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Jimmy Carter dies peacefully at his home in Plains, Georgia, at age 100 in Christmas week 2024. He was president following Nixon-Gerald Ford and a crisis of confidence in the US after Watergate scandal and as a southern peanut farmer from Georgia brought a period of renewal to political life in the country. He became a one term president with the election of Ronald Reagan during a period of high inflation and a challenge from Edward Kennedy during the primaries. His greatest success was after leaving office when he tackled health epidemics in Africa and helped stabilize democratic governments by acting as observer in elections around the world. His legacy is a lasting one and shows the power of good works as shown in the spiritual heritage of the Nation. Reagan, Bush Sr and Bush Jr, Obama either started the wars or failed to end the wars that dragged on after Jimmy Carter left office sapping the vital energies of the Nation. Only now under Biden and Trump are these wars coming to an end. And new effort is going into reviving America as an economic powerhouse improving the lives of its people. ...

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Some of the key executives are leaving Airbus as the company faces turmoil in its executive ranks. CEO Tom Enders leaves in April 2019, Chief Operating Officer Fabrice Bergier leaves Feb. 2018. John Leahy in sales left Airbus, and others who left the company include the head of engineering, and the chief technology officer. All this is happening as the company faces investigations in several countries including France and Austria for corruption, and according to this report for using middlemen and making illegal payments.

In France Airbus offices have been raided in an investigation. Enders is one of the executives being investigated in a combat jet deal. COO Bergier is leaving with a good record for managing the smooth development of the A350 wide body aircraft, and the production increase to 700 aircraft in 2017 for the first time in the company's history.

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This editorial in the Economist magazine says Mr. Obama's final State of the Union address showed the frailty of change in the Obama years, with much of it in danger of being removed based on which way the 2016 election goes. A similiar opinion is expressed in Deutsche Welle DW.com's editorial opinion, which stated that one of the tragedies of the two terms of the Obama presidency is that change probably will come with a successor in the office, even though this was what Obama campaigned on in 2008. This is true especially for the middle class and working class, which continued to suffer in the Obama years, leading to widening inequality of opportunity and social disparities. Candidates from both parties now offer solutions based on growth and revision of the tax system on the right, and some version of free health care and college on the left, to increase access to economic opportunity.

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To get a right grasp of the situation as a whole from the bigger picture than the headlines, is to know that even in the current chaotic immigration handling of both parties, the US comes out a winner in long term by 2034. That it gives for the younger generation a better future. Congress's Budget Office economic report shows GDP higher by 2% from the higher immigration of 5.2 million added to the US workforce by 2034. US productivity higher by 0.2% and residential investment including construction up by a whopping 10%. The younger profile of immigrants will help the US compete with India's younger population, and as China ages to have what it and Europe is aspiring to have- a younger population. The best way to look at the immigration issue is for the short term- manage it better by organized method of immigration without chaotic border crossings by allowing potential immigrants to apply from their home country, a step taken by the Biden administration. What it or any Republican administration could not control is the immigration that happens from countries the US is at war with or in conflict with. It is important to recognize that this is what happened with Venezuela the largest component of the immigration border crossings in 2023. It was made worse by actions of both parties Democrats and Republicans and made worse in 2017 by more severe sanctions on Venezuela under the Trump administration.  Also part of the problem is Venezuelan mismanagement- providing oil at pennies a gallon, hurting imports and spiralling inflation that only worsened under US sanctions after 2017. Long term- To reflect that US sanctions on top of mismanagement by Venezuela is a warning for all developing countries in Latin America, Africa, Asia and for the US. It meant 7 million refugees a staggering quarter of Venezuela's population fleeing the country, that burdened neighbors Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile. By 2022-2023 many of these refugees were making their way up the Darien Gap to the US. Yet within this tragic situation for Venezuelan people how could the US best respond is to close the border as president Biden has proposed with McConnell and the Lankford effort in the Senate, which was blocked by the House under Mike Johnson. This gives time to assess the situation, correct US laws on asylum and parole that allowed this chaotic way to proceed under actions of both parties.And not let this destabilize the US by understanding that while Venezuela has suffered for its role in the crisis the US will ultimately have come out a winner, as pointed out by the Congressional Budget Office projections. CBO projections of this immigration impact by 2034 of increasing the workforce population by 5.2 million will provide higher GDP, more tax revenues, and higher productivity than without this group of Venezuelan and other immigrants in this special situation of 2022-2023. For the Immigration projections discussion given by Phillip Swagel, Director of the Congressional Budget Office see page 51 of the Budget and Economic Outlook 2024 to 2034. For this search for term Congressional Budget Office or CBO which brings up the report on PDF and turn to page 51 or just click on Original Article on Lyrarc.   ...

