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A heat wave over northern India with New Delhi recording temperatures never seen of over 50 degrees centigrade happens just as voters go to the polling places in May 2024. Results will be announced June 5 for parliament's 543 seats. Turnout is considered to be resilient in the face of the heat wave with only 20% of the voting seats having lower numbers of voters than 2019. The drop in voting was slight of 1.5 percentage points overall from 67.2% to 65.6%. The last phase starts June 1, and 485 seats have voting completed.This vote is all about development and delivery of infrastructure, jobs, and modernization, improving governance and rapidly developing the country held back for about six decades after independence during which Japan recovered from the war, and China rapidly modernized its economy, and India only setting the beginnings of recovery in the administration since 2014, with prime minister Modi setting the goal of a modernized country by 2047 or Vikshit Bharat. ...

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Adirondack National Park with its 2 million acres of wilderness has St Regis Canoe Area, a canoeing part of the wilderness. Here The Guardian shows Megan Bergman taking up the challenge of going up the Seven Carries route in this wilderness finding peace and mental health in the waters  with her backpack in the canoe. Take this trip up the rivers and ponds in the area and through portages which are carrying of the 15 pound light Kevlar canoes on one's shoulders or arms for the sections of land that connect the ponds and rivers. The American Indian and the early French and British explorers made their way through upstate New York and around the Great lakes in Michigan in this way.  Megan says she wanted that sense of calm, of transcendence, and the fierce delight of putting her backpack into the canoe after the portage. She says she felt content out on the water in the wilderness with a friend. I wanted to feel reverent and at peace with this wilderness which felt safe, she says. ...

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DJT deportation sweep in Chicago. DJT's model is Operation Wetback deportation of Eisenhower administration in 1954 after the Truman administration had appointed a commission in 1952 to investigate the issues from large scale illegal migration. Truman appointed the commission as he objected to racial quotas against Asians. The US Congress passed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, vetoed by Truman, the veto was overridden in the US Congress.  Operation Wetback of Eisenhower in 1954, conducted by Lt. Gen. Joseph Swing, and Attorney General Herbert Brownell, returned about 1.2 million migrants from Mexico who had crossed the US Border back to Mexico by ship or by road into the interior of Mexico. From 1942 for each year the immigration enforcement increased from 12000 in 1942 to 727,000 in 1952, the last year of the Truman administration. This is a pattern similar to what was seen in 2014-2024 under Obama-Trump-Biden. ...

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The U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Yellen tells a Boston Fed conference on economic opportunity and inequality: "The extent and continuing increase in inequality in the U.S. greatly concern me. I think it is appropriate to ask whether this trend is compatible with values rooted in our nation's history, among them the high value Americans have traditionally placed on equality of opportunity." Yellen pointed out that the high inequality impedes economoic mobility which impairs the recovery. Income disparities of this type reduce the country's economic potential, said Yellen. Recent housing gains have helped restore losses of housing wealth with more gains at the bottom. Yellen emphasized the need to invest in education and opportunities for business ownership as ways to improve economic mobility. Low inflation or deflationary trends with lower oil and food prices, give the Fed more flexibility to reduce the numbers of the long term unemployed or part time employed for lack of full time work, a critical goal for the Yellen Fed....

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Shiller says the underlying problems in the economy such as the sociological factors that led to overoptimism about real estate prices and the dot com stocks play out over many years. They are lost in the headlines about the Fed or some short term developments that get cited along with the bad economic news about unemployment. Yet these underlying factors such as the bubble phenomena in housing are what makes these problems so intractable. The bubble in home prices caused a 131 percent rise in home prices in the period 1997-2005, 85% in inflation adjusted terms, according to the Case-Shiller National Home Price Index. The long term expectations of price increases well into the indefinite future lag the price decreases as the bubble bursts, even as the expectations decrease. For 2012 the Case-Shiller survey shows expectations are for a 1% increase in prices. With the increase in the personal savings rate from about 1% in 2005 to about 5% today, Shiller says consumer spending will not support a strong recovery....

