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The dollar remains the dominant force in capital markets. It is strengthening after US central bank raised interest rates 8 times in 2021-2022 to about 5.25%. China is cutting interest rates as its economy with debt at about 290% of GDP is slowing, the EU increasing rates as it faces inflation fueled by price increases and some price gouging. In the US inflation is cut in half by Fed policy to 4% in May 2023, Biden's policies to help with the cost of living and restrain price gouging, and by supply chains working better than in 2021. The US looks the strongest of the lot.

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India's GST tax collections - which finance infrastructure -reach the 1.40 lakh crore mark  (about $20 billion) for 3 months in a row in 2022. Increase in tax compliance culture, audit analytics, and actions against tax evaders, helped increase GST revenue collections. Revenues from import of goods and revenues from domestic transactions were 44% higher than the same month in the prior year. The increased economic activity and creating tax compliance culture are good indicators for economic growth in addition to the GDP numbers showing about 8% growth in 2021, the highest in the world surpassing China by a wide margin.  The growth slowed to about 4% increase in GDP in the 1st quarter yet the events of the first quarter such as the war in Ukraine increasing food and oil prices, depressing economic activity, have some other indicators unique to India that are entirely positive and hold promise for a surge in economic growth in this decade to 2030. With the pandemic years 2020-2021 pointing to shift in supply chains of US and Germany away from China towards India and other Asian nations, the Russian invasion of Ukraine with support of China will only make this shift move faster. At a time when Indian logistics and infrastructure improvements under the PM's Gati Shakti Master Plan will create the right conditions for massive foreign investment in the Indian economy. ...

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WSJ Quiz on data centers- test your knowledge. Does China have the most data centers? No the US with 4000, followed by Britain with 515 and Germany with 500 showing that China is not in the AI craze the way the US is even though the idea of the US falling behind in AI is used to get trillions of dollars in AI funding. This only means infrastructure that is dilapidated and broken in the US will not be replaced, and that the US plan to reindustrialize to get jobs will lack funding as dollars are diverted from these essential and vital needs to AI. Eventually Asian countries with new infrastructure will find ways to get that US technology without having to pay for it. The American public will be paying for this AI craze. We at Lyrarc.com checked how many data centers China has built? The number is 250 data centers are operational and note this in the MIT Technology Review it says 80% of these data centers are not being used, there is 80% overcapacity in China. Because China's AI such as Deep Seek is designed so that it uses less computing power. What this means is that only the US will put over 3 times the combined data centers put in by China, UK and Germany for AI and US will put in 16 times the data centers China has put in. As China only needs or is using 20% of its 250 operational data centers or 50 data centers the US is putting in 80 times the data center capacity China is using in 2026. Why 80 times? Because China has a Plan and it can manage the supply to the need or demand. In the US each company is trying to put so many in so it can get the leadership position in the market. For example Amazon puts in $200 billion instead of the $100 billion it can afford simply to be in the leadership ranks. There is much wasteful spending in the US market system than China's coordinated effort in a new technology even though ideologues like to say the US system is superior, and a plan by the state is frowned upon in the US, costing the US dearly when it lost its entire manufacturing base to China while economists said everything was OK. Even the WSJ Quiz fails to ask the question we asked about China and how many data centers China has actually made operational, how much is overcapacity- 250 datacenters and 80% overcapacity. Showing how little the public knows and even WSJ has looked into, giving a few companies such as Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and others the freedom to spend in a reckless way so that future infrastructure investments and reindustrialization investments will be crowded out in the US economy. And economists as usual will say its OK. ...

