LyrArc Article Gist
Most people are not aware that EU had 10% tariff on US car imports into the European Union over many decades. US tariff was only 2.5%. The US tariff of 15% on EU car imports into the US in 2025 comes after EU recalcitrance for decades in lowering its tariffs on US car imports.  German carmakers have prepared for the higher tariff and EU car stocks were up as this is a lower tariff than the initial tariff of 25%. German car makers export luxury cars with higher margins which offers some offset as well as increasing efficiency in car making so that only a small part of this will be passed on to the US car buyer. An offset to the US car buyer is in the One Big Beautiful Act of 2025 which lets car buyers deduct the interest costs of leasing a car. The result is that US car industry will have the advantage it has long been deprived of and American car buyers will not be affected in the way the media has presented, or not at all. Over time German car industry will also do well with its access to the growing American market. Germany will lower its tariff on US car imports to 2.5% from 10% which makes it profitable for BMW and Mercedes to make SUV's in the US to export to Germany and EU, making this a win-win for US and EU. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Trade economists from Ivy League universities, are still peddling the old theories on trade from textbooks that make no sense and have got America in this huge mess that it is in where other countries are ripping America off with unfair trade practices. These economists have turned a blind eye, turned their backs to the great damage done to industrial towns and communities across America for two decades with the loss of manufacturing. Take Irwin's point that the US would have to monitor rates on 13000 tariff line items. This is ridiculous because the US simply needs to monitor the key products such as semiconductors, oil and gas, LNG. In just one negotiation with India the US having a trade deficit DJT states of $100 billion with India- terrible trade. By opening up supply of LNG and oil US can fill India's needs for Oil and LNG and cut the deficit to zero. Who came up with this idea. Indian PM Modi and his trade team. Once it was known that the status quo was unacceptable India came up with its own ideas lets import what we get from Russia from the US. Yes we had discounts from Russia but that was when oil prices were high. DJT's effort to get oil prices down by increasing US production will make it possible for India to get this oil at similar prices. India is a much bigger economy now than during Covid 5 years back India can do this. US and India win-win by doing joint aviation production deals and US gains with sale of F-35 stealth fighters. It is just common sense. Sadly, much of this is common sense that is beyond Ivy League Economics departments at American universities.  Reciprocal Tariffs make a lot of sense because this is how fairness is done- for China, for India. In the case of Mexico, Canada, China, on stopping flow of fentanyl- this reciprocal tariff is not a tariff it is as Commerce Secretarty Luttnick pointed out domestic policy of the United States. Which country would tolerate 490,000 deaths from fentanyl over 12 years and not take domesti policy action. It is not that the policy actions are taken it is that these action should have been taken a long time back. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The U.S. House of Representatives passes the McConnell-Biden deal on raising the debt ceiling by 269 to 161. For its passage through the House 174 Republicans and 95 Democrats voted in favor, 66 Republicans and 95 Democrats voted against it. Republicans voted for it with a proportion of 3 in favor and 1 against, compared to Democrats where it was 1:1 and as many opposed it as supported it. It took much persuasion from Vice President Biden and Speaker Boehner to get the votes in favor of passage. Republicans who opposed it were concerned about the modest cuts in spending. Democrats who opposed it considered it a giveaway to Republicans with no tax increases or addressing of tax expenditures. The deal's trigger provision to require cuts in spending to be 50-50 for defence and entitlements was used by Biden to show Democrats that the next $1.2 trillion in cuts would take a more balanced approach. Democrats would have leverage to make their case for savings through tax increases or tax expenditures....

LyrArc Article Gist
Plans by France's Sarkozy government to increase the VAT (value added tax) to 19% from 16%, and reduce the amount companies have to pay for pensions and social welfare costs, making this up with the extra proceeds from the Social VAT. The argument is that imported products would take up part of the burden of the social welfare system. The Socialists who oppose the move say this will lead to lowering employee pay and a push by unions for higher wages, which will offset the benefits of such a move and reduce France's competitive edge in wages. As France faces a possible downgrade in its credit rating the focus has shifted on taking action in such areas as the Social VAT, and a move to allow working hours and pay to vary with demand. German competitiveness improved with action taken by the German government in these areas. Germany raised the VAT from 16% to 19% in 2007. Sarkozy will discuss these proposals with business and union leaders on January 18, 2011.