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Robert Kennedy's fight against SSRI (selective serotinin reupotake inhibitors) Zoloft Paxil Prozac pshychiatric drug over use to point where 17% of Americans use them in 2026.  RFK Jr. tells a mental health summit- “Psychiatric medications have a role in care, but we will no longer treat them as the default, we will treat them as one option, to be used when appropriate, with full transparency and with a clear path off when they are no longer needed,” Mr. Kennedy at the Mental Health and Overmedicalization Summit organized by MAHA Institute. FFK Jr writes a "Dear Colleague" letter for directing providers “to expand the use of nonpharmacologic treatments and to strengthen informed consent and shared decision making.” That letter recommends psychotherapy, exercise, social connection, physical activity, diet and nutrition instead of overuse of psychiatric drugs. “Our goal is straightforward: to reduce unnecessary dependence on medication, to improve patient outcomes and to return control to the patients,” ...

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This WSJ editorial is pessimistic about the prospects for Abenomics without the actions needed for structural economic reform. Japan is in a recession after two successive quarters of declining growth by the end of 2015. It gives credit to prime minister Abe for encouraging companies to add more independent directors to the boards and pushing for improving corporate governance, but finds other actions lacking. The low unemployment rate is seen as concealing the problem of two tier labor market with most of the recent job growth coming from temporary workers, and the total number of worked hours actually declining. The 30% decline in the yen has not boosted the economy as much as expected because it also means decline in consumer spending power, and Japanese companies continue to move jobs overseas. It cites a Nikkei poll showing only 25% of the Japanese public now see Abenomics as improving the condition of the economy. The declining growth in China is also playing a part in slowing growth in Japan, adding more headwinds for Abenomics in 2016....

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This inflation is different from anything that happened before as it is driven by both demand and supply side situation. Seeing it as only demand side and acting on that would only damage the economy, says Greg Ip in the WSJ. On supply chain shortages there is little the government or the central bank can do to fix this in the short term. This is also why the Families and Workers Plan and Infrastructure plan of president Biden with about $2 trillion dollars in spending is not expected to cause much impact on inflation. The Fed is carefully looking at the situation because of the unique nature of the problem in 2021 to avoid any missteps that hurt the US economy and US growth for the coming decade, on which so much of the hope of America and the world rests.

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Baker and Erlanger describe Russian president Putin's effort to finance parties on the right and the left to oppose western sanctions on Russia. The effort by Russian television RT to spread disinformation in the European Union. The goal is to create fractures in European unity and weaken the European Union and NATO. Other experts such as former national intelligence officer, Fiona Hill, and former assistant secretary of state, David Kramer, are skeptical about the effectiveness of these methods. These methods may also come from an old book of methods from the Cold War period because of president Putin's experience in Dresden during the Soviet days, which current European Union leaders would see as having little relevance to the global economy and global scene of today. The rise of the smaller parties in Europe in opposition to the traditional parties has more to do with the difficult economic conditions in Europe, and has little in common with Russia and its problems with its oil dependent economy and its interests in Eastern Europe. As the 2015 Pew Research survey on Europe shows, opinion is shifting towards greater support for the European Union as economic conditions improve, and is likely to move further in this direction with a return to economic growth. Favorable views of the EU which dropped from 60% in 2012 to 53% in 2014, was up to 61% in 2015, according to the survey. The Euroskeptic parties are viewed "as a good thing," as a way to shake up the complacency of the major ruling parties in tackling the economy, according to the Pew Europe Survey. In the percentage of people who see the Euroskeptic parties as a good thing for the country- Podemos left party in Spain gets 70% favorable rating, UK Independence Party 66% favorable, Five Star Movement in Italy 58%, AfD in Germany 50%, and much less so in France with 36% saying this for the National Front, and 36% for the New Right in Poland....

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High levels of covid and RSV in the US are leading to health authorites saying wearing masks is needed to prevent it from spreading. Los Angles is likely to introduce a mask requirement for indoors by the end of December 2022. Carrying hand sanitizer and keeping wipes with you is a good idea because RSV spreads through touching infected surfaces. Vaccination for flu and covid is also a key prevention action. As most people are no longer wearing masks in the US the practice of wearing masks is becoming a good idea once again.

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A new central bank governor Hafize Erkan, increases interest rates from 8.5% to 16% in June 2023 to tackle inflation of about 40%.