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Canada, Australia, India, Brazil have some of the largest reserves of rare earth and critical minerals. Brazil has second largest reserves. This means the US can still change the current situation of a near monopoly on critical minerals by China in coming years by making the necessary investments early in these countries and in the US itself. Here is the situation in Brazil for rare earths. Brazil has said it will be open to investments that place a priority on rare earths processing within Brazil, not just rare earths commodity exports for processing in the EU or the US. China does most of the processing of rare earths in China, it imports heavily from Burma, Indonesia, Australia and Africa and does nearly 100% of the processing in China using research labs and production facilities funded by PRC government. Yet the search for and development of supplies of rare earths and critical minerals is still at an early stage so that with the necessary investments including in India, Indonesia, Australia, Brazil, in Africa, and in the US, the US and Germany, EU, India can change this situation by 2030. Brazil hold 21 million tons of reserves of rare earths, about a quarter of world rare earths reserves. Just in the last 3 years since 2023 3000 permits have been filed with Brazil's National Mining Agency compared to 500 in years before this. Australia and India are also catching up in rare earths minerals investment. Australian producers Viridis and Meteoric are doing advanced work in Pocos de Caldas mining area in Brazil. Canada is doing a project in Golas state. US company Rare Earth is putting $2.8 billion in Serra Verde. All this is being pushed forward by fast track investing supported by the DJT US government. Serra Verde historically sent rare earths in commodity form to China. Now DJT administration has setup private and public financing for a 15 year supply agreement to the US. Australia's Viridis can also get funding from IDFC operated by the US with discussions underway. Viridis's $360 million  Colossus project in Brazil sends rare earth in commodity form to a French-Belgian processing company in the EU. Brazil cannot afford to be too restrictive when it comes to processing- though that remains its goal -as Brazil wants to use its advantages in rare earths to increase investments and export earnings to support its slowing economy. Over time Brazil as part of this western hemisphere and as shown in "Brazil no Espelhos" or "Brazil in the Mirror" by Felipe Nunes, discussed in the adjoining piece on Brazil, is a part of the same social fabric of the Americas and its economic structure, its supply chains, its business, its democratic framework and processes. ...

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This report in DW.com presents a situation where supply of oil runs out as demand way exceeds supply as shale oils in US are depleted, and no new reserves are found. A story in WSJ last week reports that the salty water from shale oil extraction is injected back into reservoirs at a rate that creates serious problems in the Permian Basian of the US including East Texas. The IEA forecast in 2026 shows about 97 million b/d of production and demand slightly exceeding this in both 2030 and 2050 which would suggest defossilization has not taken place. Yet the US pullout from defossilization under DJT is sure to be reversed by future governments in as short as 3 years, and the current DJT policy is simply a response to the cost of living concerns of the majority of Americans. The scenario that fossil fuels will be required forever is promoted by the oil companies and by OPEC+ including Russia. But this situation will reverse as the cost of living crisis and the low wages and incomes, loss of factory jobs, low savings, health care inflation, is tackled under the DJT administration and the US economy becomes stronger with lower inflation.  This scenario of  steady oil demand can be reversed if China and India and Europe push ahead with renewable energy and technological change as is happening today, and will not be seriously impacted when the US joins the battle with its renewable energy push in 2028. This is not just an optimistic scenario, it is a balanced one as private industry in the US will sense this and move ahead with development of new technologies for renewable energy so as not to fall behind and to pioneer on their own. That is the history of innovation in the US for the last 100 years and will not change. ...

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“The world needs more energy. The world needs more resources, and U.A.E. wanted to be unconstrained by any groups” says UAE energy minister, Suhail Al Mazrouei. On May 1, 2026 UAE with 12% of OPEC cartel production (3.6 million barrels a day) will leave OPEC. It is a change in strategy of where and how to sell oil production in the future. UAE including Abu Dhabhi oil company says it is time for it to pursue its own national interests. As its economy is diversified including tourism and other sourcesd of revenue, UAE puts volume before price support. Saudis are not diversified and seek to maintain price support and keep fossil fuels way into the future. Qatar and Ecuador have already left the cartel. Since the old days of OPEC US has emerged as the largest producer, Venezuela is coming back as a major producer, changing the situaiton now that UAE is  also not betting on and supporting efforts for keeping prices high. This is good news for India and China, Japan, major buyers of oil and with large populations increasing demand. It also helps the US because of its diversified economy. ...

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Trade Agreement talks will begin in December between India and Sri Lanka as Sri Lanka looks for ways to bring back growth following a 9.2% contraction in the economy in 2022 and estimated 4.2% in 2023. Mr. Weerasinghe at the International Trade Office setup under the presidential secretariat will represent Sri Lanka. Engaging in trade with India and China and regional countries is part of the plan to restore growth. Sri Lanka's exports to India were about $980 million in 2021 and imports $4.74 billion. This time Weerasinghe says we must avoid taking rigid inflexible positions and strive for a win-win for both sides.

