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Jet Blue came to Boston in 2004. At the time it had one gate and 30 employees at Boston's Logan International Airport. The airline now has 2300 workers and 17 gates in Jan 2012. It now has 104 nonstop daily flights to 44 locations in the U.S. and Caribbean, with plans to reach 150 flights by 2015. As American and Delta pulled back to focus on their main hubs, Jet Blue expanded quickly. It started as an airline for vacation travellers, but soon attracted business passengers for the cheaper cost of flights, especially for cost conscious travellers after the recession hit in 2008. Jet Blue also offered better service and more leg room for business passengers. Jet Blue's CEO, Dave Barger, says 30% of traffic into and out of Logan now is for business travel.

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The resignation of Ahmed Shafiq, a former Air Force official who was close to Mubarak, from the prime minister's position. He will be replaced by Essam Sharaf, a former transport minister. Protest leaders had suggested Sharaf's name to the military running the country. ElBaradei former head of the IAEA and Amr Moussa of the Arab League had pushed for Shafiq's resignation. Sharaf is an engineer who studied for his Ph.D. at Purdue University in the U.S. In Egypt the changes demanded by the protests for democracy are still unmet. The emergency laws are still in place, the large internal security services have not been disbanded. One example of this was the arrest just last week of one protestor and sentencing by a military court within 3 days to 5 years in prison.

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Jacobs takes us back to a time in history when Winston Churchill, as colonial secretary for the British Empire, created countries and geographic borders simply by drawing this on a map. The collapse of the Ottoman Empire during the first world war provided the opportunity to create the borders and states that we know today- Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon. This part of history is important to understand what we see today in the Middle East- as it was the first step in the evolution of British, French, and later American policy in the region. Britain's oil interests in Iran determined policies pursued first by Britain, and later by the U.S. in the region, and which reverberate to this day in how Iranians see the world.

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President Obama picks Dartmouth College president, Jim Yong Kim, as the U.S. choice for president of the World Bank. Kim is a physician who co-founded Partners in Health, a nonprofit organization for providing health care to the poor. He was a former director of the Department of HIV/AIDS at the World Health Organization. Working with Partners in Health in Lima, Peru, mid-1990's, he helped establish a large scale treatment program for drug resistant tuberculosis. Such programs are being promoted in 40 countries since then. Under the leadership of Mr. Zoellick, the World Bank provided $57 billion in assistance to low and middle income countries in 2011. About $90 billion was raised in a fund to be used for aid to the poor in developing countries, including China and India.

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Jack Tramiel set of the computer revolution since 1977 with his Commodore personal computers targeted at lower price points than the competition. This included the Apple II which was outsold by the Commodore PC's in the early 1980's. He described this as going for "the masses, not the classes." He was a Holocaust survivor from Poland who made his way to the U.S. in 1947, launched a typewriter business, then a calculator business in Toronto, and thereafter moved to Palo Alto, California. A visit to Japan in the 1960's resulted in him launching a calculator business. An acquisition of a chip supplier brought him into contact with one of the employees who had developed a new microprocessor. This led to the beginnings of the Commodore line of PC's.

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Problems facing S. Africa include the high unemployment rate of 24% and the funding of social grant programs for the unemployed. As it stands today with the increase in population and the economy unable to create enough jobs, there are more people on the social grant program (similiar to welfare, disability and social security payments in the U.S.), than there are people working. Only 10% of S. Africans pay taxes which starts at 120,000 rand, or about $15,230. The numbers of people on social grant payments are growing at five times the rate of people added for income tax payments. And there is concern about the tax base's ability to sustain this in the future as population grows. The awards are now at 3% of GDP or $13.4 billion.

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Christian Noyer, the Governor of the Bank of France, says that the supervisory infrastructure and deposit guarantee structure for the eurozone has not kept up with the creation of a single currrency, leaving an obvious gap that has to be fixed. Of particular importance is the link between sovereign and banking risks that is behind dangers in today's eurozone crisis, especially in Spain, which he says should be broken. The creation of a single euroarea supervisory authority is a prerequisite for a deposit guarantee fund that will separate and delink bank and sovereign risks. The other step is to create a banking resolution scheme similiar to what the U.S. has setup, with the FDIC having a resolution plan to come in and unwind a failing bank, include large banks with systemic risk.

