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About 12 million women left the workforce in the US during the pandemic. Women gradually returned to where there are 1.2 million more women in the workforce as of March 2021. In the new workforce remote work is an option for two career couples with children, wages are up, child care is up. WSJ looks at the situation of a 51 year old  mother of two boys ages 10 and 11, whose husband is a surgeon in the military. She quits work during 2021, and restarts work in a remote work job in 2023. Another worker with children decided not to return to the workforce. 

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US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says that she does not see an inflation problem as a result of Mr. Biden's increased spending in the trillions of dollars for the Families Plan. The Families Plan is to rebuild American infrastructure after decades of underinvestment, in addition to pandemic related spending. Yellen says the additional spending for the Families Plan is small relative to the size of the US economy. The $1.8 trillion Families Plan is for workers, students and American families. It addresses needs in education, health, and wellbeing and rebuilds the roads bridges and other infrastructure at every level in the economy.

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The area around Balzano in the South Tyrol region of Italy that borders Austria has none of the problems of the rest of Italy in maintaining higher birthrates. With provincial support and a thick network of family support it is much easier to get childcare so that women can work and there are other benefits. Strictly one off payments by the federal government are never enough. The Baldo family in Balzano gets an additional $200 euros per month for each child from the provincial government in addition to $2000 euros a month from the federal government. The provincial government also subsidizes apartments and groceries at the supermarket offer subsidized groceries. In Italy apart from this Alpine region birthrate per women is stuck at 1.38 children per woman. NYT shows the Baldo family and their six children up close. Ms. Baldo at this time has decided to stay home, but her sister has four children and works as a nurse with public nursery support from the provincial government. ...

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The entire area from the east coast of Africa to the west coast of the US in Pacific is now being covered as the Indo-Pacific region with the US, India, Australia and other nations committed to keeping the international rule of law and freedom of navigation.German Air Force takes part in a joint military exercize of 17 countries for Indo-Pacific in Darwin, Australia. The focus was on rapid deployment. The German Bundeswehr transfer of fighter jets and supply planes in mid-August Rapid Pacific 2022 was done within 24 hours for 6 Eurojets fighter jets, four transport aircraft, and 3 air to air fueling tankers, with 100 tons of material. The exercize from Aug 19 to September 8 was for 2500 personnel and 100 aircraft from all over the world called Pitch Black in Australia's Northern Territory. Next year Gemany plans to have its army participate in Australian exercize. An entire fleet unit is being set for German navy to return to the Pacific waters.  ...

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"It's an immense pleaure, a dream come true, a lot of emotions" says Mbappe of his joining Real Madrid on July 1, 2024 after 7 years at PSG. Kylian Mbappe will captain the French team at Euro 24. He was the all time lead scorer for PSG with 256 goals, scored 44 goals in 48  games this season winning the French League- yet after faltering in the Champions League games with Dortmund he was not satisfied with his performance. It shows the constant stress players and coaches in soccer face. After differences with PSG president Nasser Al-Khalaifi when he did not agree to a 1 year extension he transfers to Real Madrid. He says some people made him feel unhappy and someone who is happy has more chances of playing well. Mbappe posted on X in February that he would not play another season at PSG, the club left him out of a preseason tour of Japan.

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The European Banking Authority has lost credibility after two rounds of stress tests by the EBA failed to turn up the problems at Spanish banks that required a $125 billion recapitalization by the EU rescue fund. Now EU officials are turning to the European Central Bank as the eurozone's main banking regulator. The U.S. Federal Reserve is performing this role after the 2008 financial crisis, with the FDIC in charge of bank closures and resolution. ECB president Mari Draghi says, letting the ECB perform supervisory tasks, a decision made at the June 28 EU summit talks, is fully in line with the bank's mandate. Separate decisions will be needed for a bank resolution authority like the FDIC. The ECB will then have to hire hundreds of banking experts to make on site visits to eurozone banks and check their loan books and make independent assessments of bad loans, bank risks, and capital requirements. The important thing is an agency which is free of local and political interference to make the correct evaluations....

