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The OECD countries in Europe including Germany, France, Denmark, Italy, spend on average $14,000 on childcare. The US spends astonishingly only $500 per toddler, about 4% of what advanced countries in Europe spend.The Biden plan is to change that. On the floor of the US Congress Senate minority leader McConnell protests against what he calls extravagant spending by the US in the Biden plan for families and workers.

In our selection of reports in world media we show the effect on women during the pandemic taking on childcare responsibilities with schools closed because of coronavirus. The impact has been a catastrophe for women leading to increase in mental health problems as culture and other reasons lead to women taking on 60-70% of child care and household chores. Women with careers are not able to join the workforce because of childcare shortages, losing income and feeling overburdened.

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After a weeks long standoff both sides disengage expeditiously in the India's border dispute with China over construction of a road in the Doklam plateau region of Bhutan. In this NYT report experts in Hong Kong point out that it is not in China's economic interest with an aging population and debt crisis, tense economic relations with the U.S., and for India struggling with modernization issues, to turn a remote border issue into an open conflict. It would also complicate relations in the Asian region with Japan and economic relations with the U.S, countries with whom China's economy is intertwined through supply chains and other ways. Disputes with China and South Korea have in the past affected the Chinese economy, and China has developed trade with India as its companies look for growing markets. India's Modi administration is focussed on the economy. In this context of broader relations the road construction in Doklam appears to be an aberration that is hard to explain except as a miscalculation and poor understanding of the best interests of the region and of the world.   ...

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The Bank of International Settlements warns that China's "credit to GDP gap" is 30.1. A figure of 10 normally is considered to be high and needs watching. The People's Daily carried an article presumably by president Xi Jinping warning about the consequences of the debt that had been growing "like a tree in the air." The debt to GDP ratio was at 255% at the end of 2015, and is up 107% since 2008 when the financial crisis led to a huge stimulus that has accelerated debt growth. The corporate debt is at 171% of GDP. The article in the People's Daily warned about reflexive stimulus every time growth slows and said that China cannot any longer "force economic growth by levering up." Cross border liabilities is one area of progress falling by a third to $698 billion, as companies cut debt quickly before the U.S. Federal Reserve raises rates. In the future China is more likely to roll over debt as Japan had done following its debt surge and bad debt with zombie companies, which would in turn lead to lower growth. In the past the government was able to absorb the growing debt because it was not as high as it is today, and the economy was growing rapidly. This is no longer the situation, the reason for alarm at the situation facing China. A spike in interest rates of 250 basis points is cited as one situation which could affect China adversely. ...

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U.S. president Trump announces U.S. withdrawal from the World Health Organization on May 30, 2020. Earlier the president had sent a letter to the WHO as a 30 day ultimatum and that he would reconsider membership if the WHO did "not commit to major substantive improvements within the next 30 days." The U.S. has given $450 million a year to the WHO compared to $50 million by China, yet China president Trump says has "total control over the WHO," showing deep seated dissatisfaction at the way the WHO has under current leadership has handled the coronavirus crisis and failed to take early action for an early warning system as were taken by earlier heads of the WHO such as Gro Harlem Brundtland of Norway during the H1N1 crisis in 2003, who was cited in Mr. Trump's letter.

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Alberta referendum of October 19 2026 for separation from Canada. Alberta with oil and gas, Saskatchewan and Manitoba with agricultural production provide Eastern Canadian provinces such as Ontario and Quebec with food and energy,  Sepratist sentiment in Alberta comes from a sense that Alberta is being exploited by Eastern Canada for the last 100 years. An independent Alberta would be aligned with the US, more likely, though it could be part of the US states. Canada says Sir Ivor Jennings in his book Commonwealth of Nations, if it had joined the US in 1776 would have trade patterns north to south with trade between Vermont and New Hampshire to Ontario, Birtish Columbia with Washington state, instead of the east to west trade of the last 250 years with western Canadian product shipped to the more populated east. Alberta has 12 % of the population of Canada of 40 million or about 5 million people and contributes 15% of the Canadian economy.

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The current economic expansion in the U.S. in April 2014 is at 58 months from the beginning of recovery in 2009. In this exceptional account Josh Zombrun of WSJ compares the current expansion to previous expansions since 1950, with the views of experts such as Stan Hall of the NBER committee, which studies turning points. This expansion is forecast to go for 90 months into 2016 by the U.S. Federal Reserve, and 102 months into 2017 by the CBO. Sooner or later, says Stan Hall, some adverse unpredictable event takes place that ends the expansion. So far the expansion has been slow and protracted, as predicted by economists Reinhart and Rogoff from previous financial crises in the last century, giving it room to grow as corporate earnings continue to improve. Fed chairwoman's sense of slack in the economy also provides room for employment and incomes to grow in the later stages of the expansion. This is good news for the emerging market economies such as India and China, and for the European Union, faced with slowing growth. So how does this expansion compare with earlier ones. The expansion of the 1991-2001 of the tech boom was 120 months, 1961-1969 of the Sixties 106 months, 1982-1990 of the Reagan era 92 months. The controversial one on shaky foundations is the recent housing boom 2001-2007 of 73 months ending in a huge bust with the 2008 financial crisis. The shorter expansions are the 1975-1980 Post-Vietnam one for 58 months, and the 1970-1973 spurt before the OPEC price surge. Figures are from the NBER, CBO and the Federal Reserve's Summary of Economic Projections....

