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Fuel efficiency rules require average fuel efficiency in the U.S. of 35 mpg by 2016. The debate is now on what to do for 2017 to 2025. New technology such as the P2 systems for hybrids already used in VW, Nissan and Hyundai vehicles makes a 20% increase in fuel efficiency possible. Large investments are being made to bring new technology to bear on increasing fuel efficiency significantly. Government agencies are looking at different scenarios by which the new fuel economy standards beyond 2017-2025 could be set between 47 mpg and 62 mpg. An additional factor is the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions- at 47 mpg the reduction would be 3%, at 62 mpg the reduction would be 6%. Another factor is how much the impact is on the cost of vehicles and reduced cost on gasoline. Here there is a wide range in the numbers for average mpg rules at 62 mpg- with EPA estimates at $2800-$3500 increase in vehicle cost and $5000 savings in fuel cost, Centre for Automotive Research estimates at $9790 increase in vehicle cost. The 62 mpg translates into "real world" actual efficiency of 45 mpg. In April 2011, 17 senators put out a letter of support for the 62 mpg proposal. There is a public value involved in this that is also significant- the reduced dependence on foreign oil means savings in defense expenditures in parts of the Middle East, and an economy that is less impacted by volatility in the price of oil. As this aspect of public value or benefits cannot be quantified easily even though they are significant, this may tend to be lost in the debate and the politics of fuel efficiency. For automakers there is significant marketing value in having a visible and strong presence in fuel efficient vehicles because of perception as forward looking- something that hurt Detroit carmakers in the last decade. During periods of gasoline prices at $5 a gallon this provides carmakers with an extra cushion of safety in securing car sales. Carmakers in one country such as the U.S. also have to worry about what carmakers in other countries such as Japan and Germany are doing- if the standards in the U.S. develop a gap compared to other countries developing advanced fuel efficiency technologies this poses significant risks because of the global nature of the automobile marketplace. See the group "Asleep at the Spigot" for more details on this. Many of these less quantifiable factors do not get the attention they deserve because they are significant from experience but not easily quantified. Throw into this the large unknown of what new technologies not yet developed lie ahead with a burst of effort by one country or another, which bring cost reductions at the same time - and the debate requires as much a good sense of what is the path offering the greatest advantages in years ahead than a pure exercize in numbers. ...

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Elected to the Politburo in 1980, Gorbachev became president of USSR in 1985. In the six year period to 1991 he launched a movement to free the USSR from the rigid constraints of communist party rule called Perestroika to improve productivity, freedoms and quality of life. He came from a peasant family with Ukrainian origins and was born in 1931 during the period of upheaval in Russia. The rapid removal of Soviet rule was something Russia was not able to adapt to in the early years with no experience in democratic process. By 2000 after drop in life expectancy and fall in the standard of living Mr. Putin emerged as president.  Russia's economy recovered under Putin's three terms till the miscalculations in the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, that were itself a result of a sense that Russia had lost something with the fall of the Soviet Union and the advancement of NATO and the European Union. Gorbachev's sense in his memoirs was that Russia would do best under democracy. Even in 2017 he wrote that Russia and its people were "ready for a real multiparty system, fair elections and a regular rotation of government." Yet he was too much of an optimist and not enough hands on to grasp that Russia was a large economy and safeguards had to be put in place for the rule of law to prevent lawless elements that could control companies, safeguards for the vulnerable sections of society such as pensioners and older people, and limited self government through elected assemblies and parliaments were needed for a decade before democracy to take roots. Gorbachev's knowledge of American and British democracies, constitutions and parliaments and their evolution over centuries was non existent, with little contact and education of this sort under the Czar or Soviets. The democracies in Germany and Japan were established with American power and extensive education, the Marshall Plan, and unlimited imports by the US from Japan to prevent economic catastrophes of the kind experienced by the Weimar Republic in Germany in the 1920's. No plan from western aid and assistance, limited self government of the people was introduced as training ground as in India. In India the British introduced limited self-government or Swaraj in the 1930's with elected assemblies in Indian states, in the pattern of Dominion states such as Canada and Australia. Mohandas Gandhi negotiated the rights of indentured Indians in South Africa in this arrangement and studied British law and constitutions. This led to the catastrophic failure of the rule of law in Russia after 1979, lawless elements emerging under Yeltsin  that controlled companies and the state, high unemployment, failure of the economy, and drop in life expectancy between 1979 and 2005. How this led to the Putin years and now led to the war in Ukraine is covered in more detail under the Lyrarc article on Gorbachev and how he is seen in Germany. ...

