borrowing costs temporarily but would not lead to a recession, and have long term benefits as the debt ceiling could not be applied in the future. It would be challenged by Republicans and go to the Supreme Court which would have to decide on the issue: "the validity of the public debt of the United States shall not be questioned." This drew 1338 comments on NYT. ...

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The contrast between Erdogan and a modest humble civil servant Kilicdaroglu is shown here in FR24. Kilicdaroglu is from the CHP or Republican party setup by Kemal Ataturk. Ataturk founded the party in Ankara after the colonial powers took over Istanbul by 1921 following victory in World War I and planned to breakup the Ottoman Empire. To resist this plan Ataturk responded similar to Japan by forming a new country based on the model of European nations and introduced a new alphabet to increase literacy. He took the country back to its European roots before the Ottomans in the 16th century and turned the Hagia Sophia into a museum. In the process rural people in the Anatolian heartland were not fully integrated by the 1960's and Erdogan appealed to these people, increased social mobility and incomes in Turkey between 2001 and 2018. In the period since then Turkey is faced with an economic crisis and rampant inflation that hurt ordinary Turkish people. The pandemic and earthquake made things worse. This is why Turkey is poised for a change and the Republican party hopes to build the Turkey of Ataturk with Turkey firmly seen as a European nation, with some changes that respect the right to wear scarves for women. For just the earthquake alone Turkey needs $90 billion for reconstruction and there are changes that are needed that would integrate the Turkish economy with the expanding economy of the US and the EU which can take place under Kilidaroglu and the new mayors of both Istanbul and Turkey who are deputy leaders of the CHP Republican party. ...

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It comes as a shock to central banks and is pressuring governments- the food price explosion that won't go away even as energy prices are moderating. OECD graphs in this WSJ report show food prices up in 2023 over the prior year by 15-20% in France, Germany and Britain, compared to 5-10% in the US, Canada and Japan. In France households have cut food purchases by 10%, and in Germany by 10.4% over prior year in the largest drop since records were being kept in 1994. In Britain the statistics agency shows that 40% of the poorest 20% of people are cutting back on food purchases. Ludovic Subran who worked at the UN World Food Program says it is an "access problem." Food production has not dropped, people just can't afford to pay the prices. In Britain The Resolution Foundation says higher food prices since 2020 means the British public by summer 2023 will have to pay more in food bills $35 billion more than the 25 billion pounds for energy bills. Policymakers call higher profit margins by retailers as a possible cause as in world commodity markets food prices are falling since April 2022. Andrew Baileyof the Bank of England says it is the "fourth shock to inflation" after the supply chain bottlenecks, the energy price increases from the war in Ukraine, the tight labor markets. In Italy, Spain and Portugal governments have offered sale tax relief, in France and the UK government is leaning on retailers to curb price increases. ...

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Traditional IPO's have raised $7 billion down a huge 94% from this time last year says this report in the WSJ. IPO of Rivian a new electric car manufacturer in 2021 was priced so high that it made the valuation of the new company at over $70 billion more than that of Ford Motor. Rivian had only made a little over 1000 cars in 2021 and about 7000 cars in the first half of 2021, which shows the size of the excess and the potential waste of capital that could be better allocated to vital needs for the economy such as achieving self reliance in semiconductor chips for the US which is not getting the funding it deserves and needs. These kinds of excesses are now a thing of the past. Larger companies, well known names such as Intel's Mobileye subsidiary or companies with a with a proven track record are now the companies that are more likely to have success with IPO's, as the economic environment, higher interest rates and other changes lead to the withering away of the novel idea startups of the past. Startups that had no meaningful effect on improving people's lives in any significant way, or strengthened the US economy and industrial base, and merely sucked up valuable resources.  It is not that the US lacks the resources to compete effectively with any country in the world including China, in renewables, in semiconductors, in 5G, in new technologies, it is just that hundreds of billions of dollars are going into unproductive channels and wasted. ...

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China's military exercises for air and sea blockade of Taiwan raise the political risk of doing business in China says this report in WSJ. It raises the risk level for American corporations such as Apple and Boeing and others, that have large investments in China. The escalating tension and freeze in relations between the US and China is a watershed moment says the WSJ. Looking back years from now it may be the year following the pandemic and the war in Ukraine that tensions took on a level that would lead to acceleration of the building of new supply chains for the US and European Union in Asia that separate from China. The Trump years as president escalated trade tensions and tensions over origins of Covid. The war in Ukraine and China's siding with Russia and forming a "no limits" partnership with Russia have created serious rethinking of the entire relationship from supply chains to defense. US president Biden sees Ukraine's defense as a way of showing that an attack on one country by a neighbor in violation of international law is not acceptable to the US, and particularly in the context of China's relations with Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific countries. In this situation the US is taking the initiative in the war in Ukraine with Gen. Cavoli at US Headquarters in Europe assisting in the effort to repel Russian aggression, and also send a message to China on the importance the US sees in not allowing this kind of violation of international law. ...

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Indian health minister Mandaviya goes house to house in Palitana, Gujarat, to start India's Har Ghar Dastak, house to house vaccination drive. Indian government has identified 50 districts with vaccination rates below 50% for first shot, for efforts at house to house vaccination by visiting homes of the unvaccinated. PM Modi returning from Glasgow held a meeting with chief ministers of the worst affected states such as Maharastra,Tamilnadu, Karnataka and other states with officers at the district level also present, to start Har Ghar Dastak campaign. Modi told the chief ministers and district officials that his talks with leaders of developed countries had increased his awareness of the great risks in letting any slackness or loss of vigorous effort take place in the vaccination effort. Germany is today facing a pandemic of the unvaccinated with fully vaccinated stuck at 67% and facing resistance from unvaccinated and closing of vaccination centers. The US is also facing the same problem and the winter looks increasingly fraught with dangers for both US and Europe, when people go indoors. India seeks to avoid having to face the same problem by taking action in advance to get unvaccinated to enlist in the national effort. Only Spain and Portugal have rates of vaccination close to or over 80% for fully vaccinated, and this is because of the huge trust people in these two countries place in the health system, seeing vaccination as a gift of modernity, and seeing that it is important to not risk health of older family members with whom most young people live with in these countries. ...