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Some ideas on how to reopen the economy in Britain in phases starting with release of some activities in May, followed by mid-June, and early July. Medical precautions and new protocol for being out on the streets, in public transport and in offices would have to be observed.

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Some clues to why president Biden is not getting the credit for work done to better people's lives is the workplace. Workplace dissatisfaction measured in the Gallup 2023 Workplace Report shows the number of workers stressed, disengaged, or angry, is rising. A BambooHR analysis of data from 57000 workers shows job satisfaction scores have dropped to the lowest level since 2020, dropping 10% in 2023. Some of the causes- the unsettled state of the workday, being micromaanaged back to the office, even as they realize the isolating nature of remote work or hybrid work, inflation erasing any gains in wages, and a cooling job market leaving some stuck in same roles. New workers were hired in 2022-2023 and many have still to find fulfilling roles. Employers focused on hiring and less time was spent on situating new employees well. This is happening even as workers have more control where they work. Other causes are a backlash to employers efforts to get all employees back to the office. Another issue nearly a thrid of workers do not work in the same place as their bosses at large companies, up from 23% in 2020, accroding to an ADP survey. This means workers have long distance relationships with bosses and co-workers, weakening ties. In 2023 it is a very different workplace than before the pandemic. It may also offer some clues to why workers are skeptical about the work done by the Biden administration looking at their own lives after the pandemic even though major efforts are being made by president Biden in cost of living, in wages, support for labor and unions, and in rebuilding infrastructure and public services. ...

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With 816 Democrats losing office in state legislatures during the Obama years, more than under any president since Dwight Eisenhower, some Democrats say the Democratic bench is much weaker today.

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Eileen Lindner, author of a yearbook on American and Canadian churches, says 100,000 Protestant churches in the US will close by 2030. In the 1940's 76 percent of Americans were affiliated with some church, by 2020 that had declined to 47%. The result is a growing number of churches lacking young people. A large number of young people are not affiliated with any church and church attendance dropped during the covid pandemic. NYT looks at what happens when church space is repurposed for restaurants, hotels, theaters, office space, retail space, mixed use developments, affordable housing.

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An unattended vegetable stand in the Ebusi neighborhood of Tokyo. A few minutes from the rail station is this vegetable stand run by Tomo from Hiroshima and her son 14 year old Satoru, a former real estate office worker who quit to open a vegetable store. One day she was shocked to hear a customer say she had money enough to only come once a month for vegetables. Tomo closes this store and opens a vegetable stand which prices vegetables at prices young workers on low wages can afford. One young worker from Okinawa who works for a large company made so little that she had only $70 for food in her monthly budget. She becomes a regular customer and asks her grandmother how to cook zucchini, eggplants so she can save money by cooking at home. This is a really heart warming video about Tomo's farm in a prefecture near Tokyo a 2 hour drive away. Tomo prices everything at 70 cents or 100 yen a plastic bag of vegetables. Her son learns to farm and to run the stand. Mostly the stand is unattended with long caring messages on a message board to customers. It tells young workes not to worry too much about the future. ...

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With staff shortages and the spread of omicron variant some German states are no longer doing contact tracing. Contact tracing is not happening in Berlin or Hamburg says this report in DW.com. The chair of the Federal Association of Doctors, Dr. Teichert, in an interview with RND says "comprehensive followup is almost no longer taking place at the moment." He also said there is a "massive fluctuation" in staffing levels for nearly two years. Experts even say that because of staff leaves and office closures infection rates will not be really known till later, a "sink into ignorance" says a medical statistician.

