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Of 161 million people employed in 2024 about 40-50 million in vulnerable groups living from paycheck to paycheck and without savings to support them in a medical emergency is a real problem in the US economy. It is why even as unemployment looks good at 4% and inflation down to 3% there is a lot of angst for Americans for cost of living. Fifteen million baby boomers who will turn 65 years for retirement between now 2024 and 2030 face a situation where they have less than 250,000 in savings. Many who were born between 1945 and 1962 called baby boomers are in this group with diminished savings. In the prime of their careers they were hit by the 2009 financial crisis caused by bank speculation risk taking. They also were hit by the pandemic in the peak years of income growth. Other such vulnerable groups are young people with high student who are being helped by president Biden. There are also the low income groups that have been hit by medical costs and a family emergency that were pushed into poverty. Other groups in the millions are the people at the low income levels who are working paycheck to paycheck because of housing costs. About one fourth or 25% of apartment renters are people whose households budget shows 50% or more going to housing costs which have increased 20% in the last 2-3 years, which includes the pandemic years 2022 and 2023. President Biden seeks to limit apartment rent price increases to 5% and Kamala Harris has proposed help for families for the portion above 30% of household income going to rent. The jump in cost of living from automobiles, automobile repair and housing, cost of groceries have affected other groups with large credit card debt. This is a result of the supply chain concentration in China which comes from American business overconcentrating production in China and previous administrations doing little about this. Biden's answer is to bring jobs and manufacturing knowhow and investment back to America. During the pandemic some people resisted getting vaccinated and lost their jobs, a million people lost their lives, others took early retirement seeing the stress ful lives during the pandemic, others including women quit to take care of children. This has reduced the labor supply to business leading to tight supply higher prices.The result is that there are about 5 such vulnerable groups each with about 5-10 million people for a total of about 40-50 million people at risk. For these people the cost of living presents huge challenges, including childcare. It includes young people and retirees, single women and families on low income hourly wages that have not kept up with inflation.  ...

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A weaker dollar is good for US exports. It also increases the prices for foreign goods sold in the US, increasing incentives for Make in the USA, and reducing the huge trade deficits with EU countries and China, Japan, South Korea. The US dollar has gone in April 2025 from 145 yen to the dollar to 157 yen to the dollar.

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Provo, Utah university shooting of Charlie Kirk on campus September 10, 2025. It has aroused the whole nation because it happened on campus while talking to students and debating issues. Kirk was founder of Turning Point a student focused organization that has worked on campuses all across the US since 2016 for debating alternative ways of tackling problems facing the US on issues relating to the Border, Jobs, cost of living and immigration.

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The US Fed under Jerome Powell is going to raise interest rates one more time in 2023 following rate increases in 2022- by a quarter percentage point this week. This is not only a fight against inflation but a way to reverse a situation that has affected the wealth and standard of living of ordinary Americans by reducing interest on savings to a paltry less than one percent. Only stock market investors benefitted under the previous regime widening income and wealth disparities in America. Just as today's story in the WSJ showing Bath and Body Works returning to basics such as producing soap in America, something that would not even have been given a second of thought in the 1900's, the Fed is doing its job under Jay Powell of going back to the basics. Where interest on savings provided retirees a comfortable stress free retirement and the inducement to save help build a savings pool in America to invest in what really improves the standard of living for all Americans across this country, from rural to urban, from all parts of the land. ...

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The January 6 panel of the US Congress issues its report on the events of January 6 2020, and the effort to overturn the results of the US presidential election in November 2019 that elected Joe Biden.

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COP30 Belem, Brazil- in the absence of the US the meeting of Merz, Macron, Lula, Starmer and Chinese leaders is critical to keep the climate change fight alive in 2025. A spectacular setting where the Amazon river meets the Atlantic at Belem on the coast of northern Brazil in the state of Para.

