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Daniel Yergin cites an estimate by IHS Cambridge Energy Associates which shows oil from shale and dense rock, which was about 1 million barrels a day in 2011, could reach 3 million barrels a day 2020. North Dakota where much of the production is taking place is now fourth in oil production in the U.S. after Texas, Alaska, and California, and is likely to move up to second place. U.S. imports of oil come primarily from Canada 25%, Mexico 11%, Venezuela 9%, and the Persian Gulf 16%. Canadian oil sands development has increased production and the completion of the Keystone pipeline will increase the share of oil imports from Canada. This is shifting the dynamic of oil away from the Persian Gulf, with the volatile politics in the region, and more towards North America.

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Internet penetration in India is increasing rapidly. India had 71 million internet users in 2009 by one estimate. Current estimates are of 80-100 million internet users. India's internet penetration as percentage of population of 5% is low compared to China which is at 28.9%, Brazil at 39.2%, and Mexico at 28.3%, according to figures from the International Telecommunication Union. Analysts expect the launch of third generation broadband networks will help increase internet use in India. One study done by investment bank Caris & Co. shows internet use growing to 180-200 million users by 2015. Most of the major internet sites are in news, job-search or match-making. Internet retail is just beginning to grow with online purchases of $1.4 billion in 2010 going up to $5 billion in 2012.

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Jean-Marie Le Clezio is hailed as "author of new departures, explorer of humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization," by the Swedish Academy. This Frenchman loved to explore foreign cultures from North African immigrants in France to native Indians in Mexico and islanders in the Indian ocean. He wins the Nobel Prize for Literature for 2008. His novels include "Desert," about a Sahara woman and her encounters with European civilization, the "Prospector," and others. Le Clezio's novel "Onitsha," is based in Nigeria during the British colonial period. His father was a British doctor with connections to Mauritius where he also lived. He was born in Nice and studied at Bristol university in the UK and spent a year in Nigeria. He now spends time between Nice, Mauritius, and Albuquerque.

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DJT deportation sweep in Chicago. DJT's model is Operation Wetback deportation of Eisenhower administration in 1954 after the Truman administration had appointed a commission in 1952 to investigate the issues from large scale illegal migration. Truman appointed the commission as he objected to racial quotas against Asians. The US Congress passed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, vetoed by Truman, the veto was overridden in the US Congress.  Operation Wetback of Eisenhower in 1954, conducted by Lt. Gen. Joseph Swing, and Attorney General Herbert Brownell, returned about 1.2 million migrants from Mexico who had crossed the US Border back to Mexico by ship or by road into the interior of Mexico. From 1942 for each year the immigration enforcement increased from 12000 in 1942 to 727,000 in 1952, the last year of the Truman administration. This is a pattern similar to what was seen in 2014-2024 under Obama-Trump-Biden. ...

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The US president DJT says he is on both sides of the issue. He will never forget the farmers who supported him and he wants them to do well knowing their need for good agricultural workers. As the move to return illegal migrants proceeds under ICE DJT is considering a way to allow the farmers to keep the workers they know and be responsible for them. Agriculture Secretary Brook Rollins has told the president the importance of having the agricultural workforce for farmers in the US.

Even in the similar program under president Eisenhower in 1954 called Operation Wetback,  on which the current program is modeled, there was an effort to keep the agricultural workers on farms for essential agricultural activity. For a long time the Bracero program with Mexico was designed to do this with legal pathways to work in the US in the 1950's.

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A professor at Georgetown University on why it takes time to build democratic institutions, with one important omission- the military in Muslim countries such as Egypt have no intention of building these institutions and have undermined the development of these institutions for decades. A bigger omission lies in inability of the military in the most populous Muslim countries with horrendous gaps in development in basic welfare indices such as education, infrastructure and services, that have put these countries decades behind developing Asia and even Latin America which also had a past of military rule. In countries such as Pakistan and Egypt the military simply lacked the skillset and abilities to deliver in economic terms. Therein lies the biggest failure. In China and Russia the governments have popular support because of their capability to deliver economic growth that has transformed both countries and improved the lives of the people in the region. These crucial omissions explain why Republicans such as Senator John McCain and Lindsey see the need for the U.S. to be on the right side for change. Latin America shook off its history of military rule or one party rule and Brazil, Chile, Mexico are part of two free trade regions in Latin America, supporting the free trade system and economic growth in this hemisphere. The issue ultimately rests with the people of Pakistan, Egypt, and other Muslim countries, and a process of learning, compromise, healing and reconciliation that ocurred in Latin America is likely to follow in the Muslim world. It has already begun in Pakistan which like India has a independent judiciary and lively press, and some of the institutions for a functioning demcoracy. The worst omission is unmentionable because it is so obvious - that of firing live ammunition into protesters for democracy. Years after this happened in S. Korea, Mexico and other countries the day is remembered in a certain way. The important point is that when it comes to this there is no exception to the pattern. ...