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Most of the reporting on Ukraine follows the war. Questions are asked how will this conflict end? This report in Der Spiegel is one of the rare reports that looks at the Ukrainian economy with images and reporting from the ground that answer that question. If the Ukrainian economy is surviving in 2023 then Ukraine will continue long after a peace settlement is reached. It shows for instance that supermarket shelves are well stocked. It shows energy from half a million generators keeps the lights on and companies working in Ukraine. The steel industry is mostly destroyed yet the software industry continues to grow. Unemployment is 30% even after hundreds of thousands of younger Ukrainians are at the war front. Of about $62 billion promised by US and European countries about $31 billion has actually been transferred to Ukraine. The IMF has created an exception for aid to Ukraine with offices in Kviv and Brussels. All defense needs are covered from the Ukraine budget. Before the invasion in Feb 2021 defense took up 9% of the budget, now it takes up 42% of the budget. Another 16% for public security. For social benefits 16%, and another 26% for other expenditures. By having an economy that is functioning and life even in light from generators and solar energy, with supermarkets well stocked and providing office space for workers, with aid mechanisms working. Ukraine has already emerged as part of Europe, tried, tested and come through adversity of the worst sort. It is supposed to join the European Union, yet Der Spiegel says it is already tightly integrated into the EU. Its power grid was integrated with the EU power grid before the war, and nuclear power was sent to the EU from Ukraine before Russian attacks on the nuclear plant. Then transmission lines brought energy to Ukraine from the EU. The EU takes in 80% of Ukraine agricultural exports compared to 20% before the war. Even at the risk of lower prices and hurting farmers in Poland, the Polish government has allowed large imports of agricultural products into Poland. The close links with countries of the EU that share a border with Russia have increased. The problems now are that Ukraine after this war will have severe shortage of manpower. Already with the fall of the Soviet Union Ukraine lost about 8 million people and population was 44 million before the war. About 8 million people moved to Ukraine in the one year following Russian invasion. Of this 1.5 million stayed in Poland, the rest went on to other countries in the EU or returned. The countries such as Germany, Finland, Czech Republic have labor shortages of their own and encourage refugees to stay. Rebuilding is estimated to cost $131 billion. Yet as is evident in Poland after most of the damage from the second world war in Poland it was rebuilt using modern technology. Ukraine survives, its life goes on, is the message from Der Spiegel. In this way the war's outcome is already evident. Much of it comes from the European Union having sensed that attacks made with impunity would endanger all of the European countries when made by any dominant power. This is also what Cambridge historian Brendan Simms has shown about European history for the past 500 years in History of Europe- The struggle for Supremacy 1452 to the present. No one country says Simms was able to act with impunity and pose athreat to its neighbors as all other countries in Europe rallied to prevent this. This war is no exception.   ...

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The emergence of a national party in India is the subject of this editorial in The Hindustan Times. The Indian National Congress led by Mohandas Gandhi led the way to transitional home rule in the 1930's under the British, independence in 1947, with the party running India till 1962 under Mr. Nehru, one of Gandhi's assistants. This was followed by a breakup of the party into different factions with one faction led by Nehru family forming governments under Indira Gandhi, and her son Rajiv Gandhi. This faction then lost its popularity in the Hindi speaking heartland of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and became a regional party with presence only in a few states of India and very little in the south. By 2014 a new party the Bharatiya Janata Party had emerged that had a strong presence in the Hindi speaking heartland of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and in the northeast of the country. It still lacked a strong presence in the south. This has happened in the 2020 Telengana elections, says Hindustan Times. By getting a strong performance in the Hyderabad region the BJP now has a strong presence in Telengana, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka where Bangalore is located. Only Kerala and the Tamilnadu region around Madras, have their own regional parties in government. In the east the Bihar elections showed BJP as the leading party to form government to push the development agenda in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. It is now well positioned to take this theme of rapid development to West Bengal state around the Kolakata (Calcutta) area, a state that has lagged far behind in development under a regional party that was an offshoot of the Indira Gandhi faction of the Congress party. As is common in India national political parties split into factional parties with infighting that split again into purely regional parties. This has further undermined the them of development through failed governance in India. The BJP under the current prime minister is now the exception to this because of its themes of health, governance and development, with Development at the top of the triangle supported by Health and Governance at the base of the triangle. The BJP which started out as a small business oriented upper caste party also changed its image under prime minister Modi. The slogan "Sab Ka Vikas, Sab Ke Saath," (Development for all, with all) has given the BJP support of the lower castes, the Scheduled class and the backward castes in India. This make it a truly national party with support across all socioeconomic and demographic groups. The prime minister's own background growing up working in his father's tea shop near a railway station in Gujarat has also given the party a new image of being with the working classes and the average man. His experience in Gujarat delivering on development projects and infrastructure, energy, has also given the word "development" new meaning for a modern India, very distant from the period when poor governance failed to deliver on development and modernization. Bold moves have cleared the way for a nationwide approach to development, yet decentralized, with rapid development based on accumulation of technologies, human skills, land and capital. A singular focus on the needs of the ordinary people is evident when the prime minister talks about the effect of firewood burning stoves used in cooking by hundreds of millions of rural women for their families. He says the smoke from burning this firewood in the home has the effect of smoking 400 cigarettes for each woman. Rarely has this happened since Mohandas Gandhi took up the situation of village women in the backcountry and lack of clothing in the period under the British.   ...