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The European Union Commission president Manuel Barroso announced a multiyear $15 billion package of loans and grants for the new Ukrainian government on March 4, 2014. No immediate conditions were specified. Barroso said, this is "designed to assist a committed, inclusive and reforms oriented government in rebuilding a stable and prosperous future for Ukraine." This is meant to replace the help offered to the previous pro-Russian government by Russia and now cancelled with the ouster in street protests of that government. The U.S. has offered $1 billion in loan guarantees. For Ukraine this offers the prospect of making a new start under EU and possibly IMF guidance. The needs are estimated at $35 billion in international assistance loans over 2 years by the Ukrainian government, because of the dire state of the Ukrainian economy.

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China's healthcare costs have increased in the last decade without effective cost control measures. With the decline in consumer spending in the last decade to where it is now only 35% of GDP, and ordinary Chinese setting aside a large portion of savings for costly drugs and healthcare, reducing healthcare costs is a high priority to rebalance the economy and increase consumer spending. By comparison in the U.S. it is 70%. Bussey points out the importance of this for the new leadership of Jinping-Keqiang in China. Xinhua, the Party offical news agency, expressed China's new policy, saying that "some believe China may see a nationwide price cut on medicines." Regulators have begun probes of Nestle and Danone for possible anticompetitive activity and the two companies dropped prices for baby formula.

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Jacob Lew, U.S. Budget Director under president Clinton and under president Obama, is Obama's chief of staff. He guides the negotiating team for the Democrats in the "fiscal cliff" negotiations with Republicans. Colleagues describe him as thorough and meticulous. He negotiated with Republicans in 2011, running into problems with Republicans and Speaker Boehner, who saw him as inflexible in the negotiations. Lew is a son of Polish immigrants living in Queens, New York, and participated actively in Democratic causes from his student days. This time the lead negotiator is Treasury Secretary Geithner. Lew was an aide to Democratic Speaker Tip O'Neill. In 1983 he helped O'Neill in negotiations for Social Security legislation when Reagan was president. In 1997 he helped negotiate an agreement with Republicans to balance the budget under president Clinton.

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Sweden which appeared resilient in the early part of the eurozone financial crisis is seeing a sharp slowdown in exports. The government growth forecasts show a steep decline in growth to 1.1% in GDP and unemployment at 8.2% in 2013 as eurozone exports decline. GDP growth forecast for 2014 is at 3%. The decline is from the 3.7% growth in 2011. About a third of Swedish exports go to the eurozone countries. Sweden's steel company SSAB has put workers on a 4 day work week and a 20% wage reduction as demand declines. Finance minister Anders Borg says "Our assessment is that Sweden is facing a couple of lean years. It is becoming clearer that the crisis in Europe and developments in the U.S. are again costing jobs and weighing on growth in Sweden."

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During this swine flu epidemic in Mexico a number of experts and organizations in Mexico and the U.S. worked well together and acted quickly. Dr Sada, a respected epidemiologist at Mexico's health ministry, Dr Lezana a top government epidemiologist, the director of the National Insititute of Respiratory Diseases in Mexico City, Dr Ruiz, chief of Epidemiology at a Oaxaca hospital, Dr Gerardo Lescas in Oaxaca, Mexico, who treated some of the patients, Frank Plummer a Canadian scientist who analyzed samples at a Canadian lab, and the Centers for Disease Control of the USA, moved rapidly to take action. This helped contain the swine flu epidemic in Mexico, and created a model for other countries faced with a similiar situation. This is a detailed account of how Mexico responded.

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Jodi Kantor provides insights into U.S. president Obama's thinking about the law, how it affects society, and the areas in which it falls short of what is intended. Obama is looking at a number of possible candidates to replace Judge Souter on the Supreme Court, including Elena Kagan at Harvard Law School. He is described by professors and students who know him as a minimalist who does not want to see the Court appointees to go ahead of their times. Minimalist refers to a view which is skeptical of court led change far out ahead of where society is. He is also described as a structuralist, referring to a view that seeks to learn how the law affects people in their real lives, aside from abstractions and theory.

