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50% of European CFO's surveyed by CFO magazine and 60% of Asian CFO's think the dollar decline is permanent devaluation compared to a third of US CFO's. The Commerce Dept figures show January exports 16.6% higher than a year earlier, and the trade deficit down by 7% in 2007 vs 2006 which will accelerae in 2008 with the larger dollar decline. As long as European and Asian economies continue to grow a bit slowly but not in a recession like the US the positive effect of growing exports should continue. So far for the last 6 quarters according to the WSJ exports have contributed 1 percentage point on average to economic growth measured at annual rate while the housing slump has subtracted just over one percentage point on average. So this is no small feat for exports and it has helped make the economy more resilient to the shocks of housing and oil price. As long as the growth overseas is not affected to a great extent by the economic slowdown in the US exports can continue to play this role. As the housing crisis is primarily a US and UK phenomenon this should not seruiously damage the economies of Asia and Europe and their ability to take in US exports....

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Glen Hubbard, who was Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors under President George W. Bush and is now Dean of Columbia University Business School, Hal Scott professor of International Fiancial Systems at Harvard Law School, and Luigi Zingales professor of finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, say a different plan of action is needed from what the Obama administration is doing to tackle the banking crisis. They are really skeptical about the the Public Private Investment Program and other plans put forth upto now for several reasons. First, in every case they say there is a lot of carrot but very little stick, and this won't work. TARP program was mostly carrot, with Treasury getting back securities worth $78 billion less than the $254 billion invested, as pointed out by the Congressional Oversight Panel.The FDIC's guarantee of short term debt was worth $100 billion just for the original nine TARP participating banks, and the mortgage related asset guarantees offered Citibank and Bank of America were worth tens of billions. They see anew round of TARP injections with the conversion of the government's preferred stock into equity after release of the stress test results. Then there is PPIP the Public Private Investment Program, and its plans to subsidize the purchase of bank's"toxic assets" by hedge funds and other investors. They estimate the government will spend $2 for every $1 the private sector puts up. And even with this subsidy their thinking is that the probability of succes is low for the same reason that has prevailed since the earlier efforts by Treasury Secretary Paulson- there is just too big a gap between the bid and ask prices on the toxic assets, and add to that the reluctance of investors to partner with the government. Its time for more stick say these experts as the problem of toxic assets, and of credit and lending in the economy, will hang like a large shadow over the economy, as long as these tough problems are not wrestled with. This is the Hubbard-Scott-Luigi Plan: 1) The FDIC should announce that its guarantees of short term debt set to expire in October will not be renewed. Insolvent banks, defined not by stress tests but as those that cannot fund themselves in the private market, will be taken over by the FDIC under aclear and credible action plan. 2) The FDIC lacks the resources to run several large and complex banks which may become insolvent. And waving the idea of nationalization the creditors may try to get the government to bail them out. The authors of this plan say the FDIC should solit each bank into a "bad bank" and a "good bank." The "bad bank" would carry all the residential and commercial real estate loans and securitized mortgages as assets, and all the long term debt as liabilities. THe "bad bank" would obtain along term laon from the good bank to fund the assets of the bad bank. Al the remaining assets including the derivative contracts and the loan to the bad bank would be assets of the good bank. It would also have all the insured deposits and the FDIC guaranteed short term debt as liabilities. With the split accomplished the good bank can be released from FDIC receivership. 3) The long term debt holders would be compensated by receiving all the equity of the good bank. The old shareholders would get the equity in the bad bank. And in any restructuring bondholders should do better than equity holders. If banks are not really insolvent as some say and just facing temporary dislocations, then the bad bank will eventually surge in value, and the equity holders will do alright, and if not they will receive nothing as they should. 4) For this to work legislation needs to take effect before October for FDIC procedures for handling failed banks to be also applicable to bank holding companies. And this new legislation puts no new cost on the taxpayer....