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The U.S. Agriculture Department cuts its estimate of corn crop yield per acre in the U.S. by 15.5%, as a result of the severe drought in 2012. Agriculture Secretary Vilsack, says the situation for farmers is better this time than during the last drought in 1988. Now 85% of farmers have crop insurance compared to 25% in 1988. The Agriculture Department estimate is for a 3-4% increase in prices in 2013. Capital Economics says the impact on GDP in the U.S. will be about 0.1%. Because 40% of the corn crop goes into ethanol production there is renewed debate about the 2005/2007 Renewable Fuel Standard, which requires 13.2 billion gallons of corn based biofuel be made in 2012. Worldwide the bad weather conditions in Brazil, India and Russia are worsening the outlook for food supplies. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization says global food prices increased by 6% in July 2012, with corn prices up 23%.

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President Biden visits the Polish town of Rzeszow close to the Polish border with Ukraine. It serves as the headquarters of the 82nd Airborne Division and Us operations to supply weapons and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. The Russian offensive met with stiff resistance and incurred high casualties in Ukraine with this WSJ report showing 40,000 casualties in the 150,000 Russian invasion force, making it less effective. 
Russia appears to have scaled down its objectives to focus on the separatist Donbass region in the east. The offensive on Kviv, Odessa and Kharkiv is stalled with stiff resistance. About 10 million people have been uprooted.  3.7 million people fled Ukraine, with 2.2 million crossing into Poland.

The US has warned that it would respond if Russia attempted to use chemical weapons. 

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Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England blamed the Brexit "fog of uncertainty" for the decline in the forecast for Britain's economic growth to 1.2% for 2019, worst in a decade. This is based on a "soft" Brexit. He said a no-deal Brexit would be a "economic shock" for Britain, that "we shouldn't be under any illusions about it."

Carney rejected the view of David Davis in The Times, that a 20% decline in the British pound would be good for Britain by "making  exports more competitive." Davis had called Carney's view "too doom-laden." A fall in the pound would be a necessary adjustment mechanism, Carney says, but it is "a hit to incomes, and not a step to prosperity." The pound declined by 17% from its 2015 peak after the referendum on Brexit.

 

 

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Activity in downtown San Francisco remains at about a third of prepandemic levels, with remote work having caught on for tech companies during the pandemic employees are there for only half of the week. Office vacancy rates are 28% for downtown. In a strange twist Silicon Valley that led the shift of manufacturing to China and ignored that this led to loss of tax revenues for the towns across America, and decline of these towns that lost factories, is now facing the same situation in its own backyard. Office based industry provides three quarters of San Francisco tax revenue, and faces a $780 million deficit for the next 2 years. Mentally ill on streets near a Whole Foods, and dealers in Fentanyl, homelessness, lead to closing of a Whole Foods store in downtown San Francisco. Thomas Fuller and Sharon LaFraniere provide this report in WSJ of the situation in downtown San Francisco in 2023. Reports from California show the failure to build enough housing during the tech boom for the average American, and apartments for homeless costing hundreds of thousands of dollars and years behind schedule. The mayor is looking for tougher laws to put mentally ill off the streets. There is no consensus on action. Tech investors people hope for another Tech boom to tackle the situation, yet tech companies are retrenching and face government scrutiny even breakup. Even a speeded up effort to add 20% of the housing stock of the city of San Francisco by adding 83,000 apartments from Mayor Ms. Breed would take 8 years.  ...

