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Dagmar Breitenbach of DW.com  discusses today's youth in an interview with Albert Wunsch, author of the book "The Pampering Trap." Wunsch is a psychologist and education expert, who says today's youth lack the perseverance of their parent's generation. When confronted with difficult situations today's young people in Germany are seen as lacking maturity, persistence, and patience. Part of the problem is that parents have shielded their children from life's realities, says Wunsch. Parents want to be their kid's friends, and not act like an authority figure. In Germany authority figures still have the taint of looking bad, and parent shy away from that perception. The avoidance of conflict, including constructive conflict leaves children and youth at a disadvantage, because they go through life not having had to experience difficulties and learn from these experiences. Lacking this sensible kind of conflict in which parents have to ask themselves what is of value that they can transfer, the transfer of what one generation has learned is not being transferred to the next. Another problem is that young people prefer to hedge, not make commitments, says Wunsch. Financial literacy on how to manage money is also at a lower level. Some of these problems are mentioned for young people in America in the best selling book by Ben Sasse- "The Vanishing American Adult." Developments in Germany are also evident in other places. The dropout rate in Germany is also high. Studies cited here show this to be about 25% to 33% of college students dropping out.   ...

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Senior officials from Russia and OPEC producers meet in Jeddah in April 2018 to work out plans to continue cuts in production to reduce inventories and lift oil prices. The deal was first made in 2016 to reduce the glut then prevailing that led to a slump in oil prices to the $50 per barrel level. The agreement has worked to remove about 2% of world oil production. Healthy demand in 2018 from economies of Europe and America has helped lift oil prices with the cuts in production in place to $70 per barrel. A reinstatement of sanctions on Iran could limit supplies from Iran. Venezuelan production is down in its current economic crisis. Russia says it is 100 percent committed to compliance with the agreement with Saudi Arabia and OPEC countries. It was the lack of agreement between Russia and Saudi Arabia with each going its own way following the Russian intervention in Syria favoring Iran that increased the glut in oil supplies in 2015 leading to a fall in oil prices. For some time this hurt the Russian economy and Russia responded by actively devaluing its currency to maintain economic stability and internal growth. The Saudis were hit too by the fall in oil prices limiting new investments in the economy. The new agreement between Russia and the Saudis/OPEC comes after mutual interest has prevailed in the relations of OPEC  and Russia over the geopolitics in the region between Iran supported by Russia and the Saudis. It also comes as relations between the U.S. and Russia are worsening, with increasing investments in the military. ...

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Senators in the US Congress, Rubio and Schumer, have asked the US government to look into Apple's plans to work with Chinese semiconductor company YMTC. As a result the Commerce Department has placed export restrictions on YMTC. This NYT report looks at the two decade long rise of China and of Apple after Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 and shifted manufacturing to China. When Jobs returned to Apple he found major quality issues at Apple's manufacturing facilities, a demoralized workforce, and financial losses, with CEO Michael Spindler running the company into the ground. Jobs had to start with afresh model for Apple and decided to shift manufacturing to China under the engineering leadership of Tim Cook. Alabama native Cook went to Auburn University for his engineering degree and Duke for his business degree. Cook joined Jobs in 1998 at Apple and for ten years till 2007 the two cut costs, shifted to contract manufacturers and rebuilt Apple with new products, iPod, iPad and the iphone. By not manufacturing Apple avoided quality control issues, and the costs of maintaining inventory. It was Tim Cook who ran operations worldwide, and he gradually built up the manufacturing relationships in China with Foxconn, which makes most of Apple's products in sprawling Chinese factories that employ 20 years later about 3 million Chinese workers. Foxconn was chosen by Apple in 2000 to manufacture the Apple Mac laptop. Before that it was a parts supplier to Apple. Increasingly Apple relied on Foxconn to make its new products including the iPhone. Both companies growth relied on the manufacturing of Foxconn to the point where Apple was dependent on Foxconn and had intertwined its operations with Foxconn in China. Today the whole relationship is being called into question after two decades in which American workers suffered the effects of the outshoring of manufacturing jobs. It should be noted that though Mr. Trump raised the issue of manufacturing exclusively in China with Apple, the Trump administration did little to change the practices of the company that pioneered this type of massive manufacturing role for China. That surrendered the entire supply chain to foreign suppliers in the interest of cutting costs and maintaining huge profit margins, with which it financed an array of new products and reached $1 trillion in sales from $10 billion, hundredfold increase over 2 decades. American workers and families for the first time in American history got very little from this Cook-Jobs project. American infrastructure in communities that would have been supported by American factories including the services and infrastructure in communities financed through local taxes, a practice throughout the Industrial Revolution in the US, was sharply disrupted over 2 decades. It caused a rupture in social relations and increased inequality in the US, and defunded infrastructure that comes with manufacturing.  It is the task of the Biden administration to now correct what Mr. Trump simply talked about but never induced or required Apple to do- lead the resurgence of American manufacturing, and make its major investments in the US, invest in its workers and families, invest in America. ...