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This editorial Board opinion piece in the WSJ gives exceptional insights into major issues facing Germany, the cost of electricity generated from renewables, failure to meet climate change emissions targets set by the government, and the difficulty of forming a new coalition government with conflicting goals of the Greens vs the CDU and the FDP.  By one estimate it cost households and business about $125 billion extra in higher electricity bills for 2000-2015 to subsidize renewable energy from solar and wind. Utilities are required to buy renewable at above market rates, especially since the energy revolution called Energiewende was launched by chancellor Merkel in 2010. German electricity prices are about 36 cents per kilowatt hour compared to 13 cents in America. The 2011 decision following the Fukushima disaster to phase out nuclear power by 2022 made the effort to meet renewables targets of 40% by 2020 compared to 1990 -exceeding the 20% for the EU- even harder. Germany sees a 30% target for 2020 as reachable.   Even though renewables can generate 50% of required energy supplies, only 30% of the supplies are utilized as the renewables are generated mostly in the north of the country and there is a lack of transmission lines to bring it to the industrial south. The dirty secret says the WSJ editorial board for the renewable story in Germany is that a lot of coal is used in dirty coal plants to meet electricity needs when wind and solar energy are not available. Cheaper coal not natural gas is preferred for such generation as daytime peak use that recoups more expensive gas cost is managed with renewables. Leading to the situation that Germany generates only 9% of energy from natural gas compared to 30% in the U.S.. The further Germany has gone in renewables has also led to the paradox of increased dependence on coal. Getting to the new Jamaica coalition being planned between the CDU and the FDP and the Greens. The problem is that the Greens want to see the 20 most polluting coal plants closed, the CDU and the FDP are willing to close only ten coal polluting plants. The WSJ's opinion is that voters chose the AfD right wing party with 13% of the vote because of the platform promise to shut down Merkel's Energiewende policy.   ...

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The 1.4% decline on an annualized basis for the US economy in the first quarter of 2022 masks evidence of a recovery that is basically strong, says this report in the NYT. Consumer spending was up by 0.7 in the first quarter of 2022, even thought the omicron wave hit, and gas prices were high. This NYT report says the decline resulted mostly from the way inventories and trade figure in the calculation.

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Was Russia better off in 2021 than after the invasion of Ukraine. Was it better for upward mobility, health, openness of the economy and growth, and standards of living. Was the US perceived as a hegemon when it also lacked control of its own companies that preferred to invest elsewhere and ignored US workers for a long time. This report in the WSJ asks whether it is not true that not just Russia, but the US, the EU, China, India, other large nations faced a world order that was in many ways difficult, not to their liking, and in some ways posed risks for their countries. 

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The US Supreme Court unanimously agrees that letting a state decide who is on the ballot and who is not based on an insurrectionist interpretation of the US Constitution would lead to chaos. The SC was considering a lawsuit filed by the state of Colorado asking that Trump be disqualified for insurrectionist behaviour related to events at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Other states had filed similar lawsuits. With 51 states any state could do this leading to chaotic and unanticipated situations. Any such disqualification would have to first come from the US Congress says the SC. It will also hear other cases related to the other lawsuits going through the courts involving Trump.

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Lost in media reporting the net US exports increase of 5% as US asserted it's position as a leading exporter in 2025 has boosted second quarter US GDP growth to 3%. 

In tariff negotiations  and the agreements with European Union and Japan US has asserted it's position as a leading exporting nation, a position it held since the 1920's that was neglected through the ineptitude of previous presidents.

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In a Fox News Interview with Sean Hannity Venezuela's Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado says her stand-in Edmundo Gonzalez won by 70% of the vote in the 2024 election. In 2026 she says she would get 90% of the vote. She tells Hannity:  "I do want to say today, on behalf of the Venezuelan people, how grateful we are for his courageous mission.” She wants to share the Nobel Peace Prize with DJT.   Secretary of State Marco Rubio, points out that one reason the US is working through the interim leadership is that most of the Opposition has left Venezuela. DJT has said "it would be very tough" for Machado to become the leader of Venezuela because of the military, gangs and other militias that Chavez and Maduro have created that would disrupt the country's transition. DJT's view is that “We have to fix the country first. You can’t have an election. There’s no way the people could even vote...No, it’s going to take a period of time. We have — we have to nurse the country back to health." The key is maintaining the county's stability after Maduro and this is what the US president intends to do first. Secretary of State Marco Rubio pointed to this, that most of the Opposition is now outside Venezuela, sadly. Rubio told NBC Meet the Press - “We are dealing with the immediate reality. The immediate reality is that, unfortunately and sadly, but unfortunately the vast majority of the opposition is no longer present inside of Venezuela. We have short-term things that have to be addressed right away.”  For getting the right result to restore Venezuela and the US to carry out the Monroe Doctrine in the best possible way- the US is taking each step carefully to achieve good results well into the future. ...

