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Alas, economists and intellectuals such as Gita Gopinath of the IMF, just don't get it when they say the EU can increase growth by half percent meeting labor shortages using immigrants. As WSJ reports 50-60% of asylum seekers in Netherlands since 1999 are less skilled /less educated immigrants, are unemployed or on benefits.The new view across all parties is lets stop the immigration surges, its too overwhelming for the people to deal with, so that we can focus on cost of living and low wages for workers. Across Starmer's Labour in Britain, across Biden/Harris Democrats lined up with Republican Lankford in the US pledging to sign the legislation to close the southern Border, and in France Macron's premier Michel Barnier wants to do the same.   Mette Frederiksen of Denmark was a pioneer in the EU in showing that immigration acts as a distraction that hurts the working class as it distracts people from the key issues facing workers of cost of living and low wages, poor benefits. She was elected as a Socialist party leader in Denmark in 2015 and as prime minister in 2019. Sahra Wagenknecht, follows Mette Frederiksen, herself a daughter of immigrant, has formed her own party out of Socialist Die Linke in Germany which is now getting about 15% German voter support, 25% in the east, along similar lines to pause and stop immigration because it hurts the working class. In other parts of EU- France's Macron coalition has a prime minister who has called for a pause on immigration. US president Harris and Candidate Harris have pledged to sign bipartisan legislation drafted by Republican Senator Lankford to close the southern Border. The European Asylum Agency has the numbers at just over one million asylum seekers in EU in 2023 and agains in 2024 split by country- Germany 127,000 24% France 77,000 15%, and Italy and Spain 87,000 each 17% each Belgium, Netherlands and Austria 17,000 each at 3% each, Greece a bit higher. Some like the US and Germany with stronger economic base and industries can absorb the educated immigrants from middle class fleeing wars and strife, and less educated immigrants in construction and hospitality. The bigger danger is in creating support for parties that will use the issue to take whole economies and countries backwards by further depressing workers wages, benefits and rights, exacerbating social divisions around race and income that they say they will solve but have no economic policy to do this. All socialist and socialist democratic parties have grasped this in 2023-2024, some earlier by 2019. ...

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The yen is at 134 to the dollar in June 2022 having dropped by 22% in 2022. The US Fed is increasing rates while the Bank of Japan is keeping its low interest rate policy. Japan's inflation is at 2.5% compared to 8.6% in April 2022 for the US. The last time the central bank intervened to buy dollar was in 1998 with severe yen overvaluation which is not the case now. The yen's weakening means the parts Japan imports from its supply chain in Asia now cost much more.

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Protests in 5 of Turkey's largest cities with mayors from the CHP party, Istanbul, Ankara, Bursa, Izmir following the arrest of Imamoglu, Mayor of Istanbul, just before he was being nominated by his party to run against Erdogan for president of Turkey in 2028. Ekrem Imamoglu was elected mayor of Istanbul in 2019, with 54% of the vote in a recount when Erdogan had been in power for 16 years starting in 2003. Erdogan also started his political career as Mayor of Istanbul. Erdogan became popular following mismanagement of the economy by the administration of the time. He increased growth with foreign investment in his first ten years. His popularity began to wane with tendencies for authoritarian rule. Without a strong candidate from the opposition Erdogan was elected again in 2020 with 52% of the vote. In 2024 Ekrem Imamoglu was relected a second time as Mayor of Istanbul.  In 2025 Turkey is a changed country- with countries around it Ukraine, Russia, Middle East, and the US, very different from the 2000 turn of the century period. CHP party in power in the cities is now in a position to run the country after two decades in the Opposition. As a result there is a shift in mood in the country seeking new leadership and the AKK party of Erdogan now faces a serious challenge from the Opposition CHP and Imamoglu. ...

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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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This report shows how the H1-B visa system as it operated for many years till 2025 undercut wages of American workers in the computer and software engineering fields. Changes are being made to accomplish the original aims of such a program. More critical is the number of jobs over a span of years that are lost to US born citizens- in just 5 years 300,000 US born talented engineers and the 3 million workers they could train would simply not be there to power America's reindustrialization and re-modernization 2025-2030. The same is true for India as 300,000 India's talented engineers and the 3 million workers they could train would simply not be there to power India's industrialization and modernization 2025-2030. This hurts the modernization of the two of the most important economies of the world to the year 2030, which would be profoundly felt by 2035. As part of many actions taken by both the US and India this could lead to shrinking the development speed and development gap with China for the US and India to 2035. ...