LyrArc Article Gist
The U.S. Census Bureau shows incomes of American households, the median household income, surged in 2015 by 5.2%. This increased by $2800 to $56,500. This is the largest increase since 1967. It shows that steadily improving employment and hiring is leading to improvement in incomes for the middle and working class. Ris in minimum wage has also helped . The largest increase was for the lowest 20% of the income tiers. Full time working women did better than men, with increase annually of 2.7% for women, and 1.5% for men. Nocitizen incomes increased 10.5% to $45,100, native born households went up 4.4% to $57,200. The number of people without health insurance also declined from 33 million or 10.4% of the population to  29 million people or 9.1%. Another way the changes are helping lower income households is the decline of the official poverty rate to 13.5% in 2015 by 1.2 percentage points from 14.8% in 2014. Through a series of small incremental steps the path is being set for a recovery of household incomes for the middle class and working class. A bright spot is that the improvement has affected all age groups, household types, regions and ethnic groups, though among full time workers women did better than men. In this recession older white men have had more difficulties getting back into the workforce. This is reflected in the political scene in 2015-2016 for the election season. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Drop in immigration reduces labor supply keeping the unemployment rate steady even as hiring cools off. Compared to the roughly 1 million in 2019 net migration was about 3 million in 2022 and 2 million in 2024. In 2025 this is now about a negative 250,000 or quarter of million negative migration. Out migration is expected at about 1 million. This means that about 35,000 non farm jobs created between May and July 2025 haven't increased the unemployment rate as fewer new workers join the workforce from illegal migrants. This has to have an effect for wages for the workers in construction and farm work as employers compete for a smaller number of existing workers though economists and the financial media rarely talk about this. This was needed following decades in which the labor supply increases from illegal migrants meant no pressures on employers to pay more than the minimum wage kept artificially low. This means that even well meaning Democrats who clamored for increasing minimum wage were doing exactly the opposite of what was needed for the existing worker base wages in construction, farm work, and household help, because of their sentiments or because of the immigrant wing in their party. Note that about a third of maids, a third of construction workers, and 25% of landscaping workers are not legal migrants. Agriculture Department estimates are for about 40% of farm workers to be without legal work authorization. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The rally of about 1 million people in Berlin shows Germans are awakening to the need for vigilance in a democracy. Berliners and Germans were showing their awareness of Thomas Jefferson's words that eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. In the fragmented world of German politics where the main parties Social Democrats and Christian Democrats, the parties of Wily Brandt and Konrad Adenauer that built modern Germany command less than 20% support each, the need was never greater for a bulwark of freedom and free people in the center of Europe.

LyrArc Article Gist
February 2024 talks between Biden and Speaker Mike Johnson that revived the effort to pass the bill for $61.5 billion aid to Ukraine. This included the efforts of Mitch McConnell to persuade Mike Johnson on the vital necessity of aid to Ukraine. See the adjoining articles on Mitch McConnell and his critical role on what might be similar to what Harry Truman did to assist Greece and Turkey in 1948 to fend off a communist takeover supported by Soviet bloc. Aid was passed through US Congress in 1948 weeks before Greece's democracy was likely to collapse.

LyrArc Article Gist
Keir Starmer of Britain gets the support and good wishes of Modi, Trudeau and Albanese in the Commonwealth, and of Scholz in Germany and the European Union, after his landslide win. Scholz said in Berlin of Starmer: "I know Keir Starmer personally. We have often met and spoken with each other. He will be a very successful prime minister, of that I am convinced." Spain's Sanchez talked about working together based on "the values we share." And Trudeau of Canada said "lets get to it my friend."

LyrArc Article Gist
Whether it is so called right or centre or left parties, their is a no nonsense approach to immigration in 2024. Across all parts of Europe from Denmark , Germany and Britain with socialist parties, to Italy and France with centre right, there is tough action on immigration. In the US both Harris and Trump are also taking tough action for law and order based immigration. With Harris calling for the swift passage of Republican Lankford's immigration legislation stalled in the US Congress that ends asylum loopholes and closes the US Border.