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This WSJ report looks at how China is run today with attention to details by president Xi Jinping. Mr. Jinping takes interest in all matters that relate to wellbeing, reducing gaps in wealth and privilege, coronavirus pandemic, corrupt businessmen or officials, climate change, and the economy. Some decisions have to be reversed after they appear not to be working. In some situations goals conflict such as climate change action on coal requiring shutting down intensive coal dependent factories, and economy jobs goals requiring use of coal intensive factories. Leading to a complete reversal of the original decision to cut back on use of coal as happened in 2021 when factory shutdowns affected the economy.  Jinping does not see it as micromanagement. Previous leaders such as Hu Jintao had little interest and did not put in the effort to seek out areas where policies were not working for families and workers, delegating this to lower level officials. Jinping's style is hands-on and energetic to act on issues that affect how China should be run so that the quality of life of ordinary Chinese is improved. Jinping says that if he did not take action there just is'nt the level of initiative on the part of local officials. Many officials are not competent to tackle complicated issues. Jinping says that "some officials only act when the central party leadership has instructed them to do so." And that he acts as a last resort- "I issue instructions as a last line of defense." His willingness to reverse decisions or let them be implemented with local officials using their discretion if he thinks that would be wise also shows a level of flexibility and humility. Basic to his decisions is a general idea that the original vision of China of the founding leaders in 1948 was forgotten in the headlong rush to modernization of the last 20 years. This means a balance was needed to restore some measure of equality and empowering of the disadvantaged. Xi Jinping's father was one of these founding leaders under Mao and under premier Deng during the market economy founding in the 1990's. Xi Zhongxun, Jinping's father was an energetic leader who also took a keen interest on a whole range of issues for China's modernization drive, a trait now found in Mr. Jinping. The first market economy experiment was done under Xi Zhongxun with premier Deng's encouragement. Xi Zhongxun set up the Guangdong and Shenzen special economic zone in 1979, as governor of the province in an effort to liberalize the economy and slow the exodus to Hong Kong. At the time wages in Shenzen were 1/100 of wages in Hong Kong. Some of this style can be seen in India with Mr. Narendra Modi delving into details of policy and taking intitatives that local officials had neglected to do on a whole range of issues related to modernization, development and technological progress. One of the decisions made by Jinping was to tackle Covid aggressively with a zero Covid policy, which means frequent lockdowns and restrictions even with a few cases. Mr. Modi has also acted vigorously on Covid after warning in March 2020 that this could set India 20 years back, with a policy to get over a billion people fully vaccinated. In both situations the only two countries with over 1 billion population needed this kind of strong leadership with an interest in a whole range of issues that relate to lives of ordinary people during the pandemic to inspire some essential level of public confidence and build public wellbeing.     ...

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Vindu Goel of the NYT gives this report on IBM's expansion in India including an interview with Vanitha Narayanan, chairman of IBM India. In 2017 IBM had 130,000 employees in India, at operations in Pune, Calcutta, Chennai and Bangalore and other cities, double that in 2007. The U.S. operations have about 100,000 employees. As IBM's revenues have declined with technology disruptions, it has concentrated on expansion in India with its vast base of knowledge workers and costs of about one half to one fifth of what it would cost in the U.S. IBM has 380,000 employees worldwide, with 26% in the U.S. and 34% in India, and 40% in other countries. Microsoft employs 8000 employees in India and 124,000 total worldwide, Google has 1800 in India and 72,000 worldwide.  IBM removed operations in India in 1978 after a dispute with the Indian government. In 1993 it started operations in India in a joint venture with Tata. By 2004 the operations had expanded and IBM took full control. A $750 million 10 year contract was signed in 2004 with an Indian phone company Bharti Airtel. As Goel points out the shift is happening towards expansion in India with the growing demand from industry and government in India. The Watson venture has expanded in healthcare in India with contracts including one with Maniphal Hospitals. In 2016 this had reached $38 billion in hardware and software, services, to Indian industry and the government agencies. IBM's work is not simply in offsourced work from American companies. High tech and cutting edge research is also taking place and expanding. IBM is now uniquely positioned to get an expanding share of the business as more tech services are provided to the hundreds of millions of people in India who did not have access to tech and tech services before. Research concentrates on doing this at a fraction of the cost and in new ways suited to the local region, so that services can be delivered with a wider reach. This report provides a new perspective on how the next decade could see American companies with a long term focus take advantage of the rapid growth in the fastest growing large economy in the world, with advantages for both the U.S. and India. ...