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Even as China is investing more in the economy and workers are working fewer hours, the unemployment rate is increasing to 5.3% in Feb 2024, youth unemployment at 15% previously estimated at 22% in June 2023 before a new methodology was adopted.

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BBC's Mark Tullly reflects on the period of coverage from 1962-1994 of South Asia. He says of Indira Gandhi that she took the democratic process out of the Indian National Congress party, and set up her sons as future leaders that was undemocratic. Here he reflects on that period in an intervew with the BBC after he left the BBC.  He has deep connections to the Indian period after 1800 as his great grand father on his mothers side was around 1840 in a part of Uttar Pradesh where British planters had farmers plant opium that would later be bought by planters for export. This coincides with the period when Britain in Hong Kong traded in opium as part of British trading in the emerging colonial culture British Empire. There is mixed legacy for Britain in India and China. The history of the Opium Wars in the 1850's and opening up of colonial ports ended with the 1900's revolution and the emergence of the CCP in China by 1950. In India the legacy was mixed bringing together this part of Asia into a new nation and bringing parliamentary traditions of Britain that provided the basis for good governance.  Tully is a softspoken thoughtful Englishman who revolted against British classical education in his youth and studied history and religion at Cambridge, made friends with the future bishops of Canterbury and Lincoln at Cambridge. He is not the Englishman of the Empire as his fondest memories are of the servants verandahs on the bungalows of Britishers and the smoke from their quarters, and the language. So it is a thoughtful view that he gives of the undemocratic nature of Indira Gandhi and mismanagement of the economy that could have changed if India had gone in a different direction under other leaders in the the 1990's. Why is this significant? China's modernization drive started in the 1990's. India's by the undemocratic nature and mismanagement under Indira Gandhi did not start its modernization till 2010, about 20 years after China, opening up a huge gap that is only now being corrected leading to problems for world security, US security, European security and Indian security. And delaying the aspirations of development of 1.4 billion people for 2 decades. Vikshit Bharat cannot come fast enough for both Merz in Germany and Leyen at the European Union, who last week and this week visit Ahmedabad and India for the Kite festival and for Republic Day 2026. ...

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China's consumer prices declined by 0.3% in July. There are signs that the economy is slowing. A deflationary trend is taking shape with buyers declining to spend following layoffs at companies, higher unemployment and less growth. Expectations of falling prices could further sap demand worsening the debt situation in China. China's economy has grown in the last decade by assuming ever larger debt burden. The debt in 2022 was three times the GDP of China. Servicing this debt becomes harder when consumer demand is weak. The situation in the US is different with the central bank the US Fed increasing interest rates to lower inflation from 9% in 2022 to 3.2% in July, and expectations of a drop ion inflation with lower shelter costs in rest of 2023.

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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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2014 Xi visits Gandhiji's Sabarmati Ashram as is shown in this picture in BBC News and is curious how the weaving is done by hand taking a try at it with prime minister Modi, both sitting on the floor Asian style. In 2020 China advances its troops in a part of Ladakh leading to a clash with Indian forces. What happened? India's resilience in the face of the pandemic and the bright future for its economy, greater integration with the American and European Union economies in its draft plan to 2030. A sense in China's leadership that India's modernization would follow in the same way that China's and South Korea's have followed Japan's modernization. A sense also that better relations with the US and the European Union would require better relations with India, as an indispensable condition. A sense also that the issue of Taiwan was a bigger issue and a core interest for China than the border disputes in the remote regions of the Himalayas. It just did not make sense to have a conflict with India in the priorities of China to 2030 or 2040. That India needed to be seen not through the lens of the British but as an ancient nation that had similarities with China and Japan from its Buddhist roots. ...

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Stock funds in the US which suffered decline of 18% in 2022 staged a recovery of 7.8% in January 2023. The Fed's ability to bring down inflation and the health of the economy, improving economic conditions in Europe, China, and India, provided supportive conditions.

