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The Zwickau plant near Dresden, Germany, is the biggest electric car plant in Europe. German car manufacturers including VW have embraced technological change in electric car manufacturing. In the past this plant made 3 million Trabant cars in the old East Germany or GDR. The Trabants were highly polluting, the new electric cars are a way to tackle climate change and reduce air pollution.

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The Mumbai Ahmedabad Bullet Train project is shown here on the Rail Minister Ashwani Vaishnav site in You Tube Video. Rapid buildup is progressing use new technological methods with Japanese help. The first undersea rail tunnel of this kind under Thane Creek for 21 kilometres on the Mumbai side. The 508 kilometer distance cuts travel time between two major commercial cities in western India from 7 to 2 hours. It will then be replicated after completion in 2027 and 2029 (final), across other Indian cities north to south east to west. PM Modi has emphasized this in vist to Surat last week talking to engineering personnel that the important aspect is what can be learnt from this section of bullet train engineering that can be replicated or improved across many Indian cities, over a land mass almost the size of European Union (3.3 million square kms India to 4.3 million EU). Technology: India uses the Japanese Shinkansen E10 Series. In comparison Kawasaki Steel technology of an earlier generation used for China's earlier bullet trains and redeveloped for the newest CR450. Germany uses ICE 3 neo of Siemens, France 5th generation TGV M Avelia Horizon of Alstom. Stations- Mumbai (Bandra-Kurla), Thane, Virar, Boisar on Maharashtra side and on Gujarat side Vapi, Bilimora, Bharuch, Surat, Vadodara, Anand, Ahmedabad and Sabarmati Cost: $17 billion through a loan from JICA Japan International Cooperation Agency. A key achievement stemming from close relationship of PM Shinzo Abe 2012-2020 and Modi of India starting when Modi was CM of Gujarat. Significance:  Just as it did for China this will dispel the notion that Indians could not borrow technologies and capital and with its own engineering capabilities build high speed rail infrastructure across a terrain the size of EU. The naysayers are both in India as they were with China in 2000 period and in US/Europe. It requires a special determination, persistence, vision and leadership as happened in Japan in 1960's, in China in 2000's, and India by 2030, to show what can be done to their people oppressed by the sense that failures of the past could not be overcome. Note that it was Japan that stepped up its help to setup the bullet train system in China by 2004. Japan's Hideo Shima and Shinji Sogo were the chief engineers for Japan's first bullet train in 1964, invented by Japan as first in the world to do this.  Next bullet trains and travel time cut to: Ahmedabad to New Delhi through Jaipur Mumbai- Pune will be a mountain tunneling exercize as much of it goes through mountainous terrain. Cut travel to 45 minutes. Pune to Hyderabad Hyderabad to Bangalore cut travel to 2 hours Bangalore to Chennai or Madras cut travel to 3 hours  (Shanghai has always remained Shanghai so has Ahmedabad, its all about what can be done not names) Chennai  to Bangalore cut travel time to 1 hour and 13 minutes Delhi to Varanasi Varanasi to Siliguri through Patna From the Alps to the North Sea in the EU, in India bullet trains can take one from Indian Ocean at Sri Lanka to the Himalayan mountains terrain and Nepal. ...

