LyrArc Article Gist
Trapping underground heat to create energy is a way shale oil and fracking companies are trying to create clean energy. Chevron, BP and Devon Energy are part of a group of companies investing hundreds of millions of dollars in geothermal projects. New technologies that can drill thousands of feet below the earth's surface make it possible to reach more geothermal energy inside the earth's surface. This could power 65 million homes in the US by 2050, according to the Energy Department.

LyrArc Article Gist
Layoffs at Microsoft, Amazon and Google are offset by more hiring. So that the companies are smaller by a small margin in 2023 compared to 2022, yet way larger than 2018. WSJ looks at the growing size of these companies. At Microsoft the headcount is 101,000 outside the US, a 70% increase since 2019. Apple's 161,000 employees are much higher than the 137,000 in 2019. A small trimming of employees only took down 3000 employees.

LyrArc Article Gist
Fed Governor Waller, a research director of the St Louis Fed argued that in the post pandemic situation fighting inflation would not increase unemployment. The actual decisions were made by Fed chairman Jerome Powell who also grasped the situation and gave priority to winning the fight against inflation. In his arguments Powell pointed out the disturbing effects of inflation on workers. Powell's determined effort and careful policy management also made it possible to bring inflation down- the manner and way this was achieved and Powell showing a sensitivity to workers and their interests. Powell also communicated this effectively and the Biden administration made this possible through its efforts to rebuild American manufacturing, its investments in infrastructure and getting bipartisan deals through Congress. Without this combined effort by Biden and Powell this may not have worked out the way it did. 

LyrArc Article Gist
The longest serving senators as Majority Leader includes Joseph Robinson Democrat of Arkansas who was Minority and Majority Leader form 1923 to 1937 and helped put the New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt through the US Congress. That role is also being played by McConnell and now Thune in this period of change in the 2020's with cyber security, tech monopolies, pandemic and cost of living issues.

LyrArc Article Gist
India like China is more interested in modernization that brings equality with Europe and America so that the period of misfortunes that struck India and China- as a result of the vastly superior technology and force of Europe as it found a passage to the East around the Cape of Good Hope- is over.  Think about this. If anything happened to democracy and pluralism in the US Indian democracy and pluralism would still be standing a hundred years down the road or the next hundred years after that. What does that say about India? Why? Because India has learnt its lessons under Vivekananda, Tilak, Gandhiji, Modiji, and understands the need for technology, trade and modernization, which is what Modi as a Gujarati with the trading mentality like the British is really after. The so called Hinduism as it is really about the Upanishads and the Gita and the Buddha, and Communism, are really not the driving force in India or China.The Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita like the Bible offer a way an ethos to resolutely fight the corruption and leakages of funds that take the investments out of modernization leaving everyone poor. And India also benefits when democracy works and acts as an enabling force for a modern economy that creates "a rising tide that lifts all boats" (people). Democracy is the tool for development and to tackle diversity of 1.4 billion people. Adam Smith was right writing then in the 1780's around the French revolutionary period and American independence - "Hereafter perhaps the natives of these countries (India, China, Indonesia) may grow stronger, or those of Europe grow weaker, and the inhabitants of all the different quarters of the world may arrive at the equality of courage and force, which by inspiring mutual fear, can alone overawe the injustice of independent nations into respect for one another." India's leaders fought hard after the 1700's for preserving independence from the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British, only they were divided. Ranjit Singh in the north fought the Mughals and the British in the Punjab. The Marathas on the western front fought the Mughals and the British. The result as Gandhi points out in Hind Swaraj in his question "who made the British Company Bahadur?" It was Indian princely kingdoms vying for support from the armies of the British East India Company interested in profits from seizing Indian princely treasuries and trade. Note that Sri Lanka or Ceylon fell to the Portuguese in 1505. The technology gap between Europe and Asia had opened up even that early by 1500's in ship building, in warships and use of maritime navigation technologies. Consider that in 1534 Jacques Cartier was out on his first trips from St Malo, France across Atlantic to explore past Newfoundland to the mouth of the St Lawrence river. The Portuguese and then the Dutch had already beaten the British and the French by 100 years- Britain's exploration of India through East India settlements in Bengal began much later in the 1600's. India like China built around river based civilizations as Adam Smith points out in his Wealth of Nations, Chapter 7, Part 3, America and East Indies-of the natives of India and China Smith says their struck "a dreadful misfortune" that arisen more by accident, that "the superiority of force seemed to be so great on the side of the Europeans, that they were able to commit with impunity every sort of injustice in these remote countries." Every Indian or Chinese will agree with this so great was the misfortune for India and China from the injustice of European nations in the 19th century so much so that Cordell Hull speaking for Franklin Roosevelt and all Americans broadcast to the world in the throes of World War II in 1942 America's call to the world for a new world order based on freedom and development for all nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America. America's Secretary of State Cordell Hull said: "In this vast struggle, we, Americans, stand united with those who, like ourselves, are fighting for the preservation of their freedom; with those who are fighting to regain the freedom of which they have been brutally deprived; with those who are fighting for the opportunity to achieve freedom."     ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Canada makes the decision to reinstate the visa requirement for Mexican citizens effective February 29th 2024. This was lifted by Trudeau in 2016 without a careful understanding of its implications. Since then Quebec insisted it was at the breaking point and pushed for reinstating the visa requirement. The Biden administration also pushed for the visa requirement as more people were illegally entering the US from Canada.

