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Labor in the U.S. stood firm in its opposition to bills in Congress granting fast track trade authority and promoting the TPP trade agreement. The bill failed to clear the House of Representatives as labor unions lobbied hard against the legislation. For the first time public sector unions of teachers, firefighters, and other service workers actively worked with industrial labor unions. This is a result of a realization in labor unions that the decline of communities with the closing of plants reduces the demand for public sector workers, and reduces the revenues of cities leading to cuts in services for firefighters, teachers. The low wages in manufacturing with globalization, also reduces the support of factory workers for higher wages for teachers, firefighters and other public sector workers. Also adding to support for workers is the realization that the investment in infrastructure is now a higher priority, as experts say most of the gains in trade are already behind us. A general feeling that the decline in U.S. manufacturing is not good for the country, the difficulty of competing with countries which do not enforce rules for fair practice and treatment of workers, and a general sense that the lowering of wages in manufacturing is both hurting the middle class and increasing inequality, also have created support in the media....

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U.S. president elect Trump meets with the heads of tech businesses on Dec. 14, 2016. CEO's of Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft were present. Trump was exuberant about the advantages secured by U.S. tech companies in global business, saying- "there's nobody like you in the world. Anything that the government can do to help this go along, we're going to be there for you." The discussions covered need for more vocational education, advantages and disadvantages of trade with China, and immigration. Quarterly meetings of this type are now planned with a smaller group organized by Jared Kushner to cover immigration and education.  Jeff Bezos of Amazon described the meeting as "very productive." Bezos says he told the group that the best way was to use innovation to create jobs outside of tech in agriculture, infrastructure, manufacturing elsewhere, to create large number of jobs. Ginni Rometty, CEO of IBM, and other executives are part of the Strategic and Policy Forum set up to provide business input to the president. ...

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Jim Tankersley in the NYT says administration officials point out that president Biden is determined not to repeat the political and economic mistakes of the Obama era. Economists now say that these economic mistakes slowed the recovery from the 2008 financial crisis caused by faulty mortgages of banks and excessive leveraging. Obama cut back on spending on education, on relief for workers and families affected by the financial crisis of 2008, and in investing in education and other public goods. Administration officials also point to polls that show the public increasingly sides with the president on this. "The American people are absolutely right in saying that having the super wealthy and special interests pay their fair share is the right way to cut the deficit," says a communications adviser to the National Economic Council. Huge social gaps opened up in America with these economic mistakes, including the transfer of America's manufacturing base to China, an overconcentration in one country that is only now being reversed under president Biden. Jim Tankersley has covered this loss of opportunity for American workers for over a decade. ...

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The average price of a smartphone in India in 2022 was $206 excluding taxes, Apple's smartphones go for $898. With discounts Apple is now bringing the price down to below $500. In 2019 phones over $500 made up 3% of the market. This has increased to 6% in 2022. Apple is counting on this share of the market going up and prices being brought down below $500 to build a larger share of the market. Its market in 2023 is about 5% in India compared to 22% in China.

In China Apple has its own stores. It is only now opening its first store in Mumbai. This and building manufacturing facilities in India could be the way to increase its share of the market in India to where it provides an alternative comparable to the Chinese market. This is the first time after the pandemic and the supply chain issues, the idea of friendshoring, that Apple is reorienting its policy for making India a key part of its supply chain and market. 

 

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The contrast between Carlos Tavares and Elon Musk can be seen in this exchange between Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk. Carlos Tavares plans a big manufacturing effort for Stellantis in electric cars- 75 models by 2030- with a very different culture than that of Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk, that builds on the dignity of each worker and family. Social media is used by Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk for their own benefit, by manipulating culture and beliefs including how capital of society should be allocated away from HEIRS (Health, Education, Infrastructure, Retirees, and Societal needs). Absent Mr. Musk America would still be producing electric cars as is evident from the intense competition between the major car companies and their complete switch to electric on a scale needed for tackling climate change. Who is the better role model for young people in the US or Europe? Carlos Tavares with his simplicity and caring for dignity of workers or Donald Trump, Elon Musk with their rancorous exchanges and comments, and extravagant behaviour.     ...