LyrArc Article Gist
The Baltic cables cut were first the cable linking Sweden and Lithuania. Following this the cable connecting Germany and Finland was cut. China's government was not involved, and China says it strongly supports maintaining the security of international submarine cables in accordance with international law. The Chinese ship was carrying Russian fertilizer and had visited Russian ports. Danish Navy ships then tracked the Chinese ship and made it anchor in the Kattegat Strait connecting the Baltic and North Sea. Damage to underwater cables happened in Swedish waters resulting in Sweden launching an investigation.

LyrArc Article Gist
Harris's support for "all of the above" energy policy that supports climate change policy yet makes room for fossil fuels where appropriate to ease the burden of transition at a time of cost of living pain is not just a tactical step. It makes common sense and Kamala Harris is all about common sense in policy because a transition also has to be made in a meaningful way free of rigid ideas and yet delivered in a timely way. This is also the Kamala Harris who says she has not changed her principles.

LyrArc Article Gist
Questions remain about how well Mehmet Oz, who had a popular television health show Dr Oz, can deliver on reducing obesity levels, handle the cuts in Medicaid, and tackle the overspending on Medicare Advantage, as head of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, With it's $1.5 trillion budget it is the largest agency in the US government other than Defense. It is also not delivering health results as American health for the dollars spent is failing to deliver, many nations in Asia and Europe have better health with a small fraction of the US cost.

LyrArc Article Gist
Economists are the cause of the problem with text book theories that have no connection with realities on the ground, misleading th American people about what is good for them. Today's realities are multifaceted with many dimensions, economists knowledge is so specialized and only a small part of this reality changing on the ground and changing rapidly. Simply stated the US could be displaced as world power, if it does not act. The loss of its middle class is only the beginning, things could end up badly listening to economists and their textbook theories.

LyrArc Article Gist
"For all my grandfather's travels, he structured his life so that he was home in Plains to teach at Maranatha on Sunday. It was central to his life."

"Every time I went to church with him it was packed. The line started before sunrise and I was always very thankful that I got to walk in with my grandmother."

Josh Carter in his eulogy to his grandfather Jimmy Carter, a Southerner who lit a little candle in America in 1976.

LyrArc Article Gist
India's Foreign Secretary, Vikram Misri, provides briefings on the Indian response of May 7th in the early hours of the morning to the terrorist attacks on tourists in Kashmir with efforts to target tourism and destroy the Kashmir economy.

Indian missile attacks were launched on specific terrorist camps inside Pakistan and Pakistan occupied Kashmir. It is purely a response to terrorism and efforts to derail the modernization of the largest population economy in Asia of 1.4 billion people. Indian response was kept limited to terrorist targets and avoided Pakistan military.

LyrArc Article Gist
India's Foreign Secretary, Vikram Misri, provides briefings on the Indian response of May 7th in the early hours of the morning to the terrorist attacks on tourists in Kashmir with efforts to target tourism and destroy the Kashmir economy.

Indian missile attacks were launched on specific terrorist camps inside Pakistan and Pakistan occupied Kashmir. It is purely a response to terrorism and efforts to derail the modernization of the largest population economy in Asia of 1.4 billion people. Indian response was kept limited to terrorist targets and avoided Pakistan military.

LyrArc Article Gist
How other nations will negotiate such as EU, Japan and South Korea, which are allies of the US to reach trade agreements remains unknown with the ITT ruling. Will it have an effect, or will other nations recognize that DJT will pursue the Nation's interest in avoiding dangers of $1 trillion trade deficits and loss of manufacturing knowhow to other nations. As DJT has the option to issue tariff orders under other legal authorites which have firm footing such as Sections 301 of Trade Acts which were used in the first term.

LyrArc Article Gist
Wang Xiaohong, head of public security joins a team led by vice premier He Lifeng, for China's talks with Treasury head Scott Bessent, and Jamieson Greer USTR. The talks are held in Switzerland and include fentanyl as a top topic. The US has called its tariffs fentanyl tariffs on China for lack of the necessary action to stop flow of fentanyl from China to the US. Progress will depend on action on this issue and discussion of other trade issues that cause the lack of a level playing field for the US in trade with China.