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In a continuing effort to make certain all of the massive supplies of palm oil it uses- 1.36 million tons of palm oil a year- comes from sustainable sources, Unilever plans an investment of $100 million for a palm oil processing plant in Indonesia. Unilever's plan is to reach the goal of getting all of the palm oil it uses from sustainable sources by 2020, up from only 2% in 2011. This is part of its committment to the environment. Palm oil goes into making Dove soap, Magnum ice cream, and Vaseline lotion. The deforestation issue is becoming serious as land is cleared for palm oil plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia, and the only way for Unilever to be certain that it is done in a sustainable way is to move closer to the source of supplies.

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What the French take for granted today- 99% of the French people are covered by national health care- started when Charles De Gaulle faced rising scial discontent in the postwar period, and accepted a demand for worker protections. During the postwar period Frenchmen are paying higher taxes, but in the first 30 years because French salaries were growing fast this was not noticeable. With slow growth and rising healthcare costs its getting harder to increase these tax deductions for overall social security, which have reached one third of apaycheck at the low end, say for ataxi driver in Marseilles. So you have the government running deficits of $15 billion in 2004, even after increasing co-payments for routine care and doctors visits. Experts say this could reach $40 billion in 2010 and $90 billion in 2020. In 2007 health care cost the government $300 billion, or 11 % of GDP, (OECD numbers) and the bureaucracy and rules are getting more complicated. This 11% is well below what Americans pay for asystem that leaves out about 50 million people. France ranked 8th on the OECD list in cost per capita, the US at the top. And the French life expectancy is higher at 80.98 vs. 78.11 for the USA, higher by about 3 years. For this cost the system is cost effective according to the OECD. And the French find the American debate abouthealthcare public option "altogether surreal", as the newspaper Le Monde put it. To keep the system in viable form the government is increasing copayments, such as the decrease in reimbursements from 80% to 65% for routine care and doctors visits in 2004. As aresult the deficit dropped to $6 billion in 2008. ut the global economic crisis and rising unemployment has made this grow to estimated $13 billion for 2009. Measures under consideration: increasing hospitalization copayments to $28 a day from $22. To fill this substantial gap for routine care and other costs the French system has private insurance companies called mutuals that offer different policies. Which is where the Fench notion for equal treatment in health care gets distorted because different people can have different coverage. The French though compare their system to the British system and say theirs is not as nationalized as it appears and the Brisih one is much more so. The French system though supervised by the government is different from government run health care as in Britain. French people are free to choose their own doctor who is often a private practitioner. ...

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There is a ton of cheese lying in storage -1.4 billion pounds - as Americans shift to foreign varieties and exports to China and Mexico are hurt by the tariffs war.  Americans are becoming more adventurous in their cheese eating habits. Many say they cannot stand eating processed cheese anymore. Processed cheese consumption is going down just as foreign cheese varieties are picking up strongly. Mozzarella cheese is up and cheddar cheeses is down with mozzarella popular in pizzas.   Cheese producers such as Sargento in Wisconsin are shifting to Gouda, a Dutch variety and other European cheeses as they adjust to the changing habits of Americans tired of processed stuff including processed cheeses.  Cheesemakers from Ireland and Quebec and local makers in Wisconsin were ramping up their production of cheese when the trade tariffs with China and Mexico hit dairy products. Cheese exports to China are down 63%. The result is that 1.4 billion pounds of cheese are now in storage in cold storage warehouses. Americans still eat a record 37 pounds of cheese every year, but processed cheese per capita is now half of what it was in 2006. Netherlands based Gouda producer Campina is expanding in the U.S. to meet the demand for gouda and other varieties.  Dairy farmers that supply cheese makers are hurt. Milk prices are down around 40% from a 2014 peak. 600 dairy farms closed in Wisconsin in 2018 alone. ...

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China's production of 300 gigawatts of soalr and other renewable energy in 2023 makes it possible for the country to achieve earlier emissions reduction than planned, says this report in WSJ. Of this 217 gigawatts are solar and 77 gigawatts are wind. Such is the investment China is making that it showed an increase in solar energy of 55%. The increase was itself more the solar energy installed in the US, for 500 million solar panels. At this rate China can meet its entire increase in electricity demand each year from solar and wind, other renewables. This is the kind of story that should be given prominence because it puts the fight against climate change in the right direction with aggressive climate change action coming from China, the largest user of coal.