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After decades of neglect by different administrations and apathy at US semiconductor companies, semiconductor production investment in the US is beginning to take place. But the US Chamber of Commerce warns this is only a small trickle compared to investment in Asia. In a report on Nov. 22, 2021, the US Chamber of Commerce warns that only 6% of new semiconductor global capacity added over the next 10 years is expected to be located in the US, and urging that $52 billion in direct subsidies in the US for new chip factories be approved quickly by the US Congress. That the cost of owning a new chip factory in the US compared to South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore is higher by 30%, and in China by 50% is largely attributable to  the availability of subsidies in these countries from the government, and the absence of these incentives and subsidies in the US, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association report published last year. South Korea, China and Japan are now accelerating the pace of these subsidies and incentives. So that the US has a lot to do to make up for the years of neglect of its technology and competitive leadership. This WSJ Investigation report says South Korea aims to double its annual chip exports from today to $200 billion by 2030, and is offering billions of dollars in tax breaks, lower interest rates, other investments, including asking local governments to ensure adequate water supply for chip making. To keep up the US needs to change its entire approach to investments in critical industries from the approach and lethargy of the previous administrations since the 1980's.  US semiconductor companies, the Semiconductor Industry Association and the Biden Administration need to put together a concerted effort for US chip leadership beyond the slight increase from 16% to 24% the US hopes to gain in production of advanced chips by 2027 under the present plans cited in the WSJ. The Biden Administration issued a joint statement Nov. 23 that it is working around the clock with the US Congress, and more work remains to be done to "ensure that America remains the most innovative and productive nation on Earth." ...

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A look at the economic collapse in Lebanon as reported in the NYT. Lebanon depended on foreign inflows of money for its economy and standard of living. The economy has collapsed in recent years because of mismanagement, corruption and sectarian conflict. A civil war in Syria. and wars in the Middle East hurt Lebanon's economy after 2011.  After Lebanon's civil war ended in 1990 the central bank decided to tie the currency lira to the US dollar at 1507 lira to the dollar. To be able to exchange lira for dollars the central bank had to attract dollars. To attract foreigners to deposit dollars the central bank head decided to pay 15% interest. With insufficient US dollars as dollars were also needed for imports, the central bank ended up paying depositors with dollars from new deposits, what is called a Ponzi scheme says the NYT. When these deposits stopped coming in 2019 people could not withdraw their money. Three developments after 2019 hurt the economy. The pandemic hurt tourism which makes up 18% of the Lebanese economy. The pandemic hit Lebanon hard. Then in 2020 a bomb blast hit Beirut port from an abandoned ship in the port destroying three large neighborhoods that could not be repaired. ...

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A fellow Christian of Pope Francis who distributed food and blankets to remote villages in the Andean mountains of Peru driving his white pickup truck is the man chosen to lead the Catholic Church in the third decade of the 21st century. He is Robert Francis of Chicago, an American who first came to an Augustinian mission in Peru near the Ecuador border in 1985. In 1988 he returned to Peru, this time to the Augustinian seminary in Trujillo, Peru, where he taught canon law and was a judge in the regional ecclesiastical court. He spent 13 years in Peru before returning to the US in 1998. He was appointed by Pope Francis of Buenos Aires, Argentina, as apostolic administrator of Chiclayo in 1998, then Bishop in 2023 and Cardinal in 2024. In his speech from the Vatican Pope Leo XIV- Robert Francis- switched to Spanish in the middle of his speech. We now have not one but two popes from different parts of Latin America from the Atlantic coast Buenos Aires to the Andes mountains of Peru, knowing that Mexico, Chile, Argentina and Brazil ar Catholic countries, so is Central America and part of the US that is Irish and Italian, Spanish and French. It includes Spanish colonies in Asia such as the Philippines, and Portuguese settlements in Africa. ...

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Germany is going through a second year of slight economic contraction. The newly elected government of chancellor Merz has setup a $1 trillion fund to invest in infrastructure and defense. This will increase the debt to GDP ratio from 62% much lower than other advanced economies to 75%, and could give the German economy a rebound with $500 billion for fixing aging infrastructure. Germany's unemployment rate stands at 6.3% in March 2025. The economy weathered a energy crisis with the cutoff of energy supplies from Russia during the term of chancellor Scholz. Infrastructure, child care, was neglected under Merkel and previous administrations as it was in the US under Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations. The 2009 financial crisis, the eurozone debt crisis and the pandemic, Ukraine crisis from 2009 to 2024 have provided headwinds for action to renew Germany till now. A $1 trillion new fund and removal of the constitutional brake under the newly elected parliamentary majority of the CSU/CDU, the SPD and the Greens is the first step with $500 billion earmarked for fixing aging infrastructure, digitization of the economy, and other investment. The unemployment situation is deteriorating in the auto industry which was poorly managed and is now being hit with US tariffs of 25% on imported cars made by BMW, Mercedes and VW. ...

