LyrArc Article Gist
Brown makes a stirring appeal to the British public and to members of his own party promising to take Britons through the difficult economic circumstances they face at a Lobor party gathering in Manchester, England. 11 years of Labor governments is leaving the British people with fatigue with Labor administrations and gives Conservatives high poll ratings but Brown as persevered amid all the rumors about challenges to his leadership and skeptical public. He has handled economic affairs for Labor for a long time and brings considerable experience at a time of economic crisis for Britain, and he will need to show the kind of leadership Britain needs in the present crisis.

LyrArc Article Gist
Kamala Harris to visit Arizona and the Southern Border today. Will call for tough border action and signing into law immigration legislation negotiated by Republican Senator Lankford that would close the Southern Border. Labour's Starmer is taking the same steps in Britain, so is France under Macron and Barnier, so are Northern European socialist leaders such as Mette Frederiksen of Denmark who want to see immigration stopped so that cost of living and the economy, childcare, issues of importance for workers and families can be addressed vigorously.

LyrArc Article Gist
Germany is struggling to deal with the 2.4 million asylum seekers entering the country since 2015. It is getting overwhelmed by the scale of migrants even though immigrants are needed in parts of the economy. In Austria and Poland new restrictions are being placed to stop migrant flow. Denmark has a socialist government that is restricting migrants from entering the country. Britain under Starmer and Labour has made cutting migrant flow a major priority, the Tories failure to cut migrants flow led to its defeat in 2024.

LyrArc Article Gist
The job losses in October revised to 320,000, for September revised to 403,000, and for November 533,000 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The unemployment rate rising to 6.7%, and including the 420,000 who had been seeking work or working but now left the labor force in November , the unemployment rate is close to 7%.

LyrArc Article Gist
The employment to population ratio in August 2011 was 58.2%, down from 62.7% in December 2007, according to the Labor Department. For men the ratio is 63.6%, down from 69.4% in 2007 when the recession began. About one percentage point of this is a result of a surge of retirements during this recession period.

LyrArc Article Gist
Lagging growth in GDP per capita, productivity growth, in Italy, with small family business unwilling to take risks for growth, and bureaucratic hurdles for business. To get an idea how Italy has lagged severely behind other countries in Europe, consider that GDP per capita increased by 28% in Spain, and 22% in France, compared to only 8% in Italy during the 20 year period 1993-2013, according to the Conference Board. Productivity growth measured by GDP per hour worked for Italy showed growth of only 13% in that 20 year period, compared to 30% in France and 23% in Spain. Since the 2008 global financial crisis the Italian economy has shrunk by 9% and growth is barely 1% in 2014. During 1993-2003 top performers Germany showed 31% increase in GDP per capita and 32% increase in productivity growth, the UK showed 44% increase in GDP per capita and 38% in productivity growth. Because of slowing population growth GDP growth has to come from productivity increases in Europe. France is the strongest in terms of productivity with $59 of GDP per hour worked, UK $51, and Germany $57. Italy at $45 has fallen behind Spain at $50. Conference Board statistics show GDP per capita in inflation adjusted, purchasing power adjusted 2013 dollars at $35,847 for France, $40,868 for Germany, $30,145 for Spain, $39,904 for Britain, and Italy lagging behind at $31,386. Most of the gains were made before 1993 for Italy, whereas Spain surged in the period after 1993 only slowing after 2008. The struggles in the U.S. auto industry showed how well meaning changes for labor in the early postwar period if not adapted to changes in the global economy decades later can lead to sharp decline before adjustment is made. In Italy well meaning labor laws in the early postwar period not adapted to changes in the global economy decades later, combined with cultural behaviour of entrenched group interests, and a bureaucratic government, have stifled growth and productivity....

LyrArc Article Gist
The U.S. trade agreement with Mexico is for 16 years, to provide business with a stable rules environment to operate in. It includes a clause for review after 6 years. The content made in the U.S. is increased to 70% from 62.5%. This has to be made by workers earning at least $16  an hour. Aluminium and steel going into the cars has to come from the U.S. helping push U.S. steel plant capacity utilization to 80%. Labor collective bargaining is strengthened in Mexico through new provisions, a provision supported by new Mexican socialist president Obrador. Free trade in agricultural products is maintained. $4.7 billion was added in help to U.S. farmers as aid for the effects of China's tariff retaliation. New rules are set for textiles, chemicals, and steel intensive products that set requirements to qualify for tariff free import into the U.S. This is intended to help bring more jobs and investment in these industries in the U.S.     ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Job growth in healthcare, hospitality, state and local governments led to 275,000 jobs added in February 2024, the Labor Department shows. The resiliency in the jobs market is expected to continue.