LyrArc Article Gist
Google ad policies and lack of transparent pricing are cited by media groups in Europe including Alex Springer in their $2.3 billion lawsuit against Google. It says this has the effect of reducing the revenues of the media groups that could have been reinvested to strengthen European media.

“Without Google’s abuse of its dominant position, the media companies would have received significantly higher revenues from advertising and paid lower fees for ad tech services. Crucially, these funds could have been reinvested into strengthening the European media landscape."

 

LyrArc Article Gist
NYT's Brad Plumer looks at the assessment of a report from REPEAT (Princeton), MIT, and Rhodium on how well the Biden Climate laws are building renewable energy- how well this is working to tackle climate change goals. The goal set by BIden was a 40% reduction over 2005 greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Electric car sales are moving at a pace that is consistent with the goals but renewable energy instead of being at an average of 46 gigawatts of carbon free electricity for 2023 and 2024 is falling short as it was at 32 gigawatts carbon free electricity for the US in 2023.

LyrArc Article Gist
Under new coach Montse Tome the Spanish women's soccer team plays France for a spot in the Olympics in Seville. France as host nation has already qualified. European teams get two spots at the Olympics. The other spot is to be filled by the winner of the Netherlands vs Germany womens teams in Heerenveen. Germany lost 2-1 to France in Lyon. 

LyrArc Article Gist
The hands off approach of passive investors creates a situation where checks on corporate governance may be lacking. In this situation even a state owned fund can play a useful role as an active investor that oversees its activities and goals for investing. The example of the Norwegian oil fund and its goal to maximize future long term returns for investors acts as a positive example, in the relative absence of other oversight. The Norwegian oil fund seeks to back the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