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This report in DW.com discusses the quick rise of Annalena Baerbock, 40 years, to the co-leader role with better known Robert Habeck, 51 years, at a party conference in 2018. In the winter of 2019 she was supported by a huge 97% of delegates at the party conference, with Habeck getting 90%. She has an advantage in foreign policy issues with her education in England at the London School of Economics, where she studied for her Masters degree in International Law. She speaks fluent English, rare in German politics. Baerbock spent 1 year in the US when she was only 16 years old. Very useful now with changes in Europe, the US and India. Boris Johnson in Britain, Biden in the US, and Modi in India, all speaking English.  She has spoken up against xenophobia, and being from Potsdam in the east is able to understand issues facing East Germany. A big change Baerbock says happened in 2019. Then she and Habeck decided to open up the Greens to become a big tent party that welcomes people from all sides. This was a smart choice at the time as Germans moved away from the two main parties- the SPD and the CDU. Dismay from the Schroder years when working class issues were ignored, and dissatisfaction with the Merkel years when investments in infrastructure, social care, health, education were neglected.  AfD support has stalled with the end of the migrant crisis and immigration no longer an issue. Baerbock says today of that 2019 party conference- "What we knew then was that we wanted to open our party up, that we wanted to make policies for a broad society: inviting and with clear objectives. Here today I want to make an offer, for the whole of society, as an invitation to lead our diverse, strong, rich country into a good future." Key changes that could happen in Germany in 2022- Phase out of coal powered energy by earlier date than 2038. No support for increased defense spending. Yet this is not likely to be an issue with the new American Biden administration. Infrastructure and vital investments in health and education would become a top priority similar to the US, UK and India. Careful policy coordination by Germany with the US, UK, France, India and Japan, and other EU nations, as the world shifts into a period in which lessons learned from the pandemic and the last three decades lead to renewal of supply channels and renewal of societies.   ...

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The legacy of extremely low interest rates near zero left by Italian banker Mario Draghi has he leaves the European Central Bank to be succeeded by French head of the IMF Christine Lagarde. There is considerable division in the ECB as Draghi launches yet one more program of bond buying called QE for quantitative easing- in effect reducing the interest rate of the ECB to minus 0.5%. All this is being done to address problems of economic growth in the eurozone which originate from other causes such as poor banking practices, overborrowing by member states and lack of transparency in countries such as Greece, the lack of investment in infrastructure, increase in part time workers in economic uncertainty generated from poor banking, essentially a lost decade. The ECB's monetary policy committee staff oppose the move and so do 7 of 25 members in the governing council.  Instead of tackling root causes this had the adverse effect of hurting savers in Europe and the U.S. leading to higher inequality and wearing out of social safety nets.   ...

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VantageScore supported by Experion and Equifax is now an alternative to FICO score for creditworthiness to get a mortgage or auto loan or other loans at banks.

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Roland Nelles gives 6 reasons why chancellor Merkel is likely to run for chancellor in 2017 and do well. Nelles says the alternative is a Greens, Left party, SPD coalition as in Berlin. But the rest of Germany is too conservative and the very idea of that coalition could bring conservatives together behind Merkel, including the CSU. It would give CDU voters second thoughts about switching to the anti-immigrant AfD party. Also important he says is that the immediacy of the refugee issue could fade as the German government better handles the refugee situation, including security, housing and integration. And as the agreement with Turkey is holding for controlling flow of refugees and turning them back. Also compared to SPD Merkel is still 8-10 points ahead in polls today says Nelles, so that there are still many Merkel supporters. In addition to what Nelles says, Strack in DW.com points out how Merkel's openness even showing emotions sometimes, about how the refugee crisis caught her and the German government unprepared, could help her in coming months. ...

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Sohrab Ahmari of the WSJ talks to Masrour Barzani at a forward base on the Syria-Iraq border in Dec. 2015, at a time when terrorist attacks in France and the U.S. are shifting public opinion in the UK, Germany and the U.S., as well as France.

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The high risk of failure as the U.S. withdraws from Afghanistan in 2012-2013. The U.S. is handing over to an Afghan Army that faces a high desertion rate, high turnover, and uncertain loyalties. The turnover is so high that the Afghan Army has to replace a third of the 195,000 army every year. The problems from the corruption in the Karzai government, the flawed elections, and other issues have not been resolved, leaving a fragile government and a fragile army and police force as the U.S. withdraws. A decade of sacrifices in resources, lives and wounded, is at risk. A negotiated settlement in talks with the Taliban has not moved forward to create a post U.S. withdrawal Afghan government that brings in all parties. The untimely death of American diplomat Holbrooke who set up the accord that made peace in the Balkans, and the failure to get results at the talks only leaves the whole U.S. project at risk.