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Democratic states face a sobering reality- can California, Minnesota, Illinois afford it? It turns out that they cannot and are diverting important funds away from the Nation's priorities in transportation, housing, education, rural healthcare. Here is what happened-- When California Gov. Newsom used state's Medicaid budget for poor citizens and disabled for illegal migrants to give free coverage, Medi-Cal went $6.2 billion over budget in 2025. In Illinois the program for Medicaid coverge to illegal migrants estimated at $112 million annually now costs $800 million and parts of it are now suspended. California had not thought this thing through, with free medical coverage not available to even citizens of the US, why would unrestricted borders not overwhelm a border state's Medicaid system signed into law by a Texan president Lyndon Johnson for the people of this Nation. Democratic States are running into a logical fallacy that the European Union and Germany are already experiencing, stretching straining public services, which has nothing to do with one's sentiments. Gov. Newsom now wants to give this benefit for $100 monthly premiums in 2027. ...

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Only the week before Tuesday April 7 Pakistan Foreign Minister Dhar failed to convince China to get involved. April 7th Tuesday in the US 1.30 pm US time, 8 pm Islamabad Pakistan time, China finally decided to jump in to convince Iran to accept peace talks in Islamabad. It is quite possible that behind the scenes the US was talking with China which has a 25 Year Comprehensive Agreement with Iran signed in 2021 that is the main support for the Iranian economy. China acted to reassure Iran that talks in Islamabad would proceed smoothly, and persuade Iran to accept ceasefire and talks. Why? Knowing that brinksmanship by US and Iran would lead to unforeseen consequences and hurt China's economy with oil price volatility as well as  hurt the US economy, and hurt the prospects for the planned May14-15 visit by DJT to Beijing to improve economic and political ties, both China and the US wanted to do everything to prevent this from happening. The result a hastily arranged peace talks in Islamabad so that by 4 am Islamabad time on Wednesday or 6.30 pm US time on Tuesday evening the ceasefire had already been agree to by US and Iran, according to this report in The Guardian from Pakistan. The crux of the matter was that it would affect US and China's economy with oil volatility, and US-China relations by jeopardizing May 14-15 revised date for DJT visit to Beijing. This good sense prevailed over all the war rhetoric and the media information and disinformation. It is confusing because of all the misinformation, but becomes clear when one understands this in the context provided in this report from Pakistan by the Guardian. Why Pakistan? For Pakistan the missile attack the day before of a Saudi petrochemical complex by Iran was drawing Saudis into the war and Pakistan has signed a defense agreement with Saudi Arabia that requires Pakistan to support Saudi Arabia if it gets into a war. For Pakistan it was a fragile situation that would be a catastrophe with unforeseen consequences on its economy. Already schools are closed for 1 month in Pakistan and oil is in short supply, paying for it at $115 or $125 a barrel would put severe strain on Pakistan. Who wins, who loses is being told in the media- much less on the good sense that prevailed  the efforts and the predicament of the large powers China, India, the US, and Germany, European Union, the poorer countries, all hurt economically, caught in a war they do not want, do not need. ...

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Walmart new CEO John Furner from the University of Arkansas with deep connections to Bentonville similar to retiring CEO McMillon. Mcmillon made a decision not to buckle under pressures of Wall Street/CNBC and NYSE in the fall of 2015 as he invested $2.7 billion to build cleaner better stores and to raise wages from $7.25 an hour to $9.00 an hour that year, even though share price dropped 10% and continued to drop. Wages are now $18 an hour in 2025 and parental leave, free college and technical education, planned promotions, other benefits made Walmart a good place to work. Walmart has grown every year since. Its sheer size with 2.1 millon employees means that it is a bellweather for the US economy. Other companies copied Walmart and this has raised wages across the board for lower income workers. With cost of living concerns in 2025 imagine where we would be as a nation without courage of the men who run the companies that run America's economy if wages had stagnated at levels below this for people who still live paycheck to paycheck. ...

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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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A strong US labor market and higher social security benefits support higher US consumer spending in January 2023.