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Viewing people as "pass throughs for units of fiscal stimulus" that is no longer an option, no longer wise, no longer possible. Brian Deese, US president Biden's economic adviser, uses this sentence as he describes the approach of president Biden in putting together a $2 trillion plan to invest in infrastructure and in the people of America. He compares 2009 to 2021 and talks about the differences then and now after the pandemic. The coronavirus pandemic exposed all the weak spots in the American fabric and society and in the way national life was organized. Today the pain is felt in socio economic groups throughout the country.    US president Biden wants to make a decisive impact with large investments in infrastructure, education, health and jobs. In American manufacturing competitiveness and in America's technological advancement. The investments made in 2009 were in simple recovery mode, this time the investments are intended to bring America back to its position in the world after 1945, the hope and the optimism for a better future. ...

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The crowded sports stadiums for soccer games during early February in the Lombardy region accelerated the spread of coronavirus in Italy by the end of February. The sports stadiums soccer games spread the virus like wildfire in northern Italy. This is why along with nursing homes, sports stadiums pose the greatest threat from coronavirus. The tens of thousands of people from a single game can contaminate as many as 40,000 or 50,000 people as these 10,000 people go on subways, restaurants and other places. This spreads to millions very quickly creating a wildfire effect. Airports and sports stadiums or music venues, theatres have this wildfire spreading effect that is then compounded by the use of public transport and restaurants other close proximity places, spreading it far and wide. These are also not essential activities as work and office, employees working at companies or in manufacturing, which are essential to the economy.  This is why in terms of priority sports and leisure travel can be deferred till a vaccine is developed. Business travel is increasingly being substituted by using videoconferencing and other ways of staying in touch remotely. ...

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President Biden is determined to stop the further loss of jobs in the US. He has sent Yellen to China to communicate this. India, the UK and Argentina are opening investigations into China's dumping of goods in their countries. Chile is considering new tariffs. Brazil and Indonesia are feeling the impact. They are joining the EU and the US to fight the danger posed by dumping by China. To offset a large property market bust China is pushing more investment in factories leading to overcapacity in markets, much of the product then ends up at lower prices in other markets around the world putting companies out of business in home countries and loss of millions of jobs. Couldn't other countries do the same. The US is taking that approach to support its own industries. Economists and business leaders in the US who have never felt the pain from factories closing have let America down with textbook theory that ignored this leading to the loss of 2 million jobs in the 2000 era, with failed presidents since then ceding American advantage in manufacturing.  ...

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Fei Fei Lee and John Etchemendy co-founders of Stanford Univeristy's Institute for Human-centred Artificial Intelligence the public sector needs to lead AI development.  Acceptance and advocacy by the people at Stanford University that AI is too important to be left to the private sector. That like space exploration conducted by NASA and the Hoover Dam and Tennessee Valley Authority during the Depression, the Erie Canal in the mid nineteenth century, some work is better done by the public sector. For this to happen Stanford needs to accept its position as one of the many great educational and cultural institutions of this country not what Silicon Valley and the Reagan era hand it to being its preeminent beneficiary and representative. This marks a change at Stanford after thinking long and hard about the dangers to America that have emerged from the Reagan era thought that took in its fold Democrats like Clinton and Obama- the 2009 financial crisis fueled by deregulation and defunding of infrastructure and manufacturing, that laid the seeds for America's downward spiral.  ...

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It took 25 years for the US to recover from the 1929 stock market disaster and the Great Depression. It took Japan 25 years to recover from the 1989 stock market collapse and the lost decades since. It is finally emerging from that period with a healthier economy and business structures. China faces a situation today of a struggling economy after years of excessively rapid growth that hurt the environment and climate and health. And the uncertainty that faced Japan after 1989 also faces China in 2024- growth is never linear over very long periods and has pull backs that could stretch for decades much too familiar for Japan. For India there are lessons to be learned from Japan's and China's experience. In environment not to risk polluting the environment as China experienced with breakneck unchecked growth, to be mindful of bringing up all sectors and parts of the population, and to manage growth so that the basic instability that resulted from excessive shift to China of manufacturing and deindustrialization in US that led to worsening trade and people to people relations between US and China is not repeated. ...

