LyrArc Article Gist
75 years of the NATO alliance France looks at its new role.

LyrArc Article Gist
How quickly things can change - Italy is now growing faster than Germany or France. The construction industry is booming with energy efficient home renovation. The superbonus 110 is a payment by the Italian government for energy efficient housing improvements. The government pays 65% of the cost to homeowners making better energy efficient renovations plus 10%. As introduced by the Five Star movement government it was 100% plus additional 10%. Giorgia Meloni's government lowered it to 65% from 75% in 2023. This has boosted the construction industry in Italy and revived Italy's growth where it is growing faster than France and Germany. Germany is seeing about 0.3% growth compared to 0.7% predicted by OECD for Italy in 2024. Giorgia Meloni the new Italian prime minister, after Mario Draghi a central banking official, has continued Draghi's policies and provided a measure of stability and leadership to the government.  Much of the capital comes from the $216 billion or $200 billion euros that will be given to Italy from the COVID Recovery Fund. Italy is the largest recipient. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
 Americans in the southern states forget that president Kennedy made the famous statement about "a rising tide lifts all boats" in Arkansas, a poor southern state, saying that America must invest in all regions in people in all parts not just in well off northeastern states. In a handful of southern states expanding Medicaid to about $43,000 or 138% of the federal poverty level for a family of four is now being taken up by Republican leaders who show new openness- in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi. Noah Weiland -of NYT looks at one particular battle -between Democrat Governor Laura Kelly in Kansas and Republican Speaker Hawkins- in Topeka, Kansas, where the fight goes on. Hawkins calling it the greatest Ponzi scheme devised and Kelly telling this reporter that she has included a work requirement so there is no excuse for not doing this. Republicans are coming around and so are states in other places. Missouri, Nebraska, and Oklahoma, states that lie next to Kansas have approved this through ballot initiatives. The point here is that in the years as America comes out of the pandemic there is and should rightly be a realization that this is different, that the children of low income families deserve as equal a chance as their higher income fellow Americans, that depriving them of good medical care makes America a weaker country. As Jerome Powell of the US Fed said in Stanford today about Kennedy's expression of "lifting all boats," it is just this that is needed today. It will be the No.1 election issue in Kansas in 2024, says Governor Kelly. The Republicans are also having second thoughts and are now just face saving. Consider that the Kansas Health Institute a research group, says 70% of the people becoming eligible for Medicaid expansion are working. Many are restaurant business workers who cannot provide proper medical care to children who form the next generation of America. And hiring in rural hospitals would expand for health workers instead of layoffs in southern states lifting financial strain on rural healthcare with additional Medicaid funds. This helps rural America when it needs it most. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Rising home prices are leading to higher property taxes in Colorado. A surge of new people coming to Colorado has meant higher property taxes of much as 40% for those already living in the state. David Chen talked to residents in the state and found a retiree, a former X-Ray technician retired for 20 years, facing a 20% rise in property taxes in Littleton, Colorado, and having to sell some of her stuff to meet the higher cost. For retirees in Colorado and across the Rocky mountain states- where people have moved to from California and the Northeast  paying higher prices for homes- living on Social Security checks is particularly hard these days. In Montana property taxes went up by 40-50% in some counties in 2023. Democrat Governor Polis says just because your home price goes up by 40% does't mean you have 40% more cash to pay taxes, your income may be up 10-12%. For retirees on Social Security checks alone it is only the inflation coverage in those checks. The situation is also true for Arizona and Utah with many newcomers and the trend for hybrid work adding to it. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Where changes are being made that make America stronger business leaders wholeheartedly support and value the president's work and the people on his team working on it. Brad Smith of Microsoft says of Biden on cybersecurity "he has done more in his presidency than any president ever." CEO's of auto companies (Stellantis, GM, Ford) and Intel CEO Geisinger value the investment the government is making for climate change transition and investments in rebuilding semiconductor manufacturing to level the playing field with China, something the US Chamber of Commerce never advocated. It is the policy officer of the US Chamber of Commerce who uses the word "complicated" because the positions taken by the US Chamber of Commerce are at odds with what the American people need, or are demanding of the president. If one is talking about large oil companies, so called Tech companies such as Google and Apple that are not paying their fair share of taxes, and Pharma companies that are charging exorbitant prices, the president is only doing what is best for the American people. One could see this in the recent Senate hearings with Big Pharma companies ,when out of sheer frustration the senior Republican senator Mike Braun of Indiana warned the Pharma companies, that they were following a path that he other Republicans could no longer support. Banks faced tighter regulation because of banking crises including the 2009 crisis caused by the banks that hurt workers and middle class. Business relations with the Biden administration are being shaped then by a new vision for America and the American people, to point to a brighter future, not to pull back to the past. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
"Once social change begins it cannot be reversed. You cannot uneducate a person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate a person who feels pride." The United Farmworkers union was formed by migrant farm workers Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta to bring decent wages and good working conditions for farm labour in the US, with most of the work done in California farm areas. March 31st is now Cesar Chavez Day in the US with a Biden proclamation. His niece is shown in the adjoining article as an adviser in the White House and now campaign manager for 2024. She is a softspoken Latina who grew up around Chavez in the fields and farm pickup trucks of the sixties and seventies, as shown in the Washington Post on this page. Biden has proposed an overtime rule for farmworkers, and ensuring farm workers get a fair wage and decent working conditions is the goal of the White House- including recovering $21 million in back pay and wages ensuring 26,000 farm workers get the wages they earned. And remaining steadfast says Biden to ensure workers get paid sick leave, good working conditions. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Of Julia Chavez Rodriguez Biden says she is the organizer. "It is a little bit in her blood, Cesar Chavez is her grandfather." Julia Chavez Rodriguez is a softspoken Latina who heads the Biden Campaign with the support of the Biden team, O'Malley, Donilon, and Ricchetti. Here she recalls being in the back of meetings, going to rides in Los Angeles, getting arrested at age 9 for leafletting in New Jersey. Julia Chavez 45 years, has worked for a Colorado senator, the Obama administration, Kamal Harris campaign, and now Biden.