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Millions of people who are first time users for whom affordability is an issue in countries from Nigeria, Ivory Coast to India, Indonesia, are connecting to the internet. This time not with smartphones made by Samsung or cheaper Chinese smartphones made by Xiaomi or Huawei, but by using a new smart feature phone that cuts down the price such as the Jio phone by Reliance Jio in India. This costs only about $25 compared to $100 to about $300 for lower cost smartphones These phones provide basic features, some apps, messaging, internet access at low cost. About 3.4 billion people without the money to buy costlier smartphones are turning to this just like people did 20 years ago with lowcost Nokia basic phones until smartphones appeared. Monthly cost for mobile data access to internet is $2.50 a month for all the mobile data he needs or Rs. 1750. Batteries last for days in countries where electricity is unreliable. A fruit vendor in New Delhi makes $80 a month or  Rs 5600. A Jio phone fo him costs Rs 1400 compared to paying Rs 7000 or $100 for a Chinese smartphone. Reliance partnered with Hong Kong's KaiOS Technologies Inc. which makes the most widely used operating system powering smart feature phones. Jio sold 60 million Jio phones and 370 million such smart feature basic phones are forecast to be sold in 3 years by 2022. Reliance Jio is being imitated by others. Orange SA of France has launched an inexpensive smart feature phone bundled with inexpensive mobile data plans in Ivory Coast, Burkina Fso and Cameroon and plans to put this in other former French colonies in Africa and Arab countries. WizPhone plans to introduce a $7 phone in Indonesia. KaiOS is working with Brazilian manufacturers to roll out cheap phones there.  In advanced countries Nokia is offering revamped versions of its candy bar shaped phones with added web access to enthusiasts. These cost $100. A whole new group of people who could not afford a smart phone are now being connected after Jio's pioneering effort in India. ...

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After a long year of uncertainty this is what it comes down to. The new turnaround plan developed by CEO Fritz Henderson and the government's auto task force will leave the government owning more than half of GM. Under this plan GM will get an additional $11.6 billion in loans from Treasury, on top of the $15.4 billion already received. THer government will get half of the ownership of the company in payment for half of these two loans. And GM will use stock instead of cash to pay off half of the $20.4 billion it owes a United Auto Workers fund to cover retiree health care. That transaction will leave 39% of GM in the hands of the UAW. This happens just as another agreement was reached to leave the UAW with 55% ownership of restructured Chrysler, and FIat SpA getting 35%, with the US government and lenders owning the rest. What happens to bondholders? They were told to swap $27 billion of unsecured debt for a 10% company stake. GM and the government give bondholders little choice, if they do not do so GM's Fritz Henderson says GM will file for bankruptcy. In 2011 hourly workers will be less than 40,000. Market share will shrink to 18% in 2014 from 22% in 2008. The number of dealers will drop to 3605 by 2011, down 42% from 2008, and GM will kill the Pontiac brand. Much of the company will have disappeared, showing how market forces are at work in our system in destroying companies, and leaving them as a fragment of what they once were, if management gets complacent and makes a series of errors. Its a big development and shows the savy shown by the government auto task force's leaders in setting up the arrangements. A smaller GM will emerge. But this is an understatement if ever there was one. Here is a company that had close to 200,000 workers in 2000, with hourly workers close to 150,000. See the graph. ...

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The difficulties the new U.S. Treasury Secretary faces as she tries to navigate the politics in Congress and the tries to reach out to moderates and progressives within the Democratic party. All have different views on spending, and where stimulus money should go in a second stimulus. Her long experience with the Fed is seen as not preparing her for the political role of evaluating different opinions that are described by some experts as ten times more political than anything going on in Fed meetings. As a student of Prof. Tobin Yellen sees government intervention as needed in times of economic crises. Twice in ten years the U.S. and the rest of the world has been struck by economic crises- the bank leveraging behaviours and poor lending practices that induced the 2009 financial crisis and in 2020 the coronavirus pandemic. Lessons learned Yellen says about the 2009 recession are that not enough stimulus was provided after the initial stimulus to get a strong enough recovery. Democrats are eager to spend over $2 trillion in a second stimulus. Republicans much less so particularly with a new president. Even under Mr. Trump spending was set at under $700 billion by Republicans for a second stimulus. Another economic crises is one of the U.S. strategic economic position in the world. On this issue of trade Yellen's husband George Akerloff, also a economist is more skeptical of the value of free trade. The failure of the World Trade Organization to ensure a level playing field as China subsidized key industries, and the loss of America's manufacturing advantage over three decades is now the defining issue in American politics. It takes the shape of manufacturing communities that were once a part of Democratic party support shifting away after devastated local economies from the loss of manufacturing plants to China. It takes the shape of a Republican party that is committed to bring back American manufacturing, and a Democratic party that under Biden is seeking the same result. How much each party will invest in terms of making things happen to get this done is one of the issues facing all parties, Congress, the administration, Ms. Yellen, and the new president. Economics does not have the answers. As economists could not have predicted the increase in women participation in the workforce, the drop in Black and Hispanic unemployment rates under the Trump administration. The lack of moral will to get trade to work for the American worker was more of an issue under Democratic and Republican administrations for the last 2 decades, so that issues of growing inequality were never better addressed by any party. It depended more on focus of the president elected to help American workers, and to avoid the cost and distraction of foreign wars when American interests could be protected in other ways. Yellen was not able to make a difference at the Fed because of these reasons and low interest rates have both helped and hurt the middle class, as low interest rates meant Americans were less able to accumulate savings for retirement since 2000. Determination and action counts for more than ideology or policy is the lesson learned in building strong economies and manufacturing.   ...