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Hurt looks at the study of the impact of changes at Boeing between 1996-2006, by Greenberg, Grunberg, Moore and Sikora, in a book titled: "Turbulence: the Pain of Change at Boeing." Boeing is an iconic American company, a pioneer in aviation manufacturing, and one of only two such companies in the world. How have workers and managers felt about the changes from teams (concept imported from Toyota), outsourcing of manufacturing to different locations around the world, and other changes, and how has this impacted the company that is Boeing. The authors tracked 525 workers and managers at Boeing in 4 separate surveys. Many workers worry that outsourcing will lead to giving away the farm, as one engineer with 27 years of experience put it. Eventually Boeing would put work out to 135 sites in two dozen countries to cut costs and gain access to foreign markets. It ends up pushing the Dreamliner 2 years behind schedule. Many managers worry about the loss of engineering and jobs to global partner companies, which would hurt the US in the long run. Even the team model imported from Toyota has a negative effect, by affecting employee morale. The career ladder becomes compressed and opportunties for advancement are no longer there. Employees expressed a sadness that the old feeling of the value of contributions, as a source of the company's competitive advantage was missing....

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Fears of nervous investors is now touching the bond markets. AIG's insurance subsidiaries traded their bonds at prices ranging from 38 cents on the dollar to around 81 cents, from more than 50 cents on the dollar a month ago, according to MarketAxess. Investors are worried that future restructurings will cause cash generated by AIG's units to go to the government before its bondholders, as the government has already chalked up a huge bill of $177 billion for AIG. Long term bonds of triple rated General Electric Company, which with GE Capital is the largest US corporate debt issuer, dropped last week to 63 cents on the dollar. Again investors are worried that they may not get all their money back. And again GE's CFO Sherin had to reassure investors that GE's capital position was strong. The bonds of Citigroup are trading at 70 cents on the dollar. Sales of blocks of securities called "bid lists" are not a good sign, as big groups of sales are an indication investors are desperate to unload investments quickly. Bonds issued by Goldman Sachs and General Electric without the government's backing have dropped to 96 cents on the dollar and 73 cents on the dollar, respectively in the last few days. Their government backed debt trades at close to full value or 100 cents on the dollar. ...

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The third pick of songs by chancellor Merkel for a farewell ceremony at the Defense Ministry, after her first pick of a Christian hymn from the 18th century "Holy God we praise thy name," is one that was on East German pop charts in 1974. It is "You forgot the color film," by Nina Hagen. The song is an angry lament that admonishes Hagen's boyfriend Michael, for not bringing the color film during their visit on holiday to Hiddensee Island. As a result she sings "no one will believe how beautiful it was here." The lyrics were written by Edward Demmler and it was sung by Nina Hagen in conventional schlager style. Merkel spent much of these 16 years seen on television sticking to strict austerity measures for European Union countries. Not investing in childcare, education, retirees, healthcare, and the infrastructure for broadband, roads and bridges, leaving Germany and with it the European Union in stagnation. Only in her last years was she persuaded by her vice chancellor Scholz of the SDP of the need to invest heavily in Germany and the European Union to fight the coronavirus pandemic with aid to the people of Germany and European Union. As she leaves she ponders the lessons both of the GDR in the east and the Federal Republic in the west, both had their flaws and their potential and both could learn from what was missing in the other. An opportunity for reflection and understanding. It is to Scholz and the Greens that is left the task of making the Federal Republic what it could be, to reaching as much of its potential for the good of Germany and the good of the European Union. Even though the singer became a punk artist after moving to the west following the fall of the Berlin Wall, she was a conventional. schlager style singer before that. So that 16 years after trying out the free market version of capitalism Merkel who grew up as a young East German teenager in the former German Democratic Republic realizes that this period after the fall of the Berlin Wall was not all that it was made out to be. As the Guardian puts it this embrace of her East German identity is no characteristic of Merkel as during these 16 years she rarely brought up her growing up years in East Germany. ...

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Signs that the SUV based model for running car companies is cracking. A study from the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute estimates that profits from large and midsize SUV's for GM, Ford and Daimler Chrysler dropped 40% or $7 billion from 2001 to the end of 2004. These figures track a steady decline in profits from SUV's, as incentives are used to promote sales of SUV's, lowering the whole profit structure a big notch downwards. In 2001, this study found that the per vehicle profit was about $9500. In 2005 thanks to big discounts the margin on SUV's is about $6300. On midsize SUV's like the Ford Explorer or the Chevy TrailBlazer, margins are down even more to $4100 from $7200. Responding to this study GM looks at it differently, it sees declining sales as the main culprit not the margins. Its thinking goes like this- as long as we can keep sales up we can cover our fixed costs including costs to retirees which make up a big part of the picture And it looks at the variable profits which it finds to be much higher than the numbers put out by the Transportation Research Institute. ...

