LyrArc Article Gist
This report in the NYT by Halbfinger and Kershner shows a Israel that is divided in its views about prime minister Netanyahu. In early 2018 with the police report on the investigation into Mr. Netanyahu on campaign finances, half of Israelis support Netanyahu, with the other half thinking that Netanyahu should resign. Mr. Netanyahu has dismissed the investigation as full of holes like Swiss cheese. His supporters see it as part of a left wing conspiracy including state prosecutors and police. Supporters of Netanyahu see him as having improved Israel's security in its region, people who oppose him see him as being too divisive, using divisive rhetoric to improve his own position.  Younger voters in particular have a distaste for divisive politics practiced under Netanyahu, which extends to the supporters of Israel in America, and the policies leading to delaying of the peace project.  That peace project is also seen as part of the nation's mission to seek peace with its immediate neighbors, an unfinished project for Israel as a nation. After many years in office Netanyahu's party lacks the dynamic vision needed and it now appears only to see remaining in office as its goal, according to this NYT report. This is happening at a time when a larger centrist constituency is developing in Israel as most of the moderates are outside government. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The 2018 election in Mexico brings to power a party called The Movement for National Regeneration or Morena created in 2014 by Manuel Lopez Obrador, after he left the PRD. Obrador ran on the PRD ticket for president in the last two elections. Obrador won with 53% of the vote, about 30% above the vote gained by the next leading rival.  Elections for the lower house of parliament showed a steep drop from 204 seats to 45 seats for the PRI party which was in power under president Nieto. The next leading party PAN which ran the government before the Nieto term in office, and the centre left PRD, were badly weakened. PRD now has 21 members in lower house of parliament compared to 53 before. So deep were losses for the opposition parties such as PRI and PAN which alternately ran the government, and particularly the PRI which dominated Mexican politics since 1950, that experts see Mr. Obrador as replacing the PRI's dominance of politics with the centre left Morena. Morena's rise is a result of work at the grass roots level in Mexico just when the PRI was discredited for corruption and failure to maintain the rule of law. PRI candidate for president Antonio Meade was a U.S. trained former finance, foreign and social development minister who lacks grass roots activism support base. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Farming companies that are attracting interest from investors range from NZ Wellington based NZ Farming Systems Uruguay which has 100,000 acres in Uruguay for dairy farming using its own methods such as fertilizing grazing grass and making water available to cows at all times, to Brazil listed SLC Agricola which grows corn, cotton and soyabeans on 400,000 acres in Brazil, Stockhom listed Black Earth Farming and London listed Landkom International which grow wheat and rapeseed in the former Soviet Union and in the Ukraine.