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Making some territorial concessions appears to be the only way for peace talks to succeed. For a long time there was insistence on territorial sovereignty of Ukraine by EU and NATO leaders. This appears to have prolonged the war- with needless loss of life on both sides, and costly damage to Ukraine infrastructure, a population that had to face additional winters and hardship in war ravaged areas. NATO's Stoltenberg from Norway, leaders of northern Nordic and Baltic countries, the UK, could take that position without having to face the hardship of the war. NATO had to be re-formed under a new name and new structure  following the collapse of the Soviet Union, with wariness about the possibility of centuries old since 1700 UK and Nordic historical adversarial relationship with Russia casting a shadow over that organization, and embroiling the US in conflicts not of its own choice or of wise leadership. This is the root cause of the Ukraine war. It would have been best to completely restructure NATO and give it a new name without Northern European nations leading it. Principles matter once soviet communism was no longer there NATO formed for its expansionism in 1950's had served it's purpose. Rasmussen from Denmark and Stoltenberg from Norway led the organization for the last decade and half from 2009-2014 and 2014 to 2025, with backing from Obama/Merkel for most of the period of the war in Ukraine. Also most of the period NATO expanded to Russian borders happened under Northern European leaders from Spain, Britain and Nordics (Solana, Robertson, Scheffer, Rasmussen and Stoltenberg) and the organization NATO getting the northern European slant based on historical adversarial relationship of Britain and Russia since 1700- for no other reason than the British wanting to protect its large Empire and commerce in India which in the 18th and 19th century included most of Asia. Under Robertson the UK Defense Secretary much of this transformation into turning NATO into something anti-Russian happened which was primarily because of British and Nordic perceptions of Russia as an adversary. Robertson added the following countries at the Prague Summit in 2002 to NATO- the Baltics, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Russia faced internal upheaval in those years and Yeltsin in resigned in 1999, Putin was elected in 2000. It is clear that Russia had suffered severe economic hardship in that period and Putin's first goal in 2002 was to stabilize the economy.  It could be said that this turning NATO over to UK and Nordics was a huge mistake considering that Russia was still the largest nuclear power after the US, and British policy was now determining US policy. And Britain's Robertson/NATO should not have involved itself in the Afghanistan war using Article 5, as the US could have handled this alone and limited that engagement. It got US involved in another conflict, conflict with Russia that was to come in Ukraine on the side of the Baltics and Ukraine, without US clearly understanding what the roots of that war was about and implied confrontation with Russia 20 years after the Prague Summit in 2002 under George Bush junior. The incompetence of Bush and Obama/Merkel laid the seeds of the Ukraine war in 2022 following Robertson, Rasmussen, Stoltenberg, small Nordic nations and Britain creating a conflict that did not need to happen, with loss of hundreds of thousands of lives of Russian speaking fraternal peoples of both Russia and Ukraine. The Republican sentiment under DJT of the tragedy of such huge losses of young people, and desire to end this loss of life, can nowhere be seen in bellicose talk in northern European nations, that take the US for granted to fight their wars.  The wisdom of Washington, Lincoln and TR/FDR clearly caution in getting involved in European centuries old animosities. For the US it meant in practical terms that it could no longer carry out the Monroe Doctrine essential for peace and good governance in the western hemisphere as only a Russia desperate to make its views known about NATO would interfere in the western hemisphere against US assertion of the Monroe Doctrine with the US Navy. Instead drug trafficking gangs took over Latin American countries and created a flow of fentanyl and millions of people through migrant traffickers across the US southern border. As America has expressed its concern for loss of Russian and Ukrainian men in the war for the first time under DJT Russia has distanced itself from Venezuela, Mexico and Latin America. The loss of hundreds of thousands of young Americans to fentanyl is a shared tragedy with the loss of hundreds of thousands of young Russians and Ukrainians in the last decade. How reliable are Northern European countries when it comes to protecting the eastern seaboard of the US with the acquisition of Greenland? It is a policy pursued by presidents since the Alaska Acquisition from Russia. By Seward, Teddy Roosevelt, Harry Truman and DJT. Denmark the land where NATO secretary general Rasmussen was from followed by Stoltenberg from Norway  (for 15 of the years of the war in Ukraine 2010-2025) the US efforts to protect its eastern seaboard are rebuffed by both Denmark and Norway, and the US presented in a negative light as an imperialist power in the face of Danish East India Company's  colonial attitude since 1700 clearly imitating the colonial British East India company.  It shows Northern European nations looking out for themselves not for the US, and embroiling the US in their wars at the cost of the entire western hemisphere being destabilized. The population of UK, Denmark and Norway, Baltics is far less than the Mumbai, Shanghai, Sao Paulo , Berlin and Tokyo regions. Should the views of a small population in northern Europe of 2% of the total determine the future of US, Europe, China, India, Brazil, and other parts of the world with 5 billion people the 98%, when issues of war and nuclear conflict, nuclear buildup, the western hemisphere destabilized with drug trafficking gangs running rampant in countries, divide the world in opposing blocs, when the wellbeing of most of the world's people in Asia and Latin America, Africa is at stake by establishing a essential degree of cooperation by all sides. The US under DJT has chosen a wise policy of cooperation over conflict -with China, with Russia, with all the major powers, and with smaller powers. Reading the wisdom contained in the writings of Washington, Lincoln, TR/FDR confirms it is clearly the wise choice. ...