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Any Asian conflict involving China would in a few months destroy Apple's value, CEO's would change quickly, and Apple policies change to shift entire production to India and the US in a rapid shift. Tim Cook would be seen as having gambled against America's interests, unresponsive and failing after repeated warnings.  Apple's goal of sourcing from India by 2027 a mere 26% of its iphones, means that a decade after USTR Lighthizer and DJT started the task of reshoring manufacturing to US and allies in 2016, the No. 1 outshoring company would still be making 75% of its dollar value iphones in China. A degree of overconcentration that would make no sense considering that Apple's 75% of manufacturing would be entirely at risk in 2027 after repeated warnings and inaction. The only option for Tim Cook in 2025 is to come up with new goals of shifting a minimum of 50-60% of its dollar value product manufacturing for iphones to India by 2027. . Tim Cook as Apple CEO has done little to prevent the overconcentration of manufacturing in China since 2016. About 10 years after DJT was elected to bring manufacturing back to India or close allies the simple idea of diversification was not implemented. Why? Having set up this system starting in 1998, a system that did not exist before that tiem when Steve Jobs hired Tim Cook with a winning formula to Make in China, a country just emerging from its Communist phase of failed state economy. By 2008 in 10 years the infrastructure was built in a backward largely agricultural economy that was rapidly modernizing under a market economy with state run capitalism under the Communist Party experiment. The Bush Obama 16 years were ones with America not responding to the challenge posed by this new system which could create huge surges in production capacity with focus on key technologies and flood markets. The next decade after 1998-2008 was one of rapid growth of this experiment which combined with design and engineering in the US generated few jobs in manufacturng in the US, but huge profits with huge margins fro a low cost base with a high image and technology innovation product. Lighthizer, Navarro, Jamieson had already sounded the alarm for American manufacturing and loss of jobs in 2016.  America's deindustrialization was becoming a bigger challenge by 2020 so that president Biden continued the policy of reindustrializing. In 2025 China 2025 Plan that was a warning in 2016 is already a reality with China flooding the world in solar panels, and ready to flood the markets overseas with electric cars. Apple may only get a reprieve, this exemption is not the same as the last one. National security is an issue, key technologies need to be protected. There is only one more opportunity to rebuild American manufacturing and keep promises.     ...

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The FCAS project for next generation fighter jet and air defense system is intended to reduce dependence on US made F-35 jets at a cost of $100 billion euros. It will be built by Dassault and Airbus. Macron and Merz meet in Toulon, France for the project to move forward in August 2025.

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US economic growth was 2.8% in the second quarter 2024 with broad based growth in consumer spending, business investment and government infrastructure spending, Commerce Department shows. Inflation and consumer prices went down from 3.4% in the first quarter 2024 to 2.6%. This is a good sign for the economy's resilience. Yet housing costs are high and families are struggling with high cost of rentals. This applies to moderate and low income families who are struggling. Consumers have kept on spending because unemployment is low  buyers face lower inflation, and wage growth is higher than inflation. For the second quarter of 2024 after tax income adjusted for inflation was 1%.

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One estimate fof US economic growth is for 4.6% growth in the third quarter for the US. The US economy is doing much better than expected, much better than either Germany or China in 2023, with the investment in infrastructure and renewable energy of the Biden administration.

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Grim warning from chief scientific and medical advisors to the British government that we are not through this yet, there is more ahead. Without strong action there could be 200 deaths a day and 50,000 cases a day, says Sir Patrick Valance, chief scientific adviser. Tens of thousands of deaths could happen in the winter and there is little prospect that restrictions can be lifted for the next 6 months. The chief medical officer to the government says if we do too little the virus is going to take off. Sir Patrick Valance said at a joint appearance with Whitty in Downing Street that if the virus doubles in 7 days, then if we have 5000 cases a day, it would be 10,000 the next week, 20,000 the next week and 40,000 a day the week after. In a month we could be near 50,000 a day. The vaccine the advisors said may be available to small groups by the end of 2020, only in the first half of 2021 will it be a likely scenario of it being available in widespread way. On protection they say most of us are not protected only about 6-8% may be protected in the hope that immunity is gained by having been infected and developing antibodies. We have to deal with it collectively for the next 6 months as it is now growing across the whole country, not just in some places or environments. Doing too little is dangerous and could let it take off speedily and affect hospitals again, doing too much so that unemployment is affected and poverty social deprivation happens is also to be kept in mind. ...