LyrArc Article Gist
  $112 billion out of $170 billion in new investments resulting from Biden's 2 climate laws, and the bulk of the 200,000 new jobs are being pushed by president Biden into Republican states. Republican voting states including many southern states are getting the largest share of the hundreds of billions of dollars in renewable energy investments by the Biden administration. Two new climate laws were passed by Biden without many Republican votes in 2022. WSJ offers a visual guide to where new manufacturing investment is taking place. It shows that three fourths of the $170 billion in investments by companies are going to Republican voting states. On a state wide basis this amounts to $112 billion for Republican states. Most of the public is unaware of the role of the climate laws in this new investment in manufacturing. This is why other presidents talked about manufacturing investment including previous presidents Republican and Democrat, president Biden has done the country a great service by making much needed investment in manufacturing and creating a new sense of hope in once neglected communities. Investments are being attracted to these states many in the south with easier land development and lower costs for labor, electricity, and lower taxes. This gives Republican states the ability to use their advantages in the best way and overcome the failure of many Republicans in Congress to support these investments with president Biden putting together bipartisan support.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Hotel costs are up and hotels will pay $123 billion in compensation in 2024, according to the American Hotel and Lodging Association. This is 20% higher than 2019 because of increase in wages. Average hourly wages in the hotel sector were $18 an hour in 2020, going up to $24 per hour today, an increase of about 33%. This has been passed on to the customers in hotels. The average price of a hotel room was $120 a day in 2019, it is now $160 a day, an increase of 33%. There is also a demand supply factor so that rates can be much higher in peak demand periods.

LyrArc Article Gist
Google AI tools Gemini is shown as failing when it comes to civics and democratic form of government. It is in these vital issues for a democracy that widely used tools can fail particularly in AI, and which makes them hazardous. Ai tools shown here are not able to differentiate between good leaders and bad leaders who caused major wars in the 20th century. Humans and human thinking process and sentiment are essential for democracies to function, for people to exercize their rights and fulfill their responsibilities so that a good state can serve its citizens.

LyrArc Article Gist
See the adjoining report in DW.com that covers the planned meeting between Japanese PM Kishida and Kim of North Korea to reduce tensions in the region. Kishida is taking a proactive approach as the ideological positions have failed and talking directly to North Korea as Junichiro Koizumi had done in 2004 (with a visit to Pyongyang when Kim's father was president) is now the right course. It is now twenty years that this was not tried. Former president Trump met Kim of North Korea at the Demilitarized Zone DMZ near Seoul in 2019. Not much changed after that meeting. North Korea has increased missile testing with ICBM missiles and increased its nuclear missiles with improvement in technology since then. One aspect of the Reagan/Weinberger era policy was its sense that America would keep investing in defense and at some point everyone else would fall behind. This has not happened. After a slowdown in its economy in the early 1990's opportunities to build Russia relations were left to business interests and opportunities were lost. The memory of that period of Russia's economic collapse lingers and feeds a sense that somehow Russia was diminsished by waht happened after the abrupt collapse of the Russian position in Eastern Europe.  In fact the only nuclear missile tests conducted in this 21st century were conducted by North Korea.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Twenty years after Japanese prime minister Koizumi visited Pyongyang in 2004, Japan's PM Kishida plans to talk to North Korean leader Kim. Koizumi had talks with Kim's father in 2004. The effort is to reduce tensions in the region with elections approaching in Japan, India, and the US in 2024, and to bolster the sense that Japan can manage its role in the region. The Europeans are doing the same as the French and the British are taking a bigger role in Europe during Ukraine conflict. After the Gaza conflict, the Houthis in Red Sea maritime channels, there is a sense that reducing tensions proactively is a better approach rather than wait for things to take their own course in directions that are not good for the world, or taking rigid ideological or other motivated positions that serve no constructive purpose and exacerbate tensions. Gandhiji used to say "tit for tat makes the whole world blind." It is not idealistic to say that but very practical and useful because if you do that you end up with situations where you lose leverage and ability to take positive action and come up with better outcomes, than if you let some unforeseen event or some events by other actors without proper motives to intervene to your serious and the world's detriment. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
India Middle East Economic Corridor or IMEC is a proposal backed by US and France, Britain for rail, shipping and other connections from India to Europe. India, Saudis and UAE back this Economic Corridor plan. Turkey for geostrategic reasons had operated as a route for east-west trade and has wanted a plan of its own. India has improved ties with Qatar and this could bring other nations into the plan. France hopes to bring planners together over the next 2 months. Saudis had committed $20 billion for rail investment for IMEC.