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Asians are highly overrepresented. Hispanic communities are underrepresented in the UC California system colleges but still make up more than whites at 36% of the UC colleges. Whites make up about 17% and are also underepresented. There are imbalances all around and large investment is needed badly at the public school levels to motivate white and minority students who have fallen behind. Strengthening reading comprehension skills by pouring in new resources is a first and fundamental step to give whites and minorities a better chance- it can be done. There are three times as many white families that make less than $50,000 a year as Black and Hispanic families showing huge income gaps in the white segment. Universities by taking into account socioeconomic factors can help bring a more diverse socio economic class than a racially diverse class. This helps the white community after the outsourcing of US manufacturing and shrinking of the white middle class from being highly underrepresented in universities. The black communities have about 2% of the UC colleges with about 5% of the California population. ...

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On the eve of 2024 elections on a scale never seen in the world from Rajasthan desert to Himalayan mountains to the sea, PM's site looks at the themes for development that have evolved into slogans and captured the imagination of India. Development For All, Development With All, is the "Sabka Vikas, Sabka Sath" slogan that has captured the imagination and vision of the young generation of Indians. For development at speed and scale to reach 2047 with the transformation of India into a modern nation with infrastructure and per capita incomes similar to the US, EU, China or Japan. 2047 is the centenary year marking 100 years of India as an independent nation. In the interview with ANI shown alongside PM Modi discusses the problems of modernization of a region of immense diversity, history, and cultures. 2047 providing a point of focus for achieving the transformation, a transformation that is being taken up with the cooperation and support of the US and the European Union that are building a new supply chain which integrates India as a major manufacturing nation . ...

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Temperatures not seen or ever recorded by weather monitoring systems of 126 degrees Fahrenheit in New Delhi, India's capital May 30, 2024. This is 52.3 degrees Centigrade, with dangerous sweltering heat across all of northern India. Delhi's Lt. Governor called for paid leave for Delhi construction workers for 1-3 pm. Election rallies in India's general election drawing huge crowds even in such sweltering heat shows the impatience of the population of over 1 billion people with corruption and poor governance in some states and the efforts by prime minister Modi to ensure good governance and large investments for modernization of the Indian economy in infrastructure and transportation, logistics and manufacturing. It may be astounding to realize that voting still reached 68-71% of eligible voters in such weather conditions. India is the fastest growing economy in the world and now a beacon of progress in the middle of stalled efforts throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America following the pandemic, yet it too faces challenges from climate change just as severe as in the rest of the world with heat waves, floods and wildfires. ...

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 Robert Costa CBS: Are you worried about the Senate majority? It's a narrow majority for you right now. What's your candid assessment about the Senate majority and Democratic chances? Chuck Schumer, US Senate Majority Leader:  My candid assessment is we're going to not only win the Senate, but we have a good chance to pick up a seat or two. Our candidates, our senators, are running on their records of accomplishment. And that's why they're running ahead of even the national ticket. Because when they show all the good stuff we're bringing to their states, through the infrastructure bill, through the Chips and Science Bill, was so many good new manufacturing jobs, through bringing broadband to rural areas for the first time, where rural areas desperately needed. You know, Franklin Roosevelt said in the 1930s, electricity was a necessity and brought it to them. We're doing the same thing with broad bands, which in the 21st century is a necessity-- ...