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Garrison Keillor asks the President to "lets start making our way out of Afghanistan," in his own inimitable style. He also quotes U.S. Marine Officer Matthew Hoh, who resigned his Foreign Service post- "American families must be reassured their dead have sascrificed for apurpose worthy of futures lost, love vanished, and promised dreams unkept. I have lost confidence such assurances can be made any more." And Keillor summarizes Hoh's reasons and does it so well- that our presence among the Pastun people, the people in the villages, the rural religious people, is only wosening the conflict, the role of the Taliban and Al Quaeda is not the main thing here, the real issues are tribal and cultural. The last phrase deserves repetition- the real issues are tribal and cultural, which no foreign nation can overcome.

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Bob Kocher, special assistant to President Obama for healthcare policy in 2009-2010 describes how hospital mergers with the passage of the Obama Healthcare Law are not doing much to control health care costs in the U.S. This is contrary to what was expected during the policymaking in 2009. In 2015 there were 112 hospital mergers in the U.S.  He says smaller physician led health care organizations do better at taking steps to improve productivity, adopt technological improvements and control costs.

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A major shift in foreign investment may be taking place as the 2014 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum takes place in May 2014. Russian policy in Ukraine and tensions with the U.S. and Germany could lead to a shift in investment to other emerging market countries. China's tensions with Japan could lead to a similiar shift of Japanese foreign investment. At the same time India has elected a new government with an absolute majority and an overwhelming mandate from young people to accelerate development. The new government under the BJP party's Modi has a decade of experience attracting foreign investment in western India. Indonesia, Vietnam, Africa and other emerging market countries, could benefit from the shift in investment. Investment could also return to the home countries with lower labor costs in Southern Europe, lower labor/energy/transport costs in North America. For Russia the debate at the St Petersburg Economic Forum was about pursuing one of three policy paths with some riskier than others, or some combination also risky and uncertain- depending on state banks and oil windfall funds, increasing ties with Asian countries, continuing on the current path with lower foreign investment and continued capital outflows. The failure to use the time wisely to diversify the oil based economy which could have been better accomplished in an economy not overly dependent on crony capitalism and centralized economy, both current characteristics, will affect future progress. A key weakness for Russia compared to China is the centralization under one person Putin, more so in the third term. In China the two man team Keqiang and Jinping is part of a larger team chosen by consensus and negotiation and part of a rotational scheme. It has senior leaders who initiated the changes to a market driven economy in the nineties determined to see China on track....

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About 60% of Americans think the testing for coronavirus and getting medical supplies to health care workers is too slow, in a poll by Wall Street Journal/NBC News. About 6 in 10 Americans in a new survey say they are concerned that the U.S. would move too fast to loosen coronavirus restrictions to slow the spread, and only 3 in 10 say they are concerned that it is not moving fast enough. About twice as many Americans thinking the risks were higher that public authorites and governors would reopen states too soon. About 75% of respondents in the survey say they are very or somewhat worried about themselves or a family member getting the virus. Mr. Trump's approval rating  remains unchanged from March with 46% approving. Most people place their faith in the governor of their state- 66%, and Mr. Fauci, Director National Institute of Infectious Diseases- 60%, than anyone else. On the economy president Trump is seen as being better at handling the economy 47% to 36% than Democratic nominee Biden, even though Biden has a nine point lead. This confirms the widespread dissatisfaction at the way medical supplies shortages are felt at hospitals, and the way testing for coronavirus is happening with not enough testing. President Trump perceived by business and the public as better at handling the economy is also confirmed in this survey. The dissatisfaction with the president for supplies shortages and testing lagging behind may also be tempered by a sense that the public has not taken aggressive action in supporting an early lockdown with many governors and people not supporting or following strict distancing rules till late March. By contrast the president acted quickly to stop all flights from China. ...

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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. ...

