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Eric Schmidt, former chairman of Google, says that dependency taken to this extreme where TSMC makes 92% of the advanced semiconductors needed for every smartphone, laptop and missile systems, needs to be quickly corrected. He says America's technology advantage could face serious damage with the Taiwanese production lost in the event of war or missile attack. The supply chain is already at risk with over 70% of supplies of silicon, tungsten, and gallium in the supply chain under China's control. Surprisingly Schmidt does not ask for action beyond Congress authorizing the $50 billion investment proposed for American manufacturing of semiconductors. What is needed as Andy Kessler has proposed in WSJ is to ask Taiwan and South Korea to invest in the US and allies such as  India where production cost challenges can be met with the engineering manpower and facilities as has been done in health care and vaccines manufacturing. Only token or small investments have been made by South Korea and Taiwan in the US compared to what is required. The US should ask for this to be done as part of the exchange for security guarantees that the US is already making for South Korea and Taiwan. It is also the responsibility of South Korea and Taiwan to make these and other investments in other technologies considering it as its obligation to the Free World. For too long countries in Asia that have benefited from US assistance have ignored their reciprocal obligations to the US. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and China have all benefited from US technology sharing and assistance. It is only an egregious example that China has put itself in the situation where Japan found itself or placed itself in the first half of the twentieth century.  ...

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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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Afghan warlord of a previous era Hekmatyar is proving difficult to buyout or win over, a strategy pursued with Iraqi insurgents. Younger Taliban insurgents are even harder to convert or buyout. THis raises questions about the chances of this kind of effort succeeding in Afghanistan, especially considering the "allergy" to foreign presence or foreign boots on the ground among Afghan people and the part religious fervour plays. Religious fervour was much less of a factor with Iraqi Sunni insurgents. Add to this the terrain differences, between desert and high mountains, makin the kind of house to house searches and securing of areas extremely difficult.

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What this tennis report is not saying is that only a generation ago the drop shot was standard and a key part of the game. The base line hitters era is now gone as player after player from Europe is shifting to the way tennis was always played with a great mix of shots. This drop shot or the related shot the lob was normal when Ile Nastase, Newcombe, Rosewall and Laver played in the 1970's and 1980's, games this reviewer watched late into the night at tennis tournaments in the US and Canada. It was because of the range of strokes that tennis was fun to watch and became popular at the time. The reason is that drop shots, lobs, take skills, timing, mixing shots with speed and with touches, and requiring a keen sense of the flow.

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Ed Wallace is very much on target when he says the esteem and loyalty has faded with the new generation replacing the older generations in the U.S. automobile market. The two generations have completely different perceptions of GM and Ford. He gives the background and paints the picture of their world, the perceptions and feeling of the older generations loyal to Detroit cars. His conclusion that this is gone forever may not be entirely true, as nostalgia cars or cars which go back to an earlier era may still have customer appeal. The perceptions also vary across regions, and is true for the west and south and other parts of America which have a higher proportion of foreign brands.

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Vice President Biden says "I would not refer to Mubarak as a dictator," showing a lack of sensitivity and understanding of the Egyptian people's demands for freedom of expression, human rights, and democracy. Harshaw says that its clear the Mubarak regime has been wounded at the core. In the light of this the Obama administration's hesitant and timid response to the protests against 30 years of one party rule under Mubarak is baffling. It means the US will have to bear the costs of being on the wrong side of public opinion in the Arab world says Harshaw. And President Obama has failed to bring the much needed change that he promised for US relations with Africa, the Arab world, and the developing world. Apart from improvement of relations with Turkey, the failure of the Obama administration to grasp opportunities for forging a new era of relations with the Muslim world.