LyrArc Article Gist
The Nation is faced with another Supreme Court decision as in 1868 for the 14th Amendment, in 2025 on birthright citizenship.  The 14th Amendment was written in the 19th century it had no concept of the 20th century and absolutely no idea of the 21st century we live in, unable to even conceive of conditions today, or even think of  setting rules for immigration today. It rejected the Dredd Scott decision of 1857 denying black people rights as citizens, restating the law of the land, had nothing at all to do with stating the opinion of the Judiciary on whether a mother flying in from Asia could secure US citizenship for a new born child by merely visiting the US. As in 1857, in 2025 the law is based on assumed historical facts as Lincoln said on Dredd Scott decision, that are not really true. Lincoln said in 1857- "That burlesque upon judicial decisions, and slander and profanation upon the honored names, and sacred history of republican America must be overruled, and expunged from the books of authority." The 14th Amendment was written to give black people the rights of citizens of the US, in a complete repudiation of the Dred Scott decision of the US Supreme Court of 1857 that deprived black people of rights as citizens because Judge Tanney said the British Empire had set up the institution of slavery in the American colonies and the British were responsible for the institution, little we can do about it. When by 1807 slavery was being banned in Britain and in 1838 totally banned in the British Empire. It created the idea that Americans were not the master of their destinies after the departure of the British to choose which institutions they would keep and which they would reject including slavery. Abraham Lincoln citing President Andrew Jackson said each the executive, the judiciary, Congress, and the common man were entitled to their own view of the US Constitution as they understood it. Lincoln also said Judge Tanney's decision in Dred Scott case was based on assumed historical facts that were not really true- Judge Tanney making no mention of the fact that in 1857 the British Empire had already abolished the institution for 50 years. The DJT Executive Order banning birthright citizenship shown here on the White House site has the title- Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship. It is written in  simple language in 1 page -Purpose, Policy, Enforcement and Definitions, Provisions.  The purpose clearly states that the Dred Scott decision of the US Supreme Court in 1857 is what the framers of the 14th Amendment had in mind when they drafted the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. A reading of the 14th Amendment makes this abundantly clear. The wording comes out at the outset reversing the Dredd Scott Decision of 1857. It's repudiation was why the Northern and Southern States fought the Civil War. The National Archives say that with Dred Scott decision to allow the spread of slavery to American territories in the West,  America moved one step closer to civil war. With such  momentous events in the history of the US 1857-1868 the framers of the 14th Amendment were not sitting down to write rules about what was right for America a century and a half later.    ...

LyrArc Article Gist
A decision reached at the G-2- meeting in Cannes requires Italy to allow the IMF to look at its books every 3 months to ensure that a $75 billion austerity package is being implemented. This comes as the general feeling is that prime minister Berlusconi's government lacks credibility on this issue. Chancellor Merkel of Germany disclosed that China and Russia do not want to commit funds to the rescue effort unless there is some assurance - such as the IMF overseeing the EFSF financing facility- that there will be no losses. Japanese government spokesman said Japan was also concerned about losses, especially if the EU would use the money to prop up insolvent banks. This comes as Italy's borrowing costs have increased to new highs in November 2011.