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FR24 gives this video of the televised national debate in France between Macron and Le Pen. Macron took up the challenge of not enough attention being given to Le Pen's ties with Russia and her position of skepticism when it comes to the European Union and climate change. "You are dependent on the Russian government and you are dependent on Mr. Putin. When you speak to Russia, you are speaking to your banker." Le Pen says she had taken that loan from a Czech-Russian bank only because French banks refused to lend to her. "I'm absolutely and totally free woman." The candidates also clashed over Le Pen's proposal for banning Muslim women from wearing headscarves. Le Pen described the veil as "a uniform imposed by Islamists." Macron sad that such a plan would violate France's secular rules and would trigger "civil war" in a country that has the largest Muslim population in western Europe. The Fench colonoized parts of North Africa during the period after 1830, with French colonies in Algeria, Morocco and other parts of the region, leading to immigration from this part of the Arab world. After a series of terrorist incidents the French public lost patience with Islamist tendencies leading to a general swing to the right in French politics including Macron. Yet mainstream parties such as Macron's continue to support France's secular values. The traditional parties from the period before Macron such as the Le Republicains of the De Gaulle period in the sixties and the Socialists from the Mitterand period (1981-1995) both failed to win more than 5% of the vote in 2022 showing the many changes happening in France.  During the Macron period as president Yellow Vest protests brought up the issues of working families having a hard time making ends meet. Macron has responded to such protests with some aloofness but also with a tendency to organize town hall meetings to listen to people express their frustrations.  France has established a stronger welfare state than the US and Britain, and for this reason issues related to the dislocation of smaller towns because of the shift of manufacturing to China are part of the general trend that had affected both the US and western Europe, requiring a more unified response. This now takes shape with the renewal of manufacturing in the US and all the western European countries. Candidates with platforms such as Le Pen's to provide relief for the current surge in the cost of living could offer temporary band aid solutions but not address the root causes that require a renewal of French manufacturing and bringing good jobs home or closer to home. The will and aspiration to bring a next generation industrial revolution to France and Europe is the kind of solution that is needed, one that would revive towns and communities across France and across Europe. Much of the technological capabilities are there in Europe, needed is the will and aspiration.  ...

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Robert Lighthizer, U.S. Trade Representative, makes a passionate plea for the dignity of work in America, the founding principle for the society of opportunity that America has been and the reason it was settled by immigrants from Europe over 200 years. He points out that trade policy is not about geopolitics or about efficiency as others perceive, it is about what kind of society we want to live in. Is it about a society of opportunity? This is the foundation on which this American continent was settled by settlers from Britain and Europe, and the basis of the growth over two hundred years till the last four decades. From 2000 and China's entry into the World Trade Organization under president Clinton to 2016 the U.S. manufacturing base has shrunk with the loss of five million jobs, two million jobs lost to China in the period 1999-2011 alone. And 350,000 automobile manufacturing jobs to Mexico since 1994, one third of all U.S. automobile jobs. Without the initiative and hard work of Mr. Lighthizer both American workers and Mexican workers would be stuck in low paying jobs. The USMCA he negotiated changed all that by giving Mexican workers fair wages and American workers and manufacturing the opportunity for revival.  This view was also expressed by Intel founder Andy Grove, a founder of one of the first pioneer companies in Silicon Valley. Grove asked the question after seeing the outsourcing of production out of America and the condition of the American worker- he said for him it was about what kind of society he wanted to live in. It was all about the dignity of the American worker long ignored by economists who live in a world of theory and the elite that has lived for so long apart from the places where the fabric of American workers and working life was torn apart. It was a question that touched Andy Grove's heart just as it does for Robert Lighthizer and others who are fighting to make America a society of opportunity for the American worker and opportunity for the American people, for dignity in America. It also charts a new course for the French worker, the British worker, the Indian worker, as other countries learn from the American experience. We have covered Grove and Lighthizer from the early days of their leadership and wise reminders to the people of what America is and stands for. Lighthizer points out one huge error that makes the thinking of these economists and elite that have not listened for so long, more than a bit crazy, reckless and callous. He says there about half of 250 million adults who lack a college diploma in America. Historically manufacturing has provided stable well paying employment. Even if with investment in education they were taught to write software code, there aren't enough jobs for them. The combined total of jobs at Apple Google, Facebook and Netflix is 300,000 jobs. Never has so much been at stake for so many and defended by so few. ...