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Swiss shareholder activist Ethos Foundation called for personnel changes at UBS. Dominique Biedermann, head of Ethos called for the replacement of Kaspar Villiger and Carsten Kengeter, who head UBS investment bank. Biedermann said UBS should leave investment banking and former Deuthche Bundesbank President, Axel Weber, should join UBS as chairman earlier than the planned 2013 date. He suggested Hugo Baenziger, current chief risk officer at Deutsche Bank, rather than interim CEO Sergio Ermotti, who is an investment banker, as the right person for the CEO position at UBS.

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Saudis unilaterally cut prices of crude oil without consultation with other members of OPEC at the beginning of Oct. 2014. Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi says there is not much point in talking to other members of OPEC as everyone does as they please. The old cooperation between Gulf states Qatar, U.A.E., Kuwait and Saudi Arabia is breaking down with each country backing different rebel factions against the Assad regime in Syria-Iraq. Ali al-Naimi who normally comes in ahead of the OPEC meetings in Vienna, which meet twice a year, arrived this time at the last minute. He said meetings should be conducted only once a year and consulting can be done remotely. The old style when he guided discussion at OPEC meetings is gone. OPEC now produces about a third of the world's oil, has large spare capacity of 3.8 million barrels a day in 2014 or 4% of global oil supply in a crisis, according to IEA. Yet it faces pressures from the increasing shale production in North America and the decline in demand from Asia. Brent crude is at about $92 in October 2014. OPEC production in August 2014 was split as follows- Saudis 9.6, Iraq 3.0, Iran 3.0, U.A.E. 2.9. Kuwait 2.9, Venezuela 2.3, Qatar 0.7, Libya 0.5, Algeria 1.2, Nigeria 1.8, Angola 1.7 (millions of barrels a day, source: OPEC)...

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For the country with the largest population in the world of over 1.2 billion people who had just gone through a once in a century pandemic would it have been right to import oil at prices that made it harder to invest what was needed in infrastructure and rapid growth? This is why president Biden and NSA adviser Jake Sullivan believe India has taken the right step to import at the lowest price possible to not divert funds that are so desperately needed for infrastructure to build the metros, fast railways, roads, bridges and airports the people of the country need. India's stand on invasions with millions of women and children turned into refugees is for an end to this war - Gandhi's position on a war such as this or Vivekananda's is not hard to read.

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King's Speech key remarks from Keir Starmer of Labour-

Starmer: we must “turn the page on an era of politics as noisy performance and return it to public service and start the work of rebuilding our country”.

My administration is already “finding new and unexpected marks of their chaos – scars of the past 14 years, where politics was put above the national interest, and decline deep in the marrow of our institutions”.

 At the heart of his plans are lasting transformation and "taking the brakes off for growth of the British economy."

“The era of politics as performance and self-interest above service is over. The challenges we face require determined, patient work and serious solutions, rather than the temptation of the easy answer.”