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Polls taken before the June 16 elections in Greece show the leading New Democracy party and the Syriza party running very close to each other. Both Tsipras of the Syriza party and Antonio Samaras of New Democracy are calling for renegotiating the agreements with the IMF, EU and the EC, referred to as the troika, so that austerity programs do not fall too hard on ordinary Greeks. Tsipras says the goal is to reach "a just and viable European solution." He added in a news conference in Athens that "We don't claim there is plenty of money. Greeks are not asking for money. They are asking for work and the ability to make a living." The troika imposed a 22% reduction in the monthly minimum wage of 751 euros, or $930. This is unpopular in Greece and both New Democracy and Syriza now support reversing this, and extending unemployment benefits. Syriza proposes a moratorium on debt payments till growth is restored, and stabilizing public spending at 43% of GDP, below the 46% that is the eurozone average and above the 37% demanded by creditors. Syriza says it will scale back the value added tax which falls largely on the poor, raise taxes on the wealthy, and reduce tax breaks....

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The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's inspector general points to significant flaws in reporting of equipment problems at U.S. nuclear plants. There is ambiguity in the reporting requirements, with one section Part 21 of the reporting law requiring reporting defects that can cause a loss of safety functions, and another section requiring reporting only the actual loss of safety functions. As a result 28% of the nuclear plants are not reporting safety defects in equipmment unless this leads to an actual breakdown. This represents an unacceptable level of risk for nuclear plant operations, and the inspector general calls for increasing the margin of safety. In fact the NRC is aware of these lapses in reporting since 2009. NRC has identified 24 such instances between Dec 2009 and Sept 2010, and yet no penalties have been assessed or corrective action taken to make the law clear about the reporting requirements. The lack of a good reporting system complicates things further, because early indentification of defects and defect resolution for equipment problems is critical to effective quality assurance for nuclear operators. Safety defect spotted at one plant could come up in other plants. For this reason the Inspector General's report calls this "a substantial safety hazard."...

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Steve Bannon is described in this indepth report by Scott Shane as a workaholic, born to working class family with his father a telephone line operator, who went to Virginia Tech and joined the Navy in the hope of advancing a career in politics. At Virginia Tech he won a leadership position of the student organization. He was described by another student who knew him well as passionate but not likely to get much done. The period at Virginia Tech and in the Navy were the Carter years followed by election of Ronald Reagan. The election of Reagan had a huge influence on Bannon- the same overtones of that campaign of Reagan are seen today in the forgotten men and women, white working class families that Conservatives then and Tea Party Conservatives in the Obama years felt ignored. The downward drift of the lower middle class families that saw incomes drop as manufacturing hollowed out in the U.S. with foreign competition, the failure of establishment politicians of both parties to protect American manufacturing and working class families, added to the sense of angst for Bannon. Bannon just like politicians in the Obama camp such as Emmanuel, found the way to politics through finance and gains made as the banking sector and financial institutions made huge financial gains by 2008. This was a stepping stone for their political ambitions. Emmanuel who is also a workaholic and passionate about his views worked to elect a black president, Bannon choosing to do the opposite and push for bringing back the Reagan era. Most on the liberal side see him as part of a racist movement. Reagan was none of those things. How does one reconcile the two? It is possible that seeing the fight against the established politics as an impossible task, Bannon in his passionate temperament did not object to the support of right wing extremists, in the same way that Trump did. As both Trump and Bannon have people of Jewish origin and black people in their circle of friends or family. What incensed Bannon as described here by Scott Shane of the NYT, was that after the financial crisis of 2008, hardly any bank executives who had committed wrongdoing went to jail, his father's line operator retirement savings were devastated by the financial crisis, and working class families struggled harder than ever, that his daughter at West Point was with mostly children of working class families who were the ones fighting America's wars. Many ironies abound in the story. Bannon got his business start in the same financial institutions that were involved in the financial crisis of 2008, Bannon & Co was acquired by Societe Generale. He is from an Irish Catholic working class family in Richmond and attended Benedictine High School, with a mother Doris that worked on the campaign to elect Douglas Wilder, a Democrat, as the first African American governor of Virgina.  The other ironies are in that Bannon sees Trump as "an imperfect vessel" but still good enough, and Trump sees himself as "making all the decisions" when asked about Bannon, as a range of interests struggle to form a coherent movement on the right in American politics- an unlikely combination of a telephone operator's son and real estate magnate's son who built his own real estate business in luxury real estate towers far removed from ordinary men and women they represent. ...