LyrArc Article Gist
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.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The Labor Department figures showed the U.S. added 157,000 jobs in January 2013. The unemployment rate edged slighly higher to 7.9%. Government jobs declined by 9000 in January, and the risk remains that drastic job cuts under a sequester of government spending cuts supported by some in Congress would hurt the job market.

LyrArc Article Gist
Why are the French  protesting so strongly against extending the retirement age from 62 to 64. It is a question of French identity, of hard won rights to work and leisure that are seen as defining France. It also affects women differently who have a harder time working longer so that their benefits would be affected. Age discrimination is large in France so that it works against extending the age till the culture changes. Worse it comes at a time of stress for working families, and a cost of living crisis.

NYT says that when this retirement system was introduced after World War II it helped bring a fractured country together. A hard won social and labor right not easily forfeited, says NYT.

LyrArc Article Gist
Macron faces parliamentary deadlock in France after efforts to pass legislation on a bill by bill basis and use of an unpopular mechanism to ram laws through without a vote. This led to months of street protests for a law that increased the age for pensions. These moves by Macron have now left the government with no way ahead except by talking to opposition leaders. The US is making major policy changes under Biden and expanding its economy, Germany under the Schultz government is following similar policies, Britain looks to major changes under Keir Starmer's Labor party, in France the rest of Macron's term appears headed for a period when no constructive changes can take place in the economic and social condition of France.

LyrArc Article Gist
After two decades of missteps by management and workers in the auto industry that led to worker concessions on wages to revive the US auto industry the labor movement in the US was weakened. Workers wages have fallen behind with tiered wages offering new workers even less per hour, loss of cost of living adjustments during a period of high inflation. Shawn Fain won the election at the UAW in March 2023 following a direct vote of the leadership by every member of the UAW under a government supervised arrangement. He is now shaking things up at the auto workers union in Detroit and midwestern states asking autoworkers to end the tiered wages, return cost of living adjustments and a 46% wage increase.

LyrArc Article Gist
Ms. Claire Goldin, labor economist, wins the Nobel Prize Economics for her work on gender gaps. Claire Miller of NYT looks at the research done by Goldin that shows how women starting out from way behind in education, work and professions have caught up in education and are working in different careers and not letting marraige affect their work. Women Goldin says are now not having the same pay and opportunity only because they cannot work long and inflexible hours men do.Goldin points out that the 1940's period of women growing up missed out on opportunities but generations after that and after 1960 have pursued opportunities that were opening up with time saving appliances at home, Roe vs Wade, and Equal Pay legislation. 

LyrArc Article Gist
"Humphrey's Executor" is a precedent that bars firing by the president of FTC NLRB etc officials. "Humphrey's Executor" precedent is  being challenged by president DJT before the US Supreme Court and with it the independence of the Fed in 2025. Humphrey was an FTC official who was fired by FDR in the 1930's but died before his case went to the courts. It set the precedent that the president cannot simply fire officials he does not like. DJT challenged this by firing offfical at the National Labor Relations Board. When the US Supreme Court takes up this case it will look sceptically at this precedent, yet will find some way to protect the Fed's independence, says WSJ.

LyrArc Article Gist
Keir Starmer of Labour says he stands behind every word in the ad that shows Tories including Sunak are weak in prosecuting crimes against woman and children. Labour says it will halve violence against women and girls. Starmer says- he will "make absolutely zero apologies for being blunt." That Labour will continue to use the Conservatives record on crime as legitimate criticism no matter how squeamish it made some people feel. "For the first time in my lifetime, everywhere you look from the economy to the NHS to the chaos on our streets- we have been set on a path of decline." Starmer said the last decade had seen the UK "become a country where thugs, gangs and monsters mock our justice system and make decent people's lives a misery." Starmer was head of public prosecution in Britain from 2008 to 2013. As early as 2002 he was Queen's Counsel. He was also a human rights adviser for Northern Ireland Policing Board and Association of Chief Police Officers. Starmer cites his work in improvements in Northern Ireland policing as one of the key factors in his decision to pursue a political career. The issue in the ad is a subject in which Starmer has much experience. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Nobel laureate Michael Spence says the structural problems in the U.S. economy will require structural solutions where government, business and labor come up with collective efforts to restore economic growth. This might take some time says Spence. Short term fiscal spending alone is not the answer for jobs growth. And it will take a joint concerted effort of government, business and labor. Part of the effort might include a period in which there is lower income growth to regain competitiveness. This would be similiar to what Germany accomplished in the last decade in which it faced high unemployment. The German government, labor unions and business forged a consensus which included wage restraint, changes in the labor market. This would have to be combined with government-business partnership to make investments in advanced manufacturing technology and other innovations to improve competitive position. Educational standards and productive skill development issues would have to be addressed to create new advantage for the U.S., just as emerging market economies are making new strides of their own....