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The sense of conflict in China and US relations may not have developed in the shaping of Xi Jinping's thinking till the emergence of Mr. Trump. Jinping comes into the China shaped by Deng and Zemin after the collapse of the purely Communist experiment with modernization without access to western technologies and capital, and the experiment with American help. It is only after the realization that the Communist party had lost its sense of purpose in these years leading to the Bo Xilai episode, and the rhetoric of Mr. Trump against China, that the idea of first friction and then conflict emerged. The initial idea for Jinping before Trump was that this has worked for China- the experiment with the cooperation of the US in modernizing China. Trump's rhetoric and the Republican party's rhetoric about China stealing American jobs and technology after 2015 may have been targeted to win the election but it had an unintended effect after the tariffs of shaping Jinping's thinking about the future for China. Between the Bo Xi Lai episode in 2012 when it appeared he would be attempting to manipulate the Communist party's direction in unknown and unpredictable ways, Bo's trial in 2013 and the anticorruption campaign and the 2015 election campaign of Mr. Trump in the US, there must have been much soul searching in the party that shaped Jinping's thinking about the future for China after all the tumult of the 20th century starting with the Boxer rebellion in 1901. Stability is highly prized in China particularly for modernization. This perspective is important to grasp for world peace to be preserved with different coexisting perspectives about the world based on national as well as shared interests in issues such as climate change. US after its own disastrous experiment with capitalism that led to widening inequality of the kind not seen since Lincoln in the 1850's, the 2009 crisis, and the shift of jobs to China under a purely capitalist idea of how economies should function, had its own national interests in jobs, local manufacturing and Made in the USA. Once this process was underway after 2016 and grasped by president Biden after 2020, and supply chain reconstruction made the goal after covid, the US and China were on divergent economic and political paths.   That rethinking by Xi Jinping is not over as it may still be going on. The war in Ukraine may even convince Jinping and China's No. 2 leader Li Keqiang who studied the US constitution and American urbanization under mentors when he was in college, that Russia's prolongation of the war in Ukraine does not serve the interests of China. That risking relations with the European Union as Russia prolongs the war and finds itself in the complex problems of  a war it started, is not in China's interests in setting its own course for the future. ...

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About the title it depends- costs have come down for food made at home and eating at home, it is the cost of eating outside that has doubled from 3% in 1960's the Kennedy years to 5.7% in 2024 as a share of personal disposable income.  Costs of eating at home are now half of what they were in the Kennedy years when they were about 13% of personal disposable income, as shown in USDA data and charts.The American public says in voting preference and other surveys  that inflation is a key concern, food prices  are mentioned as a key concern. Food prices fell by about 8% during the pandemic 2020 and rose quickly by 2022 by 12%.    Eating at home declined from about 13% of personal disposable income in the Kennedy years in 1962 to about 9% in the Reagan era in 1990 and down to 5.7% today. The real culprit in food inflation is people paying higher prices to eat outside at restaurants. In that period obesity has increased and general health has declined by these spending habits and lack of food savy cooking knowledge that not only cuts costs but also makes it possible to eat healthier by controlling intake of the fat, oil, and other poor ingredients by cooking for oneself at home. At home one avoids packaged goods and cooks the food from healthy ingredients. A correction is badly needed and will help not only health but also the family budget. Its a crazy way to do things not to educate children on healthy foods starting early in school, including in designing lunches and gradually increasing interest in making simple items from scratch. And instead to neglect food and food intake ending up with increase in cost plus poorer health outcomes. Hitting not just the family budget, also the nation's budget with higher and higher expenditures on healthcare. American habits need a change to make more at home like mothers and grandmothers in the 1960's and reverse obesity, poor health outcomes. As for the manufacturers of packaged foods President Biden talked recently about shrinkflation putting less in each bag of food at the same price. "The American public is tired of being played for suckers. I've had enough of shrinkflation. It's a ripoff." WSJ looks at food prices in 1991 and other points in the past and today. In 1991 as a percentage of disposable income food was 11.3%, according to Agriculture Department. This was after an inflationary increase in the 1970's. USDA data shows it has reached 11.2% in 2022. The public is responding by eating less outside and making its own granola and other items, and generally buying less that cuts into sales, a healthy trend. This is expected to lead grocery stores and manufacturers to reduce prices in 2024. ...