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IBM's Watson Computer business has set a target of $1 billion in sales by 2018 and $10 billion by 2024. Current sales are in the $100 million range. Manoj Saxena is the head of the Watson business unit. The Watson ranks medical treatments by "confidence scores" and incorporates learning from errors. The way Watson works is for IBM engineers to study the technical details of a customers business and store this information for the computer to use. Uses so far are insurer WellPoint using it for determining if doctor's treatments meet company guidelines and a patient's insurance policy. M.D. Anderson Cancer Center is developing a version that recommends leukemia treatments for patients by data mining medical literature. Watson was moved to commercial phase in 2011 after beating 2 Jeopardy champions. IBM has a $15 million deal, its largest so far, with M.D. Anderson. It has taken frequent interaction between developers and IBM engineers to develop a version that recommends cancer treatments. The versions are only as good as how well knowledge in the field is translated into usable software, a long and difficult process. Applications in health care are seen as the best prospects for revenue generation. Google with its data mining capabilities is seen as the closest competitor....

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Germany faces serious problems in its vaccination drive and efforts to control the pandemic in November 2021. The rate at which people are getting vaccinated has slowed to 150,000 a day and the percentage of the population that is vaccinated is stuck at 67%. This percentage of 67% fully vaccinated in Germany as of November 3 is much lower than that in Spain, France and Italy.  Spain is at 78%, France at 69% and Italy at 72%. (Data from NYT) This report in the Guardian points out that most of the remaining one third of the population is not eager to get vaccinated as surveys show that the those who have refused to get a jab are unlikely to change their minds.There is also the problem of booster shots. Germany's 16 regions conduct the vaccination drives and with many of the vaccination centers not active since September staff has to be retrained or rehired. This makes it harder to give booster shots to everyone that was vaccinated early by the start of winter. Why is it that Germany lags behind Spain in vaccination? There is a great deal of trust in Spain and Portugal in the health service and people are 100% behind their health system. The other countries that have a low rate of fully vaccinated are the US at 58%, Brazil 57%, Russia at 33%. Even the UK with its well respected National Health Service remains at 68% fully vaccinated. Today the US, Russia, Brazil, European Union countries and India have many of the 5 million deaths from coronavirus. India's vaccination drive is approaching 1100 million vaccinated, yet there is along way to go in getting most of the population fully vaccinated because of the large population of 1.3 billion. This is why the Indian prime minister on the first day of returning from the COP26 climate summit devoted his time to meeting with leaders of different states and heads of districts with low vaccination rates to press home the idea that the effort had to be taken up vigorously in the coming months. ...

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China after American and European offshoring of supply chain and manufacturing over three decades is going through a rapid reversal. People to people contacts are also falling off a precipice as it were, showing how badly structured efforts by business focused on profit and not people to people fail miserably, hurting the long term prospect of peaceful cooperation. Foreign Investment that was $100 billion in the first quarter of 2022 is now $20 billion. Tourism down by about 80%. At Zhangjiajie National Park goes from half a million foreign tourists to 50,000 last year. It is typical of this staggering change.  People are not going from America and Europe to China unless they have to. It shows the complete failure of a purely business relationship such as offshoring manufacturing when it hurts workers and families in America and Europe, who turn against it leading to a free fall in relations. American and European business and the governments allied with it failed in this sense to build a world of better interpersonal relations between Asia and the western world. China's experience with industrialization and modernization begun in 1990 is now a cautionary tale for other regions such as India and the Middle East that are planning their own modernization. Much of it happened less from a people to people relationship than from an effort by US business to seize the opening of China after Mao's revolution to offshore American manufacturing as if realizing a new opportunity without understanding its long term consequences for the American people. European business followed American business in this offshoring. It damaged the basic structure of the American and EU peoples based on locally based supply chains and manufacturing at home needed for strong healthy communities, leading to this situation today. The rancor and deeply seated discontent all across America and Europe from communities losing factories and the jobs and wealth coming from it from offshoring by business interests has created this situation.  ...