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Nathaniel Tapin says about China's debt laden economy and struggling property developers that this has been seen before. What matters most is the confidence household borrowers have in the country to buy homes and spend versus putting more money into savings. And this confidence that that has been the strength of the economy for three decades is fading. About 12 million jobs in the internet platform economy were lost in 2020-2022. This absorbed a fourth of the Chinese graduating from colleges each year. The manufacturing sector is affected by declining demand overseas and cannot pick up for this. Much of this is a result of Xi's government efforts to tamp down debt of housing developers, to reduce housing speculation, to limit the power of internet companies, and develop a fairer economy, and these were policy decisions not easily reversed. A pervasive pessimism is leading to a disinclination to spend or buy a house. Surveys of Bank of China show inclination to save increased by 15 percentage points to 58% in second quarter 2023. In the past Chinese put money in homes as a way to deposit money in a savings account, homes were sold even before they were built. This cash was passed on to property developers and in turn the local governments benefited by selling the land to property developers. After property developers could not pay interest on debt and collapsed the households decided to pay down their mortgages and $28 billion went to pay down residential mortgage debt in first 6 months of 2023.  ...

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Just as Democrats and Mr Biden learned from the experience of earlier lockdowns in the US and opened up the US economy in 2021 and 2022, China is now taking its own steps to move away from its earlier policies that affected the economy with frequent lockdowns and tight restrictions. There are some risks but in the long run this could get China to a better place after the people's fatigue with lockdowns that is similar to what happened in the US getting the US to where it is today.

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The Russian economy had GDP decline of 2% and was relatively not affected by the shutoff of imports of oil and gas from Europe in 2022. Gas exports to Europe began declining in the summer. The EU ban on seaborne oil from Russia and price cap went into effect in December 2022. Russia made a huge stimulus of 4% of GDP in 2022. The result is that only now in 2023 is the full impact being felt on the Russian economy.  WSJ reports that in January and February Russian exports of oil and gas revenue which makeup half of the budget fell by 46% year over year, while state spending jumped 50%. Analysts estimate that it would take a price of $100 for Russia to balance its books. Yet the Group of Seven price cap on Russian oil has brought it down to $50- the price the Ministry of Finance says Urals crude sold in February. This is a deep discount to the $80 price of Brent Crude, the US benchmark.  A bigger problem is the downward trajectory the Russian economy faces in future years. Worker shortages are severe for industry and a shift to wartime production does not add to productivity or productive capacity. The cut off from access to western technology and western financial markets will have a severe impact in the productive capacity for the economy, for oil and industrial production in the years to 2030. Russia needed to protect against the gradual shift away from fossil fuels to fight climate change by shifting the economy in a new direction using its access to western technologies not just China's technologies. Instead it now finds itself in a period of 1 year in 2022 when oil revenues surged with prices jumping from the war, and then a steady slump in all the inputs of development- supply of labor, capital and technology declining rapidly after 2023 as the costs of the Ukraine invasion are absorbed into the economy. As this report points out it is the social contract that similar to China's social contract of growth and improvement in standards of living that led to people having a large measure of confidence in the government. It was not fully grasped but it was the access to American and European Union plus Japanese technology, manufacturing, capital and markets that made this possible. With this absent the situation changes to put Russia, and China to a lesser extent as long as it trades with the west, on a different trajectory.  ...