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In a aspirational country where even US president John Kennedy's grandparent's father Patrick Joseph arrived from Ireland during the potato famine in the 1850's and aspired to reaching the level of the more educated Americans over 2 generations, whose grandson JFK's father worked as a manager in the Quincy shipyards in Massachusetts, this extraordinary concentration of support for Republicans among less educated is astonishing, perplexing, and at odds with what America is. Super Tuesday results analysis of 1000 counties in 14 states in 2024 show Republican Trump getting 83% of the vote in counties with a higher share of voters without a college education. Where voters are a higher share of the college population this drops to 61%. A sharp drop in support is seen in counties with a higher percentage of voters who have college a rapid fall as one has college education.  A strange phenomena can be seen in graphs shown in WSJ of voters by counties and income, education. A large cluster of voters in incomes below 70,000 and without a college education then falling off like off a cliff. In Iowa, New Hampshire primaries it was seen as being mostly rural voters, more isolated and in less proximity to other people. The question remains how well this category of under $70,000 without a college degree reflects the country as a whole in 2024, how has the country changed since 2012, 2016 and 2020. It is easily said there is a polarized country yet this ignores the unusual nature of this support where it is concentrated so heavily in one group in this way with cutoff of $70,000 falling precipitiously in support for Trump for incomes above that. At above $70,000 support quickly drops to 80% and falls steeply with every $1000 increase in income after that. In a country like the US this means almost the entire educated population in the US and the entire population above the $70,000 per year level excluding itself from support, so sharp is the fall off from moderate income and education levels, and so heavily clustered is the support almost like a ball up in that corner of the graph with just a few specks on the rest of the graph. This is most unusual for the US and may not be reflective of the whole population of the US in 2024. This is also unprecedented in US history since 1776, may not compare to 2016, and for the Republican party even more unusual. Two questions also come up what happened to all the country club, more educated voters who voted Republican and made the party what it was an upper class business supported party, and what happened to all the factory workers, teachers, nurses and others in America who make about $70,000 or $80,000 and who are generally Democratic. These people will be part of the electorate for the whole country in 2024. ...

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Mohammed bin Salman, 31 years old, is made the successor to his father King Salman. Prince Nayef, 57, the crown prince is removed from this position. Nayef was Interior Minister. After the current king assumed office in Jan. 2015, he promoted his son to the position of defence minister, overseeing the state oil company and overseeing economic affairs. He put together a plan Saudi Vision 2030, and the kingdom has taken a larger role in international affairs under his leadership as the U.S. under the Obama administration moved away from the Saudi policies in Bahrain, Egypt, and Yemen. Under Salman the Saudi kingdom has moved to confront Iran in Syria and Yemen supporting opposite sides in the conflict, and with Saudi aircraft bombing targets in Yemen.  Recap- for more depth see groups and links and search. In international affairs the Saudis grew restive as the Obama administration failed to setup a no fly zone in Syria to protect its Sunni population. Following the chemical weapons attacks in Syria the lack of a U.S. response led to the Saudis turning down a Security Council seat.  Early confrontation occurred in Bahrain with a Shiite population and Sunni government. The Saudis then intervened to support Sissi in Egypt against the Muslim Brotherhood government as the liberals drifted away from the Brotherhood. With Iranian and Russian support for the Syrian government in Damascus against rebels, the Saudis began to use oil policy leading to an effort to let oil prices fall by loosening production limits, believing it would hurt their rivals even more. This hurt Iran, Russia and Saudis, each in a different way. Some of the roots of the Russian involvement in Syria are also related to this. Russia responded to the oil price drop by relying less on exports, and letting devaluations help the Russian economy become more self sufficient. Iran by working to get a deal with the Obama administration on nuclear development to get out of the sanctions regime that hurt Iran's economy. The Saudis cut some subsidies and Prince Salman led the effort for an initial public offering for Saudi state oil company Aramco. As time progressed the Arab Spring with protests in Tunisia, Egypt, and even before that in Iran for greater freedom, morphed into a sectarian struggle between Shiites and Sunnis. The roots of Islamic State are in the unrest in Mosul, Iraq's largest city, with the Shiite government of a pro-Shiite prime minister, leading to the fall of the city to the militants. He was replaced by the current prime minister Abadi to accomodate U.S. insistence on keeping out sectarian sentiment. This is why the problem is so intractable. Desire for freedom plays a role, but religion also plays a role, not only that but there are two versions of Islam in the region.  Remember Gandhi's admonition- "an eye for an eye that makes the whole world blind," as India struggled to set up a democracy in the South Asian region, after the British left.         ...