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Goggle's Eric Schmidt speaks at the annual meeting of the Newspaper Association of America on the issues raised by Google News use of newspaper content. He says it is unlikely that Google would buy the content behind a pay wall for a subscription and make it available to users for free. Under the current arrangement only AP is paid for content. Newspapers can choose not to be part of the Google Search but choose to get traffic from Google Search to their websites, and from Google News to their websites, which they monetize through advertising. Schmidt provided as one solution publishers creating more personalized news products that could be effectively delivered on the Web, on mobile phones and on the iPad.

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Eric Cantor, a House member from the Richmond area, who is the face behind the zero Republican votes in the House for the Stimulus Plan. He says Democrats should not take the message from this that they should not mess with the Republicans anymore in discussing the plans for the economy. Is this good policy though, when the bill has given some middle ground between tax cuts and spending, and the spending is on areas neglected for years such as roads and bridges, classrooms and energy infrastructure? And is there an element of lack of comprehension by Republicans stuck on ideological grounds, of the seriously deteriorating nature of this crisis which is likely not to come back with recovery in several years, and is a global crisis? When Prime Minister Thatcher, UK Prime Minister, left office, the British infrastructure rail, rapid transit, hospitals and schools, had been neglected for many years and voters were looking for ways to rebuild the dilapidated infrastructure. The economy was weakening under her Conservative party successor, giving the Labor Party its chance to make a come back on the grounds of rebuilding infrastructure and services, and improving the economy. In which case there are just as many risks in this approach of being left out entirely and losing credibility across the country. Sometimes a feel good position may not be the best, or the wisest option, and may be shortsighted. ...

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Russian forces in Port Arthur (Dalian, Lushun) like the other European colonial powers in Tientsin took part in the joint operations of Japan, Britain, France, US, and Germany in the invasion of Peking in mid July 1901. Under the Soviet era China was an ally of the Soviet Union yet there was a strong sense of independent action that led to the breakdown of the relationship between Krushchev and Mao in the 1960's. This may be true also today as the European conflict in Ukraine may not be in China's interest of developing its economy and continuing on the path of modernity it adopted throughout the events of the 1930's to the 1990's to today. This report from that period shows the Russian army under Colonel Anisimov and General Stessel rescuing British admiral Seymour's force near Tientsin. The Russian forces under Russian Admiral Hildebrand played a leading role in the battle of the Taku forts that followed in late June 1901. The forces at Tientsin under Admiral Alekseev of about 8000 are mostly Russian. On 19 July 1901, Russia's General Linevich assumes control of the joint Japanese, Russian, British and French forces that conducted the campaign towards Peking.  The American version of the events in China in 1901 is given by Cornell University Prof. David Silbey in his 2010 book- The Boxer Rebellion, The Great Game in China. It shows the depressed condition of China at the time and the struggle to free China of the opium of British traders and conversions by Christian missionaries that undermined Chinese culture and society. The rebellion of 1901 is similar in China's history to the events of 1857 in India with the rebellion against British rule.    ...

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The tenacity of Democratic Party operatives such as Terry Lenzner from minorities in the U.S. marked the period of Civil Rights protests in the postwar period and the Clinton administration, leading to another generation of operatives such as Obama advisor Emmanuel from Chicago.

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Cohn and Monkovic of the NYT show how the shift of blacks, hispanics, and white collar professionals is doing to the demographics in the eastern, coastal and southern states, and how this will impact 2016 and future presidential elections in the U.S. This includes North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Virginia, and Florida. It means the electoral map may have changed by 2016 and 2020, as the less educated voters in rural areas are balanced by a growing minority and white collar vote in the suburbs and major cities of the South.