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Questions China faces on AI- 17% high youth unemployment and 200 million young people in the gig economy in low wage demanding work. Chinese Communist party wants to see a stable China that can pursue industrial progress for decades like the European Union and the US. For this reason it is not going to let this level of dissatisfaction with high youth unemployment and low wage demanding work for young people to go to the next level. For this reason it will carefully make investments in AI -not the hyper investments in AI that are taking place in the US. The competition with China is going to take place on many fronts, and the industrial bloc created by the EU with India and Nordics has a 15 year plan during which it and the US are likely to far exceed anything China does at a slower rate of growth. As in the US choices will have to be made in China, investment in one area means disinvestment in other areas that have equal or more priority. Today's capital markets are in complete dysfunction in the US operated by a few banks and tech company leaders, similar to the situation prevailing in pharmaceuticals and healthcare. Investment priorities and planning are needed. It is a major error to say US cannot plan that capitalism does not have planning, because it is absolutely true that planning goes on at every level in American companies with Xerox, IBM, Oil Companies and other large companies, all having a Long Range Plan as well as planning for individual projects and investments in plants. If a good infrastructure plan, project by project, state by state, and at the local level, is not put in place this will simply not take place. If no good reindustrialization plan, project by project, state by state, and at the local level, is not put in place, this will simply not take place. In that case the competition with China would surely be lost before it had begun. Yet that is surely not the case, as every good American company has a long term plan. And this plan looks at all the potential investments the Nation can and should make in priorities and in the interests of the Nation and the People. All have to compete for resources and AI surely would not get the lions share of resources in China, or in the US, in a fair and well run market system where planning rightly takes place, because it would displace the very basic structure of a fair and well balanced economy that serves the American people, or the people of European Union and India, or the people of China. ...

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Russian shadow fleet and about 80% of Russian oil now sanctioned after US sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil- Feb 2026. This is putting more oil onto a fleeet of vessels operating under Comoros, Sierra Leone and third nation flags, or even two flags, which the Americans and Europeans are tracking and diverting. Russia seeks to put this oil on an alternative tanker fleet it owns and which is insured by Russia, that goes from the Baltic and Black seas to the Mediterranean to refineries in Turkey, India and China. What thsi does is increases risks for Russia in shipping and for the Euroepans and Americans when ships fly Russian flags with military convoy. The overall effect of cutting Russian oil exports in addition to India committing to buy American oil and Venezuelan oil instead of Russian oil in its trade agreement with US, is that Russian economy may be in risky territory. Inflation is higher than official 6 percent at 16% interest rates, and this increases the risk. Budget needs within Russia may not be met as this continues. It is in Russia's interest now to conclude a peace agreement with Ukraine, now that the US has moved away from NATO/Europe to peaceful cooperation with Russia and competition with China. ...

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Khamanei as leader of post revolution Iran set up Iranian supported military organizations in neighboring countries such as in Lebanon (Hezbollah), in Iraq, and in Syria, in Yemen (Houthis), over two decades, but failed to make the gains that Asian nations in that period made by investing entirely every dollar in the homeland economy of Iran. By comparing with Asian nations such as South Korea/Japan/Taiwan/China and now India/Vietnam the entire region from Iran and Afghanistan, Pakistan, Persian Gulf, Egypt can be seen as having lost some vital decades of the early twenty first century, and the scale of the difference is nothing short of staggering.  China after suffering invasion from Britain and then Japan, after civil wars and the Korean War, after going through this for two centuries sought peaceful development in 1990-2025, working with Japan and Britain countries that caused so much suffering yet China sough rapprochement, patiently with humility, with incredible results.  Gandhi also sought rapprochement with Britain through the British Commonwealth and cherished institutions of parliament and science learned and gathered from Britain. This was woefully missing in West Asia. When considering the access to capital in fossil fuel sales, the region of West Asia around Egypt may be seen as having recorded the largest wasted capital in wars in world history in the period 1920 -2047 (with only 20 years left to 2047),  by which time India, China, Europe and the US will have shifted from fossil to solar nuclear and renewables and fossil will be no longer generating revenue flows. Very little time is left as development will be that much harder by 2047 without the capital and result being one of being left behind in this new world that is facing us all.  ...