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De Aenile describes the volatility in stock markets after the Brexit vote. Earnings growth is slow and expectations are declining. Indexes of emerging markets are trading at 10 times earnings, say experts. The S&P 500 ended the quarter at 19 times earnings, compared to historical average of 15, according to this report. Uncertainty remains high in Europe and the U.S., and monetary policy is stuck in a low interest rate environment.

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WSJ says that like the US economy in general Las Vegas and Nevada now relies for its economy on a small section of affluent people in the US. Las Vegas is now a luxury location. The steep rise in hotel rates, in automobile rentals rates, has made places like New York with hotel rates of $300-$400 as normal essentially luxury trip locations. This is true of many cities inthe US. The US is a different country now. 

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A look at how Black Republicans have fared in US Congress - just 10 of them. There are 57 Democratic Black members of Congress in the US, 31 are women.

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India received $135 billion in remittances in 2024-25 from the 18.5 million Indian diaspora, of which 10 million live in the Middle East region sending $51 billion a year. This finances the merchandise trade deficit.  In UAE alone there are 247,000 Indian students and immigrant labor is the main labor supply in the Gulf kingdoms.  Crude oil of 25-30 million barrels is on the seas as inventory to which India has access making crude oil supplies not an issue for the short term. Indian refinery production for export can also be adjusted if needed. India has received a 100 day exemption to import Russian oil from the US since the Gulf war began easing concerns for crude oil supplies. Situation for LPG is more complicated. India has used the Chabahar port to ship supplies of aid to Afghanistan on an overland route which will not operate till the tensions ease. 

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Raul Castro of Cuba indicted by the US Justice Department May 20, 2026 for Cuban Americans killed when civilian flights helping Cuban refugees in the waters near Cuba were shot on orders from Raul Castro, as minister of defense. Only towards the end of this news report by Perry Stein and Karen De Young of the Washington Post is it clear that this indictment is on Cuba Independence Day March 20, which in 1902 marks the setup of the Republic of Cuba, at the end of the US military takeover of Cuba from the Spanish during the Spanish American War. Cuba under Castro does not use this day but the day of the Communist takeover in 1959 of January 1, and celebrates as Day of the Revolution, July 26, the day when the attack on the Moncada military barracks started the Revolution against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. Only the Obama administration similar to its failures in addressing the Iran nuclear weapons crisis refused to recognize 1902 date as the Cuban Independence Day, all other administrations before did. Under the Monroe Doctrine of 1824 the US clearly considered Latin America as its neighborhood and would not accept any foreign power in its neighborhood, making the Platt amendment attached to the Cuban 1902 Constitution permitting US intervention simply an addition. That the Monroe Doctrine was proven right in 2 ways is not mentioned by the Washington Post or by the elite media. What it did was to prevent European colonial powers from intervening and restoring colonial type rule to Spanish colonies in Latin America. It was welcomed by the British as it had no such designs, objected to by the Spanish Dutch and the French who had such designs for their colonial Empires. It was resented by Cubans naturally but Cubans did not consider that US is the only power who even when it pushed the Spaniards out of Cuba and Philippines in the Spanish American War of 1900 after centuries of Spanish occupation, the only power who prepared Cuba for Independence within 4 years in 1898. Which European colonial power could do this? The other reason for the Monroe Doctrine is in the Platt Amendment attached to the Cuban Constitution which committed the Cuban government to implement and maintain programs the US introduced to control yellow fever and infectious diseases. In 1934 FDR removed the Platt Amendment under a "Good Neighbor Policy. It is the relaxation of the Monroe Doctrine by future American adminstrations that has brought so much suffering and pain to North America, for the US and Mexico with illegal immigration and drugs, corrupting governance in Mexico and creating social political strife in the US, more deaths from drugs than the Vietnam, Korean and WWI combined. Today's Cuba's economy and the Venezuelan economy that copied Cuba's example has completely collapsed, one fourth of the people left the country taking with them the vitally important skills, and leading to economic hardships for the people. This would not have happened if the Monroe Doctrine implemented under the Good Neighbor ideas of FDR and the Alliance for Progress of JFK was kept in place. This shows that Cuba's Independence happened when the Americans supported Cuban rebels fighting for independence in 1898 just as the Indian Independence was won in 1947 from the British under Labour's PM Clement Attlee in 1945 taking action. Four years of American rule in Cuba to prepare it for independence as a transition is far better than 4 centuries of Spanish rule, and 2 years of British rule as a transition 1945-1947 under Attlee (who replaced Churchill in 1945 and setup the NHS) is better than 2 centuries of British colonial rule. In this sense America is with the Cuban people, just as the average British public and working class is with the Indian people.   ...

