LyrArc Article Gist
After elections this week in Germany the CDU may be faced with forming a government with the BSW socialist party an unlikely pair. Germany's political leader Sarah Wagenknecht considers the policy of letting migrants in to be "highly problematic", and making it difficult to focus on help for workers and families. Wagenknect says - "Not because people don't deserve a better life, but because our country is simply overburdened as a result."  She pursues a social policy that follows common sense on behalf of the working class and unions, and follows socialist policies for better incomes and benefits for workers. This is new to Germany says DW.com, yet it is not true for the EU. Neighboring Denmark for example has prime minister Mette Hendriksen who has said the same thing about migrants, opposing entry because it leaves the workers worse off than before and presents both a burden and a huge distraction from the many issues the working class face today. The Democrats in the US also are coming to the same conclusion as president Biden and Harris have moved to secure the Border with Mexico and cut unlawful migrant flows to a trickle in 2024.  These shifts will affect Scholz and the SPD party in 2025, as well as the FDP and Greens as they lose popularity in the former East Germany.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
After the war ended there was concern about jobs for the returning troops by the millions from the war in Europe. Joblessness had increased under Harry Truman to the point that his popularity dropped to 22% by 1951. Truman's Commission for Miratory Labor pointed out that immigration was causing social ills and increasing joblessness in the southwest. When Eisenhower was elected in 1952 there was opposition from unions in addition to small farms to migratory labor. In 1954 Operation Wetback was launched to return 1 million migrants back to Mexico.

Note that throughout 1910 to 1950 the US completely restricted Chinese, Indian, and Asian migration to America, even though the Chinese labor helped build the transcontinental railroad.  