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The Soviet experience in Afghanistan and the documents now in the hands of Ameican and Russian scholars from the archives. These documents show the commander of Soviet forces in Afghanistan Akhromeyev sent amessage similiar to General McChrystal's to the Soviet Politburo on November 13, 1996. It asked for more troops just as the soviets were in the seventh year of their nine year long Afghan conflict, with 110,000 troops unable to do more than control the provincial centers. With the rest of the country in the political control of the mujahideen. He told his commander in chief; To occupy towns and villages temporarily has little value in such avast land where the insurgents can just diappear into the hills." Victor Sebestyen points out that the scenes of the soviet's fighting were in places like Knadahar and Helmand provinces where the Americans are seeing the heavist fighting, in the south and eastern parts of Afghanistan. He also points out that the Soviet Defence Staff chief Ogarkov actually advised against the Soviet invasion from the beginning saying: "it will align the entire Islamic East against us, and mire us in unfamiliar, difficult conditions. But he was overruled by Brezhnev and cutoff in midsentence with the reply, "focus on military maters and leave the policy making to us." ...

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Liz Whitehurst is one of many young people who are giving up jobs in offices to take to farming. They are not from farm families and bring a new way and exciting way of looking at farming free of the pesticides and other practices common today. Only 2% of U.S. land is being used for growing fruits and vegetables, according to the Union of American Scientists cited in the Guardian newspaper, and this needs to at least double in acreage if American needs are to be met. Only 15% of Americans get the daily requirement for fruits and vegetables- so desperately needed is this  to lower the BMI of the 70% of overweight Americans with BMI over 50. In the light of this crisis the shift of young people to farming is an encouraging sign.  In 2015 Liz, 32 years, decided to buy a 3 acre farm in Upper Marboro, Md, giving up benefits and better pay at nonprofit jobs in Washington state.  Here she is shown picking up Aragula leaves in the November chill. She is not alone. She is joining a movement that is bringing highly educated, former urban first time farmers as the demand for better food, for local and sustainable food, especially fruits and vegetables grows in the U.S. Year on Year there is a 20% increase of farmers in states like California, Nebraska, South Dakota in the 25-34 age group. In the 2014 USDA Census this group is growing at 2-3% just when other groups are shrinking by double digits. These farmers are more likely to connect with the community supported agriculture (CSA) prorams and markets, to grow organically and limit pesticide and fertilizer use. They tend to have farms less than 50 acres. Liz leases the house and the fields from a neighboring couple in the 70's, growing organically certified peppers, cabbages, tomatoes and salad greens kale to aragula, rotating fields. On Tues, Thurs. and Fri. she and two friends are to be seen waking up in the early hours of darkness to kneel in mud and cut the greens. What motivates them is having a positive impact, to do that so it is immediate and you can see it making a difference, says Liz. Still young farmers face many hurdles, including student loan debt, and finding ways to meet the larger needs for online grocery service or the grocery chains. Yet a trend is taking shape for small and middle farms that provides some optimism as the number of farmers shrink significantly overall. Most alarmingly it is the lack of national and local policies to meet the health crisis of rising BMI's right at this level of local farms and community farms for local produce. Lack of any consciousness about this, even though good health in the U.S. as in other countries has always rested on what you are eating, long before processed foods became the norm this is the way the world met nutrition needs.    ...

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A standing long jump and a temp pullup, a single leg squat are some of the few exercise drills shown in this exercise regimen from the US Ski and Snow board. The key is developing strength, agility, endurance and balance.

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A detailed account by Thomas Schweich, a senior official and deputy in the law enforcement bureau to Anne Patterson, Assistant secretary of State for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs. He talks about how the Pentagon and the UK military have thwarted efforts for aerial eradication of poppy fields which has worked in other countries like Columbia. In fact Anne Patterson was an Ambassador to Columbia and knows about this first hand. He also talks about how through their efforts northern Afghanistan was cleared of poppy fields but how the cultivation has shifted to the south to Helmand and Kandahar provinces. The government officials in these provinces are actively involved in the poppy farms that are being setup there and support Karzai and help him organize the Pashtun vote for coming elections. So Karzai is protecting these officials and because of this opposes aerial eradication and does not support using Afghan Army for land eradication. The military in the U.S. and the UK does not want to take more casualties by turning against them the officials and farmers who support the government, but this is a short sighted policy because this helps make the Taliban insurgency stronger with access to cash and weapons because they also are actively setting up farms in their areas of southern Afghanistan. Aerial eradication takes care of poppy farms in all areas and has been effective in other countries. In the long run the military takes many more casulaties because of the bigger insurgency and Taliban they have to deal with. The military's policy is called "Sequencing," and its basically we'll deal with drugs later which is based on a complete misperception and understanding of the situation facing them. Schweich is in the thick of these battles and has fought them wit courage it appears from this account. He has the support of Secretary of State Rice but has not been able to get the Administration to get Karzai to change the way he is operating. It risks making the situation and insurgency in Afghanistan a lot worse if not corrected. Its a call for action and for educating the public and clearing all the misunderstanding and myths and fog about whats happening in Afghanistan....

