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Surveys of American, European and Japanese companies show souring of outlook for China investment. And Biden administration new rules leading to investment of China profits in the US economy. About $110 billion moved out of yuan denominated China bonds since 2022. There is a sharp decline in the profits of US and EU companies in China that are reinvested in China after China's sporadic lockdowns in 2022 and increase in interest rates in the US. WSJ Analysis shows $170 billion profits reinvested in 2021 to net decline in third quarter 2023 outflows of capital over inflows declining by $11.8 billion, the first ever since 1998. Unlike in the past profits are being repatriated back out of the country so that investments can be made in the US economy or in other countries in the supply chain. This is a fundamental shift as risk of doing business in China increases. 

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Washington Post Editorial Board on the importance of federal workforce being based on performance and laying off or force reduction of  underperforming workers, not protecting workers with seniority. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) of the US government has taken a sensible action, says The Post in proposing to federal agencies that they layoff low performers first. Under the Biden administration the longest serving employees often the highest paid were not laid off, even if they were not productive. Agencies reduced workforce based on a complicated formula that heavily weighted seniority. The new rule will give performance the largest weighting. As OPM puts it: “By elevating performance in the order of retention, the employees who are best contributing to the mission will be more likely to be retained during restructuring.” Department of Government Efficiency government cuts were for 90% of the 2025 cuts due to voluntary programs such as buyouts, says The Post.  ...

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Inflation has moderated to about 3% and unemployment is at historic low of 3.7% in March 2024. Public perceptions are gradually changing when asked about the economy this WSJ survey shows. Key points are that now 37% approve Biden handling of inflation up 7 percentage points, and 40% approve his handling of the economy up 4 percentage points. The public perception of the economy had diverged so much from the actual strength of the economy under Biden that this was hard to understand in 2023. This is changing in 2024 as there is now a clear sense that the better reading on inflation and unemployment is not temporary but is only the beginning of a surge in economic progress. The public has not yet grasped the extent of the change for the first time in 3 decades of the scale of the reinvesting in the economy under Biden and a bipartisan Congress of trillions of dollars being invested and the speed of execution of projects. This will become clear as the year progresses.  ...

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The WSJ looks at Republican voters from the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries. It finds that about 20% of Republican voters will not vote for the former president Mr.Trump. It also finds that about 65% of voters who are Independent did not support Mr. Trump in the 2 primaries. Mr. Biden is seen as losing about 10% of Democratic voters. A look at 2020 shows former president Trump has lost support among Independents and skeptical Republicans by 2024 stemming from disapproval of the uncertainty and chaotic nature of the presidential years 2016-2020.

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India's challenges in securing $1.3 trillion in capital over 5 years for infrastructure spending. This is needed including capital from the private sector to support government funding, so that India can build the infrastructure to create new manufacturing hubs that compete with China as the world's manufacturing workplace. The Biden administration's determination to compete effectively with China using is own supply chain in Asia, and the EU's plan to follow what the Biden administration does, is likely to create a new kind of environment by 2024-2025 that will create a steady flow of capital to India and other parts of Asia to finance this effort for rebuilding its supply chain. The Biden administration is seeking to build a culture change from the old culture pushed by Reagan type free marketers that delivered lost decades in manufacturing and jobs in manufacturing for the US. Biden's State of the Union message was clear- "Folks we're just getting started. We're just getting started." By 2024-2025 the Adani story may just be a footnote to this story as other manufacturers and investors pick up the infrastructure challenges facing the US, EU and India for a new supply chain for the Free World built around self-reliance. The Ukraine war and China incidents such as one that happened recently, will accelerate the rebuilding of the new supply chain on the part of the US and the EU with partners in Asia. And change decades old assumptions and trade relationships over months, not years. ...

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So many Republican districts jobs depend upon the Clean Energy investments in the Inflation Reduction Act. Kasey Carpenter, Republican of Dalton, Gerogia says- “So much money has been spent building these facilities. The last thing you want to do is get it all built, and then jobs disappear.”  From August 2022 to December 2024 the private company investment in clean energy is four times greater in Republican Congressional districts than in Democratic districts. NYT provides visual graphs showing this. The investments being $118 billion Republican districts vs $35 billion in Democratic districts.These are investments under the Inflation Reduction Act one of the achievements of the Biden administration that are reflected in the strong economy in 2024. This allocation was for $390 billion for Clean Energy over 10 years. A similar situation is happening for the CHIPS and Science Act investments opf the Biden administration. Lael Brainard of the Biden administration says- "They are not going to want to undermine those jobs and those businesses that we know for the first time are really strong in so many districts around the country that have been left behind under trickle-down policies."   ...