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The US tariff on China made EV"s imported into the US is 100%. The EU has a 10% tariff. It has now imposed additional tariffs that range from 17% to 38% depending on its investigation with Chinese companies on how much support they get from the Chinese government as hidden subsidies. This move is to level the playing field. The result is that BYD faces a 17% tariff because it has operated relatively on its own. For Geely and SAIC it goes up to 38%. The tariff on European companies making EV's in China and exporting them is additional 21%. US carmakers (GM and Ford) have only a small presence in the Chinese car market compared to the Europeans who  make and sell 3 million luxury cars in the Chinese market (BMW, Audi, Mercedes Benz). About 25% of EV's sold in Europe are now China made EV's. The EU wants to level the playing field so that local makers maintain a strong presence in their home markets. The US with no significant car manufacturing presence in China of Ford, GM to protect is taking stronger action. ...

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George Washington is cited for his emphasis on preparedness and preparation for conflict as critical to preserve peace, or to defend America's role in the world as the first Republic based on a simple idea in the Declaration of Independence. Much of the war with Britain in the late1770's depended on the careful and many years of preparation done by Washington. Washington's diaries tell the story day by day of the preparations over years and the final months that won the war at Yorktown in 1781 that no one not the British were aware of- the logistics of moving the army from the south to the north, of equipment and training.  Roger Wicker, leading Republican on Senate Armed Services Committee has a plan- add $55 billion for defense in 2025, Add 357 ships for Navy and 340 fighters for Air Force by 2035. Do the $180 billion backlog for maintenance of the defense forces. Raise the military spending from 2.9% to 5% over 5-7 years as a parallel effort to investing in infrastructure and manufacturing at home. ...

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Harris attended the Munich Security Conference 3 years in a row and met with world leaders in the last 2 years. She has also learned from working with Biden who was over a period of 30 years chairman or senior most member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. No other president comes close. Harris has as foreign policy adviser Phillip Brown who did his PhD. on French Gaullist security policy. Her close links and great understanding of India are also an asset as India is a key part of US policy in Asia with Japan and Australia, and is expected to be the third largest economy in the world over the next decade. This will help in setting economic policy along with foreign policy. Under Biden domestic policy worked hand in hand with foreign policy to achieve domestic policy goals of industrial strength and manufacturing in the US. Harris is likely to continue this policy approach. Harris is a close observer and learner of the conduct of economic policy under Biden, and can add in some ways to bring fresh look at foreign policy. ...

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France's former president who preceded Macron was Francois Hollande of the Socialist party. Macron was a socialist party member from Amiens and a member of Hollande's cabinet, choosing to challenge Hollande with his own newly created party EN Marche just months before the election of  2016. This party is relabeled the Renaissance or Ensemble in 2024. Francois Hollande, 69 years, was elected in 2024 Assembly elections with 43% of the vote from Correze, and speaks for the NFP Front Populaire which defeated the Macron Ensemble and the RN National Rally to be the largest party in the National Assembly. Here he talks about the snap elections, the failure of Macron for working families struggling to make a living, and the responsibility to the French Nation of the Front Populaire, the need for cost of living actions to lift the burdens on working families, and the need to stand up for working people across the country. Today the NFP is the only party that calls for investing $140 billion in the French economy, in manufacturing, in infrastructure and public services, for climate change action. ...

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The US central bank's, the Fed's head Jerome Powell, says about the US economy in the beginning of October 2024- "Overall, the economy is in solid shape; we intend to use our tools to keep it there.”  Overall the Fed's governors on its board have a relatively favorable economic outlook- “this is not a committee that feels like it’s in a hurry to cut rates quickly,” says Powell. The Fed has the same idea of common sense for the economy, common sense for what works to reduce cost of living and increase investments in the US manufacturing and industry, that the Biden administration and Harris have adopted. The thrust of the Fed's policy says Powell is focused on bringing interest rates down to a level that neither spurs nor slows economic activity. Each action is based on observation of data and taken with the goal of the wellbeing of the People of the US, and Nation as a whole.   ...