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The Third Biennial Update Report at COP26 Glasgow shows where India stands on renewable energy, solar, forest cover enhancement, and improving carbon intensity in its climate change efforts so far.  For instance a 17 times increase in solar in the last 7 years to 45 gigawatts, with target of 450 gigawatts by 2030. In carbon intensity 24% improvement between 2005-2014. Scientist Bhatt presented the report for India's Environment Ministry saying India represented 17% of the world's population and historically 4% of world carbon emissions, today 5%. Improvements of carbon intensity per unit of GDP planned under Mod's plan for 2030 require 45% reduction in carbon intensity by 2030. This suggests the trajectory of China will be avoided where highly polluting parts of industries such as steel and cement were left unregulated and lacking strict supervision leading to rampant pollution in 2000-2021. Mr. Birol, head of the Renewables Energy Agency said on BBC's "Hard Talk" program recently that if you combine all of China's steel and cement factory carbon emissions, that alone would equal the total sum of carbon emissions of the whole European Union today. A quick look at a graph of global carbon emissions trajectories shows three fold increase of China's carbon emissions from about 4 billion tons to 12 billion tons between 2000-2021, the period and the explosion of carbon that is the one activity that singlehandedly created the crisis of climate change today. By comparison US remains at about 6 billion tons of emissions, and EU, US, Britain Japan show flat trajectories. Business, globalization interests, US and European financial interests, and local governments in China that financed this explosion in steel and cement ignored the implications of so much pollution in so short a time through unregulated activities- writing a chapter of failure with most of the world's people left to bear the results of such a failure.  It is this that India plans to correct with a 45% improvement in carbon intensity per unit of GDP by 2030, and nothing could be more important in the government's plan than this. New technologies will be key for this. Modi and India realize how vulnerable India is to floods, drought stricken areas, shortages of water, and climate extremes, and see these plans as critical for healthy growth that benefits all of India's people and regions, It is a long term vision like no other today and sets a new direction for all developing regions of Asia, Latin America and Africa. As India leads the way in new technologies and ambitious programs such as one solar, one world, one grid, these technologies will also break open new paths for the regions of the world that need this most from Brazil to Indonesia.  China too suffers from the impact of so much pollution. Even as early as 2010 reports showed the higher pollution had lowered life expectancy in northern region of China compared to its southern region. Yet the most polluting factories were not removed and only recently is the activity being conducted seriously leading to the shortages of fuel from so much overexpansion in the boom years, and making adjustments done abruptly today more difficult.   ...

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 Donald trumps economic plan would worsen the country's economy through extravagant borrowing and lower economic growth in the long run. Because it lowers taxes by 15 percent without any paired cuts Trump's plan would worsen the deficit, so that large debt would hurt the economy in the long run. Clinton's plan would increase taxes by 4  percent largely on high incomes so as not to hurt consumer spending, with paired spending to help lower income households. Because Trump's tax cuts benefits go disproportionately to higher incomes the benefits in terms of consumer spending are slight or insignificant. In the current state of weak income gains of the last ten years it would take some time for the middle and working class to recover. Clinton's plan carefully nudges that recovery forward without aggravating the debt, so that as incomes and net worth recovers across broad parts of the population, the U.S. is poised to go forward with strong growth as in the postwar years. Trump's plan frontloads tax benefits to higher incomes at the expense of worsening debt and enlarging future debt. In the process it worsens income disparities already aggravated by the 2008 financial crisis. Reducing the chances of a broad based recovery for all parts of the population, necessary for a strong recovery.                       ...

