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In this interview with Gerald Seib of the WSJ, U.S. president Obama responds to criticism within his party as he pushes for the Trans Pacific Partnership free trade agreement with Japan and other countries in Latin America and Asia. European nations and India have joined the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank setup by China, creating pressure for the U.S. to respond to China's influence in the region. The interview shows president Obama taking the criticism from inside the Democratic party personally about his lack of concern for middle class and working class families during his six and half years in office.

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General Kayani meets with the newly elected prime minister of Pakistan before he takes office in an uncommon gesture of support for Pakistan's democratic process and the Nawas Sharif government. The recognition by the Army and Sharif of the special problems Pakistan faces in reviving the economy, and building infrastructure to meet the needs of the people after years of neglect, terrorism and conflict with India. See the article by Declan Walsh on the declining condition of Pakistan Railways and the dire need to rebuild basic services with international assistance and keeping the peace in South Asia.

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The Paris based think tank International Council for Security and Development says in a report that the Taliban now have apermanent presence in 72% of the contry and are now encircling the capital Kabul, and attacking 4 roads leading to the capital. This will certainly make things difficult for Obama as he takes office in January as the economic crisis will take a lot of attention while at the same time additional troops and military support will come into an Afghanistan that is mostly in the hands of the Taliban and with Kabul region in danger.

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Ford Motor Company makes a huge decision to exit the sedan business by discontinuing the Ford Focus and Fusion sedan car lines. The decision was made under CEO Hackett, and CFO Shanks, and means that Ford will have no fuel efficient car lines to offer to customers. During the recovery after 2008 and the bankruptcy of Chrysler and GM fuel efficient cars were one way the auto industry in Detroit was able to come back. Ford still depended heavily on the F series truck for profits as the market improved. With the current  popularity of SUV's the U.S. automakers are once again shifting to SUV's which does not protect the American automakers in competition with Japanese automakers if the demand partly shifts back again to sedans. Toyota has retained the Corolla and Camry and continues to upgrade its sedan models offering a broader product line better able to handle shifts in consumer demand that have in the past created problems for Ford and Chrysler. Chrysler has shifted away from sedans since 2016. Mr. Hackett is a former CEO of Michigan based office furniture maker Steelcase, and it is not clear if the lessons learned over the last decade at Ford Motor in competition with the Japanese resonate under a CEO with a different background such as that of its current CEO. ...

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Compared to 2008 Hillary Clinton is now very clear that she will stand up for woman's issues openly- "it is about no ceilings, no limits, for any of us." About playing the women's card she says "deal me in." One of the paradoxes of this election season is that white women registered voters 35 to 64 years of age have shown less enthusiasm for Hillary, around 34-36 percent in polls such as the NBC-WSJ poll. Interestingly the figure climbs to 66 percent for ages 18-34, and to 56 percent for ages over 64, for all women. Experts attribute this to the fact that women over 35 are facing fewer barriers than the women over 64 who remember the hard won battles for women's rights when it was hard for women to get a credit card or run for office, or be promoted in business. Traditional career choices were being teachers or nurses. A lot has changed in the last 20 years, and this has left some women who are no longer facing such barriers turning to other issues to choose their candidate such as happened in their enthusiasm for Bernie Sanders. Overall for all women registered voters  Hillary gets 52 percent support, Trump 37 percent, according to a July 2016 NBC/WSJ poll.   ...

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Congressional Budget Office projections show the difficult choices facing the U.S. - tackling the deficit by letting the Bush tax cuts and the payroll tax cuts expire will lead to low growth. The alternative is growth with much higher deficits. GDP growth would be at about 2.3% in this fiscal year if the payroll tax cut is kept till December 2012. In fiscal 2013 if a number of tax cuts are permitted to expire and across the board spending cuts take effect as scheduled GDP growth would decline to 1.1%. Taxes would increase by $465 billion in 2013 over 2012 if tax cuts expire - individuals and companies would pay $2.99 trillion in taxes in fiscal year 2013 in that scenario. Spending cuts would take effect in Jan 2013 for $1.2 trillion over 10 years. The result- " a sharp fiscal contraction" in the words of CBO director Elmendorf. Unemployment would go up to 8.9% in 2012 year end and 9.2% in 2013 yearend from 8.5% today, if no agreement is made to extend tax cuts and block spending cuts. The risk of not taking the debt reduction actions is to let the debt grow to $11 trillion over 10 years, an unsustainable path, compared to about $3.1 trillion over 10 years if tax cuts are permitted to expire and spending cuts take place. This is the tough choice facing America in 2012, and comes when Europe is facing similar tough choices....