LyrArc Article Gist
After renegotiating the trade deal with Mexico and Canada, and the Phase 1 trade deal with China, the U.S. is now setting its sights on a trade agreement with the European Union. To do this the U.S. is looking at the use of economic pressure including tariffs on the European automobile industry. One goal is to get the EU to do more to end state subsidies to aircraft maker Airbus SE.  The U.S. is also working with Europe and Japan to ban 4 types of subsidies under World Trade Organization rules under a new proposal. Mr. Phil Hogan is the new EU trade commissioner who backs this proposal that is aimed at restricting Chinese subsidies to state enterprises. The U.S. also wants to see agricultural issues, including tariffs discussed in future negotiations with Europe. As part of efforts to change the way World Trade Organization rules are set the U.S. has blocked the appointment of judges at the top court of the WTO so that it lacks the quorum to operate. Mr. Vaughan who works under Mr. Lighthizer in the trade negotiations with Europe, says the Europeans should take U.S. concerns seriously, and accept the possibility that Mr. Trump could take aggressive action if the facts show he is justified in acting in that manner.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
As Neil Irwin points out in the NYT the effects of the steel tariffs announced by president Trump are negligible on the U.S. economy- the impact of $30 billion in steel imports and $17 billion imports of aluminium on a $20 trillion economy. As Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross pointed out in a television interview it is the impact of a fraction of a penny on a food can, and tenths of one percent in the price of a new car.  What markets when settling down look at is the facts from how situations were handled from tariffs on solar panels to action on NAFTA. Twitter comments of Trump have not reflected actual policy as it was carried out as Neil Irwin points out. On tariffs for solar panels this has fitted in with action from preceding administrations says Irwin and also fits in with Trump administration policy to send a message when lower prices subsidized by foreign governments hurt U.S. producers. On NAFTA Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and other key economic advisers around Trump have acted along with the calls from prime minister Trudeau and contacts with Economics minister Videgaray of Mexico, to a policy of making some changes to NAFTA, very different from the calls for rejecting NAFTA made earlier by president Trump.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
President Trump's focus in the State of the Union message in 2020 in the U.S. Congress was on what he had done for U.S. prestige and perception- "In three short years, we have shattered the mentality of American decline and we have rejected the downsizing of America's destiny. We have totally rejected the downsizing." "We are moving forward at a pace that was unimaginable just a short time ago, and we are never going back." The theme of the speech- "The Great American Comeback." No longer were other nations be allowed to take advantage of America, American interests would come first, and this also meant blue collar working families and middle class. Trade deals with Mexico and Canada, trade deal with China, reversing of the trade deficit, bringing back about 12,000 of the 60,000 thousand factories lost over two administrations Democratic and Republican of the last 16 years with many more factories in the pipeline, increasing jobs and incomes in an unprecedented way, were all the focus of the speech. The president basically sidestepped the impeachment for Ukraine policy and implementation, and focussed on the optimism from reversing American decline in trade, jobs, and manufacturing under past Republican and Democratic administrations.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
With majorities in both houses of parliament Lopez Obrador now has the mandate to come up with an independent position for Mexico on issues of NAFTA negotiation, and social programs to lift Mexico's poor and working class, come up with a new way to reduce violence and corruption in society.  Stakes are large in the relationship with the U.S. Mexico exported $340 billion of products to the U.S. and imported $276 billion in goods. The team of Mr. Obrador sees the need to plan conversations with the U.S. carefully recognizing that Mr. Trump is not a lunatic, but a man with a political plan, says Marcelo Ebard, a top adviser to Obrador. On migrants even as Mexico has detained 76,000 central American migrants Lopez Obrador sees Mexico as a nation of refuge, and says migrants rights must be respected. On NAFTA Obrador supports the current negotiations and will have his advisers present at the negotiations. Obrador says Mexico is a country with a lot of natural resources and wealth, so that "the demise of the existing NAFTA will not be fatal for Mexicans." ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Van Dam says its not that great being a worker in the U.S. because it is hard for the unemployed resulting from competing with workers in other countries with lower wages, and for those who are unemployed harder because worker collective bargaining is weakened over 3 decades. He cites a 296 page OECD report showing very little government support for unemployed and at risk American workers. It says this has contributed to higher income inequality and larger share of lower income people than almost any other advanced a nation. Only Spain and Greece are shown as having more households earning less than half the median income- showing large numbers of people are poor or close to being poor. In the U.S. an average of 1 in 5 lose their jobs each year, and 23% of workers 15 to 64 are in their job less than a year in 2016. The job churn hurts workers because of firing and layoffs being frequent, more than is healthy for a economy. The U.S. and Mexico are the only two countries not requiring advance notice before firings. And fewer than half of workers find a job within a year in the U.S. Two in three families with a displaced worker fall in poverty for some time. Unemployed workers with typically 26 weeks support get less support than any other country in the study. Only 12% of workers in U.S. are covered by collective bargaining. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Side work earns book royalties of $2 million for Barrett on "Listening to the Law" and Ketanji Jackson $3 million Sotomayor and Gorsuch also have books and royalty advances. This provides the public with a closer view of the Justices on the highest Court in the Nation. It also means Justices live a sheltered life away from the concerns of ordinary Americans about cost of living, cost of health care and pharmaceuticals, cost of childcare, cost of education, cost of fentanyl and other drug trafficking to American families and mothers. During the Depression only three Justices the most prominent of whom were Harlan Stone of New Hampshire and Wendell Holmes of Massachusetts supported New Deal legislation to provide government help with other Justices rejecting New Deal legislation right in the middle of the Great Depression when people were literally without food and shelter, without jobs and in despair. Today there is a permanent exhibition of Harlan Stone in the US Supreme Court for the longest service on the Court. It took till 1940 for FDR to appoint new Justices to get the Court to support the New Deal. Today Justice Barrett is a lone voice among Conservatives willing to listen to all opinions on both sides along with but more than Justice Roberts. This is heartening to both sides. Barrett like Justice Sandra O'Connor before her puts great importance on the Constitution's intent and wording, its pages are in her book. O'Connor from a rural ranch in Arizona carried the Constitution with her at all times and had her own books- the Lazy B about growing up on a ranch on the Arizona- New Mexico border in the middle of big country, big sky, so wide an expanse that she writes about it in her preface to her next book The Majesty of the Law citing Wallace Stegner. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
A Washington Post Univision poll in Feb. 2016 shows 8 of 10 Hispanic voters with a negative impression of Donald Trump, and 7 of these 10 having a "very unfavorable" impression of him. The poll shows Trump's standing with Hispanic voters deteriorating, with a Univision survey in summer 2015 showing 7 in 10 with a negative view, and 6 in 10 "very unfavorable." This is in line with Trump's increasing anti-immigration rhetoric and calls for a wall at the border paid for by Mexico, upping the anti-immigrant rhetoric in 2016.