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After a career of 30-40 years in business, medicine or other profession, starting when one graduates from school, the first year after retirement can be difficult. As shown here in the story of Sherry Mendelson, a psychiatrist who says she faced a tectonic shift. How she coped in her own words by rethinking roles and old habits. Finding new passions for activities alone, and together with her husband.

Simple things like hearing aids that can make a difference, adapting to bad knees and not being able to ski. But finding a new passion in writing helped her regain her longtime passion for psychiatry and her home office sanctuary. In the process making awkward adjustments to one another and one's spouse, discovering new wisdom, moments of shared appreciation. 

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Liz Truss's 45 days in office as British prime minister is the shortest of any leader in British history. William Henry Harrison in 1847 was US president for 32 days, before he died of pneumonia. George Canning was  prime minister for 119 days before dying of tuberculosis. Alec Douglas-Home for 363 days more recently when he was replaced by Labour's Harold Wilson.  Douglas-Home in 1964 was seen as out of touch with Britain as an aristocrat in the House of Lords. Harold Wilson of Labour asked at the time how he could lead Britain for the technological revolution needed when he was "a scion (descendent)  of an effete (overrefined and ineffectual) establishment." Truss was seen as out of touch with post covid  Britain with one of seven people missing a meal in Britain and a cost of living crisis for most Britons when she announced a mini budget that did not provide assistance to struggling working families, as other Euroepan leaders were doing and instead cut taxes for higher income people. Douglas-Home abolished resale price maintenance program that prevented sharp price increases by food producers. He lost the 1964 election to Labour's Harold Wilson. Labour under Keir Starmer is in the same position today as it was in 1964 under Harold Wilson as it looks at the decline of the Conservatives. ...

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Britain's Home secretary, Yvette Cooper, is setting up a Young Future's unit to help teenagers exposed to social media, mental health issues, and other pressures who could get into trouble with the law. This was seen during the UK riots with persons ages 12-15 in court for throwing stones or rioting. Cooper says- “It’s always been tricky to go through the teenage years, but it feels like for generation Alpha it’s got much, much harder,”  “You’ve got the pressures from social media, county lines and child criminal exploitation, the rise in the antisocial behaviour that we’ve seen, and … pressures on child and adolescent mental health. So we’re responding to that.” Cooper,  announced her goal for a £100m “young futures” policy at last year’s Labour conference.   The home secretary will tell councils and police forces you have till Christmas to put proposals into effect to tackle crime among young people. New Home Office guidelines will be put out by the end of the year setting out how networks of police, mental health professionals, local schools, youth offending teams and charities can work together to help get teenagers avoid crime. ...

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US District Judge O'Toole of Massachusetts allows DJT Musk DOGE buyout offer to go ahead on Feb 12, after freezing it to have enough time to study it. The buyout offer originally expired Feb 6. It was accepted by 60,000 federal employees. Of 2 million federal workforce about 8% are expected to take it. It is seen as a way for people doing remote work and now required to come to office 5 days a week full time to take early retirement, sort of an off ramp for these workers. DJT says some of these workers may be doing other second or even third jobs. This is part of a Republican effort to reduce the cost of the large federal bureaucracy, and make it more efficient. One of many actions including action on budget discipline at agencies of the government. PPBS or Zero Based Budgeting, since the 1970's is one of the managemt ideas which involves justifiying every item in the budget every year to cut costs and cut unneeded spending. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul has spent years identifying pet projects of bureaucrats that are in budgets but lack common sense. ...

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Britain protected about a third of its workforce during the months of lockdown for coronavirus. As a result Britain has protected workers from unemployment and effects of job loss. The job retention scheme protected 9.1 million workers, and the self employment scheme 2.6 million workers. The figures for the 3 months to April form the Office of National Statistics shows unemployment at 3.9% and the employment rate at 76.4% about 0.3% more than in 2019. 

As the government ends these schemes with reopening the economy by August some effect will be seen of job loss but not to the extent that this could have been without strong government action.