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Lord Mountbatten's elder sister Alice was the princess of Battenberg in Germany. Prince Philip's mother was Alice. In this way the last Viceroy of India, a naval officer in World War II, and Prince Philip, are intimately connected. It was Lord Mountbatten who formed a friendship with Jawaharlal Nehru as he negotiated with Gandhi, Sardar Patel and Nehru for the independence of India after the war.  This legacy continued for Prince Philip as he and Princess Elizabeth established a friendly relationship with post 1947 India. After the overthrow of the Greece monarchy following World War I, Prince Philip and the Greece royal family sought refuge in England. Both Mountbatten and Philip are great grandsons of Queen Victoria. Mountbatten is a name adopted by Lord Mountbatten's father to avoid anti-German sentiment in England, adding Mount to Batten from Battenberg. Mountbatten's father was German and became a naturalized British citizen, serving in the British military.  Prince Philip adopted it as his surname after he went to live with his maternal uncle as a young boy. Prince Philip joined the Britannia Naval War College. In 1934 he was introduced to Princess Elizabeth by Lord Mountbatten at a family wedding.  The relationship is significant because of the contribution the two Mountbattens made to the transition to self-rule or Swaraj in India and to the British Commonwealth with its role for India and Britain. ...

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The broken world economy has hurt the American people, in small communities and towns across the US whose societal fabric was destroyed by a system of world trade with abuses done by China. Japan, European Union, Canada and Mexico since 2000. Shortsighted American leaders and economists allowed this to happen. Robert Lighthizer on the New World Order a new system of world trade that replaces the old in 2026. The old trading system was one in which lip service was made to free trade while all the time the system was used by Japan, Germany, China, Canada, Mexico and other nations to build non tariff barriers and other policies to support their industry  at the expense of the United States leading to disillusionment in the US. The facts are mind boggling- the loss of 5 million jobs, many small communities across the US decimated with loss of jobs. About 20 trillion in wealth transfers to China and other countries over 2000-2020, with foreigners owning $27 trillion more of US assets than the US owns of theirs. US Trade Deficits that went up by 40% in 4 years of the Biden administration from $800 billion to $1.2 trillion. Economists and weak leaders got it all wrong allowing this to happen from Geoge W. Bush to Clinton Bush and Obama. Lighthizer says "shortsighted leaders aided and abetted this process," from 1990 to early 2010. Consider that US had 17.3 million  people in manufacturing, in factories all over the US in 1970, in 1999 we had the same number of jobs, even though there were changes in technology and productivity- the US held its own with the rest of the world. The Bush, Obama years were the worst for the US industry - by 2026 we have 12.6 million - loss of 4.7 million jobs since 1999. And real median household income took a big hit growing from $72,000 to $84,000 about 17% in the last 25 years, compared to twice that in the period 1975-2000 prior quarter century. The result is the fracturing of American society- and dire consequences for healthcare as communities suffered from loss of jobs leading to drug overdoses, alcohol abuse and suicides, which are common in post industrial American communities. Think of this fact: two thirds of America's workforce that does not have a college degree, that is working class people, lives 8 fewer years than college graduates, a gap that was only 2.5  years in 1992. The wars carried on by Bush and continued by Obama in the Middle East also wracked these same communities till Biden and DJT pulled out. One has only to drive across America to see this with one's own eyes. Trade may be an abstract topic for economists and politicians- there is nothing abstract about this. And the economic growth of the US has suffered with the unfair trading system with China, European Union, Japan, Canada and Mexico. From 1945 to 2000 American growth was 3.2% a year. Since 2000 only 2 years of growth over 3%. US has not seen historically normal growth for the last 19 years and at this rate (if we continued along this path) the Congressional Budget Office says 1.8% growth for 2027-2035. There are other factors yet the the major driver of this is our trade deficit of $1.2 trillion dollars a year. It is a story of remarkable persistence in the Nation's interest through 2 adminstrations- this Lighthizer story. Lighthizer fought Japanese commercial interests as Deputy Trade Representative under Ronald Reagan, and as US Trade Representative under DJT in the first DJT administration in 2016-2020. His Deputy at the time is Jamieson Greer who is now the US Trade Representative in the second DJT adminstration in 2025. For 30 years this brave American patriot has fought to reverse the bad actions of presidents and economists that have led to devastating losses in the American countryside. He says any new trading system must be perceived as fair to working people. It will survive only if working people think it is good for them. It cannot and must entrench a small, permanent elite. The benefits going to labour must be at least as great as those going to capital. It should create fulfilling high paying jobs for the vast majority of the American people. This is America's new promise to its people, its new compact with its people. ...