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A Republican says the party's failures to come up with alternative policies instead of simply opposing president Obama, has led to the atmosphere of negativism and anti-immigrant rhetoric that increases support for Trump in the party base. He cites as an example 2012 Republican presidential nominee Romney and his comments about "self-deportation." Other examples cited include pushing Rubio to where he repudiated his own immigration legislation just to maintain support in the party. He says this leaves him little option but to vote for Hillary Clinton.

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Comments by Eric Schmidt CEO of Google in an interview with the NYT's Helft. Important points emerging from the interview. Google he says does not know how long this crisis will last. Response not to waste money means less hiring and more careful expense reviews, and more focus. Managers are very very sensitive to important aspects of its culture, so such perks will continue which make it fun to work at the company for employees. And he says careful investment inthe future. "If you tighten too much, you eliminate future innovation, and then you set yourself up for a really bad outcome five or ten years" down the road. And here is the most important point he makes in advising the Obama administration. Do not take up the economy first, and let energy come in afterwards, deal with all the major problems at once, especially energy, which are part of the problem and the opportunity for the economy. For instance as the auto industry shrinks these job losses can be filled with jobs making parts for renewable energy like wind turbines and blades, like solar energy generation parts. This is actually happening already, government could speed things up by mandates for renewable energy and by help to companies through incentives. See the link to this in the NYT about companies in places like Newton, Iowa where lost jobs at Maytag are being replaced by renewable energy jobs. And several million jobs can be generated in energy to make up losses in auto jobs in the midwest. These parts of the Obama plan may have come up through conversations with Schmidt and other advocates of this, and by seeing what is already happening as reported by the NYT in the link. It makes Obama look like a farsighted genius, but its just sharp observation and careful listening. Pickens is already advertising this on television for his wind farms in Texas. It is not only Google's thinking, as Schmidt says, but good common sense and some ballpark estimates that would tell one that it would save sending 1 trillion dollars to Middle East and other nations that is needed for investment at home in the U.S.. Schmidt's calculations are that this amount could be saved in 22 years through renewable energy, plug-in hybrids and other innovative technologies. ...

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House Majority Leader Eric Cantor rejects the McConnell plan for raising the debt ceiling. Senate Minority Leader McConnell says on a conservative talk show- "all of a sudden we have co-ownership of a bad economy. That is very bad positioning going into an election." McConnell's plan is to shift the responsibility for raising the debt ceiling to President Obama, by separating debt reduction talks from debt ceiling talks. Cantor believes its best to push on with cutting back spending. Obama's response was to offer $1.7 trillion in spending cuts, at which point he expected Republicans to support tax increases, telling Cantor in negotiations "enough is enough." The McConnell plan is supported by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republicans in the Senate. The details of the plan are being are being worked out, with one strategy being to add to it the $1.5 trillion in spending cuts identified in bipartisan talks with Vice President Biden. Both sides are looking at this jockeying for advantage for the 2012 election. At one point in the talks with Cantor, Mr Obama is reported to have told him- "Eric, don't call my bluff. You know I'm going to take this to the American people." Cantor for his part, wants to limit the duration of the debt ceiling increase so that it would be a short term extension and would come up for a vote before the 2012 presidential election....

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This leader in The Economist reviews an essay in the magazine's October 8-14th, 2016 edition by U.S. president Obama. In it Obama points to the unfinished tasks of his presidency and what comes next as tasks to be done for the U.S. economy. The Economist points out the problems in the 2016 election campaign where there is a lack of discussion of economic issues as a serious problem. Obama lists as priorities efforts to improve conditions of people left out in the recovery, reducing inequality, offering more job opportunities, and increasing productivity.