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England miss the tenacity and run scoring ability of Alastair Cook as they lose the Ashes. England was unable to come up with anything to match the legendary scoring of Australia's Steve Smith in the Ashes fourth Test with 210 and 82 in two briliiant knocks with the bat at Old Trafford on Sunday.  Cook reflects on his own period as Captain of the English side in his new book. He now plays county cricket for Essex after Test cricket drained him and he decided to retire. He says from the first time a Test cricketer gets on the scoreboard he is the subject of incessant reporting on averages for the batsmen- for whom there is no rest- because between the glorious hundred he is out for nought or 20 more often. He recalls his last game in Test cricket when he was able to score 147 in the second innings against India, and he considers himself so fortunate to be able to retire at that time. England is going through a period when it feels it is short on good batsmen. And Cook says after Strauss retired in 2012 he could not find a stable partner, not one of the 14 he batted with lasting long. What does he think of Steve Smith? Cook says he is phenomenal.  The best three batsmen he has seen- Lara, Ponting, and Kallis. The good batsmen in English country cricket are still too young. He thinks the best way to keep Test cricket strong is to have less of it so that it remains special. This way fans would be riveted. And this would mean players would not have to choose between franchise cricket and Test cricket. ...

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The parliamentary elections in Britain have changed the environment in which the first day of Brexit talks took place on June 19, 2017. There is a great deal of uncertainty as the government of Theresa May has only a thin majority in parliament. A debate is now taking place on how much support Brexit has after the parliamentary election, and what kind of Brexit should take place, what are the risks and uncertainties for Britain. As expected the European Union negotiator Michael Barnier emphasized that some issues have to be resolved first- that Britain owes the European Union between 40 to 60 billion euros over 5 years, the rights of EU citizens in Britain, for the beneficiaries of EU policies and for the impact on borders particularly in Ireland.  Only then would the EU discuss access to the EU market for Britain. Mr Barnier handed British negotiator David Davis a hiking stick, a way of saying this will be a long hike up the mountain. In Britain there is a growing sense that the talks cannot be completed by the current deadline in 2019, that it might take 5 years. Another hurdle- Britain cannot have access to the single market if it seeks to control immigration. For the European Union there is the additional problem of how to negotiate with a government that may not be there in a few months, say experts. For the European Union Brexit is now more of a distraction, as there are other issues that rank higher such as relations with the Trump administration, NATO and Russia, refugees and borders.       ...

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President Trump announces the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear Agreement of 2015 signed by president Obama. He calls it a bad deal and "a one sided agreement, that "didn't bring, calm, didn't bring peace, and never will." Since the signing of the agreement the conflicts in the Middle East have increased and relations between the U.S. and Iran have deteriorated under the Trump administration. During the election campaign candidate Trump and Republicans had criticized the deal and deal never gained Republican support. It was also not initially supported by France which called for stronger safeguards on nuclear weapons development. The appointment of John Bolton as National Security Adviser, and Mike Pompeo as the new Secretary of State, who were strong critics of the Iran nuclear deal also influenced president Trump. He was also influenced say aides by the success of his policy with North Korea of imposing strong bargaining pressure with tough sanctions on North Korea including Chinese sanctions, which led to the talks between North and South Korean presidents and the planned Trump meeting with Kim Jong-Un of North Korea. Iran's president Rouhani says Iran will stay with the agreement as the EU countries Germany, France plan to support the agreement. This could also leave an opening for future talks with Iran on a new peace agreement as  president Trump talked about Iranian people deserving a better deal at the end of his 11 minute announcement. As Stephens points out in a op-ed in the NYT Iran's economy needs the removal of sanctions so that focus could shift to economic development, as the lifting of sanctions have yet to result in increasing living standards and building infrastructure neglected during the sanctions years. ...

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Greg Ip in the WSJ says president Biden's popularity has not surged because of lack of results in the fight against inflation. Yet inflation has been cut in half as reported in the WSJ recently, with May inflation of 4% in the US being about half of what it was at its peak of 9% in 2022.  Inflation is much worse in Europe. Biden policies that helped fight inflation included the Inflation Reduction Act to control health costs, the policies to keep Russian oil below a certain level that reduced oil prices to $75 a barrel, and the sequential interest rate increases by Jerome Powell at the Fed. The long term benefits of increased investment in manufacturing in the US for jobs growth, and competitive policy to gain US leadership in many technologies also provide for sound growth in the long term. 