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There are four pillars to this fight Biden and Harris are now waging. Biden tackled infrastructure by getting the Congress to pass the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act to put trillions of dollars into rebuilding aging and dilapidated American roads, bridges, airports, ports, rural internet. This also tackled Manufacturing and factory jobs in the US neglected for 3 decades, the second pillar. The third pillar for Biden was getting American wages that had fallen behind to catch up by supporting labor in wage negotiations.  Something was missing as Cost of Living for housing, childcare, remained. This is where Harris has stepped in with Jerome Powell of the Fed. Powell cutting interest rates to make housing more accessible and Harris putting in $25,000 for first time homeowners for a down payment, build 3 million new homes, $6000 for childcare for parents, and $50,000 for small businesses to start. Specific programs at specific targets in FDR type "bold, persistent experimentation" activity. Put together the four pillars mean giving strength to the US economy which Powell says is "in solid shape." ...

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DJT and Treasury's Scott Bessent taking a "call" not a "put" on the economy March 2025. Tariffs as short term bargaining chip, primarily domestic policy on CMC (Canada, Mexico and China) tolerance for fentanyl flows into the US. Taking fentanyl, drug trafficking, and migrant trafficking out of the Nation, will revive the spirit of America's neighborhoods across America's vast landscape. It is incumbent on CMC countries, Canada, Mexico and China, to stop fentanyl flows into the US across their borders that have caused hundreds of thousands of American deaths. Tariffs are a last resort for America to get action and save America's neighborhoods from this scourge. Investment in the US manufacturing in the private sector as the long term policies shape the economy, the cutting of waste in spending, have the potential of reviving the economy and leading a second stage of growth led now by the private sector investment after the government led spending under the Biden administration on restoring American infrastructure. ...

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DJT announces actions on Liberation Day, April 2, 2025 freeing America on attacks on its manufacturing base and its workers for 50 years since the 1970's. He announces reciprocal tariffs on all nations with large trading imbalances with the US, a 34% tariff on China and a 20% tariff on all imports from the European Union. These nations he says have taken advantage of the US and looted and pillaged the US workers and communities for decades mainly because of the presidents who sat in the White House executive room and allowed this to happen. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent advised all trading nations-  "My advice to every country right now is, do not retaliate." His advice- "sit back, take it in.... Because if you retaliate, there will be escalation". The US is in no mood to be lectured or retaliated when these countries including China, Japan, South Korea and the EU, Taiwan, India a list of about 20 nations have taken unfair advantage of the US in trade for 3 decades. ...

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DJT plans for 25% tariff on all imported cars goes into effect April 2, 2025. It is intended to promote additional investment in the US auto industry, boosting jobs and wages in the US. These countries have now wrapped their behavior around national sentiment even though they very well know how the US has looked out for Europe, and especially China throughout cataclysmic events in the 20th century and the 21st century such as foreign occupation and failures in modernization. By 2015 the US which had given Europe the Marshall Plan and helped Japan rebuild from the ashes of World War II, South Korea rebuild from the devastation of the Korean war, and China rebuild after the failed industrialization experiments of the 1960's and 1970's, was now facing nations that only saw this as a One Way Street, making the US look stupid and showing a degree of irresponsible behaviour on fentanyl, drug and migrant trafficking  by Canada Mexico and China that has few parallels in history. The narrative from the US is that the US allowed Europe, Japan and South Korea, and Mexico as a manufacturing base for these countries 25 years since the 1970's when Japanese Toyota vehicles made inroads into the US market to help these countries recover, a post Marshall Plan benefit given to Europe and Asia. During 1995-2015 a series of weak administrations Clinton-Bush-Obama allowed the US manufacturing base to decline under a falsely premised globalization that served US financial interests but hurt US manufacturing towns and communities across the country.  This means BMW, VW cars imported from Germany, Subaru, Toyota, Nissan, Honda cars from Japan, Hyundai and Kia cars from South Korea, Chinese EV vehicles, and cars made in Mexico for Asian and European makers, all will face this tariff. ...