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Britain's Office of National Statistics shows that the deaths during this pandemic match the deaths during World War I in 1918 and World War II in 1940. The vivid picture of Winston Churchill at Coventry Cathedral in England with this story in The Times tells a lot about what has happened and what is happening today. There were 608,000 deaths in 2020 exceeded only slightly by the deaths in 1918 when deaths were 611,000. 1940 showed a jump of 16% from 1939 in deaths, 2020 showed a 15% increase.

With 168,000 of the deaths in private homes there is say health care experts "a silent crisis raging."

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The Angus Reid Insititute in Canada poll shows 65% of Canadians think it is too much to handle for Canada to take in the 31,000 refugees that have come to Canada since the Trump administration took office. In July 2018 58% of Canadians think the refugee policy of prime minister Trudeau is "too generous" compared to 53% a year earlier. 

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Less noticed climate change action is coming from Brazil. The Amazon deforestation has been slowed since the new administration of Lula took office in Brazil in 2022. Forest loss has dropped by a third in Brazil and half in Colombia says this report in DW.com. One of the big pledges at the Glasgow Climate Summit said to cut deforestation. Tjink of the impact- a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions from transportation come from deforestation and most of it from the Amazon (two thirds from Brazil, Indonesia and the Congo DRC alone). Ending forest loss by 2030 the goal of Glasgow would lead to 18.9 million megatonnes of carbon being removed from the atmosphere (GtCO2e) says the World Resources Institute.

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A survey of 10,000 knowledge workers by Future Forum cited in WSJ shows 78% of workers care about and want location flexibility. And 95% of workers want flexible hours. This survey also found that 72% of workers in knowledge industries who are not happy with their level of flexibility are likely to seek out new opportunities in the next year. 

This happens as employers are finding it hard to get workers. The new hybrid arrangements during the pandemic have created a new workplace culture with hybrid arrangements, flexible work, going into the office only some of the time. More than two thirds of employees say they the hybrid setup was their preferred way of working.

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India has done well with low cost, scalable, low tech solutions in the past. This is also being done now to tackle the coronavirus. This is being used to support what may be the largest lockdown in history. Everyone is expected to remain at home. Only shops selling essential items such as food and pharmaceuticals are allowed to remain open. All but essential offices are closed, with workers told to stay home. Indelible ink that takes two weeks to wash away was widely available following the election. It is being widely used with high numbers of infections having the back of their hand stamped "Home Quarantined." After India announced a nationwide lockdown all wireless carriers were asked by the government to  insert a taped coronavirus health advisory that comes on after callers dial and before the call connects.Th recorded message talks about how to protect against the coronavirus. Prime time news shows are interrupted three times a day for back to back news conferences from the prime minister, and local officials.   ...

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Japan's governing LDP party wins over two thirds of the seats in parliament in a snap election called one year before the end of the term in office. Prime minister Abe's popularity by summer 2017 dropped to about 30%, and yet with a divided opposition he managed to win the election with a large majority. The opposition led by the Democratic Party and Tokyo Governor Mrs Koike fragmented with the formation of new parties, Yuriko Koike's Party of Hope, and the Consitutional Democratic Party. Mrs. Koike failed to keep the opposition united with some missteps including asking for a loyalty pledge from candidates. This election win makes it possible for Abe to get a third term as leader of the LDP and eventually becoming the prime minister with the longest term in office. Abe had a poor start during his first effort as prime minister when he resigned in less than a year. This is a comeback for Shinzo Abe from that difficult period. Yet the constitutional changes to support Japan's Self Defense Forces with the growing threat from North Korea are not getting the same level of support. Opinion remains divided on that issue.  One aspect of this election is that very few women candidates are running for parliament. In contrast to the election in Britain with more women running for office and getting elected, in Japan's 2017 snap election less than 10% of candidates elected are women. ...