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Haruhiko Kuroda, 68 years old, a senior finance ministry expert who ran the ministry's currency policy as vice finance minister for 4 years in the early 2000's, is prime minister Abe's nominee for central bank chief. He lectured at Hitoshibashi University for two years before becoming the head of the Asian Development Bank. His book "Success and Failure in Fiscal and Monetary Policy," is critical of the Bank of Japan for mistakes in being first too accomodative in monetary policy to set up the 1987 crash, and then tightening too quickly leading to the deflation and recessions of the last two decades. By choosing an expert with a long experience in the field of monetary policy and a vigorous advocate of getting things right to shake off the deflationary trends, Abe is sending a strong signal to financial markets. Kuroda says he is looking at a shorter time frame to achieve a 2% target for inflation- about two years. In essence Kuroda is taking a page from the policy book of a small group of MIT trained economists, Bernanke at the U.S. Federal Reserve, Draghi at the European Central Bank, and Mervyn King at the Bank of England to boost domestic economies in the context of increasing global growth. The yen weakened to 94.77 to the dollar on Feb 25, 2013, after the announcement. Abe's nominee for one of two deputy governor appointments is Kikuo Iwata, a 70 year old economist who was also critical of Bank of Japan monetary policy since the 1990's. The Abe administration has also carefully communicated this message. Speaking at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C. Abe said Japan's goal was to increase exports, but at the same time it will increase imports which should benefit the U.S., China, India and other countries. He described a recovery in Middle America from the Dakotas to the Carolinas and sees something like this happening also in Japan. Even the appeals to nationalist sentiment are also coupled with the message to China and S. Korea of not climbing up the escalation ladder and seeking good relations to promote mutually beneficial development. Abe's focus is on building the U.S.- Japan relationship....

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The structure of the deal that is coming up for a vote in Congress on August 1st, a day before the August 2 deadline. A deal put together mainly by Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell and Vice President Biden after other deals failed. It gives the government $400 billion immediately and another $500 billion in the fall for raising the debt ceiling. Another 1.2 trillion will be added in 2012. The entire burden for raising it falls on Obama. Obama will be able to get the debt ceiling raised without another long struggle before 2012 elections. On spending cuts- agency spending will be cut by $900 billion over the next 10 years. A new legislative committe will be set up to come up with $1.2 trillion in additional savings by the end of 2012. The mechanism that would force the committe to act or make sure spending cuts were taken if the committee failed, was set up as one in which the trigger is to force automatic across the board cuts. The automatic across the board cuts would be for $1.2 trillion to agency budgets for the next 10 years, and split this half and half between domestic programs and defence. Programs aiding the poor including Medicaid and Social Security would be exempted, but Medicare payments to providers could be touched. No new taxes are part of this deal....

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Ryan Tracy and Anthony DeBarros try to address the question of patchy internet service for America's heartland, rural areas from the prairies of Iowa to the west, and in the south and southeast. Public funds were allocated through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund for broadband service with the latest optic fiber technologies in 750,000 census blocks in all states except Alaska in the US. This was supposed to bring digital internet with fast speeds enjoyed by urban users to every American home. Instead after this and another program the Connect America program why is internet service serving some customers and not others in rural areas, with patches of areas in each rural part of a state without internet service at the speeds one should expect for streaming and other uses? This WSJ research looks at data and conducted interviews on this important issue and found that internet service providers were given public funds by the FCC yet allowed to pick customers leaving some customers out. FCC rules till 2021 did not require service for all customers equally as long as they provided service to a minimum number of locations statewide say former senior FCC officials. One senior former FFC official says it is not surprising that companies made the decision to do the bare minimum required.  In Heavener, Oklahoma this meant that during the pandemic and lockdown when schools were closed the lack of good internet service affected learning from home. Many students could not get online from home. In 2021 another effort was made. This time funds will not go through the FCC but through the states. The Biden $1 trillion infrastructure spending for workers and families includes $42.5 billion for a rural broadband program in America. This WSJ report does useful service to America by putting the spotlight on one of the issues that divides America today the gap between the quality of life in rural vs. more affluent areas of urban America. It also shows that it is the federal bureaucracy that is at fault in this case for poor internet service in rural areas. Careful attention to this is needed so that rural America gets the attention it deserves from the prairies of Iowa to the mountains, the breadbasket of the country, and the heartland.   ...