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Key Indian projects in Sri Lanka or Ceylon are the Kankesanthurai harbor in northern Sri Lanka and the Ind0-Japanses East Container Terminal at Colombo port. In Maldives it is the Greater Male Connectivity Port.With its expertise and leadership in solar energy India is also launching solar initiatives in Sri Lanka. India has focused efforts on developing human capital and employment intensive sectors. This contrasts with the non concessional loans that finance infrastructure projects often with Chinese labor that do not generate the jobs Sri Lanka or Ceylon so desperately needs. Earlier period of Chinese infrastructure projects led to the debt trap with building of Hambantota port and facilities which Sri Lanka could not effectively utilize, and led to buildup of interest on loans. Sri Lanka now has the opportunity to make a new beginning as part of the SAGAR (Security and Economic Cooperation for All). The whole range of intitiatives in many areas show India's long experience in working with Sri Lanka since 1900 when early development projects were initiated. India has a long list of projects to help Sri Lanka keep up with India in its development- two education tourism projects, ITEC Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation, and Technology Adoption Project. This opens a new path for Sri Lanka to make steady progress on a wide range of projects for the next 10 years for sustainable development. As India grows this will expand the range of possibilities for Sri Lanka that it could never achieve on its own. Many new projects can also be done with the economic cooperation and assistance of UK, U.S. Japan and India to broaden the range of possibilities and financing. ...

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This opinion piece in De Zeit says there are different ways to look at Chancellor Merkel's refugee policy, as a failure, as an act of compassion, influenced by her experience in East Germany, her Christian upbringing as a daughter of a pastor, or Germany playing a role in Europe after Barrack Obama failed to provide American leadership in the refugee crisis. It says some of this commentary in the media ignores the fact that it was always the intention to accept a large number of migrants as part of a policy of European humanism in the face of misery of refugees, but to carefully manage this influx, to reduce the flow of refugees, and wind down the flow by vigorously addressing the causes. From this point of view the commentary about Merkel's failure is overdone. It is interesting that some of the weirder descriptions describe Germans conscious of the history as being outpatients in a American clinic closed down by president Obama. In any case American presidents have overreached, consider Reagan and Bush with German's strong or cautious reaction, and underreached with Obama providing cause for concern and efforts to fill in for a missing American role, with both roles difficult to fill for Germany by itself. America is not defined by its presidents and its politics alone, but by its own history, which has reflected the same values since the founding fathers Jefferson and Washington. Germany's policy has merely reflected these same values, at a time when the U.S. was simply taking a pause from its foreign involvements in regions fragmented by tribal, religious and other divisions. In doing so being the true partner it was its intention to be. ...

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An obscure parliamentary precedent was used by Speaker Bercrow to end Theresa May's strategy of repeated votes in Britain's parliament to browbeat reluctant Brexiters to vote for her negotiated settlement with the European Union. The precedent was set as far back as 1604 and was designed to protect the powers of parliament in the face of a Scottish royal assuming the role of sovereign of Britain. Repeated votes on the same proposals are not allowed if the intention is to find ways to get reluctant members of parliament to vote in favor, essentially by bullying them into this. This is also why Brexiter MP's have hailed the Speaker's decision in their opposition to Theresa May. Britain's constitution is based not on a single document like the U.S. Constitution. It is based on a a collective set of laws and precedents. A parliamentary rule book published by Thomas Erskine in 1844 sets out these rules in 1097 pages, available for 439 pounds in parliament's bookshop. It has gone through 24 editions. Speaker Bercrow says of the rule he was referring to as a statement on page 397 of the 24th edition.  There is not much time, just 10 days, for prime minister Theresa May to end the current parliamentary session and call a new one to nullify Speaker Bercrow's decision. This would also further antagonize the 40 Brexiter MP's led by Mr. Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson in May's own party, making it impossible for parliament to agree on a course of action. ...