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The Kashmir Valley and the Kashmir region had a multiethnic community of Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus in the hundreds of years before 1947. It all disappeared after the cabinet meeting of Liaquat Ali Khan on 12th September 1947 when the plan to attack Kashmir using armed Pathan tribesmen and supporting military forces was approved. By the end of that year the surprise invasion had split Kashmir into two regions and led to a large scale dispersal of Sikhs, Hindus and other ethnic communities. This BBC report shows how this happened and how it changed a once peaceful region with a multiethnic society. Till the 15th century this region was Hindu and Buddhist with influences of Tibetan Buddhism and a center of creativity for Sanskrit culture and language. It changed with the Afghan and Persian invasions by 1580 and conversion to Islam of some of the Hindu population. By 1700 the Mughal empire decline and Afghan, Durrani dynasties ruled till about 1800 when the Sikhs under Ranjit Singh included Kashmir in the Sikh Empire based in Lahore, Punjab. This lasted under British patronage of the Dogra dynasty of Sikhs till 1947. In the 1901 Census of the British Indian Empire, the population of the princely state of Kashmir was 2,905,578. Of these 2,154,695 were Muslims, 689,073 Hindus, 25,828 Sikhs, and 35,047 Buddhists. The Muslim population was not homogenous and contained many tribes and the Gilgit Baltistan region was Shia Muslim, the Kashmir Valley Sunni Muslim and the mountainous regions had Pathans and many other tribes. This is why the region may have had Sikh and British rule for 150 years with even the Muslim communities existing with many different sub religions and living in amulti racial multi ethnic fabric that was upset by the invasion from the newly created state of Pakistan based in Islamabad using Pathan tribesmen and supporting military forces. What changed this was that after Kashmir was split in two by this invasion, China entered the northern border region of Kashmir called Aksai Chin and parts of Ladakh by building roads in 1956-57 and the occupation by China of this region including Tibet thousands of miles from Beijing in a remote region expansion by Communist China. ...

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David Gelles interviews heads of companies in his column for the New York Times called Corner Office. Here he talks about CEO's frquently bringing up the topic of meditation in his interviews. Gelles practices meditation and mindfulness since his college years when he spent junior year in India at Buddhist monasteries and retreats as part of the Antioch Buddhist Studies Program. He is also the author of columns in the NYT on meditation and mindfulness.  The head of Salesforce, Marc Benioff, tells Gelles that meditation practice helps him step back and listen deeply with a beginners mind aware of the present moment. Benioff has set up meditation rooms in Salesforce Tower in San Francisco, and invites Buddhist monks to his house.  After a skiing accident in 2004 Marc Bertolini, head of insurance company Aetna recovered using meditation practice. He setup mindfulness classes at Aetna and says this has changed the corporate culture for the better with efforts for improvement and people coming up to him with new ideas.  Designer Eileen Fisher practices meditation and this has helped her in business as she set goals to improve factory conditions for clothing workers in China. The head of Hyatt Hotels says mindfulness is helpful in bringing empathy in relations through the practice of being in the present. He made mindfulness the key part of the company's Wellness programs. Google, Ford and McKinsey now offer meditation programs in the office. Similar trends are taking place in Europe. When asked about a company's responsibility to society, Benioff of Salesforce says his company is part of the whole that includes society, that we are all connected and part of the one.     ...

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A shakeout for manufacturers in the solar industry is developing in 2011-2012, as prices of solar components drop sharply. There is slowing growth for solar products in 2012. Seven solar power manufacturers have filed for bankruptcy or insolvency in 2011, including two German companies Solar Millenium and Solon SE, and Solyndra LLC of the U.S. Debt exceeds market capitalization for the 10 largest publicly traded solar companies. A major reason is the subsidies offered by governments in Europe, the U.S. and China, which resulted in a glut in manufacturing capacity and falling prices. Chinese banks encouraged by the Chinese government have given $43 billion in credit facilities to Chinese renewable energy companies, according to Bloomberg Energy Finance. Prices of solar panels at $1.60 per megawatt in 2010, dropped to 90 cents per megawatt in 2011. Another problem is slowing demand. In Europe banks are reducing funding. Installations doubled for solar energy in Germany in 2010, and dropped 29% in 2011, according to Jefferies. Germany is the largest market for solar energy in the world....

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Problems with China's health care system stem form years of underspending. About 1% of GDP went to healthcare in 2006,according to the WHO, ranking China at No. 156 of 196 nations. This underinvestment has caused great hardship to the rural poor who have postponed or been denied access to healthcare because of exorbitant expenses. It shows up in the number of trained medical workers- only 17% of China's medical workers are university graduates. In village and township clinics the number falls to 2%. The government has dedicated $121 billion for health care through 2011. But this may not be enough. Aobut 300 million in the rural areas have no coverage at all. The government's plan is to get farmers insured through county level rural- cooperative insurance plans. These programs begun in 2003, offer only scanty coverage. Outpatient services and medications are not covered and coverage varies from county to county for hospitalization bills. The goal of th health ministry is to get the coverage for hospitalization bills up to 50%....