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Private credit market has grown to $2 trillion in 2025 in 10 years  reaching $3.5 trillion in 2028 yet remains unregulated. Private credit is when investment funds such as Blackstone and Apollo, others, loan money to large companies. After the 2009 financial crisis bank regulation was tightened so that riskier loans were kept off the banks books to avoid another financial crisis. This led to the private credit market as a source of loans for small companies.Over 10 years the loans are now going to large companies and it is growing fast. As is typical in the capitalist economies regulation falls behind new financial developments or tech developments. Congress is always playing catchup and is distracted by other issues or has lobbyists asking for less regulation.  This report in the WSJ says when companies like Blackstone have private credit loans of $260 billion this can pose substantial risks for the US economy when this area of lending has no regulation as is required for a modern economy to function correctly. Private credit offers returns of 14-16% for these funds with risks associated and regulators are not asked to set the required rules. It only makes bank regulation ineffective as lending goes to unregulated parts of the economy. ...

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Colombia's GDP is $350 billion, in 2025 Venezuela's is $50 billion. Socialism under Chavez imitating Simon Bolivar as shown here starts out well with more housing, health care reaching poorer neighborhoods and parts of the population that were ignored. But only till 2011 in the early years. As mismanagement, corrupt cronies take over the nationalized enterprises, petroleum company fails to invest, and mismanagement of the economy sets in, educated classes leave the country in the class warfare, the results are disastrous. As much as 20-30% of the population leaves, hyperinflation, bad relations with the US, leading to the worst humanitarian disaster in the American continent since 1900.  It shows that the educated classes of every nation bear a major responsibility to  create a healthier society at the beginning so that the glimmers of hope of free services lead to the wrong people ending up in power and mismanagement on a massive scale destroying everything. New York City's educated classes should shoulder the responsibilities that people like Felix Rohatyn as head of MAC describes in his book- Bold Endeavors, that is the true spirit of the Nation (2009). ...

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A look at the deficit/imports deficits divided by imports ratio formula used by DJT in Rose Garden chart Liberation Day April 2, 2025 shows the importance of deficits and total imports by country. The criticism in NYT of this formula centers on- Why not the use of manufactured goods plus services and why exclude services. This is easily answered the whole idea is to bring manufacturing back to the US. US Trade Representative Jamieson and president DJT say 5 million manufacturing jobs were lost and 90,000 factories closed over 2 decades of outshoring by American companies, most of it to China. Only by focusing on manufactured goods can this be corrected. What about using a five year average of the trade deficit instead of most recent 2024 trade deficit used by the president DJT? NYT says it distorts the ratio for Equatorial Guinea? But it shifts it only slightly by less than 1 percent for China and even less than that for the European Union. US is focused on correcting the unfair treatment of American workers and factories inside America that led to this loss of 5 million jobs and tens of thousands of factories, destroying the Nation's industrial base. Most of it to China, What that has to do with Equatorial Guinea is beyond comprehension and shows the ignorance that is fueling much of the criticism of the efforts to support American workers who are the best in the world when given the opportunity and management is doing it's job right. ...

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Walmart with 2000 H1-B visa offers for the first half odf 2025 halts the process in October 2025. Amazon had 10,000 H1-B offers highest number of H1-B visas offers by June 2025, Microsoft, Apple and Google had 4000 such job offers. India makes up 70% of the H1-B visa program and CHina 12%. It hurts the US workforce by bringing in lower paid IT workers to replace higher paid American workers. Bloomberg has adocumentary on the H1-B visa program that highlights abuse of the program that hurts American workers by the Tech companies. It also hurts India by diverting talented engineers needed for India's rapid modernization and creating a culture in which talented engineers in India look outside the country for jobs.