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Closely contested seats in Long Island, an area just east of New York city could decide the control of Congress. Republicans see their messaging on crime and immigration deflected by recent reports for a freshman Congressman in the area. In 2020 New York issues on crime affected control of Congress for Biden. Since then New York Governor Hochul and others have paid strong attention to this and crime is down in New York and across the country in 2024.

Hochul, Walz and Whitmer are some of the governors who have a strong committment to Biden's program for infratructure and investments in industry to create jobs in the Nation.

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Biden will visit France for D-day and Italy for G-7 meetings in June, followed by a television debate in Atlanta. The concern about families struggling to make a living with high housing costs and grocery bills continues at the White House and president Biden says he is concerned telling one Congressman- "I care. I know people are hurting."  The Biden policies have worked for unemployment and for economic growth as the US is the only advanced economy in the world to return to pre-pandemic growth. Economic growth is now forecast at 1.7% for 2024 says WSJ, higher than the 1% forecast in January. Younger people in particular and newer voters who did not vote in 2020 are not informed about the economy and only see the difficulty making ends meet in living costs. These are the young people president Biden is making an effort to reach.

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With inflation up, cost of living increase, the $15 per hour wage in high cost of living states such as California and New York does not go very far in tackling cost of living in 2026. Astoundingly 20 states many in the SOuth still follow the $7.25 per hour federal minimum wage that has not changed since 2009. Axios shows the minimum wage by state. In Michigan workers in youth age earn 85% of the minimum wage of $12.80 and hour. As workers lost leverage with the decline of trade unions since the 1990's administrations of Clinton, Bush, Obama, the situation is a difficult one for lower wage workers in many states. The lower wages in retail and hospitality industries also creates downward pressure on all wages which have not kept up till recently in auto and other manufacturing industries. Outshoring increased pressures over the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations and as Democrats failed to do much about outshoring, it took a Republican DJT and Democrat Biden who followed to reverse the trend and create a push for higher wages. This also has failed as inflation surged during 2022-2023 and outshoring created new problems in sourcing parts from overseas in autos and other industries. The middle class is also not much better off and engineers making $90,000 a year are also living from paycheck to paycheck, with less access to housing that has gone up in price and become less affordable. This cost of living surge and the open borders migration pressure on public services led to DJT's reelection in 2025. ...

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WSJ tells the story about Biden being slow to act in 2021 and 2022 to close the Southern Border, without telling the complete story and all the facts. Biden did close the Border in 2024 by executive order- when Trump blocked passage of Republican Lankford's legislation in Feb 2024 supported by Biden to close the southern Border. No mention is made that Biden was faced with a once in a century pandemic, winning the fight for vaccines over skepticism, and on Feb. 22 2022 Putin launching an attack on Kiev, Ukraine, and negotiating to get the crumbling infrastructure of the US rebuilt, funds for CHIPS and Science. On top of this the Venezuelan economy completely collapsed leading to an unanticipated migrant surge. Only FDR and Lincoln faced so many huge challenges and tackled them one by one. Without these facts the result can be to stall the biggest boom in manufacturing under president Biden/Harris that America has experienced since the space race in the 1960's. ...

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The Guardian shows pictures in both black and white and in color from the last 50 years of US president Joe Biden. The first picture is a black and white picture from 20 November 1972 showing him cutting his 30th birthday cake with his wife Nelia, sons Beau, and Hunter. He is shown taking the oath of office for the Senate as he turned 30 the youngest senator and now the oldest former senator to be president. On the Metroliner Amtrak in 1988. He spent decades riding Amtrak to Washington D.C. He campaigned with Jill Biden for president in 1988. Not till the extraordinary situation of the pandemic in 2020 did Americans who largely ignored him give him the opportunity to lead- and at what a time when the Nation desperately needed his vision and his leadership through the largest vaccination program in history with the exception of that in India. And following this with his skills in Congress to get the legislation passed with Republicans for trillions of dollars to go into aiding families recover, and the economy to recover, investing in chips and science, and in infrastructure in ways that have happened only three times in American history, first in the early days of rail transforming a largely agricultural country during Lincoln and Grant's years as president in 1860's and 1870's, and again during the TR, Woodrow Wilson years in the 1900, 1910 period, and in the period under FDR, Truman and Ike 1940's, 1950's. No other country recovered better and stronger, and yet because of the lingering effects of the pandemic with 1 million dead from the Covid virus, and increases in the cost of living even as inflation was brought down from 9% to 3% for reasons stemming from unwise decision of American business to concentrate the supply chain in China, from housing and automobile price increases, the Nation did not immediately grasp the sheer magnitude of what had been achieved. ...