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The 2016 Republican platform is written to express the ideas in the Republican Party for family values, child rearing using the Bible and traditional values, calling pornography a "public health crisis."  The Family Research Council and tradition or family focussed groups played an important role in writing it, with Mr. Trump playing less of a role. Instead of "physical barrier" with Mexico, it says "a wall"  should be built in a taking up Trump's idea, but in general it is a clear expressing of traditional family values that Republicans have supported for years and expressed frustration with the movement of social lives in an opposite direction. The same sex marraige decision by the Supreme Court and transgender debate were not present in 2012 election, so in that sense the Republicans see the country as moving in a different direction. More of the pendulum having swung too far in another direction is how Republicans perceive it, and their response is to go back to how things used to be and the world they knew, based on what they see as positive outcomes for the whole of society. Hence language that encourages teaching of the Bible in public schools, condemning pornography as a menace particularly for children, and insisting on "man made laws being consistent with God given natural rights." A good understanding of the Bible is considered "indispensable for the development of an educated citizenry."   Amendments opposing gay and transgender are being added. ...

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David Brooks of the NYT says the Republican party is failing when it embraces Trump's version of populism with its racial division, tax plan that favors Republican donors and ignores fiscal conservative concern over deficits that affect future generations, supporting the election of Moore in Alabama, the constant Twitter comments that show prejudice. He says this will have destructive effects that could last an entire generation. This isn't the Republican party he has known for so long, says Brooks. The time is passed says Brooks when sensible republicans could go along in the middle by not agreeing with Trump, yet avoiding the task of opposing the elements of Trump policies that conflict with America's long held ideals shared by both parties. He calls its a corrupt deal that Republican party leaders in the Senate and Congress have agreed to make with Trump thinking that somehow this will all work out for them even if it doesn't for the party. Selling one's soul is somehow not an option that people would take in their right mid, so he wonders aloud what is happening in the party- and calls it a rot besetting the party of Lincoln, TR and Eisenhower that won't get it to any good place.   ...

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Perceptions of Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping in China. The image of Jinping as one who stands up for ordinary Chinese and opposes corrupt officials is promoted in Chinese media. His visit to a small fast food place in Beijing, the Qingfeng Steamed Bun Shop, where he paid for the food, and took it to a folding table, is shown repeatedly on Chinese media. The cult of personality did not appeal to Communist leader Deng Xiaoping following two decades of a personality cult for leader Mao created by incessant propaganda. Under Hu Jintao, Jinping's predecessor the effacement was complete with the leadership taking a very low profile, and emphasizing scientific progress and technological development under a system setup by Deng's successor, Zemin, a former mayor of Shanghai. Some aspects of the old Mao era depiction of a strong leader who cared about China's interests above all else and was with the ordinary people, farmers, workers and students, is being revived today. It fits Xi Jinping's profile of a leader who spent time in the countryside with farmers, which happened when he was assigned at the age of 15 to Shanxi province during the Cultural Revolution period of the late 1960's- what Harvard professor Elizabeth Perry calls his adolescent socialization period- and his views of the positive role played by the Communist party, inspite of the excesses of the Party and the persecution suffered under Mao by Jinping's father when he fell out of favor. The link to Jinping's Hebei province shows the difficulties suffered of growing up during the Cultural Revolution, and his personal struggles including efforts to get into Tsinghua University as his father fell out of favor with Mao. As a result Xi has a inbuilt wariness for political positions. The story shows considerable ironies as Xi's father, a revolutionary war veteran from Hebei province, fell out of favor first with Mao and for a second time for criticism of Deng's crackdown at Tienanmen Square. Just to survive and grow during so many changes from the fifties China to the twenty first century China, shows remarkable resilience and strength, which is why Singapore's leader Lee Juan Yew sees much emotional stability in Xi Jinping. Is the personality building effort a Communist Party propaganda version of the careful nurturing of image done in western media for favored persons, or a revival of an older Mao type personality building effort? Xi's own wariness suggests it may be the former with some aspects from China's own past, as he promotes the Communist Party's claim to lead China for another generation by reducing corruption and furthering technological progress....