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Experts say the election of Manuel Lopez Obrador as president of Mexico in June 2018 makes it easier to renegotiate the NAFTA treaty because Mr. Obrador's centre left positions to improve factory conditions and with it factory wages in Mexico, align better with Mr. Trump's goal of raising labor standards in Mexico. Robert Lightnizer, U.S. Trade Representative who leads the U.S. in talks wants to see 40% of the content of auto vehicles that trade duty free within the North American trading bloc of Mexico, Canada and the U.S. to be made at a particular wage level. The wage level the U.S. discussed is $16 an hour. The wage in Mexico is about $8 an hour on average in 2017, with parts plants at $4 an hour, according to the Centre fro Automotive Research. Mr. Obrador is more likely to favor the higher wages for Mexican workers because of his close relationship with the unions in Mexico. Mr. Obrador takes office Dec. 1, 2019, yet a leading member of Mr. Obrador's team will now join in the negotiations as soon as Mr. Obrador is declared president elect by end of June.   ...

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Serious concern about lower consumer spending in the U.K that would reduce growth and reduce government tax receipts. The unemployment rate has remained at 7.6% for 22 months. Wage levels are not keeping up with inflation of about 4.5%. The increase in the sales tax from 17.5% to 20% has added three quarters of one percent to the inflation rate, according to the National Statistics Office. VocaLink says annual wage growth in the three months through May 2011 was 1.8%, much lower than the inflation rate. Deep spending cuts are going into effect in 2011-2012, and about 300,000 jobs would be lost in the public sector with spending cuts by 2015. The IMF has reduced its estimate for growth in the U.K. to 1.5% from 1.7%. At the same time the Bank of England is under pressure to increase the interest rate of 0.5% (which is a record low), to control inflation. Britain under prime minister Cameron plans to cut government spending from 47% of GDP to 40% of GDP over six years. This will take 6 years of spending cuts, something even a previous prime minister Margaret Thatcher was not able to do. The government's Office of Budget Responsibility predicts a drop in the deficit from 11% of GDP to 7.9% by March 2012. Yet a lot depends on government tax receipts which in turn depend on economic growth. Britain showed a large deficit of 10 billion pounds in April 2011, and the situation is fraught with a high degree of uncertainty....

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Brazilian President Lula's interview witht the Economist, just before leaving office. It is not still clear how Lula will be seen, even though his popularity at the moment is helping elect his chief of staff Ms. Rousseff, as his successor. Lula's success in office is seen as a continuation of the policies of President Cardozo, who helped tame Brazil's inflationary crisis. Lula has benefitted from the continuation of the policies of his predecessor, and also from the boom in exports to China for soya, metals and other exports. By helping expand Brazil's middle class and the aid to poorer segments of society with the Bolsa programme, he has earned credibility and wide popular support. The dangers lie in the areas of an extremely overvalued currency- see the link to the Brazilian currency Real- with the Real at 1.7 and analysts with computer models showing the Real really worth 2.65 dollars. Part of the problem is government deficits to finance increased spending which require inflow of foreign capital and higher interest rates. Brazil is very dependent on exports to China for the increased level of growth, this poses risks if China's growth slows as expected from the high growth rates of the past. This poses risks for the level of infrastructure spending the Lula and Ms. Rousseff goverments plan on developing. Brazil's educational system is weak and efforts to improve this under the Lula government have not produced results. So the longer term assessment of the Lula goverment will have a balanced score card of wins and losses, without the euphoria of the moment....

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Corner Office, is a new Sunday Business feature in the NYT. This interview with Greg Brenneman of the turnaround at Continental Airlines, was done by Adam Bryant. Corner Office will cover leadership and Management. This is a wide ranging interview with Brenneman sharing not only his philosophy on work and business, but also his philosophy of life. He describes his approach to a company based on asking what are the two or three most important things you do, levers that you pull, that will make a difference in this company. It should all fit in one page. If its not simple and easy to tell a colleague, then its not right or its too complicated with buzzwords. Another approach is ask what are the 2 or 3 things you don't do which are bleeding the the business. Can you put these things down on a mental page, just one page, just 2 or 3 things that stick out, you absolutely don't want to do. That helps you put down the plan of attack. Brenneman sees too many executives focussed on economic gains and not having a rounded life, a balance that helps them lead happy, productive lives. In his view the balanced person is better at work because he finds fulfillment from all aspects of life. What leaders consider important is a shadow that they cast on the whole organization, in Brenneman's view, making it very important that the leaders actions convey the right message that they care about people....