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In a factory the size of 5 football fields located in Gurnee, Illinois, Abbott Labs makes its BinaxNow Covid-19 home tests. Abbott turned out 1 billion tests in 2021 and at one point had 80% of the market. Along with Pfizer vaccine, BinaxNow Home covid-19 tests are a dominant product during the pandemic. Abbott generated a fifth of its $43 billion in revenue from these home tests. Abbott faced several hurdles along the way. It gained when the US government authorized it to make the test. Yet after vaccination took off by mid 2021 the demand for tests declined and Abbott nearly idled its giant factory in Gurnee. Delta and Omicron variants led to a sudden reversal and surge in demand. Abbott developed its test based on an existing design it used in the US for flu tests, by a company it inherited by acquisition called Binax. To do that test one sends a swab up the nose, add that sample and a liquid mixture to a rectangular paper card, and close the card shut. The liquid then travels up the paper strip, revealing one or two pink lines, one for negative, two for positive. This is done in 15 minutes and the simple design described as a lollipop shape, put Abbott far ahead of competitors. The US FDA authorized Becton Dickinson and Quidel to make the tests before it authorized Abbott, but these rival companies had a poor and complex design. The Trump administration gave Abbott a $760 million contract to buy 150 million tests for distribution to health departments, long termcare facilities, nursing homes, and schools. And by October 2020 Abbott was already making 50 million tests a month. When it comes to distribution Abbott tapped into its pharmacy connections for baby products such as Similac baby formula. This gave it an advantage over Quidel and others who also lacked the manufacturing knowhow for large scale ramp up. The BinaxNow in pharmacies was sold at $24 for a box of two tests, while government paid $5 for one test. Abbott says it makes $ 7 per single consumer test. Yet there was one problem waiting to hit Abbott in 2021- demand dried up as the vaccination campaign took off. In fact the plant manager, Mr. Rodriguez, planned to move to another job inside Abbott as production declined. Then came the Delta variant and he was asked to ramp up production again. With Omicron demand soared. The Biden administration committed $3 billion to help boost test production and asked Kroger and Walmart to sell over the counter tests at cost for 3 months. Abbott had to lure workers from Amazon at $25 an hour for the Gurnee plant expansion. What was learned by the government and Abbott from this experience? The US government now looks for ideas in meeting demand volatility, supply challenges and production needs,. Sustaining production capacity is important for future virus flareups- a new government-industry partnership is required for maintaining test making infrastructure. With government help Abbott plans now to keep the facility at Gurnee operating indefinitely. ...

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World Bank forecasts show China's GDP growth rate in 2015 to be 7.9%, exceeding investment growth of 7%. In 2009, the situation was the opposite, with the investment growth of 18% driving an 8.9% growth rate. The World Bank expects China's growth rate to drop to about 7% between 2016 and 2020. It was 9.6% from 1995-2009. What this implies is China is shifting away from commodity intensity and wasteful use of energy, capital, and other resources. This means many of the existing forecasts based on continued commodity intensity will have to be revised drastically downward. Growth could be down to 6% annually by 2020, says Peaple, and half of the expected commodity demand would disappear in some forecasts. John Makin in an interview with Wessel of the WSJ, Dec. 30, 2010, says there is a 40% probability China will not make a soft landing in 2011-2012 from the excessive bank lending and inflation that is underway in China. This would mean slower growth much earlier than the World Bank forecasts....

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International aid arrives from the UK, France, US, and the European Union, as India faces a surge of the coronavirus in April 2021. A flight with oxygen and ventilators arrives from the UK. The EU is pooling resources, France is preparing flights with equipment. The United States Biden administration says it will release some of the 60 million doses of Astra Zeneca vaccine to India that remain unused in the US to address vaccine shortages.

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"This is a very, very, very, big deal," says Chuck Schumer about the Climate Change bill that is expected to pass in the Senate of the US this weekend August 6-7, 2022. This is the biggest climate bill in history, and may also be called the Schumer-Manchin bill after the compromise reached to give oil and gas some support with big moves for climate change action between now and 2030. It gets Biden and the US to within 40% reduction of carbon emissions over 2005 emissions by 2030, when the commitment by the US at COP26 Glasgow is for 50% reduction over 2005 emissions by 2030.

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Winnie Hu of NYT on the BQE Brooklyn Queens Expressway that for half mile has cantilevered 3 level structure that will fall apart by 2029. How to fix it concerns city planners in New York. Some planners want to put a park in its place and build a tunnel for the heaviest traffic. There is interest in being transformative and doing something big. The other actions already taken are  are to keep reinforcing it, cut traffic to 2 lanes, not to salt it in winter. Now planners say 2029 is when it will fall apart and time is running out for this as well as other infrastructure in New York such as Penn Station with Madison Square Garden built over it. And yet one finds no reflection on the sad state of New York and other city infrastructure in the US, when capital is being invested with plans to spend to the tune of 1.5 to 3 trillion dollars by 2030 on AI data centers and other sites. This will simply result in crowding out investment in infrastructure, so that the US will trade places with China and even India as a Third World country. And yet wealthy New Yorkers who use the nation's and the city's subways present an attitude of indifference to the decrepit condition of the Nation's and their own city's infrastructure. ...