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French president Macron fails to get president Xi of China to commit to changes in its policies towards Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Macron's visit as seen by the NYT only undermines the US policy and European Union policy that opposes the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. EU's Leyen also visits China at this time.  The relations between the US and European business with China expanded for two decades between 2000-2020. All three regions are heavily invested in each other. Decoupling is a gradual process and China sees the EU as an access point for technology and investment. The US has not decoupled from China even after moves in semiconductors and electric vehicles were made by president Biden. Apple and other American companies are heavily invested in China. The US and the EU are committed to building new supply chains. Their policies are intended to do this in a way that reduces the effect on their economies. The European Union depended on the US for its response to the Russian invasion and to protect freedom in Europe through NATO. By 2024 the European Union policies will be integrated with policy of the US. China is also trying to reduce the effect on its economy by decoupling in a way that maintains growth. ...

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Cost of Living Crisis under Biden, Affordability Crisis under DJT, and the situation in Feb 2026 with 2.4% inflation and job creation at 130,000 jobs in January 2026. Is this a sign that the tariffs policy is greatly misrepresented and misunderstood? The flexibility in tariffs, attention to financial markets through Scott Bessent's keen sghts at the Treasury shared with the president, the cutouts for key countries such as India to exclude semiconductors and cell phonesand other products from tariffs. For instance under tariffs increase India actually increased its exports by diversifying its economy and signing a trade agreement with Germany and the EU, followed by the trade agreement with the US, so that it remains an enven stronger economic partner. The same is true for Japan where elections are leading to a parliamentary majority for PM Sanae Takaichi who wants to work with the US and build a strong economic partnership, and make the large investments in the US it has promised.  Japan and India are two of the five largest economies in the world (US, China, Japan, India, Germany). German Foreign Minister Wadephul for the CDU welcomed Marco Rubio's call for a "new Western Century" and for strengthening western civilization common heritage of the US and Europe. This means 4 of the 5 largest economies in the world are in sync for the future of world trade, and their economic future.  ...

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The Guardian gives this story of Khamanei's rule in Iran after 1989. He was made president in 1981 in a landslide win at that time just 2 years after the revolution in 1979 that toppled the Shah of Iran's monarchial regime. Khamanei comes from a the family of a modest cleric in the town of Mashaad who was immersed in the anticolonial writings coming out of Arab North Africa's liberation movements. His policy towards Israel and the US, difficult relations with Arab countries in the neighborhood, and pursuit of nuclear weapons technologies, led Iran to become isolated and face sanctions that hurt its economy and its oil industry for three decades. It created its own version of governing and in setting up proxy militias but this resulted in huge investments diverted from the economy of Iran, neglect of its oil industry and production under western sanctions, that led to economy collapsing and student protests every decade. This expanded in 2025 to broad sections of the population calling for a new direction. Protests were suppressed leading to a disconnect with the people by 2026. To truly understand Iran one has to step back to the 1900's ( as one must also do to understand China or India), as Iran was ruled by the Qajar dynasty at the time. The first Majlis parliament was set up in Iran in 1906 -with the help of "good" Britishers like the British agent in Rajkot who helped send Gandhi to London to study law- wished to see a constitutional setup similar to Britain and limit the powers of the monarchy so that reforms in agriculture and in the civil service could be made. It lasted until 1908. At the time other Britishers in the British Empire both in India and in London sought to maintain British influence and keep out Russian influence. It was not a coincidence that the Majlis lasted only till 1908. That year in 1908 the first discovery of oil in West Asia was made in Khozestan province by George Reynolds, with investor backing of William D'Arcy. The following year 1909 the Anglo-Persian Oil Company( later Anglo Iranian Oil Company and later British Petroleum) was formed. The oil concession was given by the Shah from Qajar dynasty. From that time on Iran became the scene of oil company interests, monarchial interests first under Qajar dynaasty and then under Pahlavis dynasty (which set itself up like Napoleon II in France from humble origins, after 1925 to replace the Qajar dynasty), and the emerging middle class lawyer and civil service, agricultural landowners class, all competing for power and influence in a Asian region with Shihite Islamic embedded in the fabric of the society. Power swung to different groups from 1925 onwards for 5 decades to the 1979 revolution that overthrew the Pahlavi temporary replacement monarchy that worked with British oil interests. West Asia became a meeting point for anticolonial writings emerging from Arab North Africa and other places that took the form of and led to a socialist style anticolonial Baathist influnce that overthrew a monarchy in Baghdad Iraq in the "Free Officers" coup of June 14, 1958 led by Karim Kassem. Out of that Pan Arabic Iraqi mood emerged S. Hussein who with weapons systems imported from the US and Europe initiated the war with Iran in 1980. The Iranian counterrevolutionary movement to Iraq began from that time with the leadership of Khomeni and Khameni from 1981. This is what one has seen swing back and forth in the West Asian region for about 5 decades to 2026, the regional Arab states mostly Sunni monarchies ranged against Iran with its Shiite and also modernizing population. US oil interests in Arab monarchies of the West Asian region from the time of FDR's meeting with Saudi's Faisal in the WWII period clashed with Iranian public interests competing with oil interests (US and British) allied to monarchial interests, and the emergence of Shiite Islamic authority in Iran in these clashes. Iranian public interests that started out with the Majlis and parliaments set up by the "good Britishers" never got a chance in Iran just as the modernizing effort of Sun Yat Sen in China in the 1900's never got a chance in the middle of the surviving monarchy in China by 1910, and the Japanese colonial interests in China from that time competing with the Nationalists Koumintang and the Communist Chinese workers movements emerging in the 1930's, all competing for influence during the Chinese civil war and in its aftermath the emergence of Mao and the CCP of China. This is the situation we in the world face today. ...