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The US Federal Reserve Report on Economic Wellbeing of US Households 2024-May 2025 gives some insights into the well being of American households. It shows food insufficiency households the same in 2023-2025 at 7%. The situation for cost of living remains a concern in 2024 as well as 2025. Retirement savings have improved for many middle class Americans, as confirmed by reports from Fidelity and Vanguard. The people earning less than 25,000 are 19% and about the same in 2024 under Biden as under DJT in 2025. 39% make $100,000 or more and 26% make $50,000 -$100,000. Combining the 19% making less than $25,000 and the 16% making between $25,000 and $50,000 shows about one third of the population under $50,000 living paycheck to paycheck. It would appear that $2000 DJT rebate putting $160 billion out of $550 billion of tariff revenues for 2025-2026  in the hands of 79 million households that make less than $100,000 would go a long way to keep the situation stable with optimism and hope arising from the restructuring of world trade that would bring trillions of dollars of investment into the US from Europe and Asia. A this investment plus domestic investment should bring back jobs and higher incomes to US manufacturing in small towns across America. The rest of $550 billion tariff revenue of $390 billion would go to reducing the deficit which would improve prospects for the economy in 2027 and produce a more resilient economy in 2027-2028. As shown on this page the popular Democratic Governor of Michigan in her op-ed in Washington Post supports strategic tariffs, and supports using the revenue for a check to American workers of $2000 per worker or per worker household and offers to work with the opposite party to get a WIN-WIN for the American People.  In the whole process of trade tariffs it must be remembered when seeing the inconsistent cases of tariff use by this Republican administration that these were special reason situations not aberrations or whimsical. First, it should be borne in mind that behind the appearance of DJT making tariff decisions is a carefully thought out process that took ten years to form under Reagan era Trade Representative Lighthizer who negotiated with Japan, and his deputy Jamieson for 2016-2024, and the economic and capital markets experience of Scott Bessent as Treasury Secretary. The two cases of inconsistent application of tariffs relate to the 50% tariff on India and the reduction of tariffs on China agreement on rare earths, and the imposition of a large tarif on Japan and the EU. In the first instance with India it was intended to give Ukraine breathing room from Russian attacks as Germany steps up its military preparedness and assistance to Ukraine. With both countries it was about saving face important in Asian or any societies and it has achieved it's purpose. Reports show both Indian and Chinese refiners have quietly cut purchases of oil from Russia leading to Russian oil selling at about $20 discount to Brent crude oil. In the case of Japan the quick action to raise tariffs was intended not to get into long drawn negotiations and show serious intent- Japan is known for dragging out negotiations for years if not decades. The same is true for the European Union. With the Swiss it was about a certain disrespect of the US coming from attitudes that Swiss products were somehow superior. Not just in the long run, in 2026-2028 history will show that the effort done right - and it takes effort to get this right- to restructure world trade so that other nations are not siphoning off the benefits and leaving the US to lose its manufacturing and factories is the right one. And taken with courage and sincere desire to create a fair distribution of the benefits of world trade for too long distorted by egregious practices of competitors. It has nothing to do with 2 senators from the 1930's who were from places like the Mountain West in the US, having no concept of world trade, Smoot and Hawley, who under a irresponsible president Hoover got everything wrong. This is a carefully set out plan to evenly balance the benefits of world trade to all nations.   ...

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In Lithium ion batteries and key pharmaceutical ingredients, special semiconductors China is able to use the concentration of manufacturing capacity anc dependence on China to prevent the US and EU negotiating a way to recover lost supply chains. Supply chains that were carelessly turned over to China, a developing country at that time, by business executives of the US and EU in the 1990-2020 period who lacked vision and foresight. China's policy is to increase the dependence of US and EU, to tighten this dependence to achieve its goals. XI Jinping says WSJ wrote in a 2020 essay- that he wasn't for weaponizing it but that China must “tighten the dependence of international industrial chains on our country” so that it would be a way to respond and create negotiating room for continued access to technologies and markets in the US and EU were the US and EU to make efforts to recover the supply chains they had inadvertently and carelessly turned over to China. This action by US and EU business executives should be considered one of the major and ignominous failures of American and European business management of that period 1990-2020 which has made it difficult to even make the initial effort to recover these lost supply chains. As with the banks in the 2009 financial crisis that generation of management continues to operate as if nothing has happened.  ...