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Queen Elizabeth II gives her address to the British nation and Commonwealth on April 5, 2020, recalling the day in 1940 when she and Princess Margaret addressed the nation from Windsor. Elizabeth was only 14 years age then.

She said "we as children spoke from here at Windsor, to children who had been evacuated from their homes and sent away for their own safety."

"Today once again, many feel a painful sense of separation from their loved ones. But now, as then, we know deep down, that it is the right thing to do."

The address to Britain comes as deaths pass 5000, and there is a 25% increase in hospitals in the northwest of the country.

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As seen in the campaigns of Gretchen Whitmer for Governor western Michigan and Kalamazoo are critical in 2024. Michelle Obama joins Kamala Harris at an event in Kalamazoo in the closing days of the campaign. 

Speaking about women's health and pregnancies Michelle Obama was passionate in her words in Kalamazoo speaking to men and women-

"Consider the harm that is done when a government keeps revoking the basic care from its women."

“I am asking y’all, from the core of my being, to take our lives seriously. If we don’t get this election right, your wife, your daughter, your mother, we as women will become collateral damage to your rage.”

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A reading crisis in Sweden spreads from secondary school students to college students. 

Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) of the OECD showed that in 2022, 25% of 15-year-olds lacked basic reading and writing skills. In 2000, the figure was 13%. This has spread to college students. Scores in the US for NAEP and in the UK are much worse than Sweden yet there is nowhere near the same level of alarm about it.

 In December 2024, the Minister of Education and leader of the Liberal Party, Johan Pehrson, met with representatives from universities, student organizations and the national education agency to go over steps needed to tackle the "reading crisis."

 

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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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Sharp swings in attitudes have left America divided in terms of education. A comparable situation exists also in the UK as areas with more education access have separated from areas with less access to higher education. As the WSJ analysis points out at one time social cohesion prevailed in the postwar years till 1970 with educational attainment playing a small part leaving social cohesion intact. Even in the period 1970-1990 when there was a shift for college educated women to prefer Democratic Party and white men without a college degree to prefer Republicans this was not a significant gap. The Democratic Party appealed to less educated union voters in manufacturing industries as well as it did with college educated men and women. This gradually fractured during the Clinton and Obama administrations as the Democratic Party  moved closer to the higher educated and drawing more support from new tech industries than manufacturing. Nowhere is this more evident  than in the way college educated women have shifted to the Democratic Party and white men without a college degree have moved to the Republican Party. Swings of different types are normal in elections and politics. But swings purely based on education are rare in American politics and not healthy for the democratic system of government. As the analysis from WSJ/NBC News shows college educated women favor Democratic Party by 33 percent margin. And the swing is even deeper for white men without a college educated degree who favor Republican by a 42% margin. This is the situation before the 2018 U.S. Congressional elections. The combined group of college educated women and white men without a college degree make up 40% of the U.S. voting public. This makes each group unreachable for the other party, a situation unimaginable for many of America's leaders if they would be living today- from presidents Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. White voters make up 70% of the electorate, and a situation where they would be unreachable for Democrats would be unthinkable or unimaginable for Truman, John Kennedy. And Eisenhower would also find it unimaginable that he would have to writeoff college educated women in his campaign.  By returning the Labour Party to its roots Britain is combatting this tendency for fracturing of social cohesion. In the way the UK's Blair administration moved away from Labour party's roots in manufacturing and the trade unions, the Democratic administrations under Clinton and Obama  moved away from manufacturing industries and the trade unions.   Most of the postwar leaders of the stature of Eisenhower and Kennedy would have seen such a situation as a significant failure in political leadership. ...