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Let sleeping tariffs lie is the approach of S. Korea, Taiwan, Japan, China, India, European Union, Germany, UK-  expect all trade agreements with the US to remain in place after Supreme Court decision as no country wants to go through the intensely difficult process of renegotiating on tariffs. It is also the case that DJT can replace these same tariffs using other tools and different legislation passed by Congress to stop unfair trading practices by other nations. The president is also appealing to the public, some of the tariffs are about fentanyl flows into the US, the unfair trade practices and subsidies were a problem for the Biden administration and rebuilding manufacturing was the goal of both DJT and Biden, and will be for future administrations.  When the media NYT, Washington Post respond they are following the editorial line taken that opposes the DJT administration on all issues, when WSJ respond it takes the textbook approach of economists and finance people that free markets are best without considering the real life issues. This is why the president said at his press conference after the Supreme Court decision that 22 Nobel Prize economists had said the economy could not be turned around for growth and low inflation in 1 year, and were proved wrong after the experience of 2025 with low inflation at 2.8%, low unemployment 4.3%, and growth of 2.2% in real GDP (with strong growth in quarters 2&3 of 3.8% and 4.4%). Expect all tariffs to be in place under other legislation to be in place in coming months. ...

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After making headlines the issue of TikTok is no longer making news. Here is what has happened since- TikTok took the case to the Supreme Court after the Biden Administration's effort to bring it under US security with American ownership. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the government. Social media helped Republicans and DJT in the election. DJT wanted TiTok to be an American company if it was to operate in US. China was opposed to this and would not allow ByteDance the owner of TikTok negotiate this-leading to an impasse. The DJT administration worked out a relationship  with China by September 2025 following tit for tat tariffs in May 2025. Xi's strategy was to put rare earths on the table after it had gained a 90% monopoly on rare earths processing technologies and supplies. Some supplies include a site in Greenland, so that the Greenland issue as opponents of US acquisition have made appear is not fiction. DJT Administration pulled back and negotiated a deal with China but realized how the US had left key gaps in its security which is why the Greenland issue came up in 2025. Similar to how Democrat president Harry Truman had done as the Soviets expanded influence in Greece and Turkey by 1948. Little of this making it to almost the entire US press and the entire European press, including Democrat Harry Truman's 1947 offer of $100 million ($1.5 billion in 2026) for Greenland, rights, title and ownership similar to Alaska purchase by Seward, and US Virgin Islands purchase in 1916 from Denmark.   The deal makes TikTok an American/ China investor run company with Byte Dance ownership of 20%, Oracle 15%, Silverlake US equity firm 15%, Abu Dhabhi (UK type) MGX 15%, and prior investors 30%. Prior investors are General Atlantic, SIG, Steve Case's Revolution with JD Vance having equity, Dragoneer, NJJ Capital. The company now valued at $20 billion based on 200 million US users. Yet this does not address the dangers and damage done by social media hours for youth in the US, endless hours from education shifted to phones and social media videos. Australia has banned it for under 16 year olds, UK parliament has voted to ban, French parliament has also voted for a ban, China has strict rules that protect its youth for use specifying hours and restrictions, leaving the US and India, Brazil vulnerable to dangers of social media. Strictly speaking You Tube is considered as social media even though it serves an information function, Facebook and TikTok are where a lot of the damage to education takes place in social media. US is entirely leaving its young people especially women unprotected. Once the fentanyl issue is tackled attention will again focus on these dangers to creating good citizens in the US  with civic education if democracy is to be preserved, something endless numbers of lobbyists- which even in Teddy Roosevelt's and FDR's, JFK's days have opposed- will again oppose.     ...

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Documents from the Fox News Defamation lawsuit show much tension between news personnel and the television network's prime time news show hosts, says this report in the WSJ. Dominion has $1.6 billion lawsuit in March 2021 against Fox News for defamation. It says the network spread claims that the company's voting machines helped rig the 2020 US presidential election in favor of Mr. Biden. 