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Mexico's new president, Enrique Nieto, and questions about the old PRI and the new PRI.

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Mexico's Nobel Laureate novelist, Carlos Fuentes's first novel, "Where the Air is Clear," was published in 1958, when he was 29. He helped popularize other writers like the Columbian novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez, as part of the renaissance in letters in Latin America called the "Boom." This includes another Mexican Nobel Laureate, the poet Octavio Paz. Paz published "Piedra del Sol" (Sunstone) in 1957. Like Paz Fuentes worked for the Mexican Foreign Ministry as a diplomat and could see things from the outside- the Mexican experience of indigenous and Spanish culture, the ideals of change and the dashed hopes in the last two hundred years as Mexico gained independence and struggled to establish democracy and social progress. Paz published the magazine Plural, which was a supplement to the newspaper Excelsior, and later after 1976, the magazine Vuelta. Both writers, were social critics.

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WSJ's Amol Sharma and Paul Beckett interview Chandrasekharan of Tata Consultancy Services. TCS underwent a reorganization to be customer centric and to listen closely to customers. It sees opportunities in financial services as banks berge, in retail and in pharmaceuticals for knowledge intensive work such as analysis of clincial trial data. His vision is to expand development centers around the world, to meet the global tech needs of customers. He also wants to develop a complete suite of services so it can sell end to end offerings, covering software application outsourcing to infrastructure management to consulting and products. He says he can't serve aBrazilian company or a Chinese sompany from India, there are language, cost and culture issues. TCS plans are to pick a strategic location and then scale it up, with some like Mexico scaling faster than China.

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Demand from China and the Middle East alone will increase by about 2 million barrels a day this year, with another 2 million barrels a day increase from other growing economies, the U.S., Europe and Japan not changing much. This will drive prices according to the International Energy Agency. Supply is not growing enough, consider Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, Mexico, which have stagnant production levels and increasing demand. Price volatility has been a feature of oil markets with so much uncertainty, including uncertainty of non-OPEC production so that OPEC alone cannot determine oil price levels. Economic crises in the the US and Europe and prospects of a recession have so far not affected oil prices. If demand continues to grow in places like India, China and the Middle East, then prices will continue to remain high.

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Are these questionable assumptions by Fields that they can't find a way to get the Fiesta Econetic to the USA. THe pound is weakening against the dollar and may hit $1.50 by some estimates, and the cost of making the diesel engines in the UK can't be that much more than manufacture in the USA that it would be economically not possible to bring it here or make it here or in Mexico. Even if it sales in modest numbers wouldn't it show that at 65 mph the Fiesta Econetic shows that Ford has cars the give big mileage in its lineup. And about the popularity of clean diesel who can be sure that things won't change as the Europeans sell these cars here? This maybe Kiley's point that there are risks to Ford by not bringing these cars to the American market.

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The 25% auto imports tariff goes into effect April 2nd 2025. How much will it increase prices in the US for automobiles? The average is about 10%, say some experts cited in WSJ. This includes price increases on higher priced brands such as German brands BMW's and Audis, Mercedes Benz, and VW cars made in Mexico to ship into the US. It also includes European car makers including Stellantis that make cars in Europe and Mexico to ship into the US which could lose market share to American car makers who make most of their cars in the US. Ford makes 80%, GM 60%.  Overall US international Trade Commission in 2024 looked at the 25% US tariff in a study and showed 5% increase in auto prices in the US. President Trump's call to GM and Ford asking for restraint in pricing may be coupled with the government returning some of the money in tariffs revenue pool to American or foreign manufacturers investing more to make more cars in the US including to Hyundai which announced a $21 billion investment. More such investment decisions are expected from Japanese automakers. For example Subaru has capacity for 450,000 cars in Lafayette Indiana plant and sells 650,000 cars in the US. One would expect it to increase the capacity of the plant or add a new plant in the US. The Japanese government and Japanese business will have additional incentives to invest in the US because of the US support for Japan in the Asia-Pacific, US openness to give trade benefits to Japan in the post war period, incentive to make the Republican DJT plan for tariffs to work as a united Japan-US effort. This would include restraint on pricing.  Toyota is in much better financial shape than VW and has a large market share in the US which it will work protect with pricing restraint and more US investment. Only VW and German luxury car makers BMW, Mercedes may not cooperate. Yet VW sells only 300,000 cars in the US compared to 2.3 million for Toyota. BMW and Mercedes sell luxury cars where buyers could absorb the additional luxury brand cost without impacting inflation overall. Some of VW's car sales would be absorbed by American and other automakers considering VW was losing market share and nearly exiting the US market. before this. ...