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The debt ceiling agreement between Biden and McCarthy has made it out of the committee stage and now heads to the House floor. Both Biden and McCarty are confident it will pass quickly before June 5. There are some surprises as the the impact of the debt ceiling agreement is better understood. 78,000 additional people will get food aid costing an additional $2 billion as a result of the tighter work requirements for the food aid program. The program will make it easier for veterans and homeless people to get benefits.  The cuts to the IRS funding by about $21 billion will be used by the Biden adminstration to reduce the effects of other cuts in programs that help people struggling with the cost of living.  On defense spending Biden says "obviously if there is an existential need for additional spending I have no doubt we will be able to get it." Both sides say this agreement is the best that could be done for either side. "With divided government they get to have an opinion, and we get to have an opinion, and all things equal, I think a compromise agreement is reasonable for both sides," says Shalanda Young, Mr. Biden's negotiator and Budget Office Director. Congressional Budget Office estimate is for $1.5 trillion in debt reduction over a decade.   ...

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Here are some ways to make for a better day at work.  1. Have what is called a "monk-mode" morning when you just keep out all phone calls and focus on "deep work," without distractions. Every little distraction in the form of a call or some other interruption has its costs in terms of having to refocus and not being able to concentrate on the task at hand as it deserves. 2. Have "meeting-free" days. These are days that you can focus, concentrate on tasks without distraction of meetings. Have walking meetings and meetings where you can walk out in the open for fresh air and some exercize. And no phones at meetings. 3. Replace reading with presenting powerpoint presentations. Have people write out their ideas for others to read so that discussion can be engaged and effective. Amazon CEO Bezos never believed in powerpoint presentations and required staff to write so that they could in the process improve on the clarity of their thinking. 4.  Have weekends free of email. This reduces the stress of workers under a manager who spend time writing and answering emails over weekends when they could replenish their energies and come back charged up on Monday morning for a fresh start on a new week. 55. Grab a coffee with a colleague and do some one on ones talking as one walks around the offices. This was done by Intel's Andy Grove as an effective way to get things done eliminating some of the need for formal meetings. This also provides an opportunity for casual conversation Also laugh and socialize in different ways.       ...

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U.S. president Trump's 2017 budget is an effort to reshape spending priorities by the Republican party. Apart from Medicare and Social Security all other entitlement programs from the days of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society are subject to cuts. Deep cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, including introducing work requirements. The philosophy behind it is that compassion will now be measured not by how large these programs are but by how much the government can get people "off these programs and back in charge of their lives,"  according to Budget Director Mulvaney.  The cuts are $616 billion to Medicaid and Children's Health programs, $193 billion in cuts to Food Stamps, $143 billion in student loans, $72 billion in disability programs. The overhaul of the Affordable Health Care Act is part of this change. The reallocation would put more money into infrastructure for $200 billion, and in tax cuts, $19 billion in a parental leave program and $29 billion for veterans programs, plus added spending on the military. William Hoagland of the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Republican who worked on budget issues says it will be politically difficult as the cuts to lower income groups come with tax cuts for small businesses and higher income individuals.  Beyond the policy priorities there is an area where both Republicans and Democrats are skeptical of the budget. This is how it impacts the U.S. debt. Under Congressional Budget Office estimates the U.S. debt as a percentage of GDP which rose to about 75% after the Great Recession starting in 2008, is projected to grow to about 85%. In sharp contrast the Trump administration estimates of the Office of Management and Budget are for it to drop to 65% based on rosier estimates of 2% inflation, 3% growth for the decade ahead. Experts say this is unlikely once the Fed raises interest rates and the unemployment rate currently at 4.4% leads to rising inflation, undercutting growth which has remained below 2% for a long period. These concerns are also voiced by Hilsenrath in the WSJ based on the experience of other countries such a Britain that cut corporate taxes without seeing an uptick in economic growth. ...

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A draft decree in the prime minister's office shows a plan to place quarantine covering the Lombardy region of Italy and nearby provinces, including the cities of Milan, Venice and Modena. The population in this region of 10 million people will face restrictions on mobility. The draft decree says transit in and out of the quarantine zones will be granted only in the event of "grave situations." It urges people to stay inside their homes and not travel. A similar quarantine in China around the Wuhan region helped limit the spread of coronavirus and bring it under control. Today the worst hit and not yet under control are Iran and Italy.