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Greece prime minister Mitsotakis in this interview tells Reuters on May 15, that he hope the next four years will be years of rapid growth for Greece, but also one that will limit inequalities and make sure that Greece supports its most vulnerable. Greece was hit hard with higher energy costs after the war in Ukraine. It was not long ago in 2010 that Greece was daily in the news with reports of the eurozone debt crisis that affected Greece, Ireland, Spain. That crisis wiped out more than 25% of its GDP. He is credited with having managed the economy through the period after Syriza a rival party almost put Greece out of the eurozone. Lack of eurozone controls on debt of its members, lack of transparency in Greece's financial affairs were severe handicaps.  Today after a decade of austerity that it took to get its financial affairs in order including tackling over hiring in the government burreaucracy, lax financial controls, ordinary Greeks face high inflation and low incomes. Mitsotakis has raised the pensions and raised the minimum wage by 20% to 780 euros to help Greeks with the cost of living crisis. He has spent $50 billion euros in relief measures since 2020. Economic growth after reaching 5.9% in 2022 will slow to 2.3% in 2023. Mitsotakis addressed both Houses of the US Congress last year when Speaker Pelosi was in office. His image is dimmed somewhat by a surveillance of the Opposition ranks that was discovered recently and is covered in an accompanying article in the WSJ on May 19, 2023 shown on this page. The elections in 2023 are expected to bring Mitsotakis back in government with his party getting about 31% of the vote but lacking a majority in parliament. ...

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WSJ talks to Adam Grant, Prof. of Organizational Psychology at Wharton School of Business, on the importance of experimenting with different ideas. For every decision A and implementing it one forgets that there were other decisions that could have been made B, C, D or E, and each one offered new ways to experiment and try out new ideas. Grant is author of the book-" Think Again - The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know." Here he talks about how some CEO's used the pandemic (a problem) as an opportunity to experiment with new ideas on work to create productive happier workplaces. Others were too afraid to experiment. Grant says research data shows people are more likely to stay in a hybrid structure, because it gives them flexibility. From the productive workplace perspective this means people have to develop new skills and new muscle in a kind of experiment. This is what he says many CEO's are fearful to try out, now that they are reverting to the old workplace in the office-to what they know.  His biggest fear is that the experimentation that covid brought to us will stop. He sees four days of focused work a week or six hours of concentration in work a day, as way better than 8 hours of distracted work or five unmotivated days. Not just personal bonds are necessary says Grant, clear roles and goals are needed. And people need to be excited about what they are doing, which is possible he has found when they know the work has meaning for people who they are serving. ...

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Was president Biden right to get the Fed, the FDIC and Treasury to cover the uninsured deposits in Silicon Valley Bank. Is it a good use of taxpayer money? $25 billion was provided by the Treasury to the Fed to stabilize other medium sized banks. The answer from the administration is that it was necessary to protect working families from any effects on the overall economy of the ripple effect on medium sized banks that were left unregulated by former president Trump's 2018 roll back of regulation on banks with less than 250 billion in assets.The Office of the Budget has shown that the government recovered all except $31 billion from the much larger bailout of 2008. Paul Krugman in NYT says the assets of SVB are invested in long term US Treasury securities which have value and should cover most of the cost of insuring depositors. Moral hazard is covered by the management at SVB and Signature losing their jobs and by the losses in stock value and bonds which are left unprotected as a cautionary signal to investors. A much larger impact is hidden in the hearts and minds of Silicon Valley who will be expected to reflect on the nature of their self serving deal where they oppose regulation of tech monopolies and of regulatory action except where it serves their  own interests, and see a laissez faire system that works for them but not for workers and families across communities in states across America. A situation made worse by the loss of America's manufacturing base on which issue Silicon Valley neither reflected or acted. ...