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China's economy is feeling the effects of a sharp slowdown of the economy with covid lockdowns in 2022 and the Ukraine crisis undermining confidence in China. Internal divisions on president Xi's policies of allying with Russia on Ukraine are shown in this report by the WSJ. China faces a collapse of its relationship with the US and Europe says the WSJ. With it China's economic growth faces a sharp slowdown.  From 18% at the beginning of 2021 economic growth has slowed down to 4% in fourth quarter of 2021. The current situation in Ukraine and Mr. Xi's response create risks of collateral damage for Chinese manufacturers with weakening global demand, says the WSJ. Deng Xiaoping's policy of opening China which happened for the last 40 years is being reversed with Mr. Xi's policies and the stance taken by the Biden administration is supported by the US Congress by both Republicans and Democrats.  This WSJ report points out that premier Li Keqiang has pointed to the risks China is facing in somber tones calling the external environment for China in 2022 "more complex and severe." At the same time Hu Wei a senior adviser to the State Council stirred up discussion online with an article about Mr. Xi's pro-Russian policy, saying "China can't be tied to Putin and the ties need to be cut off as soon as possible."  ...

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The WSJ is still calling the president's stop fentanyl flows tariffs on CMC Canada Mexico and China economic tariffs in this editorial board opinion. It is incomprehensible that little or no mention is made in most of the media of the magnitude of injury to the US, the 490,000 deaths in America over 12 years as the result of Canada, Mexico and China not taking the needed action to stop fentanyl flows into the US. There is also the added factor of lack of a level playing field in trade which has resulted in the same communities in many cases having suffered from in the case of China loss of 25 million jobs over the last 10 years and loss of $250 billion in infrastructure and public services for schools, libraries, childcare, and health care clinics that were lost from losses in taxes for local communities in the US. This has decimated life in these communities and in small towns across America.  In the case of Mexico the illegal migrant flows that were not stopped at the border have put an added burden on already underfunded and strained public services in local communities in the US. This is the reason for much of the frustration and anger that has built up over time in these communities with the response from the DJT administration to find solutions. CMC countries could have taken action on their own, yet the US had waited too long for this action. Reciprocal in reciprocal tariffs is about fairness, a level playing field, something that China had agreed to in the spirit of the WTO entry in 1994 and American desire to aid China industrialize build a modern economy. Instead US business was coopted by China during the industrialization process 1995-2010, 2010-2020, including in the first term of the DJT administration even when tariffs were imposed. This happened with transfer of technologies happening late into the first term of the DJT administration 2016-2020, which has led to a much of the pent up frustration and action in the first 100 days of DJT in 2025.  ...