LyrArc Article Gist
The doubts among the unvaccinated and America's pandemic of the unvaccinated in the south and west of the country, difficulty reaching a consensus on things as basic as spending $45 billion or 2% of the $2 trillion Biden plan for workers and families on 2 years of community college, or finding a way to stem what is an alarming decline in enrollment in college of young men in America, all go back to a standoff between Republicans and Democrats. Tennessee in the South is Republican yet passed a bill supporting state paid community college with a supermajority, yet at the national level it is lacks support of Republicans and centrist Democrats. To see how this happens this NYT report presents the picture from the Democrats side of how Montana residents blocked a National Heritage area in the state. Other stories relate to distortions from the other side from the Republican point of view. One man, one vote is not entirely the way Democracy was designed by Jefferson, Madison and other founders. The Senate of the US is based on one state one vote, giving Montana an equal vote as California or New York. At one time Mike Mansfield, Democrat of Montana was the Senate majority leader. The intent was to design a system that looks not just for democracy but checks on majorities of the moment.  This means unity is the way to renewal of America, for building its infrastructure, education and health care. If Tennessee feels that way about community college it should express it, so should other states in supporting president Biden's plan to Build Back Better. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
When so much of infrastructure healthcare and education still needs more funding, and when St Paul's Cathderal lacks essential funds for basic maintenance and is in danger of closing, the Greensill scandal shows how much reallocation of funds to infrastructure, health, and education to help workers, students and families is needed. How much the existing culture distorts allocation of capital in ways that are vital to the future of families, students and workers, and lobbying acts in ways that are against the national interest. Here the WSJ says the lobbying of David Cameron, former UK prime minister extended to getting access to funds for Greensill, a  company that operated in  supply chain finance, lobbying for funds from the emergency financing facility provided by the Bank of England. Treasury rejected 56 messages sent by Cameron to top British politicians over several months to have rules changed. Greensill went into bankruptcy in March 2021, stranding investors who had put in $10 billion. A parliamentary committee is now looking into this case of Greensill. The company was founded by an Australian Lex Greensill, and does little more than provide companies a cash advance to stretch out the time to pay bills. One question no parliamentary committee will ask is why when the needs for infrastructure, health and education are so great $10 billion in funds, public or private even go into something like supply finance that does so little for the country. This is an example of the kind of distortion in the uses of capital that has become commonplace today, creating societies and countries with poorly  funded infrastructure and essential services in the advanced countries of Europe and the US. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Social media companies such as Twitter were classified differently under Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act. This is now being reviewed as the companies are now seen as monopolies by the government, that the role of these companies has evolved as they reached tens of million of people around the world. Twitter started in 2006- the year the Act governing its regulation was written was ten years prior. And Twitter only reached its access to tens of millions by 2012, fifteen years after the Act was written.  Basically the White House is saying the social media companies role has changed since the Act was written and the law should keep up with the new situation. President Trump is expected to sign a draft executive order setting new rules that limits the broad legal protection status provided by the law written in 1996, when social media companies did not exist. The immediate event preceding the action, was the president's frustration with the fact check placed by Twitter on the president's comments on the issue of voter fraud when mail in ballots are used. The WSJ podcast and discussion shown here points to this not being a black and white issue, but one where there are different and diverging views as to the policy that should be followed, which are legitimate based on the evidence on each side. Making this not appropriate for a fact check as Twitter had done. The U.S. president's views and traditional Republican party views converge on this issue that mail in ballots favor the other party. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
 A member of the WSJ Editorial Board, says the Republican National Convention was more consequential in the way it continued the theme of getting non- white people to see how the president is taking action on issues that affect them. Mr. Trump cited his work on prison reform legislation, on funding for black colleges and universities, rebuilding broken families, and bringing back jobs in Detroit, Cleveland and Milwaukee. 69% of registered voters are white in 2019 compared to 73% in 2012, according to the Pew Research Center. Getting it right now means he says not merely the defending American workers to prevent "offshoring of jobs, opening the borders, and sending sons and daughters to fight in endless foreign wars," but also how to defend the rights of minorities in America and of working class non-white people. In 2016 the Republican party got 8% of the black vote nationally, which was the lowest in 4 decades excluding the years Mr. Obama ran for election. The effort to highlight the work on behalf of Black people and Hispanic people was to take this number back up as far up as Republicans can to the level reached under Eisenhower. This he says will be good for Republicans and good for the country. Under Eisenhower in 1956 the Republican party gained 36% of the Black vote, the highest ever.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
S. Korea's household debt is now 155% of GDP, according to the OECD. For the last ten years the household debt is growing at 13 percent, double the rate of GDP growth. Korea was not affected to the same extent as other countries by the 2008 financial crisis. As a result household debt continues to grow rapidly. The household debt to disposable income reached 140% in the U.S. before the 2008 financial crisis, according to the IMF. Spain reached a level of 130% before the crisis, according to the McKinsey Global Institute. The Financial Services Commission in S. Korea has taken steps to control this- by imposing limits on bank lending, tighter credit checks by banks, and incentives for shifting to fixed rate mortgages. About 95% of mortgages in S. Korea are adjustable rate mortgages. Housing loan rules in S. Korea require loans to not exceed half of the value of the house, and annual payments of principal and interest cannot exceed 40% of the owners income. This effectively insulates the banks from the effects of a housing bubble. One of the effect of the 1997 financial crisis in S. Korea when it turned to the IMF for assistance, is the relaxing of controls on interest rates to encourage spending in a country that encouraged saving. The result is the growth of a nonbank sector which is not subject to central government regulation by the Financial Supervisory Service. The non-banks are regulated only by local governments and can charge upto 39% compared to 4-6% at banks. Non-banks are also allowed to turn in their licenses and operate charging even higher rates. Each year about a 1000 nonbanks from 18,500 such banks in 2007 are joining the black market according to the Consumer Loan Finance Association, showing the size of the problem of black market lending to low income borrowers. S. Korea has mostly relied on growing GDP to control the situation, but slowing growth could lead to unsustainable levels of household debt....