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Pocketbook issues are taking increasing importance in the French election on April 24. Greg Ip of the WSJ says inflation has risen in importance more than immigration, the war in Ukraine, and other issues related to Islamist separatism. About 45% cited purchasing power as the main issue in a BVA poll, and this is even higher for people who voted for Jean-Luc Melenchon who came within 1% percentage point of Ms. Le Pen in the first round. Greg Ip says that in economic issues France has done better than Germany, Italy or the UK. Unemployment is at 7.4% the lowest since 2008. Economic output has risen more than in Germany, Italy or the the UK since Mr. Macron took office. And one study shows disposable income has risen higher under Macron than under predecessors Hollande and Sarkozy. France also spent heavily to tackle the Covid pandemic's effect on workers and companies. Ip says Macron's efforts to liberalize labor markets, simplify taxes and wage bargaining and make training programs more effective could be the reason. Youth unemployment is the lowest in nearly 40 years, and the number of apprenticeships doubled from 2019 to 2021, according to BNP Paribas. Pisani-Ferry, economist at Sciences Po says compared to past performance the French economy did much better. Le Pen has promised to cut the value added tax to tackle inflation's effect on voters. Macron has said he will be flexible when it comes to raising the age for retirement and pensions and calls Le Pen's lowering the retirement age creating problems for the solvency of the pension system and highly unrealistic.   ...

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Hamburg is the key city in Germany's trade with China. About half of $200 billion in trade between Germany and China passes through the port of Hamburg. The South China Morning Post looks at the dilemma in Hamburg over relations with China in the post Merkel era. Merkel maintained strong and close ties with China signing an agreement with China her last year in office. This was when Mr. Trump was US president. Since then president Biden has changed US policy towards Europe. The South China Morning Post points out that The Greens and the FDP key partners of Scholz in a new coalition government, are critical of Merkel's policy towards China in its overall relationship with the US and the rest of the world. Scholz was mayor of Hamburg, and a partner in Merkel's coalition government in which he was vice chancellor. Scholz has talked very little on what the new German policy would be. China seeks to maintain its economic ties in the next few years with Germany while reducing its dependence on other countries under Xi Jinping's new vision for China that seeks to depend less on trade and real estate for its economy and growth. Yet the pace of change has accelerated during the pandemic with a new global supply chain emerging from the chaotic years of 2020-2021. US policy under president Biden is similar to policies under Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930's during the economic and political crises, and look to be setting a new path to the future for the rest of the world. ...

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Angela Merkel's handling of the coronavirus crisis wins praise from world leaders and leaders in Germany. Public opinion from Argentina and New Zealand to Britain and the U.S. gives her a lot of credit for the way she has tackled the situation. She now has the highest approval ratings in Germany since 2017, after a period of 2 years during which her popularity waned with the migrant crisis.  Much of her period in office was consumed by crises- the eurozone financial crisis, the migrant crisis, and now the coronavirus crisis. She brings her style of a scientist rationally looking at the situation, her experience, and her willingness to take bold positions under much criticism. Today even one of the premiers in Thuringia from the socialist Left party praises Merkel for being "pleasantly calm and goal oriented, particularly evident in the well structured video and telephone conferences." He says he prefers a leader "a quiet scientist" rather than "pompous men who as populists, dangerously ignore the facts of the danger." Merkel now assumes the 6 month presidency of the Council of the European Union on July 1.  Germany faces the future in rebuilding its economy, in rebuilding its infrastructure and public services, for now Merkel provides the leadership needed for this time. As Andreas Nick, vice president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe puts it she is "always analytically scrutinizing and carefully weighing up, soberly Protestant and refreshingly unpretentious, a trained scientist with life experience in the downfall of an all too self-confident ideological system."   ...

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Matt Dickinson of The times of Lonson gives this story of the youngest winner of the Tour de France, 22 years old,  from a small town 25 miles north of Bogota, Colombia. His dad is a guard for the local cathedral and is his son's motor pacer and mechanic.  Cycling is huge in Colombia. Zipaquira is 2600 metres or 8600 feet up in the Andes mountains. A nearby climb of 23 kilometres is described by Bernal as his "office" and his father rides up ahead with him on this daily training.  In the trials Bernal was 22nd and this never fazed him even though on Stage 13 in Pau he fell behind colleague Geraint Thomas by 1 minute 22 seconds. In the final run in the Alps Julian Alaiphilippe of France who had shaken up the race faltered, Geraint Thomas  also did not keep up. so that Bernal with the Andean training and serious work prevailed with 1 minute 11 seconds to spare to win. Much of his maturity comes from working within a family where the mom and dad live together to keep costs down but have separated. As the elder of two children Bernal gained maturity in having to work with both parents to keep the home together. The first thing he has done with his new earnings is to buy a flat for his mom. Sky team's Brailsford who hired Bernal describes the confidence and maturity he has encountered in Bernal. At 22 years of age he is seen as having a bright future ahead of him. ...