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US president Biden signs a broad executive order on July 9, that is directed at promoting competitive behaviour in the American economy, and taking action against companies that have anti competitive behaviours. It also aims to limit corporate dominance that then can lead to anti competitive behaviours. These types of behaviours puts consumers, workers and small compoanies at a disadvantage. The Biden plan stretches from the smaller items such as hearing aids and baggage fees, to the task of putting in place the first antitrust regulation on tech companies Apple, Google, Amazon and others. Industries Biden sees as needing help are agriculture, healthcare, shipping, transportation, technology, and labor practices that limit wages and mobility. In making the executive order the White House says it "will lower prices for families, increase wages for workers and promote innovation and even faster economic growth." As each step is taken by the Biden administration to help workers, families, women and children, the situation is a reminder of the actions taken by Franklin Delano Roosevelt at another period of crisis in the nation's history. The July 9 executive order will create a Competition Council as proposed by Tim Wu, special assistant to the president for technology and competition policy in the White House National Economic Council. The Compeititon Council task will be to get federal agencies to take action to promote competitive behaviours for the first time since the 1980's when Republican presidents Reagan, Bush, and Democratic presidents Clinton, Obama, allowed such behaviours in some industries to get entrenched. In Biden's own words "the rise of monopolies weaken labor." In each industry agencies will now have the task of pushing back against anti-competitive behaviours already put in place by companies. In agriculture it will help small farmers, in pharmaceutical sector it will help the American people deal with a problem that has no end in sight of high drug prices and practices that support this. In all areas of the economy the Biden plan is for a new coordinated effort across all the agencies of the government and under the leadership of the president, to restore the vibrant economy to what it was before the long deterioration through anti-competitive behaviours. ...

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 South Korea has run about 300,000 coronavirus tests, double that in Italy and ten times that in the U.S., says this report in the WSJ. This report shows how the South Korean testing works and the workday of Lee Hyuk-min, a clinical microbiologist at a testing lab of Yonsei University Health System Severance Hospital in Seoul, who is working from 4.45 am to 11 pm. South Korea's effectiveness in controlling the spread is based on a strategy of efficient testing that enables isolating quickly people and areas. South Korea's testing network is a legacy of the MERS coronavirus outbreak in 2015, and the government failure at that time to control it.  It brings together doctors, medical staff, labs, and political leaders in roles following the protocols established since then. Dr Lee and others are the final checkpoint in the system which coordinates a diagnostic operation that combines together 633 test sites and 100 labs. The protocol includes a uniform setup- same testing equipment, same training, same decision making process. At 8 am each day all labs upload results to a shared database, which allows public and private hospitals to monitor patient results and report them to Korea Centers for Disease Prevention and Control. Hospitals upload testing details to an online directory. This surveillance allows South Korea to predict where to concentrate its efforts for controlling spread, says Dr Lee who advises the South Korean government on lab testing issues. Action plan took 2 years for the new rules to be implemented following MERS in 2015. The plan included accelerated bio testing company approval for tests. The first company got approval on Feb 4, followed by 4 other firms. Dr Lee says testing is only part of the equation as labs are needed to process and confirm results. Another key is innovation. South Korea setup testing in drive thru locations, that limit contact and speed up testing, which the U.S. is adopting. Dr Lee says early identification is key, and identifying the first coronavirus patient which was done in South Korea on January 20. Other countries including the U.S. took too long to identify the first patient, says Dr. Lee. ...