LyrArc Article Gist
Combining public and private credit is the future of fixed income says the CFO of Black Rock. This includes infrastructure and private credit.

LyrArc Article Gist
Douthat offers insights into U.S. president Obama's thinking when he said at a National Prayer Breakfast, that Christians also had committed bad acts in the name of religion and reminded listener of the Jim Crow days when blacks were oppressed by church going Christians. The Crusades were a long battle against an advancing Islam over several centuries and many regions, says Douthat, and do not quite compare with the actions committed by an individual organization such as Islamic State in 2014-2015. The Jim Crow reference comes from personal experience during the fading days of racial discrimination. Yet says Douthat this reference to Christian culpability does little to bring the criticism back to self that the writer Niebuhr, Obama's role model, suggests, because it does not take the criticism back to self or political party to serve as useful introspection. It is almost like saying Christians are just as bad,(so why act?) without distinguishing from Christians and Muslims who respect tolerance and peaceful coexistence from those who do not. It also encourages one to remain a bystander in foreign and defense policy, leaving a younger generation with any future consequences. Ike does better by bringing self-criticism home to his own party and ideological wing by talking about the military-industrial complex and the problems it will create....

LyrArc Article Gist
The resistance to serious government assistance to make a large impact on foreclosures stems from arguments like these. They only tell one side of the story, as the mortgage industry and politicians pushed high cost loans on minorities like Hispanics and Black people who did not understand the risks, and dispensed with even the basic requirements for ability to pay on a sustained basis. Instead pushing them into higher amount loans which raised the chances of aquick default on the loan. See the link to this, a detailed article on Hispanics experience in the WSJ, with a graph that shows that more subprime loans were made to minorities than whites in 2004 and 2005, and especially to Hispanics. The other thing about this is that its a very shortsighted approach and one that will end up costing more money. Its also ending up having effects on the global economy which comes back to affect US exports, and make this a severe prolonged downturn that could last anywhere upto ten years if its not tackled in its most serious dimensions, with this one being crucial. Its crucial because the bank bailouts which are approaching a trillion dollars as the bill mounts after each passing month, and the lack of lending thats crimping businesses and leading to huge job losses of 500,000 a month are directly a result of the inability to fix this problem. Its like trying to find out who started the fire when irresponsible borrowers, speculators, the mortgage industry, the credit rating agencies who signed off on irresponsible securtization, the regulators who fell asleep on the job, and central bankers and treasury secretaries who lauded the innovation and the depth and sophistication of the US financial system ignoring the risks of too much liquidity in markets, all lit the matches that got the fire going. The longer the fire burns and bigger it gets, the harder it becomes to put it out the and more fire fighting resources it will take....

LyrArc Article Gist
The ratification of the European Union's Fiscal Treaty of Dec. 2011 will require a two thirds majority in both houses of parliament. The coalition government of Angela Merkel lacks such a majority. This means the support of the Social Democrats and the Greens party will be needed to pass the treaty in Germany. The Social Democrats parliamentary leader Frank-Walter Steinmeier, says he cannot "picture an approval of the pact without growth-boosting measures." The Merkel position of strict austerity policies in tackling the eurozone debt crisis has come under intense criticism for lack of growth boosting measures. Recent economic performance clearly in Greece and Portugal, and to some extent in Ireland, Spain and Italy, shows the decline in GDP with austerity cuts alone will worsen the deficits or lead to a prolonged period of economic stagnation.