LyrArc Article Gist
A problem for Tesla is that it has no response for competition from German, Japanese or South Korean imports of EV vehicles. Its last new model was in 2020 a cybertruck priced at $85000 and the next new car model is slated for 2026, says this NYT report. Tesla models are priced at $45,000 as competitors from Asia are cutting costs and prices rapidly. Competitors BYD, VW and BMW, Kia, plan to introduce new models much faster. BYD has its own battery technology and makes its own batteries, so that it can cut cost. The result in the first quarter 2024 Tesla sales declined to 387,000 from 423,000 in 2023, BYD's increased by 13% to 300,000, with an additional 324,000 hybrid cars up 15%. Consumer Reports says the controls are all from the screen make a Tesla harder to drive as other cars have switches and other controls. 

LyrArc Article Gist
France's $1.5 billion project to make the river Seine safe for swimming in the Olympics is shown in this WSJ video.

LyrArc Article Gist
William Galston in WSJ points to the failure of governance as the cause of so much of the uncertainty and sense of unease felt by people in America, not decline in religion. He looks back and sees wars in the Middle East under Reagan, Bush, Obama and Trump that wasted resources while neglecting the rebuilding of infrastructure and investing in education and healthcare. Tech monopolies have not led to better educated citizens, and instead lowered the literacy required for a democracy to function well, leaving sites like Lyarac.com with the hard work of doing this. The 2009 financial crisis led to financial speculation by Banks and hurt the middle class. The shipping out of manufacturing destroyed hope for workers in America's factories. The pandemic caused about a million deaths.It is only now that America is coming out of it. Supply chain disruptions have led to higher cost of living. President Biden is taking action on each of these problems and the plan is bringing hope to the middle class, restoring America's manufacturing base, investing in infrastructure in a way that has not happened since the 1950's and 1960's, and investing in healthcare and education.  This not looking to religion is what would restore faith in the Nation and the democracy that America is, for the US and no less for the world, says Galston. Behind the cultural issues is a deep sense of ignoring the needs of the middle class and the workers in America's factories, and the people in lower income groups. It is now about restoring the spirit of the New Frontier of John F. Kennedy that was our misfortune to be cut short in 1963, about an America ready to meet the new challenges it faces from now on to 2050. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
US president Biden calls president Xi of China on April 2, the first call after the two met at the April Summit for extensive discussions and agreements reached. In it Biden continued discussion on topics related to Taiwan, the South China Sea and also raised the issue of China indirectly helping Russia build its defense capability in Ukraine.

LyrArc Article Gist
This article in the New Yorker questions the judgement of CEO Reginald Jones in picking Jack Welch as CEO of General Electric in 1981. Over two decades Welch fired many of the company's employees, and built up the finance business with GE Capital, resulting in the near collapse of the company in the financial crisis of 2009. Welch's legacy happened during the period Reagan took office in 1980 when Welch was made new CEO and covers that period for three decades of the Reagan and post Reagan years that led to a period of deindustrialization of America as financial and speculative business took the place of manufacturing. Factories were shipped out to China and other countries and America lost its industrial base. It is only now that the damage done is being addressed as under president Biden GE Vernova is building turbines for energy and is called a purpose company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to accelerate the transition to clean energy. The other part new CEO Larry Culp heads as head of GE Aerospace, two separate companies. In 2018 it was taken off the Dow Jones Averages. This is a story that is true, and one that did great damage to America and the American people, to its workers and families, to it's factories and it's infrastructure. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Once a pioneer in X ray machines and jet engines General Electric fell into disrepute under Jack Welch when the company hid low earnings in industrial businesses by setting up its financial business. The 2009 financial crisis hit GE hard. Years of deleveraging followed after exit of the financial business. In 2018 it exited the Dow Jones Industrial Averages. Larry Culp of Danaher joined GE as new CEO of GE in 2018. He sold the healthcare business to Danaher for $21 billion. After about $100 billion in deleveraging the remaining company was split into two companies GE Aerospace led by Culp and GE Energy called GE Vernova a purpose built company led by Scott Strazik headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. GE Vernova is focused on wind turbines and renewable energy, its purpose to accelerate the energy transition and advance sustainability. The new GE is itself a return to the old days when GE was a pioneer and powered America's industrial base, not the company of deindustrialization of Jack Welch of the 1980's Reagan and post Reagan period when investing in financial and speculative business made GE to lose its purpose and go astray. For Culp and others the realization of the failure of policies that deindustrialized America and shifted factories to China after Thatcher and Reagan was a lesson learned. It is now the story of an America on the move under president Biden. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
World Central Kitchen a major relief agency for food aid to Gaza is now in difficult conditions in supplying food aid to Gaza after bombing leading to deaths of  aid workers. The US and EU make condemnations of the incidents.