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For groceries cost limiting Trump proposes nothing. It was found in the EU that there was excessive price action by grocery stores in 2022 and 2023. Though experts say no for price setting by government, the deterrent effect of a policy of the government to not set prices but to send a clear message about excessive profit as anti-social behavior, has beneficial impact for price reduction or future price increases to be put on hold. Harris will do this. For child care costs. Trump proposes nothing and does not put children as the next generation of Americans at the top of priorities. Harris puts children as the top priority and early years development as critical. Harris proposes a child tax credit of $6000 per family that would cost $110 billion per year estimate from Office for Responsible Budget, offset by Medicare savings achieved by negotiating with Pharma of $36 billion a year, tax on billionaires at 25% instead of 8.2% saving $40 billion a year, for net cost of $44 billion a year the Harris $6000 Child Tax Credit.  Congress including Democrats failed to extend the $3600 tax credit per child below 6 years that was introduced after 2019 yet allowed to expire in 2022 reverting to $2000 per child under 6 years. The concept is accepted as helping children, Vance the Republican VP nominee has suggested $5000, only opposed by country club Republicans oblivious to the importance of children having free school lunches and parents having the money for child care added costs for the future of the children of this Nation.     ...

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The idea that strongmen and populist politics are the problems of Sri Lanka is misleading. In the recovery of 2023-2024 it is PM Ranil Wickremasinghe with the help of PM Modi's financial loan assistance and arrangement through the IMF that put Sri Lanka back on the road to recovery.  Sri Lanka was called Ceylon during the colonial era. It became a Portuguese colony in 1505, and by 1600 a Dutch colony from which the Dutch extracted spices and cinnamon. In 1802 it was transferred by treaty to the British till independence in 1948. British left 1948 a country with an economy generating surplus from exports of coconuts, cinnamon, rubber and tea which financed a generous welfare state with subsidized rice. Under the British literacy was highest in South Asia. The failures were in race relations over two decades of war 1977-2009 by the attitudes of Sinhalese and Tamil leaders, and lack of a role model in northern India as PM Modi offers today for modernization. The second is the colossal failure of the "cut" politics where governments use their office for a cut in every business transaction which PM Modi has fought against with calls for good honest governance. The governments after 2009 continued these policies and let the central banks funds be depleted in the process leading to the financial crisis, inflation and inability to fund imports. Lessons are being learned and PM Modi is setting the path for all of South Asia for investment in infrastructure and modernization, good governance and Vikshit Bharat- developed India 2047. Sr Lanka is part of this vision for South Asia and Indonesia with 1.7 billion people.   ...

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The Syrian war started with Arab Spring in 2011 and a popular uprising against the rule by a Alawite minority that came to power in a coup staged by the elder Assad in 1970, says this report on the civil war in Syria. The war dragged out over a decade with the northwest in the control of Kurds, and groups backed by Turkey. Groups backed by Turkey which want to restore Syria to its national origins before the current regime took Homs, Aleppo and Damascus in a week as Iran and Russia withdrew from the country following the war in Ukraine and the Israel conflict with Iran. The US has only a small presence in the country to protect against terrorist groups. One of the effects of the conflict is the flow of migrants to Europe through Hungary into Austria and into Germany during the Merkel years. The opposition to migration that led to the CDU's decline in popularity and to Brexit in Britain started with this flow of migration from North Africa and the Middle East conflicts emerging out of the Arab Spring. In Britain the migration was also from Poland and countries in Eastern Europe.  This led to Reform UK and the Brexit referendum. In the US it led to the Border becoming a major issue in 2016 with migrant surge from Mexico in the last years of Obama's second term.  The collapse of the Venezuelan economy, economic troubles in central America led to another surge in migration in 2021-2023 from these countries making the Border a major issue in the US in 2024, and giving DJT a second term in office in 2025.   ...