LyrArc Article Gist
Electrolux acquires GE's appliance business for $3.3 billion in 2014. This follows competitor Whirlpool's acquisition of a majority stake in Italian company Indesit for $1 billion in 2014. The deal would raise Electrolux market share in the U.S. to 37% from about 20%. The CEO of Electrolux, Keith McLoughlin, says this enables Electrolux to use GE's capacity for washing machine production in the U.S. to avoid import duties of about 33% for imports from Mexico. He says GE's posiiton as the top maker for home builders in the U.S. is a major plus.

LyrArc Article Gist
Voices of ordinary Pakistanis from Lahore and Karachi to New York city on the issues facing Pakistan and the elections of 2013. A sense that Pakistan is about to change and hope that efforts will be made by the new government to tackle the issues of security, electricity shortages, the economy and corruption, putting all children in schools, and creating a large middle class similar to Brazil, Mexico, Malaysia, Indonesia. About 40% of Pakistani children do not attend schools according to some estimates, in a country where two thirds of the population is young.

LyrArc Article Gist
On global wheat, corn and other cereal prices. The effects of the ethanol boom in the US and the record corn crop to meet ethanol demand. How this plays out in emerging market countries like Russia, China and India and Mexico. Will this help farmers especially withthe urban-rural divide and disparities in living standards in China and India. At the same time what do the higher prices do to the urban poor and poor people in general in the emerging countries where the impact of higher prices hits a large part of their budget.

LyrArc Article Gist
Caterpillar is asking workers at its Canadian plant to accept a large cut in wages and benefits. Wages and benefits at Caterpillar's rail equipment plant in LaGrange, Illinois, are less than 50% of the costs at the Caterpillar locomotive assembly plant in London, Ontario. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics U.S. manufacturing labor costs per unit of output were 13% lower in 2010 than in 2000. This compares with an increase of 2.3% in Germany, increase of 18% in Canada, and increase of 15% in South Korea. Caterpillar is also asking for more flexible work rules at the Canadian plant. The flip side of this is that U.S. workers are earning significantly less in manufacturing, especially considering inflation, and the middle class is shrinking in the U.S. At the same time wages in the U.S. that are more competitive with wages in Mexico and China with flexible work rules and use of automation and technology, is helping to reverse the shrinking of the manufacturing sector in the U.S....

LyrArc Article Gist
William Booth provides a must read insight into why poorly educated young people attempt to cross the border into the U.S. looking for work and opportunity, and why Mexico fails to provide the elementary and high school educational system it needs to increase growth to create opportunity. Mexico's education system is failing when compared with other countries in the Group of 20. Sixth graders get 562 hours of instructional learning compared to 1,195 in S. Korea, according to Mexicans First, a group working to change the way the educational system works. In recent international exams half of Mexican 15 year old students scores ranked them at lower levels in math and only a little better in reading and reasoning. "De Panzazo" is a popular documentary prepared by Mexicanos Primero on the dire situation in the school system. One of the most striking measures of this failure is that only a quarter of the children graduate from high school. This only pushes more poorly educated people to attempt to cross the border into the U.S. looking for work. It means the Mexican economy is deprived of a highly educated workforce to increase productivity and growth. The middle class tries to get their children educated in private academies. And the nation's employers use special training to improve skills for workers to be able to compete in a global economy. Part of the reason rests, say experts, on the ability of the powerful teachers union with 1.4 million members to block change for teacher selection based on merits and competency, and exams for teachers. Instead teacher positions are sold, with an elementary school position tenured for life selling for $20,000 in Cancun, and a rural village position for $2000, according to Mexicanos Primeros. Even president Calderon owed his election to the support of the teachers union. And the current PAN presidential candidate Vazquez Mota, who was Education Secretary for two and half years could only go part of the way. She got the union to agree to have new teachers selected by having them take exams, made public standardized test scores, and pushed state governors to show employment rolls and whether teachers actually taught in classrooms or worked at union offices. Calderon failed to make changes because he agreed with the union that the union would take the lead on changes not the education ministry, and had the union president's son-in-law, Fernando Gonzalez, as deputy secretary of education. Jorge Castenada, a former foreign minister, says Mota was fired because of union demands. In July 250,000 teachers are required to take competency exams, but the union has asked its members to ignore the exams, and the education ministry will not do much beyond using the exam for diagnostic purposes for teachers who take the exam. The problems at the elementary and high school levels are evident also in other countries such as India and Brazil leaving the real potential of the labor force untapped....