LyrArc Article Gist
See these really remarkable black and white pictures of what happens in a period of decay for industrialized economies as old industries die out- as happened in the UK,  in the US with communities left without hope. Only now with Biden and Starmer a new sense of purpose for the US and UK to correct what went woefully wrong- no plans for transition to new industries and outshoring of the nation's industrial base. This exhibition of 20/20 of photos taken by Kilip and Smith in black and white is at the Parr Gallery in Bristol, UK- you can see it here by clicking on original article right now. It is the failure to plan for the transition that has led the Conservatives from Thatcher onwards to the situation today, and a similar situation in the US from Reagan onwards. The haphazard transition has let China take the lead in new industries with government support. Only now is America under Biden making a real transition and backing up new industries for factory jobs with government support and planning for the next 10 years. Britain with the Conservatives in charge is without a clue and financially strapped- the mood in Birtiain is now for Labour under Starmer to right things the way Biden is doing in the US.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
For anyone trying to understand the Middle East read the gripping story told in Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's own words-"The Great Speech- Nutuk," it is on Kindle Amazon. It shows week after week  Mustafa Kemal as he fought the colonial powers  the British and the French, and then turned a Caliphate into a modern country. If the Vietnamese who fought the French were seen by JFK in the way he saw Ataturk (hear JFK's words on Ataturk in Lyrarc.com) then there would be no Vietnam War. Ataturk's Republican People's Party in opposition for 2 decades wins by a landslide in Turkey's main cities- in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Bursa and Antalya. In Istanbul Ekrem Imamoglu wins by a margin of 11.5 percentage points. In Ankara Mansur Yavas wins by a margin of 28 percentage points. Voter turnout was 78% surpassd only by the 87% turnout in the presidential election. Imamoglu is now the contender for the presidency. This is a delayed reaction by voters to the economy with inflation having reached 86% in February and a slowdown in growth, with hardships for ordinary families. Ozgur Ozel, 52 years, replaced an aging civil servant Kilicdaroglu who hung to leadership for 13 years losing repeatedly to Mr. Erdogan and not able to exceed a 25% of the votes. Imamoglu supported Ozel to change leadership of the party founded by Kemal Ataturk in fighting for Turkey's independence from foreign powers in the 1920's. Under Ozel-Imamoglu leadership the Republican party won 38% of the vote to 35% for Erdogan's Justice Party. This is a historic win and sets Turkey on a new path, which could also set a new path for the Arab nations in the Middle East because of the tone of moderation and modernization, good governance, scientific mind, set by Kemal Ataturk. Hear JFK's remarks on the 25th anniversary of Ataturk in Lyrarc.com. If JFK had said the same for another nation building effort in Vietnam similar to that of Ataturk there would be no Vietnam War but a negotiated peace- that is if Kennedy was alive and his life not cut short in 1963.  Few people in US and Europe even know how Kemal Ataturk founded the Republic in the place of the Caliphate type of structure in Ottoman Empire, and defended his homeland from the French and British colonial powers who sought to dismember Turkey, then the remaining parts of the Ottoman Turk Empire. It is told in his own words in the Kindle book "The Great Speech Nutuk," and it is a story that is gripping in its detail of the fight against colonial powers effort to dismember Turkey in the 1920's and even maintain the old Ottoman structures to their benefit. The story is told as if it was happening right in front of our eyes. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Manchester City, Liverpool and Arsenal have not been this close for a decade as they  compete for the Premier League title.

LyrArc Article Gist
The Federal Railroad Administration and the DOT agencies now require that there be 2 person crew on all freight trains to ensure railway safety. Accidents have taken place in recent years requiring action. Over 50 years we have observed that cost cutting that undermines safety, costcutting that forgets or ignores the process needed for quality, only leads to higher costs sometimes in the billions of dollars and loss of public goodwill. A freight train with toxic materials derailed in Ohio last year causing much loss of goodwill with local communities and impacting the health of residents. Workers form a key part of the processes that generate products not just machines, respecting the dignity and health of workers, providing the training and work hours that improve quality and concentration are essential. Companies and executives do well only when this is made to happen.