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Mr. Zelensky of Ukraine makes his first official visit to Warsaw, Poland in April 2023. He was welcomed in Poland with an outpouring of support. About 10 million Ukrainians have crossed into Poland since the war began in February 2022. Of this 1.5 million Ukrainians have settled in Ukraine, the rest have gone to neighboring countries or returned to Ukraine. Poland has also opened its market to Ukrainian grain causing unrest among farmers because of lower prices. Poland has a population of 38 million, Ukraine a population of 43 million. These two nations are now the countries that are in the frontlines of the war after Russia's invasion. Other countries that have seen Soviet invasion such as Finland in 1939, Czech Republic in 1968, are now part of the NATO alliance force that faces Russia across a long common border. The Finnish border with Russia stretches for 830 miles through vast forested regions. The US is building a vast warehouse complex in Warsaw that will store US and NATO tanks. As the war continues a year later the resolve of the US and of Ukraine and Poland remain undiminished to the Russian invasion. This is unlike the events of post 1945 when Europe as a whole had seen the effects of 5 years of war and America faced the Soviet expansion into war ravaged Eastern Germany, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Greece. In 2023 the economies of the US and European Union have survived the economic effects of the war and the US is embarking on a huge plan to rebuild its infrastructure and its manufacturing capacity. The US and European Union through NATO remain united to reject any nation changing borders with impunity by force- the issue they see in Ukraine and in Taiwan. On the issue of Taiwan the US, EU are joined by Japan, Australia, Philippines, Vietnam and India. The issue of impunity and allowing borders to be changed by force will remain a strong one for the US and EU, on which there may be little room for concessions because of the principle. In his History of Europe- The Struggle for Supremacy 1453 to the Present, Cambridge historian Brendan Simms has shown that no nation by itself or with its allies has been able to use its dominant position to exercize power with impunity without meeting formidable combined opposition of other countries  in Europe. Over 500 years of history France, Russia, Austria-Hungary, have in turn had to agree to give up claims after meeting a formidable opposition of other countries in Europe. This Russian invasion does not appear to be any different.  ...

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US existing home sales were down 18% in 2022.

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How to have two pronged approach to climate action- give fossil a chance to address concerns of the poor and struggling, and move forward with renewable energy installation. This is the accepted approach in 2025. It is increasingly accepted on different sides of the poltiical and economic spectrum. Technological advances in addressing climate change will accelerate and provide room for rapid action in the future, while at the same time the problems for health and supplies of electricity are tackled for working class, marginalized and struggling populations in both US, EU and the rest of the developing world.

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Wind and solar tax credits to phase out end of 2027 instead of 2032 under Senate version of US Tax Cuts Bill. This gives less time for renewable projects in solar and wind to get these tax credits and places them in a difficult situation. Senator Tillis of North Carolina who voted against the bill plans not to run again. The 3B Tax Cuts Bill is being considered in Congress this weekend to be placed on president's desk before July 4th weekend. The generous subsidies of the Biden administration are being questioned by the new Energy Secretary Chris Wright.

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Redistricting in Texas that may flip 5 Democratic seats in US Congress to Republicans. With population shifts to the south Texas has grown in population in 5 years to 2025 by roughly 2 million from 29 million to 31 million. In 2025 about 40% are Hispanic and 40% White evenly divided, with 11% black and 6% Asian, and 3% other. It remains a conservative state in the South with a focus on faith and on traditional values. Along with Florida and the two Carolinas it remains a major part of the Conservative South.

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BKA German Federal Investigative Police data showing about 2 million crime suspects in 2024- of which 172,000 temporary migrants asylum seekers which 8.8%. There are about 3.06 temporary migrants in Germany out of a population of 83.6 million people, which is about 3.7% of the population, according to BKA figures cited by DW.com. The population of migrants living in Germany including Syria, Ukraine and other countries is about 3.5 million which is about 4.2% of the population. In terms of crime it is more about the anxiety and sense of disquiet this has created in the population, the money invested in benefits when much of German infrastructure has dire needs for investment with the rail and transport systems breaking down, and the wide disparities in living standards eroded in the last two decades in society. All this has to be considered in grasping why it has been so unsettling in some areas of Germany, Europe and the US. There are other factors such as women's safety, a sense of disquiet that was created in English towns where asylum seekers were put up in hotels as in Bedford. Many crimes get wide publicity and this further intensifies the sense of anxiety in the neighborhoods where young migrants from Africa and the Middle East, Asia are staying. The differences in culture and behaviours increases the sense of discomfort in neighborhoods. It is unlikely that this will go away because of incidents of attack by migrants in the towns and cities of Europe and the US every month, increasing homeless situations and deterioration in local neighborhoods.   ...