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Bernard Lewis's "The Arabs in History," is a short book which confirms Zakaria's point about the openness of Islamic societies before the 19th century, with some exceptions in certain periods. Most books or a quick look at Wikipedia shows us that the Renaissance in Europe in the 15th century got its boost from books by ancient Greek authors that were available in Arab societies long after they were forgotten in Europe. His point about Indonesia and India is also true to a large extent except for periods such as the one under Aurangzeb (17th c.). Muslim societies in British India (todays Pakistan and Bangladesh) experienced less social and educational reforms under the British than Hindu societies for various reasons leading to larger backwardness, illiteracy which breed extremist ideas. This is likely to change throughout North African Arab societies and South Asia in the next 50 years, especially with the modernization drive underway in India, which is likely to spread to other parts of the region. Islam as a missionary religion with force of arms spread in the 7th-9th century rapidly over Arab North Africa and parts of west Asia, and later to South Asia. Once established there were long periods of openness to ideas and books, and different cultures ( with the exception of preferences for Muslims), and a stress on commerce which inherently reduces religious vehemence, as the example of Britain shows. For this reason the current conditions in Islamic societies is more atypical than typical. A factor that has worsened it is that 19th c.-20th c. Islamic societies have put less emphasis on commerce and industry than historically seen in prosperous Islamic societies, on which more research is needed to understand why. Another factor is the impact of the interface with technologically and scientifically progressing Europe and America not becoming a learning experience for acquisition of this science and technology and making it one's own, a pattern seen in Buddhist societies of Japan in 19th c., South Korea in 20thc.,and China 21st c. Because Buddhism sprang from Hinduism or a response to Hindu ideas in India, India could be put alongside China for the 21st c. rapid assimilation of western science and technology making it one's own. When there is a violent collison between Japan and U.S. Admiral Dewey's ships, or China and British advances around 1900, the initial reaction of rejection is reversed with adoption of western technology and practices making it one's own. Similiar response in India. Islamic societies have had an extended period of rejection for reasons not fully understood even today. This is likely to generate the kind of internal debate about how to revert back to the usual mode of adoption in Islamic civilization, with the potential catalyst in India and other locations in the Middle East. The most respected German of the 19th century is Alexander Von Humboldt, a naturalist who advanced scientific knowledge, and a mentor to Charles Darwin in England, author of "Origin of the Species." Humboldt says- "There are no inferior races, we are all humans, and we are all destined to reach for and grasp liberty." That Humboldt spent most of his best years in Paris, France, which he compared to the provincialism in his native Berlin, goes to show how Humboldt, Darwin and Humboldt's friend Aime Bonpland of France, maintained close cooperation and friendship and anticipated the close cooperation in Europe since the second half of the 20th c., long before European politicians and governments grasped this. Commerce, science, travel, media and free exchange of ideas, are as favorable to progress as politics and ideology is inimical to it....

LyrArc Article Gist
Boris Johnson leads a new British government that is composed mostly of ministers who want to see Brexit happen, and giving the positions of Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary to persons who do not care what happens as long as Britain leaves the European Union. Johnson's date is October 31st for leaving the EU. Sajid Javid, a former Deutsche Bank AG executive is the new chancellor of the exchequer. Priti Patel is new Home Secretary. Dominic Raab a former lawyer who has called for parliament to be suspended if need be so that Brexit can be pushed through is the new Foreign Secretary. Dominic Cummings who headed the Leave campaign for the Brexit referendum in 2016 is the new adviser at 10 Downing Street. Johnson's strategy is to pack the cabinet with people loyal to his vision of leaving the EU October 31st regardless of what the EU does.  The EU has not changed its position and is even less likely to consider any new Irish border proposals. Three top ministers are opposed to Mr. Johnson's views and resigned. Treasury chief Philip Hammond, Deputy primeminister David Lidington, Justice Secretary David Gauke, all resigned in opposition to Mr. Johnson simply pulling Britain out of the EU. Johnson once said all he feared from Britain abruptly leaving the EU was a shortage of Mars bars. During the election in the Conservative party Mr. Johnson was mostly quiet and avoided any gaffes to sound statesman like, yet as the process unfolds Mr. Johnson is likely to face the same problems faced by his predecessor Mrs. May. Added to this is the new opposition of moderates like Mr. Hammond and Gauke in the Conservative party that could topple the government and lead to a general election with just three vote swing in the other direction doing this. Mr. Johnson has prepared for this by having Mr. Cummings as a top adviser in the event he faces a general election. Meantime the Labour party initially not favoring a second referendum with Mr. Corbyn's ambiguous views on Brexit, as shifted gradually to the leadership and the rank and file all favoring a second referendum and for Remain. As Greg Ip has pointed out in the WSJ this week the conditions have changed with protectionism, nationalism and hostility to globalization, and president Trump not planning concessions of any sort even for the UK in trade negotiations. This means to low productivity of less than 1% to support stifled wages, one would have to add a 3.5% hit to GDP from a no deal Brexit such as Mr. Johnson approves according to the IMF. With the migration issue not what it was three years ago and reduced to a trickle this new situation must be on the minds of Mr. Corbyn, Labour and Conservative moderates. ...