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Note the reference to the embarrassment the Jobs Bank is causing for the UAW and the UAW moving away from it. How this opens up the way to worker acceptance of the buyout plan. See also the link to Korea, how fast the Korean operations are growing and the link to GM in China and the rest of the world where GM's operations are growing. The picture it presents of a shift to becoming a globalized company with global manufacturing and global vision.

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With Britain not willing to join an EU wide agreement for all 27 countries in the region, Sweden and the Czech Republic asking for time to consult its parliament, and Hungary declining, only 23 EU countries are now on board for new EU wide treaty changes for fiscal discipline. This makes new EU treaty changes unlikely, and means France and Germany will move ahead with a eurozone agreement for the 17 nation group. This can be done much faster than the cumbersome process for EU treaty revisions. The details of the new agreement will be worked out in the coming weeks and should restore confidence in financial markets. The problem now most experts say is that a new agreement might move too quickly to reduce deficits, worsening the economic prospects in the European Union countries. Fernando Fernandez, an economist at IE Business School in Madrid, says the critical question is how much time countries will be given to meet new rules. If for instance debt is to be reduced by 20 percentage points of GDP in 3 years under new rules, this would impact eurozone growth severely with sharp contractions in already fragile economies. Peter Morici, business professor at the University of Maryland, underscores this, saying Germany is close to zero growth and economies of countries like Spain, Portugal and Italy are contracting. Higher unemployment will result with smaller tax bases, making the situation appear to improve as borrowing rates for Italy drop now, but worsening the situation in 2012-2013 as deficit projections are not attainable. This is already true in Britain where earlier deficit projections are being pushed into future years as economic growth is declining....

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The federal government spends $93.8 billion on SNAP during the last fiscal year. It gives food to about 41.7 million people each month. The average monthly benefit, per person is $187.54.

Over a decade the SNAP is being cut by $230 billion as the program for money to buy groceries is being changed to require able bodied people to work, and also shifts costs to states. This is part of the new Tax Cuts bill that is being passed in Congress in May 2025.

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GM executives say they plan to reduce the number of platforms for vehicles to 14 globally in 2018 from 30 in 2010. GM plans to reduce the number of engine families to 12 by 2018 from the 20 in 2009. Another step GM plans is to keep its investments in new product development stable and not follow the jerky product development that follows the roller coaster ride with sudden increase and decrease in market sales. That kind of product development resulted in wasteful spending.

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There is no treatment for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease linked to obesity. It is twice as prevalent in Hispanics compared to other whites and African Americans. The fatty liver is a result of bad eating habits and lifestyle with little exercize. It is expected to be the leading cause of liver transplants in the U.S. by 2020. At the current rate about 25 millon Americans are expected to have the disease by 2025, according to the chief of liver transplant division at UCLA School of Medicine.

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Among the influential voices raised against the war in Afghanistan are former secretary of State Colin Powell and Senators John Kerry and Reed. Powell met privately with the President. Others skeptical that more troops will make adifference, are Vice President Biden, Rahm Emmanuel, and General James L. Jones. Clinton and Holbooke are on the other side of this debate. The first decision to add 21,000 troops to bring force level to 68000 was made hurriedly within weeks of Obama coming to offiCE. Powell's advice to Obama is the most significant because of his long experience. "The question the President has to answer is, What will more troops do? You have to not just add troops . You need aclear definition of the mission." The ideas revolve along the really crucial question of will more troops make a difference?

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British households have accumulated 100 billion pounds in December 2020 savings, says the Bank of England. This should increase spending and accelerate the economic recovery from coronavirus lockdowns, says the Bank of England.

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Compromise reached at the October 2010 G-20 meeting in S. Korea to reduce trade imbalances, and for countries with current account surplus exceeding 4% of GDP (China 4.7% and Germany 6.1%) to bring these balances down by 2015. Countries with large current account deficits, Turkey 5.2% and South Africa 4.3%, were expected to bring their deficits down and increase national savings. The US is at 3.2%. The US proposal for a target was accepted by Japan as long as it was not a fixed target but a reference point. Germany was opposed, saying it was a return to planned economy thinking. China did not comment on the issue. Canada, Australia and the UK supported the US position. The compromise was an effort to continue pressure on China to redirect its policies away from exports to increasing domestic consumption, while still refraining from a fixed target. It also takes some of the pressure off a fast track currency rebalancing, with China expected to increase the value of the yuan, but given more flexibility than the rhetoric would suggest....

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Ted Cruz wins the Wisconsin Republican primary election with 48% to Trump's 34%, with only 29% of voters who made up their mind late going to Trump compared to 46% for Cruz. About 37% of the voters in the Wisconsin primary said they would not vote at all or vote for Hillary Clinton if Trump was nominated. Showing deep discomfort with Trump exit polls showed 58% saying they were "concerned" or "scared" if Trump was elected. Cruz quoted John Kennedy and Winston Churchill, describing it as the turning point in the primaries.