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At this point in May (May 22, 2026) a glimmer of hope appears for settling both the crisis in Hormuz and the Ukraine war. Pakistan, Turkey and China following DJT visit to China may be pushing Iran to lower the scale of the conflict. China's first priority was to be accepted by the US at the Beijing meeting as an equal power with the US, and keen to show its willingness to bear responsibility for peaceful resolution in conflict zones as a sign of its maturity as a world power. Much of this is not shown in the media as it is mostly done behind the scenes in communications that the media knows nothing about. Note that even in the depths of the Cold War during the Hungarian revolution of 1956 and Soviet action in Budapest, the US and the Soviets when their economies were not intertwined as the US and China are today, were still talking to each other to limit the conflicts to low level conflict. Hong Kong takeover, China's actions near Taiwan, China's presence in Latin America, Chinese cooperation with Iran, and Russia on Ukraine, China's economic competition in rare earths, are relatively smaller levels of friction considering 1950's Soviet's and the US. At the same time China and the Us are aware of a new bloc emerging in Oslo in May, where India is merging its economy with the Nordic economies of Sweden, Denmark and Norway, and of the European Union and Germany, creating a new bloc of 2 billion people that can only grow rapidly with India's potential to exceed growth rates of 20% in the 600 million Eastern region for a decade. EU would make the shift to strategic partnership with India displacing the vital role the European Union has played in China's growth and economy. This would create new pressures for Russian president Putin to decide it is time to listen to a friend India and de-escalate lower the level of conflict with an initial peace deal that would lead to more talks on a final settlement. Because Russia would have a harder time tackling both India and Germany at the same time. NYT shows on the same day May 22 a report on Russia and a report by the Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Sonegard that say the elites in Russia and Putin were by January 2026 having very serious discussion to change the administration, bring Igor Sechin as negotiaor to end the Ukraine conflict before serious, possibly irreversible damage, to the Russian economy. Sweden's Sonegard says that between 2020 and 2024 Russian economy declined by 8%, not grew by 13% as official figures show, inflation is much higher than 5% as official figures show, and credit is tightening, bankruptcies expected, growth even with oil prices up down to 0.4% for 2026. During 20 years running Russia Putin's No. 1 priority, his life's mission was to restore, then exceed by a large margin the living standards of the Russian people. Having at such great cost accomplished the goal of gaining recognition as a Northern Power in Europe, having gained much of Russian speaking eastern Ukraine, Putin could wisely with self respect wind down Ukraine conflict for good. The US gains something similar to Northern Power status for Russia in its recommitment to the Monroe Doctrine, with Russia withdrawing from any involvement- and China tacitly doing the same-  in the western hemisphere. With that the US can tackle its own losses that match Russian losses in lives- loss of more American lives than in the Korean and Vietnam and WWI combined to drug smuggling from Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and restoring rule of law in Cuba, Venezuela, and through drug cartel free Mexico good governance in Mexico.  ...