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As the coronavirus pandemic reaches the 20 month mark in October 2021 and the government reaches a target of 1 billion vaccinations given in India, prime minister Modi talks about his experience handling the vaccination drive in this interview. It covers a wide range of topics from his initial experiences in development in Gujarat, translating this experience to the national setting, the multiple yojanas or projects from Swachh Bharat (Clean India), toilets for all, bank accounts for the whole population, cooking gas for women, decisions taken for Aadhar, digitization, GST. His 35 years spent in poverty as a social worker that gave him a clear idea of the aspirations of the working poor. On the achievement of one billion vaccinations- It was the careful preparation that happened as early as March 2020 that carefully anticipated all possible problems and tackled each one of them that made it possible. "Vaccinating such a large number of people comes with its own share of complexities. Ensuring proper temperature control of complexities, cold chain infrastructure across the length and breadth of the country, timely delivery from the manufacturing plant to the remotest vaccination delivery point, supply of needles and syringes, training of vaccinators and preparing for adverse reactions, from quick registration to certificate generation to reminder for next appointment. We needed to look at the entire logistics, planning, and progress of the vaccination drive." To understand the person completely one has to go back to the origins of his experience, skills learned, and his inspiration for the effort. Modi entered the chief minister's office in the western Indian state of Gujarat facing the Arabian sea in 2001. He entered office at the time of the Bhuj earthquake in Gujarat and describes his taking the chief minister's office as accidental as he had been a social worker for 30 years. "Let alone reluctance to join electoral politics, I had nothing to do with the political domain itself. My surroundings, my inner world, my philosophy- these were very different. Right from my younger days,my bent was spiritual. The philosophy of "Jan Seva Hi Prabhu Seva" Serving the people is akin to serving the Divine, which was propounded by Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Swami Vivekananda inspired me. It became the driving force in whatever I did." In 2014 it was with the inspiration from Swami Vivekananda and taking up Vivekananda's vision for the Indian people that Modi began his campaign to lead the BJP party. It may be looking back that Vivekananda guided Modi in all his projects for a Clean India, Jal Jeevan, Indian infrastructure that benefits the last man in the queue in the country, commitment to hard work. "Global experience says government should be there for those whom nobody is there. Government's whole focus should be on helping them." To do this, to meet the needs of that last person left out in India, he could see that old notions of opposites had to be set aside. "Outdated theories such as the private sector vs the public sector, government vs. people, rich vs. poor, urban vs. rural, are still on people's minds and they try to fit everything into this." Governments since independence in 1947 followed the same political and economic thought. After Gandhi negotiated with the British government for self rule or Swaraj an experimental form was set up with provincial governments ministries with limited powers formed in the 1930's through elections. Many of these ministries had the same problems that were found after independence in 1947, as one sees in the writings in the Gandhi library. They lasted for a few years before they were dissolved by the British government. These problems were more evident under Nehru and Indira Gandhi right into the 1970's and beyond. This was followed by a period of relative stagnation. Most ministries failed to seriously address India's economic problems, urbanization issues and agricultural issues remained unaddressed, and industry building was done with a limited vision and scaled down goals. In some ways the elections created a political class interested in perpetuating itself and did not build administrations based on learning, hard work and delivering on projects with scaled up targets to match the dire needs of the country. One sees similarities with France before 1960, before De Gaulle. A mosaic of peoples all separate from each other, with agriculture the main occupation, and most agriculture done the way it was in the nineteenth century by hand and using horses and cattle- this is the picture of France shown in Nous Paysouns, We Farmers, a documentary on Le Monde French television in October 2021. It was De Gaulle who supported a shift to presidential form of government for France that helped with the transformation through modernization and infrastructure development. Tractors were introduced in 1960 to mechanize agriculture. Road, bridges, rail transport, logistics were planned in the way Gati Shakti master plan for India is now being executed. There can be no transformation without this. Unstable coalition governments in France and lack of clarity and decision making before 1960 made such development impossible. India entered such a period in the 1970's. "The politics of our country is such that till now, we have seen only one model in which governments are run to build the next government (sarkar banane ke liye chalayi jaati haye). My fundamental thinking is different. I believe we have to run the government to build the nation (desh banane ke liye sarkar chalani haye)."  Chalta haye, Chalne do. What is will not change. Families, farmers and workers in India, for a long time accepted this without questioning.  "I take decisions based on Gandhiji's talisman that sees how my decisions will benefit or harm the poorest or weakest person." "While taking decisions, I stop even if the slightest of vested interests is visible to me. The decision should be pure and authentic, and if the decision passes through all these tests, then I firmly move forward to implement such a decision."           ...