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The 41 year old actor and comedian Volodymyr Zelensky, is elected president of Ukraine winning 73% of the vote, compared to 24% for Petro Poroshenko. He plays a fictional Ukrainian president in a popular television comedy Servant of the People. Zelensky's team has promised a new era in which political and business interests are unable to interfere in the judicial system. Poroshenko made similar promises but failed to live upto them. A member of the Zelensky team Ruslan Stefanchuk, says "we need to cut the lines between the presidential administration and the courts and prosecutors."

Many of the countries in Eastern Europe that emerged from the fall of the Soviet bloc, face similar challenges. Zelensky emerged as Ukrainians were struggling with the issues of corruption and deteriorating relations with Russia following a separatist movement in the eastern part of Ukraine supported by Russia. 

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Eri Machii, founded AfriMedico, a nonprofit organization designed to deliver medicine to remote regions in countries in Africa. She worked in Niger under a Japanese Overseas Cooperation Volunteers program after two years working as a pharmacist. There she learned about the dangers in Africa in remote villages where travel and delivery expenses were high and infrastructure lacking. She devised a method of Okigusuri for Africa where as in traditional Japan medicines were left in a kit in villages and people paid only for what they used. Payment is done by cell phone using the M-Pesa money transfer system. Maichii learned about okigusiri as a system used in Japan throughout its history in places where infrastructure was lacking, lack of universal health insurance, and large families living together. She found that this was true for distant villages in countries like Tanzania where she implemented the system under AfriMedico. 20 volunteers helped found the organization and Tanzania pharmacist network helped guide them in setting it up. Large amounts of medicine taken at one time reduce the cost of transport. Use of the system of medikits in urban areas helped subsidize the village use. This is a system that has great potential for medicine delivery in many parts of Africa and Asia that have the same problem of access to basic medicine kits- so that treatment can be done earlier in the process for quicker less costly recovery, improving general health conditions. One can think of Indonesia, Philippines, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, West and East African countries as having potential for wider use of this system. As people pay for only the medicines used using cell phones the system has wide applicability from cost and access point if supported by private and governmental agencies in these countries.   ...

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Greg Ip of the WSJ looks at the result of changes in supply chains away from China, and the new trading relationship with China to 2028. He says the shift to a new global supply chain that diversifies it away from concentration in China is taking place. Would taking the tariffs from 30% to 60% under a new Trump administration be a good idea? Greg Ip thinks it is a bad idea as the change is gradual and is actually taking place. It may have the unintended effect of worsening US China relations essential for global stability when it is coupled with erratic or retaliatory rhetoric. Rhetoric that appears to China that it is being singled out in world trade beyond what are changes that have taken place with Japan in the past in trade. The Biden administration is for good reasons working to restore a balanced yet stable relationship with China. Apple is shifting production of 25% of iPhones to India. Samsung is investing more in Vietnam. The trade deficit with Mexico has reached $151 billion twice as large as in 2017. And $100 billion with Vietnam three times as large as 2017. The US trade deficit with China has dropped from $381 billion to $281 billion in the last 12 months, the Commerce Department reports show. And from $1.1 trillion with the whole world from $1.2 trillion for the last 12 months, 4% of US GDP. Overall the Trump era tariffs of 30% have not reduced the US  trade deficit substantially but has shifted American and European foreign investment to India, Vietnam, Mexico and other countries as well as to the home country. Over time the supply chain would become truly diversified as India makes great strides to become the third largest economy with new infrastructure by 2030. The head emeritus of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, Joerg Wuttke, says the pressure to export will be high for China as its economy shifts more to manufacturing from construction. Most Chinese companies are producing more than internal demand in China, and most companies in solar are losing money, in wind turbines and solar all are losing money, Wuttke says. This means China will double down and increase its investments in Mexico, Vietnam, Morocco and other countries so that it can send its products to the US through third countries that do the final export. One expert even says removing a few screws here and some there, find a different supplier, and shipping to a third party for final export that makes it not 100% Chinese content, the pressure for that is high. ...