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Iraq is an artifical entity, an artificial state created by the British out of the defeated and disintegrated Ottoman Empire. Created from 3 Ottoman Arab provinces- provinces or vilayets of Mosul province which was mostly Sunni, Baghdad province, the city of Baghdad  mostly Sunni and rural areas Shia, and Basra in the south mostly Shia from tribes who converted to Shia Islam extending the reach of Shia religious sites such as Karbala. Note that the Sunni Arabs were closer to the power structures of the Ottoman Empire than Shia in the 18th and 19th century. As a result post war Iraq in 1950's was dominated by Sunni elites and the British imposed Faisal 1 monarchy of 1921 was thrown out by Sunni elites in the army in 1958 by Karim Kassem, followed by the emergence of Saddam Hussein from Pan Arab Baath socialist ideologies of that period.  After the US wars in Iraq and Iraq- Iran war, Iran mobilized Shia into popular militias. In 2026 Iraq is essentially several ministates pulled together in Baghdad, with Shia, Sunni and Kurdish ministates formed into the governing structure, and everyone praying for no outside interference to pull it all apart and maintain a fragile peace. While the British got Iraq Mandate from League of Nations in 1921 French got Syria provinces of the Ottoman Empire. In fact Sykes and Picot are the British and French diplomats who created artificial states of Iraq and Syria to suit their interests in the region for oil and for controlling Suez and territories in India, Indochina, Hong Kong, parts of coastal China (Shanghai). Why is this important? It is important because at the time Britian dealt with weak Sunni populations that were controlled through monarchs they put in place, and the British and French industrial power had no rivals. Today the Sunnis are mobilized and the Shia have with Iranian support mobilized also, and sectarian wars have torn the place apart for 40 years. America's founding fathers and first president George Washington, would if here today consider this the one place US would have nothing to do with in terms of wars and bases. On oil George Washington would advise America to find alternative sources than get dragged into useless sectarian wars and lose the battle for reindustrialization, after America's elites and their economists have essentially deindustrialized America. It is appropriate for the US president to take action only on grounds of not letting the place fall into regimes with ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons that could reach US and Europe. And for that China and Russia, India and Brazil, Germany and France should also do their part and fulfill responsibilities. As for Britain and France it is appropriate for the US president to say to the posturing in Europe and ambivalent posiions, "Go, get you own oil in the Hormuz," as the US is self sufficient in oil and does not need Iranian or Iraqi oil. It is also appropriate knowing that this Iraq and Syria were created by Sykes and Picot and the British and French to build and sustain their Empires that no longer exist because Turkey and India, and China, through the effort of Gandhi and Ataturk, Sun-Yat Sen and Mao, Brazil also, are now strong independent nations. The message is- if Germany can do it to get only 6% of energy imports from Hormuz straits, so can China and Japan. China and Japan get 90% of their imports from the Hormuz straits and there is no reason why China and Japan, Britain, India need to be so dependent on a region where disruptions have happened again and again for 40 years. If they do not want to change they can assume the responsibilities of keeping Hormuz Straits on their own. ...

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Uber built up about $30 billion in operating losses and burnt up huge amounts of capital with its access to capital from from financial markets in the US, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. 2023 is the first year for profits of $1.43 billon of which the larger part of it $1 billion is from equity investments. It went public in 2019. Lyft a competitor of Uber has not yet turned a profit. Contrary to the general impression these kinds of startups have burnt enormous amounts of capital, and diverted capital from essential needs such as education, healthcare services, and public transportation. Consider the case of lack of investment in the New York subway system that lags so far behind that in other cities such as Tokyo to make it incomprehensible. The New York Port Bus Terminal  needed to be replaced- the planning took 10 years and the new terminal building will not be completed till 2032. Essential investments that improve the lives of millions of people in our cities are neglected or delayed. The real crowding out of capital from essential public needs is a feature of the Reagan era economics that have created many of the problems we face today of underfunding where it really counts. The capital allocation system is distorted so that capital does not generate proper returns or benefit the largest part of the population. ...

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Linda McMahon, the Education Secretary and RFK Jr. the Health Secretary team up to fight the misplaced approaches to children's health and mental health. Typical is separation of health and mental health to treat them separately. The authors say there ia reason as early as the 2nd century the Roman poet Juvenal has commended "a sound mind in a sound body," that in so many languages and cultures has found a precious place since, in Latin "mens sana in corpore sano." We ignore this at our own and the Nation's peril, when in every culture this is so clearly grasped and cultivated. Healthy nutrition including the kinds of natural foods such as fruits, vegetables and ancient grains and getting fast foods and chemicals out of our food, and healthy exercise, participation in sports are a better way to approach mental health, and for the backward looking side of tech a no cell phones in schools rule. Screen and social media addiction, indoor lifestyles, and food with harmful ingredients are the true source of our children's mental health problems and should be treated as the culprits, say McMahon and RFK Jr.  ...

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Rightly seen the reality in China, says Li Yuan in NYT is not about the tallest bridge at Guizhou, or the acceleration of an AGI race with China, but that enormous debt finances that bridge, pensioners live on $20 a month in that Chinese province. Doctors, lawyers and accountants provide the $1.50 ride share in that province suggesting that all is not right when it comes to the living standards of the people the ultimate test. When it comes to AGI and AI China is simply integrating it into processes and work for general efficiency, nothing strategic about it, merely routinely integrating a technology. There are deep structural flaws in China's development says Li Yuan, when there are enduring strengths in the US. It may be that Silicon Valley is more of a problem in the US as it seeks to divert more of the resources that should go into people benefitting infrastructure in the US. Ultimately the US must seeks its own path built on the expansion of frontiers in the US since 1787, followed by industrialization in the 1870's and again in 1940's and 1960's in a government of the people, for the people and by the people. ...