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What it is like in the biggest oil producing county in America- Lea County, New Mexico. What happens when renewables replace oil to address climate change?

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Who is this boy born in 1971 growing up in Dutch Apartheid South Africa who studied at Pretoria Boys School in 1988? The head teacher at Pretoria Boys was Armstrong who reflected the English values that came from the British settlement of South Africa in the 19th century till the Boer War period- the English fighting what they see as the less cultured Dutch settlers in Natal state around 1900.  The answer -Elon Musk, who went back to Canada, his mother's country. His father Errol Musk still lives in Cape Town, South Africa. Till 2016 Elon and his brother were alienated from their father over Apartheid and the relations between blacks and whites of that period.  The illegal immigration since 2016, fentanyl crisis causing hundreds of thousands of deaths in the US from illegal flows of drugs from Mexico and Canada with sourcing from China, the collapse of Venezuela and gang crime in central American states has changed the thinking of the Musk family since 2020, says this story in The Guardian. ...

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The museum exhibit that tells a transnational story of the slave trade in the world will travel to South Africa and to Senegal. It shows what happened in Brazil with Portuguese slave trade in addition to the US. In 1793 Upper Canada Lt. Governor Simcoe passed the National Act against Slavery. In 1824 Mexico abolished slavery. In 1834 the Slavery Abolition Act abolished slavery in the British Empire and freed 800,000 slaves in the Caribbean, Canada and South America. Lincoln and the North Northeast Midwest US fought slavery in the 1850's long before 1861 and Emancipation during the Civil War in the US. The US is the only country to have fought a war with millions of soldiers to cleanse itself of the ills and sin of slavery, Lincoln was steadfast so was much of the US. It was not till 1888 that Brazil abolished slavery, the slave trade was abolished in Brazil in 1850. In Brazil Portuguese slave trade brought 5 million to its shores. 500,000 were brought to the US according to this NYT report on the museum. British pressure helped end slavery in Brazil. ...

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The effects of drought on the Colorado river and the dams in the arid west of the US which support 40 million people. This is also part of the fastest growing region in the US. The seven states along the river must negotiate major cuts in water use by mid-August or the federal government has to step in an make the cuts, says this NYT report. Years of overuse of water and climate change have led to this situation.  Lake Mead the US's largest water reservoir is two thirds empty. It is fed by the Colorado river. The upstream states or Upper basin states are Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, Utah. The downstream states or Lower Basin states are Nevada, California, and Arizona. Downstream and upstream states have to figure out how the water cuts will be made. Agriculture use makes up 70-80% of the water use. Then there are the sprawling cities such as Los Angeles and Denver and Salt Lake City. Affected are the Imperial Irrigation District in Southern California, a major agricultural area. Las Vegas has come up with solutions for its 1.6 miillion metro area population by conserving water and staying under its 1.8% of the river allocation even as the population grows. Converting lawns and turf to desert and growing only arid zone vegetation to conserve water is being applied. This is a reality check for climate change and a reversal from the earlier effort in the 1930's to impose brute will on the landscape to build huge sprawling cities and agriculture zones. Now all that has to go into adapting to the landscape and fitting into it, limiting the use of water, recycling it, and conserving water in every way possible. It means adapting in every way, not acting in crisis solution mode but shifting to a whole new way of adapting to the environment that should have been there in the first place with some respect for Nature. ...