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Sweden -USA men's ice hockey game won by US in overtime at the Milan Olympics 2026. US head for the game with Slovakia. Canada or Finland come next.

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Us president DJT says US will delay attack for 5 days beyond the 48 hours he had stated earlier, after signals received from Iran on an agreement that will include a ban on nuclear weapons development.

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EIA says half of the benefit of higher fuel efficiency standards for Automobiles 2010-2020 in US was lost because of SUV's and the incentivizing of SUV's in the 2006 CAFE standards have made things worse. The first SUV's came in the 1980's. By 2004 SUV's made up half of car sales and by 2025 outsold cars 2 to 1. What if we took all SUV's and large cars off the roads, or even some of these SUV's by deincentivizing of SUV's in the US CAFE corporate fuel efficiency standards? What would be the savings in crude oil and in carbon footprint? Would it be about the same as releasing an additional 400 million barrels of oil into the markets in addition to the 400 million barrels that are now released through EIA and member countries? This New Yorker essay touches on this idea. During the Iran war the volatile Middle East as a source of oil supplies is a major problem for countries. Some are rationing supplies and in one country 40 million children are not going to school for 2 weeks starting this week because of the sources of oil are so precarious, government offices will only have half of the employees, the rest working from home (almost like Covid pandemic). Many other countries face that situation. The International Energy Agency recently reported that, if “SUVs were an individual country, they would rank sixth in the world for absolute emissions in 2021, emitting over 900 million tonnes of CO2.” The agency says governments must redesign their CAFE standards and their policies so that it would reduce S.U.V. sales, tax gas guzzling vehicles. EIA cites governments in the EU doing this- “Some governments have already started introducing relevant measures, such as France and Germany, which have put a tax on large and high-emissions cars.” Within SUV's also there is an opportunity to reduce the size and make more efficient space utilization designs. Small savings also add up. One has to realize that the current freedom to use energy freely in places like the US with self sufficiency in oil comes with a sense of responsibility for using it wisely so that it can be exported to cut the trade deficit, precisely what the president is doing with India, to cut a trade deficit of $58 billion before it gets to $100 billion. Section 301 is already in place for investigations by the US of 18 countries for a new basis to use tariffs after the Supreme Court decision. A similar approach is taken with EU for hundreds of billions of reductions in trade deficit that will only strengthen the US dollar and the US economy in the long run , and be good for stock markets and jobs as it reduces oil prices and increases the manufacturing capacity/cost for the Nation. Europe, India and China can do the same. Remember that in 2010 SUV's made up 17% of total world sales, and by 2025 SUV's made up 46% of world vehicle sales. This would create another 400 million barrels for the oil markets, which would triple what was released through EIA  this week to 1.2 billion barrels and this would create 120 days of supply replacement for the 10 million b/d lost from Straits of Hormuz, and effectively end the Iran War as it would be clear that prices can be kept low even in the $50's. Essentially buying time till the SU can get more production in Venezuela and other parts of the world to replace much of the Middle Eastern oil that is ending up in a quagmire. This is the best way for the US and Europe, India, China to ensure jobs growth, economic growth with low cost crude oil in the $50 range and ensure much of the poorer countries like Egypt and Indonesia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, have access to oil at prices they can afford and eliminate poverty. ...

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This special series in the Guardian called Mother Load looks at the situation of mothers in the U.S. who lack the social protections that are taken for granted in England and other European countries. One mother calls it an ever present mental and emotional stress from the lack of social support such as maternity leave and family leave. The constant stress of parenting and motherhood in America is described here in the first person with the stories of many mothers in different parts of the U.S.

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Whites are aging faster in the U.S., census figures show, and white deaths are higher than white births as the birthrate for whites declines. This is also leading to anxiety among whites about uncontrolled immigration, and behind the Republican party's moves on immigration. The effects of world trade and the hollowing out of some industries with the effect on local communities in the U.S. has exacerbated the anxiety. Signs of this were evident in the last decade leading to the Trump campaign based on immigration issues and trade in the 2016 election, which resonate more in the mid sections of the U.S. with the lack of the tech industry and financial industry of the two coasts.