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The US Senate filibuster rule that requires 60 votes for the budget to pass is a relic of the civil rights days, today it prevents Republicans from ending the shutdown by majority vote. Republicans used it when Democrats controlled the House and Senate and Senate Majority Leader Thune does not want to drop the filibuster as it acts to ensure no hasty legislation or budget is passed without some form of overall consensus. It also means that situations such as a government shutdown can happen when the opposition party in the Senate uses it to make it demands be met. In this case Democrats Schumer and Jeffries are asking Republicans to include money for subsidies for the Obama Affordable Care Act enrollees- about 22 million people signed up for this part of the ACA to receive generous subsidies for healthcare. These subsidies are not part of the Big Beautiful Bill of DJT that passed Congress and was signed into law. Unions and airline executives are calling on Democrats to end the shutdown as it disrupts air traffic at airports, and leads to cuts in SNAP and other benefits, and to lack of pay checks for government employees. ...

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NYT interviews with Biden era officials on mistakes made with immigration - no tough enforcement on illeal migration, no clear policy to stop illegal migration, and failure to anticipate a surge as policies towards migrants were relaxed, appointment as head of Homeland Security of someone who was not tough on migration, delegation of migration to a former AG of California who had no experience in issues raised by high migration. Till it was too late and the public had lost confidence in the Biden administration on this issue and the homeless migrants in cities becoming a major local issue. The last year saw Biden negotiate with Republican Senator from Nebraska on migration which failed to get support in the Republican party and Congress. In this way Biden lost control of the narrative as migration surged and surged by 2023 and 2024. Tackling the Covid pandemic was a major distraction and cost of living affordability crisis also became a major issue leading to the undoing of the Democrats. Second generation Latino Americans from Cuba and Mexico preferred tough policies on illegal migration surges from places such as Guatemala and Venezuela. Democrats lost part of their own base. Rural America and the South, had already made up its mind. ...

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Lula and Milei clash at Mercosur. Lula of Brazil talks about a humanitarian crisis in US policy to pressure Venezuela's military installed government but fails to say that a third of Venezuela's population, about 10 million people have left the country as refugees to neighboring countries including Colombia and the US. Inflation at over 100% and mismanagement of the economy have destroyed a once relatively affluent oil producing country in Latin America. Hyperinflation in 2018, and 270% inflation in 2025, and lack of open free elections, lack of food and medicine. A story of socialist ideas that have led to military involvement in politics followed by economic disaster in the western hemisphere, in a country that had a educated middle class and a thriving oil industry. Not since the Spanish opening up Latin America to immigration from Europe by 1600 has the continent of Latin America seen such a mass migration which is not reflected in many media outlets including the NYT, Washington Post and BBC, Guardian. The blockade by the US of oil into and out of Venezuela is affecting Cuba and other countries which depend on this oil. ...

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Saudi Arabia continued to follow a policy of high oil production in 2016, and reported that it produced 10.67 million barrels a day in July 2016. Iran is producing at a pre-sanction level of 4 million barrels a day. 2017 oil demand prediction by OPEC is at growth of 1.15 million barrels a day. Experts says that the interests of Iran and the Saudis may be converging to reduce production as they face low oil prices. Iran needs to make large investments and Saudis face budget cuts with low oil prices. They point to this cooperation being temporary as there are issues of competing politics in the region, and beyond that both countries seek to expand their market share.

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Chancellor Merkel's CDU party suffered a loss in the Berlin state elections with only 17.6% of the vote. The AfD gained 14% of the vote. The SPD lost 7% of the vote since the last election, coming in at 22% compared to 29% in the previous Berlin elections. The Greens party gained 15.2% of the vote and the left party Die Linke gained 15.7 % of the vote. The SPD now plans to drop the CDU from the state governing coalition and form a coalition with the Greens and the Die Linke party. Compared to the Berlin state elections in 2011 the Greens lost 2% and the left party Die Linke won 4% additional votes. 

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Jonathan Martin of the NYT documents the many ways in which the current campaign for the U.S. presidential election sets alarming precedents- in the frequent use of untruths and inflammatory language, vulgar discourse. Republicans and Democrats alike are cited who say this has deteriorated the public discourse in the country. Martin documents the ways in which the Trump campaign has set a downward course. The language on television has deteriorated says Martin, and in some ways politics is catching up with it. The media has also failed to exercize proper scrutiny of candidates, and some experts say much soul searching may be needed in the future for the media and politicians if the country is to get back to dialogue based on facts.