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Some of the most vulnerable populations in the world during coronavirus are in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the surrounding regions, in Mexico, Argentina and Brazil, and in African countries. This report looks at the increase in poverty in Pakistan and increasing food insecurity with food prices increasing. Government priorities are a concern says this report. Malnutrition is increasing with estimates ranging and some as high as 40% of children. A PTI official of the government is cited here as saying that it could be as high as 50% of children suffering from malnutrition. One of the problems for food insecurity in the Indian region going back to the famines during the British rule in Bengal and the famines in Bihar during Congress rule after independence is that supplies are lacking of foodgrains or that the incomes have fallen so drastically that people could not afford to buy food. Governments stepped in after independence to provide foodgrains at subsidized prices. These programs need to be pushed to the forefront and and international assistance needs to be sought. Planning minister Asad Umar points out in this report in DW.com that millions of Pakistanis are falling below the poverty line increasing food insecurity at a critical time. He gives estimate that one out of four Pakistanis have had their diets reduced. There is every reason to support efforts for cross border supply of foodgrains between India and Pakistan as humanitarian approach in the coronavirus crisis even as differences exist over border regions- as such differences exist all over the world over borders but humanitarian approach has benefitted the entire region during the Bihar famines after independence with aid from the U.S. Johnson administration. At that time in 1966-67 the seriousness of the situation in Bihar was only gradually and reluctantly accepted by the institutions, officials and governments around the world, says Cambridge University Press looking back on that crisis. And it is to the great credit of the Johnson administration that it launched the subsequent efforts for the Green Revolution and foodgrain production involving Norman Borlaug and the Indian government. Something of this type needs to be launched again across the region.   ...

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This Times report looks at the management style of Jeff Bezos who started Amazon as a online store selling books and the extraordinary growth of the company. Bezos is stepping down from the day to day role of CEO to focus on new growth opportunities. His role as CEO will be taken by the head of the cloud computing business, Andy Jassy. He joined in 1997. Amazon was started in 1994.  Amazon's growth comes from carefully focussing on specific growth fields, first retail, then cloud computing, and changing the way business is run with innovative ways of conducting business. One click and Prime in retail, Kindle e reader in books, and massive investments in logistics, warehousing, cloud computing to run its business efficiently. During the pandemic criticism of low wages for warehouse workers was met with an increase in wages to $15 an hour.  Management style discourages meetings. Most meetings are held in the morning, and after 10 am. The person presenting is asked to hand out a six page memo which is read in silence before the meeting. The idea is that writing it out helps make the ideas clear. Decisions are made in this way. Employees are asked to think in innovative ways to run the business. Thrift is practiced as part of the Bezos way. Bezos is relatively young, only 57 years. Bezos was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1964 when his mother was in high school. His mother married a Cuban immigrant, Miguel Bezos 4 years later and the boy took the name Bezos. He spent much time at his grandparents ranch in South Texas working on the farm, and went to school at Princeton University, graduating in 1987. In 1993 he married Mackenzie Tuttle, a novelist, then started an online bookstore called Amazon from Seattle. Before this he worked at a telecom company and at a hedge fund, which helped him finance his new online bookstore. Bezos turned Amazon into a retail store selling a wide variety of merchandise, an built up a strong warehousing and delivery network. ...

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Do you ever wonder how Japan keeps it streets so clean. There are no litter bins or street sweepers to be seen. This report in the BBC News looks at Japan's cleanliness ethic starting from school days for children growing up with the idea that clean is what you make happen with your own two hands and a broom. That is all it takes and a sense of personal responsibility infused into the culture from school days as children.  For 12 years of school life from elementary school to high school cleaning the school is part of the school routine for students. The social consciousness was developed in this way and children as they grow up learn to take pride in their cleanliness and in the cleanliness of their surroundings. This carries over to cleaning up the neighborhood.  In India's Swachh Clean India campaign their are street clean sweepers in addition to people themselves taking on the job of cleaning. This is ok for public facilities like railway stations underbridges and other public facilities, but for neighborhoods and schools making cleaning a part of the routine in schools is a good idea that needs to be universally adopted as part of Swachh India, Clean India campaign. This also holds true for all Asian and Latin American, African nations which could learn from the keeping the country clean efforts of Japan and more recently India. As India shows not having done this well before is no reason for discouragement, getting started and keeping it going, building public awareness and support is the key. This is particularly true for developing countries because it is easier to prevent illness and disease by increasing levels of hygiene and sanitation, saving hundreds of millions of dollars for large countries like India and Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, for days and productivity lost. It also pushes countries to the next stage of development faster through infrastructure development and quality of public services, quality of life.    ...