LyrArc Article Gist
Somini Sengupta and Brian Frank provide this award winning quality of coverage in text and pictures of life in California's San Joaquin Valley, hit by wildfires and scorching heat in the middle of the pandemic. Shown are workers in the fields of one of America's largest agricultural regions fighting heat and the pandemic, struggling to survive on a precarious hourly wage in these conditions. During earlier periods from 1970 this was an almost picturebook place particularly in the cool and foggy winters, which stretched for miles with apricot, grape, almond and other fruit and vegetable fields. A dry valley using irrigation of fields with water from the surrounding Sierra Nevada mountains. Most affected are millions of workers of Hispanic origin originally from Mexico, who provide most of the labor for harvesting of crops. California with a good educational system and without the drought that hit the region, without the effects of Silicon Valley splitting the people of the state in opposite directions most on minimum wage with a concentration of wealth around major cities and spiralling property values, was a very different place in the 1960's and 1970's from what it is today. Increasing wealth concentrated in pockets and not spread out as it was in the early post war period after Truman and Eisenhower has impoverished large areas and segments of the population, creating what Dickens called in his day- "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times," depending on who and where you were. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Emma Tucker describes the elation in the News Desk and for reporters of the WSJ on August 1, 2024  following the release of a young reporter Evan Gershkovich held by Russia for coverage in sensitive Russian regions. Emma Tucker said-    "We are grateful to President Biden and his administration for working with persistence and determination to bring Evan home rather than see him shipped off to a Russian work camp for a crime he didn’t commit. We are also grateful to the other governments that helped bring an end to Evan’s nightmare, in particular the German government that played such a critical role." Who is Emma Tucker and why does it matter?-   It matters because of monopolistic/oligopolistic hold over communication of news in the public space that belongs to public service since Lincoln, TR, FDR, Kennedy in the US, and it's shaping of public perceptions such as no action needed on climate change fires/floods, or on infrastructure investment in a dilapidated US. Emma Tucker studied in Sussex and in New Mexico before studying philosophy, economics and politics at Oxford. She becomes a graduate trainee at the Financial Times  in 1990 continuing for 30 years right into Covid years (FT now owned by employee owned Nikkei since 2015 acquired from Pearson for $1.32 billion). In 2022 she was selected to run Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal acquired by him for $5 billion- including $2.25 billion premium- from the Bancroft family that owned it and Dow Jones since 1928.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Argentina, South Africa, Mexico, India, UK, European Union elections are taking place by June 2024 and US in November 2024. Yet it is misleading to lump them together. Much discontent is there to see as in the UK with cost of living, governance, time wasted on Brexit, India with lingering effects of the pandemic on rural voters, caste based voting. In India protest vote of lower caste Dalit voters in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, even with government support in forms of universal healthcare, food for poor households during pandemic extended, cooking gas, housing support, clean tap water, direct bank account deposit to accounts of poor and farmers. Yet in the states in the south and east in Orissa and Andhra Pradesh, and generally in the south the BJP vote count increased so that losses in the north were made up leaving the percentage of vote for India for Modi's BJP party at 37 percent in 2024 instead of 38% in 2019, losing the absolute majority 240 seats of 543 yet having campaigned heavily for partners who added seats 294 of 543. In the UK Keir Starmer may see some vote preference for Labor erode yet the Conservative record is in shambles even conservative experts will say, as in India where the opposition parties offer no prospects for the future and little track record for making India the second or third largest economy in the world which the BJP has set and shown to have achieved over 10 years by taking India to No. 5 in the world economies. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
When even the NYT, or the host of CBS television Face the Nation does it poorly, how are independent voters, and voters leaning Democrat or Republican, or leaning not vote, to have a clear idea of policies?  This review of Trump statements about Harris statements on red meat, ICE, law enforcement, fails to get down to the policies she has stated at Wake Tech in North Carolina and in other places before this. It also does not address the Trump plan to end tax on Social Security which would lead to about $550 going to seniors but lead to a cut of 25% in Social Security in 2032, defunding Social Security and Medicare. Immigration- the first thing Harris would do as president is to sign the legislation written by Republicans Lankford, McConnell with the backing of the party and agreed to by president Biden that will in effect close the Border with Mexico and fix the asylum policy, not done in three decades. Cost of Living- Harris policy on price gouging is for taking the action that companies follow and play by the rule on pricing, so that they do not take unfair advantage of the public. It is not about passing a law or fixing prices. This has been done in Texas and in Kentucky, other states. Restrict rent to 5% increases and increase the supply of new houses by building 3 million new homes, $100 billion to be allocated for fixing housing supply shortages.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The current trade disputes and negotiations between the European Union and the U.S. are leading to European carmakers looking again at their supply chains to come up with ways of increasing manufacturing autos in the U.S. Daimler CEO Zetsche says Mercedes Benz will increase engine manufacturing in the U.S. BMW CEO Kruger says the USMCA agreement as the new NAFTA is called, will accelerate investments in manufacturing in the U.S.- more U.S. production for the U.S. market.