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21% of US job openings are now with small companies of less than 10 employees in December 2023 within a larger cooling job market.

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A Berlin based think tank, German Institute for Economic Research, says Germany could end its dependence on energy imports by winter of 2022. That is much sooner than mid-2024 as Economy Minister Habeck has stated.The issue has serious urgency as the war continues in April in Ukraine entering a new and more dangerous phase in the east. And every day oil and gas imports by European Union gives Russia $16 million for coal, $434 million for natural gas, and $489 million for oil, a total of close to $1 billion every day.  With new missile attacks on civilian buildings this is one way for European Union to shoulder some of the burden that it has not done so far. DIW think tank says this could be done with decreased industry and household consumption that could generate about 18-26% savings of the demand for Russian natural gas, suggesting that households turn down thermostats and use less warm water, and industry turn to alternative fuels such as coal and biomass. Another saving is from increased supplies from Norway and the Netherlands of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Increased supplies from Norway alone says DIW could cover 20% of current annual imports of gas from Russia. Instead of waiting to build new infrastructure, the new LNG terminals on the coast which face long construction times and eventually falling demand for natural gas which make them financially untenable, the best approach is to use existing infrastructure in LNG terminals in the Netherlands, Belgium and France to increase volume in EU pipelines. Such action would cover 25% of demand for Russian natural gas. Other action is get more efficient use of the European pipeline system to increase German gas imports from Algeria, Libya and other North African nations vis southern EU nations. ...

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The vehicle scrapping policy gets more financing in the 2023 Indian budget. This will have the effect of increasing car sales and jobs as newer cars, buses and other vehicles are put on the road. By increasing electric vehicles it is a fight for climate change prevention. The simple act of removing fossil fuel guzzling older vehicles with newer fuel efficient vehicles cuts oil use and cuts oil import costs. Doing this on scale is what will help in the fight for climate change. In just one move India will remove about 1 million buses, trucks and transport vehicles used by federal and state governments by April 1, 2023.

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Modi speech for the ages to the people of Barrackpore, West Bengal, April 27 2026 surpasses any but the best of Gandhi's speeches for a century since the 1930's. "Shakti ki Bhakti" pilgrimage for the ages for the women and children and families of Bengal and India. A plea for freedom of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa as a north star for India, in the task of urbanization, modernization industrialization, and scientific revolution of India. "Purvi Bharat ka bahvisya sudhar kanrna chunav hai." This northeast that is key to the future of India's 1.4 billion people in this election in West Bengal of May 4, 2026 after 5 decades of failed governance, of failed industrialization and failed modernization in a region of 300 million people, half the size of the European Union. Impatience in Modi's voice with the pace of change that has failed the aspirations of a young generation of India.  This has left the northeast region as a backward agrarian economy. Change in federal  overnment for rapid modernization in India came in 2014 with Modi government. It was stalled for a few years by the Covid pandemic. The effort for modernization of the Indian economy after 5 decades of failed good governance is thus in its first decade and in that decade impeded by the state governments of Maharastra and Rajasthan in the western region that also includes Gujarat. In the northeast failed governance continued in West Bengal , Bihar and Orissa. In Delhi and the Punjab a similar situation. It is only now that Maharashtra and Rajasthan are aligned with federal government in industry and modernization goals. And it is only now that Bihar, Orissa and West Bengal are aligning themselves at the state level with the federal goals for modernization and rapid urbanization plus industrialization. In the south Tamilnadu (Madras region) and Kerala (Kochi), and Karnataka (Bangalore region) are also lacking in aligning with the efforts at the federal level. As a result the changes that are happening have the potential to bring a new wave of industrialization and modernization in the north, northeast and western regions of India with the federal government and the state governments in alignment on industrialization and modernization. This could bring to the world economy a development similar to China's second decade of development from 2000 to 2010 when a new surge happened in China's modernization. India's modernization will happen with the reindustrialization in the US and the European Union  and will set the pace for the world economy in the decades to come. ...