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Under Mette Frederiksen immigration which reached 21,000 in 2015 was down to a little over 1000 a year. She is a strong fighter for workers and families and labor rights and yet tough on illegal immigration. She has been proven right about this as Britain and the US under Biden are seeing illegal immigration as a threat to workers and labour, are seeing the risks of distraction from illegal immigration doing a serious disservice to workers and families by making it hard to fight for workers and families on wages, cost of living and other issues.  Even with a strong record of fighting for workers and families, Frederiksen was one of the first European leaders to see the dangers of illegal immigration to society. It gave parts of the political spectrum that had no interest all along in workers and families doing well, an issue to run on that would come to cause grave harm to workers and families. This turned out to be the error of Angela Merkel a CDU leader brought up in Communist East Germany, who had no idea of the risks of her approach for open immigration. As Merkel let this chapter unfold it created fissures in Europe, with Tories and Nigel Farage taking Britain out of the EU and laying waste to its economy for 5 years till Labour's Starmer adopted a tough immigration policy and became prime minister in 2024. That danger then spread to the US in 2016 which also suffered as Republicans and Trump did the same in the US around rhetoric but without serious action on immigration till the Lankford- Biden legislation.  That bill would have closed the border with Mexico and ended immigration as an issue forever if passed into law in December 2023, as Senator Lankford says would have happened. Ending immigration as an issue forever alongside foreign wars as an issue, so that a concentrated effort could be made on improving badly damaged lives of workers and families. And on rebuilding badly damaged manufacturing in the US, rebuilding collapsing infrastructure, and competing with better education and healthcare with the large Asian countries China, Japan/ South Korea, India. ...

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UAW's Shawn Fain's support of US 25% auto tariffs April 2, 2025. Fain says-“We applaud the Trump administration for stepping up to end the free trade disaster that has devastated working class communities for decades.” US president Biden supported the UAW, even standing in a picket line to support UAW negotiate a contract for fair wages for workers with the three US automakers, Ford, GM and Stellantis. For decades workers in the US faced the threat of outshoring to Mexico to reduce wages. This action on tariffs will increase depressed wages for American workers in the same way that president Biden's action helped negotiate better wages. In this sense both Biden and DJT are on the same track. In fact president Biden 2020-2024 decided to keep most of the tariffs put up by president Trump in 2016-2020. It is likely that a future Democratic administration will continue DJT tariff policies to achieve domestic goals such as fair wages for American workers, and for rebuilding American manufacturing in the way president Biden has done. This is in fact one of the singular achievements of the Biden administration for building the working class and middle class neglected by Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations. On this issue both Biden, Trump and any future US president will be on the same page, because it is about fair trade, to even the playing field, and is right by American workers and American values. History will show that this required courage and persistence on the part of Biden and DJT, and was done not on whim as is falsely portrayed but on the advice of people who had the experience, wisdom and sought the best for America such as Robert Lighthizer ,the US Trade Representative in 2016-2020 and his deputy Jamieson who is the USTR in 2025. Lighthizer is notable because he handled the unfair trade with the Japanese in the 1980's as Deputy USTR under Reagan, and knows fair trade and how to get it to build a strong American economy. ...

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A study published in the British journal Lancet shows that the number of people suffering from diabetes went from 153 million in 1980 to 353 million in 2008. The study shows the U.S. having 24.7 millon diabetics in 2008, which is three times the number from 1980. About 70% of this is from population growth and aging, and the rest from obesity, lack of exercize, changing diet. The American Diabetes Association estimated the cost of treating diabetes in the U.S. at $174 billion for 2007. About 138 million diabetics live in China and India. In India there is an additional cause- malnutrition in early childhood years for the poorer segment of the population. European countries have done better than the U.S., Mexico, India and China. S. Korea and Thailand have done better than other Asian countries. And this is attributed to healthier lifestyles, diet and less obesity in these countries.

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BP took a writedown of $5 billion for the second quarter of 2012, for some U.S. refineries, a suspended Alaska oil project and shale gas resources. Of this $2.68 billion was for the U.S. refining business. And $1.50 billion was for the suspension of the Liberty oil project in Alaska because of higher costs. BP's clean replacement cost profit was $3.69 billion, a decline of 35% from the $5.71 billion the prior year. BP's writedown of shale gas assets was because of very low natural gas prices, a situation faced also by Shell and Exxon. Total oil and gas production declined by 7.4% to 2.275 million barrels of oil equivalent a day. The extended maintenance program and major repair and improvement work after the 2011 oil spill led to increased costs and lower production in the North Sea, Angola, and the Gulf of Mexico.