LyrArc Article Gist
NYT reporter Neuman takes a17 hour road trip across the island of Cuba in a 1956 Ford Fairlane. He heads west from Havana near the west end of the island to Guantanamo on the east end. He sees a changing Cuba with houses for sale, little sign of ideological signs in the countryside, old cars, oxcarts, horsecarts, a Cuba that looked like it was stuck in the past. In the five years that Raul Castro took over from Fidel Castro, money and business have gradually taken the place of politics. The average salary of $20 a month is not enough for most workers even with free healthcare and education, and most people dream of making more money to enjoy a better life. Many rely on relatives abroad for additional funds, or buying and selling on the black market, or a second job.

LyrArc Article Gist
Katsuya Okada is elected leader of the Democratic Party of Japan in Jan 2015. He is from a prominent business family. His brother is CEO of Aeon, a supermarket chain in Japan, which was founded in 1758. Okada says he supports Abenomics, saying: "I have no intention of completely rejecting Abenomics. On the contrary, there are many areas where I'd like to tell him, 'Go for it. Step up the pace.' " Policies he backs are deregulation to improve productivity, and Abe's policies to increase worker wages. He also supports being better prepared for regional conflicts, and said the DPJ would study Abe plans for legislation to strengthen the role of Japan's defense forces. Okada's comments reflects the changing sentiment in Japan about Abenomics since Abe's win in the snap election, and winning credibility for his economic policies.

LyrArc Article Gist
Risks to China's banking system from the bond market in China. China's bond market has grown rapidly to 25.5 trillion yuan or $4.1 trillion yuan, especialy in the period following the stimulus. But it is not similiar to bond markets in developed countries, the U.S., Japan and France. It has a patchwork of regulators, is closed to foreign investors, and does not offer protections to investors. It also lacks an effective ratings system. Most bonds are held and traded by the banks, which concentrates the risks in the banking system. In developed countries the risks are spread out among investors. Bond markets offer the advantage of reducing dependence on banks for lending but with banks holding most of the bonds in China, including that of local governments, the risks if bond issuers default are concentrated in the banking system.

LyrArc Article Gist
As Jacob Zuma resigns on Feb. 14, 2018, he leaves behind a South Africa in which the African National Congress is no longer the party that Nelson Mandela led in the struggle against Apartheid. South Africa's economy and governance has suffered during his 9 year rule. Corruption and mismanagement of the economy during this period led to the ANC forcing Zuma to resign a year and half before his term expires. He is replaced by Cyril Ramphosa, the deputy president of the ANC, an anti-apartheid leader who became a businessmen with ANC connections.  A black lower middle class failed to see the promises made by the ANC realized under successive ANC leaders Mbeki and Zuma. Police action against miners during a strike in 2012 led to the growing belief that the ANC leadership had distanced itself from its roots among ordinary South Africans. In recent years Zuma was unpopular in Gauteng province which includes the large cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria. Appointment of loyalists with little experience to senior positions in the cabinet and state companies including state utility Eskom and South African Airways, led to poor management and corruption. A case relating to use of $650,000 in public funds for upgrading a Zuma homestead led to a court case and impeachment proceedings. In the 2016 local elections the ANC lost in the major cities. leading to a sense that the ANC's rural vote could not ensure winning half the vote in the upcoming 2019 elections.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
A surge in rural vote with anxieties about illegal immigration surges and little done by the Biden administration in the first two years when the surge from Venezuela became evident. The pandemic, vaccine was followed by two wars in the thrid and fourth year, yet the immigration issue was allowed to grow without forceful action to close the border and pass legislation early in the first 2 years, with an objective assessment of the situation as has happened in first Socialists in Denmark, northern Europe, and then Britain as the Labour party shifted to shut down illegal immigration in its policies by 2022. The unease in rural areas was accompanied by unease among younger people 18-34 years over cost of living, and the unease among Latinos in general and Black people  without a college degree.  Taking an approach to the wars that would remove them as distractions by looking for a settlement in Ukraine through negotiations, and prioritizing strong action on the border, price surges would have helped tackle pressing issues that caused so much unease.  ...