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Affordability should be a major factor in figuring out what is the best place to retire. Climate gets Arizona and Florida the top two spots. Yet considering today's higher cost of living and smaller retirement savings in the U.S., Britain, and European countries, and the higher cost of living in India, China, and other Asian, African, and Latin american countries, affordability should play a much larger role so that savings stretch out and one can afford a better standard of living, more travel and room for better choices in food and other things.  Bankrate for instance gives 40% importance to affordability in its retirement assessment of locations. Climate gets only 15% in this assessment of location. Places which are friendlier, with which you are familiar ar attractive for other reasons. Bankrate gives Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri top ratings in this commonsense approach.  Also important after affordability, are access to healthcare, weather, culture and crime. Bankrate analysis gives affordability 40%, wellness and healthcare 25%, culture 15% weather 15%, and crime 15%. Access to healthcare is a factor that is also included in Affordability as the premium in Florida for Medicare Supplement, is $286  month vs $90 a month in Nebraska. Using a similar approach places in India, China, other African, Asian and Latin American countries countries that are in high demand and have rising cost of living may not be the best places to retire. Using Affordability, wellness and healthcare, culture, and friendly atmosphere and familiarity with having lived there for a time, may be the best criteria with less importance to weather. A better standard of living and access to better things in life with one's dollars or rupees or whatever currency one uses stretch is important.   ...

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Metro Detroit has 90% of the 17,000 cases in Michigan as the pandemic reaches its peak there this week.  The large Detroit airport renovated and enlarged is seen as a source of the coronavirus as Detroit is where all 3 auto U.S. auto companies are located. GM, and Ford have large manufacturing operations in China, and  Chrysler has plants in northern Italy, the locations where coronavirus has hit hard, and in the case of China where it originated. Health experts say the busy Detroit international airport connecting the Detroit hub to other auto hubs in northern Italy and China- both virus hotspots- may have contributed to the virus hitting Detroit early. This country to country transmission along some route is how the virus has traveled to over 150 countries. For instance German reports show Bavaria as the source of the early cases in Italy's Lombardy region. It could be that German auto companies located in Bavaria with large operations in China resulted in inadvertent transmission of the virus from China through airport in Munich from flights between Germany and China. A Shenyang municipal bureau report provides information on German  investment in Shenyang, Liaoning province. Munich based BMW makes 1.3 million cars here. There is also the newly built Chinese German Tiexi industrial park in Shenyang with 50 German companies BASF, Siemens, located there.  Once the virus arrives in one location its spread depends on the environment with densely packed areas and the health conditions prevailing in a particular area playing their part. Both in New York and Detroit metro area this helped its faster spread in lower income densely packed areas.   ...

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Guido Westerwelle, foreign minister of Germany, and former head of the Free Democratic party, made another misstep by describing Germany's support for economic sanctions as a key factor in the fall of the Gaddafi regime. He did not credit NATO's military intervention as the main reason. Westerwelle opposed German support for NATO's military intervention and Germay abstained in a UN security council meeting vote to authorize military force in protecting Libyans from Gaddafi's regime. The results of this policy are seen as diminishing Germany's international image, and seen as isolating it from its allies in Europe and NATO. The new head of the FDP, Phillip Rosler came out strongly to credit NATO for the military intervention, saying: "our deep respect and thanks goes to our allies, who decisively thwarted Gaddafi's murderous units." German chancellor Merkel sidestepped the issue by crediting NATO for its leadership. FDP's rank and file supporters believe that voters will hold the party to account for this and other missteps by Westerwelle. Former German foreign minister, and former Green's party leader Joschka Fischer told Der Spiegel magazine: this was "perhaps the biggest foreign policy debacle in Germany's post-war history." ...

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The suicide of celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain who had a popular television program, brings new attention to the increase in middle age suicides ages 45 to 64 in the U.S.  The CDC figures show a 60% increase for women and 37% for men between 2000 and 2016. A clinical instructor in psychiatry and medicine at Cornell, Ms. Boardman says life satisfaction is low at this age,a dip in satisfaction called the U curve. A 2016 study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine  shows stress factors as problems with intimate partners job/finances, health, family, and criminal/legal problems.  The demographic group driving suicide rates up is mainly white people without a 4 year college degree, who have done poorly compared to that group in a previous generation, say experts at Columbia University. 

Generally isolation and loneliness is also a factor, and social connections a big antidote to depression type stress.