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From north east Indiana and Indiana University SVB CEO Becker works his way up to a bank in Detroit with offices in California, and joins SVB in his twenties. He opened SVB's office in Boulder in 1996 and became president in 2008. Two things made SVB different. It seemed like the 2008 crisis had never happened. The management at the company Becker, Beck, and another executive Descheneaux hired from Bancwest, acted more like tech entrepreneurs and much less like bankers. They seemed to have mastered the way of optimistic talk to tech entrepreneurs, the language the culture, and did not share the same grasp of the economic environment of others who had weathered the 2008 crisis. For most of 2021 the company did not have a risk officer, according to the WSJ. And did not see the aspects of duration risk in having assets invested in long term Treasury's when interest rates were increased by the Fed rapidly to fight inflation decreasing the value of bonds. Startups and SVB management in their optimism both ignored the risk of not having the backing of FDIC insurance as insurance is limited to $250,000 in deposits, and most of the SVB's deposits were much larger. The US government wary of criticism of a bailout insists the FDIC backing provided to prevent systemic risk will not cost the taxpayers as it will come from a special assessment on banks. Nothing better explains the collapse than a look at the graphs of SVB's deposits in this WSJ report, in 2019 deposits and financial assets increase at about 50%, at about 100% doubling in 2020. Stock performance mirrored this.  By 2020 the supply chain disruptions were real and inflation was taking off, the Fed under Jay Powell was taking up the fight against inflation with sharp rise in interest rates. SVB did not grasp the seriousness of the situation. Venture capital gleaned the risks as they mounted and a bank run with withdrawals of as much of $42 billion led to the collapse.   ...

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After Mohandas Gandhi one of the main leaders of modern India is one who came from the untouchable castes, the lowest caste in India's caste system which had declined over centuries. Babasaheb Ambedkar comes from Ratnagiri district in Maharashtra from a family that had gained its way out of the caste constraints by working for the British East India Company. He later studied at Elphinstone College in Bombay, and went to Columbia University on a scholarship. He finished Masters degrees at Columbia University and later at the London School of Economics, in economics and political science.  Returning to India he wrote "Annhilation of Caste" in 1936. Mohandas Gandhi was at this time working on his own movement to get rid of the untouchability that over centuries made its way into the original caste system and weakened the foundations of Indian society. To understand this one has to know that in many upper castes it was seen as becoming an outcaste even to travel overseas, which by itself may have led to the decline that India experienced in the period 1500-1950, and which Gandhi personally experienced and fought his way out of. By 1942 even the British recognized Ambedkar's efforts and he was Minister of Law and Justice in the war cabinet. In 1947 Ambedkar was chosen to lead the team that would write India's Constitution. In his latter years Ambedkar became a Buddhist and has written several books on Buddhism. By 2015 Ambedkar day was recognized as a public holiday by the new government and his memory is enshrined in the efforts now underway in India's largest state of Uttar Pradesh to bring modern ideas, and modernization through next generation infrastructure, and opportunity for Dalits of which caste Ambedkar was one, and the same for all of the 250 million people of Uttar Pradesh, almost the size of America. ...

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If Zambia can put in almost a billion dollars to make primary and secondary schooling free should not an affluent nation like the US make K-12 schooling free and support a big part of college and university fees. Zambia coming out of a IMF bailout during the pandemic is supporting it knowing that it is the best way to take the nation forward, not leaving millions without education behind. Instead America has chosen to let capitalist flaws such as capital allocation to unworthy projects waste capital. This last week alone about $1 billion in capital was shown to be wasted- $100 million for a new golf ball and $700 million for a new beauty business incorporating herbals. Every month wasted capital is shown in Lyrarc.com showing that the capital allocation process in America is deeply flawed and leaves little for education and healthcare because of its distortions and poor allocation serving the interests of a few, and not even that as the money gets wasted entirely to no one's benefit and a complete loss to the Nation. ...

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Cygnus is the rehearsal for a full blown pandemic that the British government conducted in 2016. After preparations accelerated following the SARS crisis in 2009 and the H1N1 pandemic in 2015, the British government accelerated its preparations for H2N2 the next pandemic. The exercize took place in October 2016 for 3 days, for a worst case scenario flu pandemic affecting 50% of the population and causing 400,000 extra deaths. For 3 days people were told to imagine being in the 7th week of the pandemic, facing peaks in demand for health and hospital care. Cobra meetings were to be held. This report in the Guardian gives details on the Cygnus exercize. It showed a lack of UK readiness.  By July 2016 prime minister Cameron was replaced by Theresa May in the Conservative Party and a full blown crisis emerged for Brexit. Britain lost interest in Cygnus or the pandemic prevention effort as Brexit consumed Britain's energies. Soon it was forgotten by the time Boris Johnson became prime minister and won the Brexit election. This shows how even a sincere effort and preparation over years of planning can result in nothing. This also happened in France. See France 24's coverage of this and our groups and links on this. One insight was that while every agency acted there was no coordinated response with someone in the central authority guiding the entire effort step by step. Care homes entirely privately run were also identified as a concern and anticipated significant pressures because of staff absenteeism at these social care centres in a pandemic, as reported in the Guardian ...