LyrArc Article Gist
California's economy is going through tough times during the coronavirus. Unemployment is up to over 20% which compares to 14.7% for the U.S., closer to that of New York. The state depends on the tourism industry, agriculture in the San Joaquin Valley, and entertainment industry around Los Angeles for jobs. Tech in the San Jose area does not account for as many jobs. The state also has a public university system and foreign students mostly from China bringing in $7 billion.   Its port system around Long Beach and Los Angeles connects with the Asian economies and China, for goods mainly transported to the rest of the U.S.  All these sectors are the ones most badly hit during the coronavirus.  California now has a deficit of $54 billion and was the first state to borrow from the federal government to pay $13 billion in unemployment claims. Undocumented Californians are not able to collect unemployment because of their immigration status, creating an American version of the informal economy that is found in India and Italy or Spain. California has 83 million people taking plane trips to the state for a tourism industry that normally brings in $145 billion. 600,000 travel industry jobs were lost in the state. Taxes related to travel are a significant source of revenue for cities in California bringing in $12 billion. The only sector that is less affected is the tech industry, yet this makes up only about 10% of the jobs or 1.7 million higher paid but fewer jobs. This tech sector at about just 15% of the California economy GDP, is of a precarious nature with a boom bust pattern, the last boom one that happened since the 2009 financial crisis. It in no way forms a significant support for employment or income for people in California or the U.S., and may even be responsible for distortions in the allocation of capital away from infrastructure and public services, through its disproportionate influence on how the nation's capital is allocated. The broader changes underway during coronavirus are likely to affect the state over many years, as supply chains shift away from China, and as infrastructure and public services investment assume their rightful role again in the nation rebuilding effort, agriculture and rural America become a part of the American renewal story.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
This editorial Board opinion piece in the WSJ gives exceptional insights into major issues facing Germany, the cost of electricity generated from renewables, failure to meet climate change emissions targets set by the government, and the difficulty of forming a new coalition government with conflicting goals of the Greens vs the CDU and the FDP.  By one estimate it cost households and business about $125 billion extra in higher electricity bills for 2000-2015 to subsidize renewable energy from solar and wind. Utilities are required to buy renewable at above market rates, especially since the energy revolution called Energiewende was launched by chancellor Merkel in 2010. German electricity prices are about 36 cents per kilowatt hour compared to 13 cents in America. The 2011 decision following the Fukushima disaster to phase out nuclear power by 2022 made the effort to meet renewables targets of 40% by 2020 compared to 1990 -exceeding the 20% for the EU- even harder. Germany sees a 30% target for 2020 as reachable.   Even though renewables can generate 50% of required energy supplies, only 30% of the supplies are utilized as the renewables are generated mostly in the north of the country and there is a lack of transmission lines to bring it to the industrial south. The dirty secret says the WSJ editorial board for the renewable story in Germany is that a lot of coal is used in dirty coal plants to meet electricity needs when wind and solar energy are not available. Cheaper coal not natural gas is preferred for such generation as daytime peak use that recoups more expensive gas cost is managed with renewables. Leading to the situation that Germany generates only 9% of energy from natural gas compared to 30% in the U.S.. The further Germany has gone in renewables has also led to the paradox of increased dependence on coal. Getting to the new Jamaica coalition being planned between the CDU and the FDP and the Greens. The problem is that the Greens want to see the 20 most polluting coal plants closed, the CDU and the FDP are willing to close only ten coal polluting plants. The WSJ's opinion is that voters chose the AfD right wing party with 13% of the vote because of the platform promise to shut down Merkel's Energiewende policy.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