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This report in the WSJ on the Indian economy says the impact of growth in India's largest state of Uttar Pradesh with 240 million people will play a big part in the growth rate of the Indian economy. It fails to say why. The answer is good governance, investment in infrastructure, logistics and manufacturing, a huge pool of tens of millions of engineers and hundreds of millions of factory workers. The lack of a large enough investment pool of investment funds and  failure to eliminate leakages from corruption, the lack of a plan such as the current Master Plan Gati Shakti for the whole Indian economy, lack of governments at the state and federal level combining setting targets and delivery dates for infrastructure roads, bridges, airports, logistical hubs, factory for advanced industry, lack of governance entirely focussed on delivery and timelines, were the missing pieces in development in India for 5 decades since the 1960's, a period in which as Mr. Modi says repeatedly Japan, Korea, China moved ahead and India fell behind. Does this potential exist only for Uttar Pradesh? India's industrialization model started in Gujarat, population of 72 million under Modi as head of the state government from 2001-2014. It now covers the western region of Gujarat, Maharashtra population 128 million and Rajasthan population 82 million  the region around Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Jaipur of about 282 million people. This will be the fastest growing region and the engine that will propel the Indian economy in the years ahead. Uttar Pradesh in the north is integrated into this development. So is another region Bihar population 104 million and Orissa 46 million, Assam 35 million states in the northeast of the country with a total of 185 million people. What do all 3 regions of over 700 million people have in common? The answer is state and federal government working using the Gujarat tested and proven model for development, rapid delivery, good governance, government working with industry, large investments in infrastructure and modernization, Make in India hubs for manufacturing, digitization. ...

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A brief history of the US presence in Greenland and US-Denmark relations in Le Monde. On a map Greenland is located closest to Canada on the Smith Sound with the American base of Thule nearby. Next closest is Iceland. Norway and Denmark are further away. Around 1814 when Britain invaded and occupied Denmark in the Napoleonic Wars, Norway which was part of Denmark since 1400 was given to Sweden by Treaty of Kiel. Greenland, Faroe and Iceland were Norwegian dependencies. All three were kept by Denmark.  Icelanders set up small settlements on shores of Greenland in the 10th century which did not survive. Other parts of the island's shore were visited by the Dutch who came into conflict with the Danes after 1500. No country could claim ownership of Greenland as because of the harsh climate there very few settlements survived except of the native Inuit people population of 14,000 by 1900 who lived there. In 2025 about 56,000 Inuit live on Greenland. Robert Peary explored the vast Greenland region for the US Navy on on many trips from 1894 to 1909. With his ship The Roosevelt he reached a point about 100 kilometres from the North Pole in 1909. This is part of the US history on Greenland. Denmark signed documents asking for US protection of Greenland after Denmark was occupied by Nazi Germany in 1941. The Danish ambassador in Washington signed an agreement with Cordell Hull US Secretary of State making Greenland a protectorate of the US. The US set up military bases in Greenland. Today the US base in Thule is 1220 miles north of the Arctic Circle. It has a giant radar capable of detecting ballistic missile attack and a control center of the US military satellite network. At one time 10,000 soldiers were stationed at Thule base, today about 150 soldiers are in Thule. ...

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The October 2012 meeting of EU leaders ends with agreement for setting up the EU banking supervisor in the course of 2013. German chancellor Merkel turned down Spain's push for direct aid to its troubled banks and not aid from the ESM bailout fund to Spain which would increase Spain's sovereign debt. The Spanish government has indicated that it might take 40 billion euros out of the 100 billion euros approved by the EU for Spain. Merkel's view is that any direct aid will only go for future recapitalization not to clean up the mess at Bankia and other banks that stems from the failure of Spain's banking regulators and the housing bubble. Merkel said at a news conference: "If recapitalization is possible, it will only be possible for the future." Merkel also said preparations to set up the single banking supervisor would probably go into 2014, and by then "we won't have any more problems with the Spanish banks- at least, I hope not." Germany sees the need to have a carefully developed banking supervision system setup rather than a hurried approach. Merkel is aware that this might be seen as action taken to avoid committing German taxpayer money before elections for chancellor in Sept 2013- "No matter what I'm going to say, it will probably not be the right answer by your standards." ...

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The Indian Finance Minister Mukherjee presented his new budget and talked about the new administration's plans for investment and its priorities. The Rural Employment program which guarantees 100 days of work to each indigent family will get an increase in funding to $8.1 billion or 391 billion rupees for this fiscal year. THe goal was set for cutting in half the percentage of the people in India that are poor in five years, which the government measures by calories consumed. The Indian government estimates that 27.5% of Indians were poor in 2005 using this measure. To finance investment government spending will increase 36% and the deficit for the 2009-10 fiscal year will reach an estimated 6.8% of GDP, up from an estimated 6.2% in 2008. Abig part of this spending will be increases in infrastructure spending which will go up from 6% to 9% of GDP by 2014.