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Poland has a huge shortage of doctors and nurses. The ratio of doctors to every 100,000 of population is the lowest in the European Union. It is twice that in Germany whose relative success in tackling covid pandemic comes from having foreign doctors and nurses treat patients. Consider that the average age of Polish doctors is 53, only a few years from retirement. The situation in terms of immigration reminds pone of East Germany and its depopulation of young people who left for West Germany. Something like this has happened in Poland in health care.  In similar ways other countries in the EU, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania stocked up on ventilators but now have few doctors and nurses left to operate them. It is stretching the limits of human endurance as this report shows in WSJ, with doctors working 36 hour shifts and working 73 hours a week.  Here we see Dr. Rotnicki, who works these long hours at a hospital in western Poland and says that it is like the Second World War, that it is hard times in Poland for health care workers. This report says Italian and British hospitals, not just German ones, are tackling coronavirus with Polish, Hungarian and Romanian doctors and nurses. This report shows that headhunters in Germany drive in to western Poland blanketing windshields with pamphlets promising 5 times more pay, 2 years of free language classes and housing. In Slovakia a third of all nursing graduates leave the coutnry immediately after graduation. In Poland not nursing pay has lagged behind with fewer going into nursing schools. Staff remaining in the region are older and educated under communism when less English was taught, or have returned back home from years overseas. Forcing doctors to give up private practice and work in public hospitals during coronavirus pandemic is not working in Hungary, where surveys find 6 out of ten medical school graduates intending to leave Hungary. These doctors say they are better off working at Aldi and Tesco if needed and making more pay, plus getting weekends off. Poland only recently increased pay for healthcare workers, some even survived on cash given to them by patients. Not a good situation for a country to be in and reflecting the wrong priorities not just in the U.S. and western Europe, but also in eastern Europe, during the last 3 decades. These priorities shifted money away from health care, education and infrastructure priorities. The people simply lost control of their spending allocation to "financial markets" that shifted money in a way that benefited only small group in society neglecting others and national interests. ...

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This NYT report by Eric Schmitt describes the efforts of U.S. troops in Europe under Lt. Gen. Frederick Hodges to build  a fast movement capability to counter the threat from Russian forces on the borders of countries in Eastern Europe. Hodges says speed of movement is crucial. American forces are deployed in smaller numbers than the Russian forces. A 10 day exercize under Hodges involved 25,000 American and allied forces across Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. Russian forces exercizes involve more than 100,000 troops. The war in Ukraine involved a breakaway region in the east supported by Russian forces.

Commanders and younger officers were trained to address the Cold War threat with the soviets. Then for over a decade the focus shifted to Afghanistan, then Iraq and Syria. Now the focus shifts back to the Eastern European area with a new Russian threat.

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China's campaign against corruption and the popular programs that the Chinese government of Jinping encourages on television. This includes the 52 part series on television called "In the Name of the People." The programs show how the Communist party's upright officials stand up against the corrupt ones. The idea is to build up the reputation of the Communist Party, as it sagged under the previous administrations during the period of rapid growth when such behaviour was tolerated to in some ways.

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The city of Kharkiv is in complete darkness as Russia targets Ukrainian electricity grid with missile strikes. People gathering in the underground subway is shown in this BBC News report.