LyrArc Article Gist
Loss of 1700 jobs, almost half of the workforce at Dell's Irish manufacturing plant in Limerick, Ireland. Ireland attracted multinationals with its 12.5% corporate tax rate, but higher labor and energy costs make Ireland less attractive than Poland. Dell is moving the manufacturing to Poland. Dell was the second largest foreign employer in Ireland.

LyrArc Article Gist
Eighty six marchers will make the 386 kilometre walk from the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad to Dandi, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of India's independence. Mohandas Gandhi made the march from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi on the Arabian Sea to break British salt laws in a nonviolent protest against British rule, in March 1930. This march set the stage for the movement of Indian independence into its final stage. By the end of the war in 1945 the British Labor Attlee government made the decision for complete withdrawal and the last Viceroy Lord Mountbatten negotiated with Mohandas Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel for Indian independence.

LyrArc Article Gist
The US Airways and America West merger has not lived up to expectations. Both airlines operate together but are run practically separately and the employees feel that way, considering themselves on the east side or the west side. Not much of a merger, and President Dave Parker has failed to win labor confidence, not having signed labor contracts with his employees and operating under transitional arrangements.

LyrArc Article Gist
Jan Hatzius, economist at Goldman Sachs, says the May 2012 jobs report of only 69,000 jobs added, and 49,000 fewer jobs added in March and April after revisions by the Labor Department, should be seen in the light of higher hiring in the winter months because of warm weather. His estimate is that the warm weather added 100,000 extra jobs in the 3 months through February 2012, taking jobs from the March to May 2012 period which averaged 96,000 jobs per month. The underlying job growth if these weather related effects are taken out would be 120,000 to 130,000 jobs added each month in the March through May 2012 period. Macroeconomic Advisors draws the same conclusions, and adds that reductions in energy prices should offset any negative effects of slower job growth by boosting real disposable personal income and supporting real consumer spending.

LyrArc Article Gist
Britain's National Health Service IT initiative failed because of a top down emphasis and focus on procurement. The project was started by Labor in 2002 and budgeted for 12 billion pounds. Lohr talks with Dr. David Brailer, and Dr. David Blumenthal, who headed the program for health IT in the Bush and Obama administrations, and with Richard Alvarez of Canada Health Infoway, which is the nonprofit corporation setup for conversion to electronic health records in Canada. Dr Brailer says the program in the UK was forced top down on doctors and nurses, and seen as a procurement program, ignoring the human aspects related to doctor preferences. Dr. Blumenthal empasized the need for collaborative effort all the way with doctors and nurses in a program of this kind. The confrontation that resulted from the lack of participation by health care professionals led to failure. Britain's new Cameron government ended the program.

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. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Renault signs an agreement with labor unions which provide for longer working hours and a one year wage freeze to reduce labor costs. Renault will in turn not close French factories and invest 1.1 billion euros to increase production in France. A similiar agreement was signed by Renault in Spain in 2012 and increased the urgency for reaching an agreement in France. Renault says increasing working hours 6.5% provided in the agreement will save the company 300 euros per car. Analysts estimate lower breakeven point for Renault after the deal. Renault said it will increase production to 710,000 cars in France by 2016 as part of the deal, taking output up to 85% of factory capacity. Production in 2012 declined to 532,000 in 2012, from 646,000 in 2011 and 1.2 million in 2007. Unions went into the negotiations sensing the danger in lack of competitiveness vs. Spain and Germany, and CFDT published a book titled "Renault in Danger!." Based on the experience in the U.S. as the economy recovered and sales recovered for Ford and GM, Renault may be seeing the effects of a gradual recovery in Europe by 2016. The 710,000 figure is a one third increase from the low 2012 figure, leaving room for expansion if this strategy succeeds. Renault's market share declined in Europe by one percentage point in 2012 to 8.4%, and its sales in Europe declined by 19%, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers Association. The increased production planned by Renault also includes 80,000 cars made for its partner Nissan....

LyrArc Article Gist
Is increasing taxes in the UK a good idea in 2025 for middle income people? Why Reeves is the wrong chancellor for Starmer and Labour in 2025 with her insistence on having everything balance to the last pound without looking at the big picture- people's strained finances and the need to do what DJT has done with the One Big Beautiful Act- to support mothers with childcare, the retired with nearly eliminating social security taxes, and finding the funding to do this in other ways, reducing taxes on small business to create new investment.