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The issues related to India's borders all hinge on Tibet says the Council on Foreign Relations. Sardar Patel and Nehru had differences of their own on whether the McMahon Line set by the British in a treaty with Tibet as an independent country was the border with Tibet or the border with China.  Between 1913 and 1950 Tibet was an independent country, with an Indian High commissioner in Lhasa between 1947 and 1950. After the Cold War set in and China and the Soviet Union fought to defend the rights of colonial peoples the U.S. and Britain did not recognize Tibet as a part of China. Nehru simply remained with the British status quo of the McMahon line as the Indian border with Tibet, without any clear acceptance  of the invasion of Tibet in 1950 by China, yet accepting the new status quo after the invasion, differing from Sardar Patel on the issue. This is why no clear picture emerges from looking at the official positions of the two countries, and a better understanding can be gained by looking at the border issue from the Council of Foreign Relations in the U.S.   Essentially the border issue is not beneficial for what it gives back to each of the two countries. China sees itself rejecting the period of its weakness during the Japanese invasion so that it reasserts its position to borders that stretch outside where Chinese people live. India sees itself rejecting the weakness during the British period and the early post British period during which India was occupied with the issues relating to partition of British India and the partition of Kashmir. This is why the Council on Foreign Relations can provide a better understanding from and independent perspective.  Both sides have little to gain. China by being at the Tibetan border puts itself in a position where it has little to gain being on the border with a large rapidly industrializing country with a population of over 1 billion.  At over 4000 metres or 20,000 feet the territory and landscape is not one that humans can adapt too in any way, except for a few military personnel doing their term of duty of 6-12 months from India or China. China is even further away from the border as it is a remote border from Beijing, Shanghai, Canton or Chengdu, thousands of kilometres when it is just 8 hours from Srinagar by highway to Leh, Ladakh, and the Nepalese border very close to the Bihar state in India. The very distance suggests remoteness, with customs traditions in the region very different from that in China, suggesting very little connection between Beijing near Mongolia and Tibet or Ladakh very close to India by road or rail. To get some idea how close the Tibet border is to India consider that Rasuwagadhi Fort border point between Nepal and Tibet is only 127 miles by road from Kathmandu. The distance by rail from the Indian border in Bihar to the Nepalese border is only 34 kilometres with a new upgraded rail connection. Being this close India is likely to upgrade infrastructure throughout the northeast region as it upgrades infrastructure, roads and bridges and rail throughout India at an accelerated pace for economic development.     ...

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U.S. president Trump will host NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg at the White House on April 12, 2017, as tensions between Russia and the U.S. increase following the U.S. missile strikes in Syria. White House officials say Trump is "100% committed to NATO." In May Trump will meet other heads of government at a NATO meeting in Brussels. 

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The Cajas, local savings banks, are a symbol of the excesses and lack of financial controls of the bubble years in Spain. The local savings banks were run by authoritarian leaders who remained in office for many years, and were influential in the political system. The Cajas expanded into real estate during the real estate bubble, and many of the cajas had to be merged by the federal government under new management after the bursting of the bubble. Minder describes the culture at Cajas banks in Galicia, the region in the northwest of Spain that is the home region of prime minister Mariano Rajoy. Julio Fernandez Gayoso, or known as Don Julio in the old baronial manner, was one such bank executive who ran the the larges cajas bank in Galicia as his own fiefdom till he was 80, and only quit when forced to resign in an investigation.

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Walk in clinics at drug stores like CVS and stores like Walmart now have the cooperation of hospitals. Hospitals are now affiliated with 25 Walmart clinics. THe Cleveland Clinic has lent its name and backup services to a number of CVS clinics in northeastern Ohio. And the Mayo Clinic is operaing ne Express care clinic at asupermarke in Rochester, Minnesota, and asecond one at ashopping mall. This helps clear emergency rooms of people seeking bsic medical care as for astrep throat or flu. About one thousand clincs are operating in the US at drugstores, supermarkets and big stores since the idea took root 4 years ago. Wal-Mart has partnered with hopitals like the Christus Medical Group in Texas, Aurora Health System in Wisconsin and COxHealth in Missouri to setup clinics. Mayo did so after employees and patients said they wanted more convenient treatment for minor medical problems, so there may be a need here that as not been met. The lower costs at these centers compared to primary care doctors offices or emergency rooms make it possible for them to price lower and meet the needs of the 45 million or so uninsured people in the US, numbers growing as jobless rate increases. They are typically staffed by nurse practitioers or physicians asistants. Dr Herman at Mayo Clinic, who supervises its retail store clinics, says rather than fight this trend primary care doctors should learn from it, and work with hospitals around the country to offer more convenient locations and consumer friendly office hours, including periods of walk-in care with no appointment....

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"Horizontal sehlves first used for placing books"- this first happened at the Merton Library at Oxford in the 1370's. The Library was set up for loaning books predating the printing era in the Middle Ages. Books were kept in a chest before this. Dr. Julia Walworth, the Libraian of the Merton Library talks to the BBC's Christian Kriticos. The library will celebrate the 750th anniversary of its existence.Dining clubs at princeton immitate Merton Library. It is one of the oldest still functioning libraries in Europe and the oldest in the English speaking world.