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Denmark based Maersk is the link that connects Asian exporters to the US and Europe. It measures its container ships in size by TEU's a TEU being  20 foot container boxes, 20 foot equivalent units being standard. The Dali container ship had 4700 40 foot container boxes that was built for 10,000 TEU's. When Japan was the large exporter getting Toyota's into Long Beach it was 6400 TEU's , with China now sending BYD E vehicles it is now as large as 10,000 TEU's. In the future with India sending its exports under a resilient supply chain to the US it is 20,000 TEU's. What we don't see are these ports such as Long Beach and Hamburg (in which China has ownership stake) which are increasing capacity for taking in exports from Asia. It has reached these volumes only in one direction from Asia, which president Biden is trying to reverse by building factories at home for resilient supply chain and for jobs and a future for American workers. The Dali 4700 containers that hit the bridge at Scott Key in Baltimore also were figuratively hitting America's own manufacturing base, and its workers and communties built around factories, across the Nation. ...

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No less than a report by Harry Truman's Commission on Migratory Labor in 1951 says-  Migratory labor caused low wages in the Southwest and traced social ills to illegal immigration: “The magnitude … has reached entirely new levels in the past 7 years.… In its newly achieved proportions, it is virtually an invasion,” the report says. What one sees from this archive of the US Congress is that there ebbs and flows back and forth on migration across the southern border. The trade unions and even Harry Truman's Commission come out for restricting migration depending on this ebb and flow. Remember that Asian immigration is flatly opposed from 1910 to 1950. twenties - open to meet farm labor needs, 40% of US vegetables grown in the southwest. thirties - with the Great Depression a Hoover deportation effort forties- welcoming immigrants to meet war needs under Franklin Roosevelt fifties- under both Truman and EIsenhower the welcome ends and apart from the bracero program for agriculture, the Eisenhower administration conducts Operation Wetback. The House of Representatives Archives show the history of Hispanics in the southwest and immigration from Mexico in the period of the 1930's to the 1950's. One sees the effects of the Depression and Labor's AFL CIO and trade unions favoring limits on immigration from Mexico because of the difficulties American citizens were having finding jobs during the 1929-1934 period. Herbert Hoover moved illegal immigrants back to Mexico in the first program at a time when there were strict limits to Asians emigrating to the US. For much of the twenties the border was left open to meet the needs of the southwest farms for Mexican labor. Then came the war when Mexican Americans joined the war effort in great numbers. After the war the difficulty of finding jobs for troops returning to the US created new pressures to limit immigration. Ike setup Operation wetback to deport about 1 million migrants.   ...

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The Buick Regal is turning out to be just the car for going after younger buyers, and going after Gen Y buyers, buyers who have appeared so elusive for GM. It handles like European cars in its ride, and this reviewer compares it to a Peugeot. It was almost an accident in the way it was developed. It started as the development of a global, midsize front-drive platform at GM's Opel division in Russelsheim, Germany in 2004. At the time it was to be the next generation Saturn Aura for the US, but with Saturn closed down, it was renamed Buick. In Germany its called Opel Insignia. In China where Buick sales are growing rapidly, this car is called a Buick. This car is getting great reviews and is a part of the new rebirth of GM.

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Israeli leader Yair Lapid says "we need a government where right, left and centre work together as a way of life." The result is that Lapid's party is putting together a coalition of the right, left and centre- parties of Bennett, Labor, Gantz, and Lapid getting together to form a new government with sharing of ministries. Bennett would be the prime minister for 2 years followed by Lapid under this new arrangement. The whole arrangement is a result of no one  party or group of parties gaining a majority in repeated elections. Under the last arrangement Benny Gantz and Netanyahu shared power with Netanyahu going first as prime minister.  The new arrangement is designed as an effort to give Israel a chance to have anyone other than Netanyahu as prime minister, so intense is the desire for changes- almost as if Israel needed it "as it needs air to breathe," the way Lapid puts it. Lapid says the goal was not compromise which was tried in the past, the goal now was a government of change. ...

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Japan is suffering from deflation, the public debt is a record 883 trillion yen or $9.78 trillion, and Premier Hatoyama was unable reduce spending. Yet the Japanese yen went up by 4% in May 2010. It went up by 11.5% vs the Euro. The causes lie in the weakness of the U.S. and European economies and the huge trade surpluses from Japanese exports, over $28 billion in 2009.