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Farmer resisting a land grab in Zhejiang province is runover by a truck. The gruesome scene of the accident appears on the internet in China and thousands of people viewing the picture accuse local government officials of silencing Qian Yunhui. In 2004, the city government approved construction of a power plant in Zhaiqiao Village. The company building the plant was given most of the best land in the village, with the 4000 villagers receiving no compensation, according to a blog post on Tianya, a popular online forum for discussing Chinese social issues. Mr Qian, the former communist party representative in the village went to Beijing to file a petition with the central authorites. Mr Qian was arrested and imprisoned twice. The incident ocurred after he was released from prison. The significance of the incident lies in the fact that land grabs have become common in China.

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The cost is $117 million the number of students estimated at 20,000 who can be educated in this way who cannot afford the high tution fees at the universities in Minnesota including the University of Minnesota system. In opposing access to higher education the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board also reflects the views of billionaire owners out of touch with the people of America and the Nation. The WSJ Editorial Board says nothing about the egregious situation today shown on its pages of capital allocation that has gone upside down and scary. For example it showed in one week : $110 million capital allocated to invent a better golf ball $700 million lost in capital allocated by investment funds in a facial lotion brand that uses natural ingredients. This is just to cite 2 of thousands of such capital allocations many of them shown on Lyrarc.com as examples of poor and egregious scary capital allocation for a nation built on fairness and building opportunities for workers and families through the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. The very investment that differentiated America and Europe from the feudal societies of China and India that self destructed in the 20th century after enormous suffering for hundreds of millions of the Chinese and Indian people. Isn't this like turning ones back on the Advantages that accrued to Europe and America from its wise investments and turning one's back on the Enlightenment in Europe and America itself? This is the statement to be found on the Minnesota Office of Higher Education- "Beginning in fall 2024, the North Star Promise (NSP) Scholarship program will create a tuition and fee-free pathway to higher education for eligible at eligible Minnesota residents at eligible institutions as a "last-dollar" program by covering the balance of tuition and fees remaining after other scholarships, grants, stipends and tuition waivers have been applied. By making college accessible and affordable, NSP is intended to have a positive impact on multiple fronts: Help stabilize enrollment at Minnesota public institutions of higher education; Serve as an economic driver for Minnesota by educating qualified workers who are much needed to fill vacancies in the state's labor force; Create a viable higher education path for Minnesota residents who may have previously thought education was not a possibility for them. We estimate this program will impact 15,000-20,000 students in the first academic year." The cost estimate at $117 million a year . ...

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Browning points out the record Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) average was not in 2007 but in 2000 when adjusted for inflation- on Jan 14, 2000. Since 1994 consumer prices measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics have risen by 55%. Using 1994 dollars the March 5, 2013 closing DJIA average is at 9256, the 2007 high at 10194, and the record on Jan 14, 2000 at 10424, according to calculations made by Bespoke Investment Group. In inflation adjusted terms these calculations show the Dow barely making any progress in relation to the 2000 figure. When dividends and taxes are included, Browning says the inflation adjusted Dow is still not back up to the 2000 level. For retirees and sensible investors the real value of this money has to be taken account. Yale University professor, who founded the CAPE cyclically adjusted P/E, confirms what Browning says in an article in the WSJ March 10, 2013. There Shiller says that the inflation adjusted S&P 500 index has not made it to the 2000 level, so that investors have not made up for money lost in inflation in 13 years....

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"Memories of a Nation," an exhibition on Germany and how it is viewed in Britain, first shown at the British Museum is now being shown in Germany at Martin-Gropius-Bau, from October 8 to Jan. 9, 2017. It gives Germans insights into their own history and how it is viewed in other countries such as Britain. The original exhibition was prepared from objects at the British Museum in 2014, to go with a BBC Radio 4 Series and a book by Neil MacGregor, who came up with the concept in the context of British-German relations. MacGregor, a former director of the British Museum, is now leading a cultural history museum in Berlin called the Humboldt Forum. About 200 objects were chosen to cover 600 years of German history. One of these objects fascinated the British- a hand wagon used by Germans expelled from former German territories to carry their belongings. About 14-16 million Germans were expelled. Other aspects that were shown are the cities of Konigsberg, Strasbourg, Prague and Basel, formerly having German history that has since faded. Also shown the fragmentation of Germany with many states, and the idea of decentralized government, compared to a more centralized Britain. ...