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The knowledge that the virus  caused human to human transmission and that it spreads to wide parts of the population very quickly were critical pieces of information that remained with Chinese epidemiologists, doctors and medical researchers, and were suppressed by local authorites in Wuhan.  Yet China's version of the U.S. CDC, China's Centre of Disease Control and Prevention, modeled on the U.S. control efforts worked effectively to identify the problem. Virologist Gao Fu, heads China's CDC. This report in Germany's Der Spiegel says Mr. Fu made it a habit to scan China's internet before bedtime for any signs of possible disease outbreaks. On the night of December 30 he came across rumors of an internal memo from the Wuhan Health Commission of an outbreak of a vaguely worded lung disease. When he called the Wuhan health authority he found their answers to be evasive which alarmed him. The next morning December 31 Mr. Fu sent the first of three teams to Wuhan which is how China was able to identify the problem, in the sense that Chinese authorites in Beijing were to rely on Dr Gao Fu to overcome the problem of Wuhan provincial authorites. He informed the World Health Organization Beijing office on that day. The Der Spiegel report says "shortly afterward," the Seattle Times in its report says this was about New Years Day 2020- Mr Fu made a call to Dr. Redfield, head of the U.S. Centre for Disease Control, who was on vacation. Redfield is deeply disturbed on hearing this from Fu and they have conversations over the next few days to the point that Dr. Gao Fu is in tears about what has happened. On January 1 Taiwanese public health authorites shared the information with WHO that the cornonavirus was a human to human transmission, would the Taiwanese authorites not have shared it with the U.S. the same week during calls from the U.S. CDC or other public health authorites alarmed about the situation. (The WHO was proving useless by Jan 14 when it contradicted Taiwan's more reliable assessment  on Jan 14 going by the letter from president Trump to WHO). On January 6 a few days later Dr Redfield and Dr. Azar head of Health and Human Services ask China for permission to send a team of CDC U.S. experts to China. This is cited in the U.S. letter to the World Health organization- the lack of human to human transmission information being given to the U.S. officially early by China. A risk that could have been a topic of conversation between the U.S. and China heads of CDC. That letter from president Trump also points out that the team of experts the U.S. planned to send was not accepted by China till Feb 16, one and half months after that series of conversations between Dr. Gao Fu of China CDC and Dr. Redfield of U.S. CDC in an alert message.  In effect removing one of the key defences for the U.S. and Europe in making their own defensive actions and plans, laying the basis of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic affecting millions of people. Dr Redfield is a AIDS researcher at the University of Maryland who spent most of his life trying to control spread of HIV and was appointed by president Trump to head CDC agency in 2018. He set a goal of eliminating AIDS by 2030 and is more comfortable with aids patients and research than the bureaucratic nature of agencies- CDC has about 11,000 employees. Once it was clear that a team of U.S. experts was not given permission to make its own assessment in Wuhan in the few days after January 6 offer to sent the team to China by Redfield of U.S. CDC and Dr. Azar, would it have alerted the U.S. that something was seriously heading the wrong way for a epidemic risk. That letter of president Trump cites how the head of WHO during the first SARS crisis in 2003, Dr. Harlem Brundtland acted when she faced China's lack of cooperation during that crisis by saying openly that this was a danger to world public health and millions. Could CDC in the U.S. and the other connected health authorites have taken the responsibility and filled Dr Brundtland's role in this crisis, that the WHO failed to perform?    ...

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US president Biden feels the tax system is not fair for most Americans and the Trump tax cuts favored the wealthiest Americans. Detailed studies from universities Chicago, Harvard, Princeton and Treasury Department on 2017 Trump tax cuts lowering taxes for corporations from 35% to 21% for top corporate tax rate, and accelerated investment spending deductions, show much of the investment that took place after tax cuts in 2017 would have taken place anyway. And that the tax cut did not pay for itself, adding $100 billion to the national debt of $34 trillion each year. Striking was the point in the studies that said that instead of $4000 the average American only benefitted by $750 per year, most of the benefits going to the wealthiest and corporations. Many of the largest corporations tech and oil companies pay less in taxes than any notion of fairness would call for sometimes much less than ordinary workers.  Biden now proposes the tax increases for corporations to go up to 28%, higher taxes on foreign profits, and the corporate minimum tax increased from 15% to 21%. And for employees paid more than $1 million corporations not to be able to take deductions. ...

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With the strong positions taken by Clinton and Trump on China in the 2016 election campaign, U.S. relations with China enter a new phase. The strident tone in the campaign on China on trade deficit, women's issues, human rights, comes with the issues relating to China's role in the South China Sea and cyber espionage already in the background.