After delaying taking a loan from the IMF, a multilateral lender known for setting austerity conditions for its loans, Pakistan finally accepts a IMF loan of $6 billion over 3 years. In August 2018 Pakistan turned to Saudi Arabia for $3 billion loan and deferring oil payments of a similar amount, UAE for $3 billion, and China adding another $2.2 billion. A sharp drop in the country's currency reserves left Pakistan little choice. Other problems were a overvalued exchange rate that hurt exporters under the previous government and fiscal spending on needed infrastructure that could not be matched with changes in tax collection. Pakistan has some of the poorest tax collection in Asia, depriving the government of the funds needed to finance infrastructure.  The IMF loan is a smaller loan so that Pakistan would feel less compelled to comply with the difficult conditions often imposed by the IMF that has made it unpopular in developing countries, particularly in Latin America. This is the 21st IMF loan to Pakistan. Only Argentina has had to turn to the IMF for 21 loans. For example the IMF conditions to Pakistan require increasing the electricity and gas prices. Under the IMF plan Pakistan must cut its budget deficit before debt service to 0.6% of GDP next fiscal year starting in July 2019 from the deficit of 1.7% expected this year.  To do this tax breaks of 350 billion rupees or $2.5 billion next year have to be removed. The central bank autonomy was also promised and with this 2 former Pakistani IMF officials now head the central bank. Because widening the tax collection base and better tax collection are promises made in the past to IMF which have not happened, this report in the Economist magazine says implementation in this IMF plan will also be lax, more so as the IMF loan is small and supplemented with funds from other countries. A cartoon in one magazine critical of the IMF shows the IMF officials from Pakistan negotiating for the Pakistan central bank with the IMF head Christine Lagarde. Increasing the Pakistan tax base is essential for Pakistan's development to invest in infrastructure similar to what is happening in India. Releasing funds for infrastructure, roads and railways, hospitals and education, requires a larger tax base in all South Asian countries. Without this internal capital and showing results of spending -with successful infrastructure implementation with least or no corruption or overspending- countries risk falling behind.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
US president Biden says it is taking time, that he has a plan to build new silos and use existing silos to store grain that is shipped by rail and truck from Ukraine to its borders with Poland and other eastern European countries. The reason for this is that Ukraine Rail uses a different rail system so that trains that reach the border at Poland have to have the cargo transferred to Polish trains. This creates a major bottleneck for flows limiting shipment of grain. The plan for grain silos would mean large storage facilities at Ukraine's borders that can then be transferred to eastern European rail systems that can carry the grain to ports in Northern Europe and ship to Africa and other parts of the world. This is an important step that is needed to avert hunger in Africa and other parts of the Arab world which depend on such supplies of imported grain. Action is needed now as the situation is getting worse by the day and week in June 2022.  Ukraine normally ships out of the port of Odessa on the Black Sea but with the area mined heavily by Ukraine to keep the Russians out, putting grain on ships in the waters off Odessa would lead to ships blowing up. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Upamanyu Hazarika gives this story of George Fernandes, a trade union leader in India in the post independence era. He played a role during the post Indira Gandhi Emergency period after 1977 and in the governments that were set up in the two decades that followed. Some of the political parties In India today trace their beginnings to that period. He was Defense Minister in the first term of Atal Bihari Vajpayee as prime minister. A new Penguin Random House biography looks at the life of Mr. Fernandes who comes from a Catholic family in Mangalore, Karnataka. and organized trade unions in Bombay state and in Bihar. Some of the shifts in Bombay from trade unions led by Mr. Fernandes to the Shiv Sena movement led by Bal Thackeray shifted attention to bringing jobs to the local Marathi speaking people in the commercial capital of the British period. Without the capital and technology needed and lacking the knowledge for development of industry on an American scale this kind of leadership failed to deliver on the aspirations of the people in the same way that Mao's experiments with the Great Leap Forward in India and Great Proleterian a Revolution failed to deliver in Beijing, Canton and Shanghai for China.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
President Biden tells an audience of workers that he sees the world through the eyes of Scranton and the working people he grew up with, and through the eyes of workers like those in the audience. He tells a audience of union workers that he is bringing manufacturing back, and doing this with investments of billions of dollars that never happened under previous administrations for a generation of Americans. Some highlights from his speech- Biden is investing trillions of dollars in American infrastructure, manufacturing and advanced technology and at the same time cutting the deficit by 1.4 trillion dollars The Republican plan of spending cuts being voted in by the House of Representatives will according to Moody's lead to a loss of 780,000 jobs in the US. Forty of the 500 largest corporations in the US paid zero taxes. About $200 billion dollars in profits of corporations are to be taxed at just 15%- lower than what working families pay- to fund much needed investment in America. There are 1000 billionaires in America compared to 700 before the pandemic, and they pay 8% in taxes. President Biden says under his watch no corporation or billionaire should pay less in percentage of income taxes than union workers in the audience.    ...