The USMCA require at least 75% of car's value built in the U.S. up from 62%. Also 40-45% of the car has to be made at wages of at least $16 per hour. The cap for cars made in Canada and Mexico and exported to the U.S. is 5.2 million with 4.1 million currently shipped into the U.S. Any cars over this or not qualifying with the rules pay a tariff of 2.5%.

LyrArc Article Gist
Citigroup will keep Nikko Cordial, Japan's third largest brokerage firm, for which it paid 1.6 trillion yen or $17.95 billion in 2008 before the global financial crisis. The hope is that it will be worth a lot more in future years as Japanese households with $15 trillion in assets mostly in cash buy more financial products from Nikko. Today only 10% of Japanese assets are invested in stocks and other similiar financial assets, compared to 30% in the USA. Citigroup is also keeping the retail banking business of Grupo Financiero Banamex in Mexico as part of its overseas expansion strategy.

LyrArc Article Gist
In his State of the Union speech president Trump was off on some points such as how many jobs were created, how good the economy is, and on on safety of cities El Paso and San Diego after border walls and fencing, according to the WSJ. El Paso was the second safest city of twenty similar sized cities in the U.S. before the border wall with Mexico, and continued to be that way after the wall was built over that section. San Diego has seen 91% drop in border apprehensions over a decade after fencing the border but this has not meant a discernible impact on people crossing illegally.  Mr. Trump was right that customs duties increased by $13 billion in the third quarter of 2018 after placing tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese goods. Wages are growing faster for manufacturing and construction workers than service occupations, as Trump claimed. On the growth of the economy the economy GDP grew by 3.5% in 2018 before slowing down by the end of the year. India and China's growth in GDP is much faster. Growth in jobs was at the pace in the first 2 years of the Trump administration in some 2 year periods of the Obama administration, and much faster in manufacturing in the 1990's, says the WSJ.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Two of three obese people live in developing countries. About 29% of the global population is obese in 2013, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. Between 1980 and 2013, obesity increased by 47% for kids and 27% for adults in the global population. Dr Murray of IHME says no country was the exception. Diet and inactivity are the principal culprits. About 37% of world's men and 38% of women are obese. Obesity increased rapidly first in developed countries, becoming noticeable by 1980 and slowing since 2006, and now is growing fast in developing countries. Germany is a surprise No. 8 on the list. The U.S. No. 1 ranking tells a lot about the misguided priorities of living in the U.S., lack of education on healthy eating and healthy living, and not putting healthy habits at the top of things to do above making more money. An extreme case is South Africa where 42% of women are obese. The most obese countries are by rank - U.S., China, India, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Egypt, Germany, Pakistan, Indonesia. Middle Eastern and North African countries have high obesity rates for children. The study is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation....

LyrArc Article Gist
Discusses how the trade policies are affecting workers in Puebla, Mexico as a microcosm of what is happening in many countries, Latin America, China, S. Korea. In Mexico it increased wages initially and with global competition wages have dropped. Another article in the database talks about how wages in the auto industry have declined in Mexico even as the auto industry has grown in Mexico.