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Counting only people who voted in 2020 Biden is ahead 2 percentage points. 2024 Biden campaign is complicated by irregular and disengaged voters. Will disengaged mostly younger voters stay home or will they vote? What will happen with the churn- how many of the irregular voters from the last election will turn out and how many stay home. Many are Democrat leaning and as the election campaign progresses they may become more aware and vote but this is by no means certain. Many are younger voters or minority voters who are disengaged and do not follow what is happening. The economy not abortion or the border is important to these voters. President Biden has secured the vote of only 75% of these voters and has to find ways to reach them all. 

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The Guardian in its Editorial on Keir Starmer on February 10, 2026, says Labour was in the political wilderness for 18 years, and yet it has taken only 14 months for the project which put it into power to implode. It is referring to the project of McSweeney from County Cork, Ireland, and others to put a centrist to replace Corbyn, and selecting Keir Starmer. This was a weakness from the start as a candidate has to emerge on his own merits not be put in place by handlers like McSweeney, as he would not be able to govern on his own thinking and make his own decisions.  McSweeney was a campaign organizer and not successful at that as portrayed as Labour could have taken more than the 34% of the vote it received after 18 years of Tory rule without the likes of McSweeney. The Guardian says "excessive power and influence" was given by Starmer to McSweeney, and that the outsourcing of Britain's direction served neither the prime minister or the country well.  This is aserious flaw. McSweeney did not have the long experience of advisers that backed up Biden in the White House. And even the long experience of Biden group of advisers failed Biden when it came to immigration policy and the Border. And yet the question remains why was there such a lack in the talent pool for good governance for Labour, as it was for the Conservatives, for 3 decades since the 1990's? Similar to the situation with Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama governance in the US, why is there not a good talent pool for effective governance in the UK and the US? The Guardian goes on to question the judgement of Starmer and the clique around him including McSweeney for their attitude towards helping the working class in support payments during a cost of living crisis- what it calls a contempt filled approach of the cliques to the normal priorities of a Labour party. The Editorial concludes that Labour has lost control of the trajectory of events- as more Mandelson emails are expected- and that it is hard to see how this trust can be won back. For Britain having 5 prime ministers over 4 years is a shocking lack of the talent, of confidence, that once prevailed in the nation that once led the world with the Industrial Revolution, and in science and technology. ...

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Biden gave a passionate and vigorous speech at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, Aug 19, 2024 comparable to what he did in the State of the Union message to the US Congress and people in January 2023 and January 2024. Gone was any semblance of the bad day at the debate that came after covid symptoms. The first night at the Democrat Convention brought before Biden's speech speakers Hillary Clinton, Governor Beshear of Kentucky, touching personal accounts of trauma of women who were denied abortion in rape and incest and mother's health conditions, Steve Kerr, US Coach men's basketball team at the US Olympics, and three members of Congress. Steve Kerr said it was the duty of Americans to protect American democracy and the respect for the dignity of people, workers and families, that is part of the values of the American people for two hundred years, values Biden exemplified and Kamala is shaped by. Ashley Clinton reminded people of her father's love for the country and family- telling the country how her father took the train from Washington D.C. to Wilmington Delaware just to see Ashley, Jill and the family for her birthday when she was just seven years, stayed for a few minutes at the station and after blowing the candles headed right back to D.C. Dignity, decency, values, personal sacrifice, courage, these are the values that Coach Steve Kerr said America expected from its leaders. Thes are the values of Joe Biden of Delaware as he went through 50 years int he US Senate, 8 years as Vice President and his term as president. And above all Biden used this experience to pass legislation  for the Renewal of America that makes him many speakers say the most consequential president since FDR. ...

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 Harris's role for the Border was limited to telling Central American migrants to stay home. Much of the migration was a result of wars started in the Reagan years in Central American states of Nicaragua and San Salvador. This destabilized the region and led to gangs taking over parts of the country in San Salvador and entrenching Castro style regime in Nicaragua, leading to outward migration of young people. As this report points out Harris was supposed to take on decades of such misguided policies in Central America in a few months. A drought hit agricultural coffee regions of Guatemala increasing migration. Her role instead was to ensure several wins. Win No.1 to generate stability setting up the peaceful transfer of power in Guatemala, singling out corrupt regimes. Win No. 2 to generate jobs. US AID and IFDC loans were increased, foreign investment attracted to generate 250,000 jobs. Win No. 3 the increased stability led to gradually declining migration from Central America. What replaced it was Venezuela. And that is a repeat story of Reagan style wars in Central America. Under the Trump Administration the US did not take up the Monroe Doctrine and act directly to support a stable fairly elected government in Venezuela, an obvious solution. Instead going half way- destabilizing the government but then left it on its own. The result about a third of the population leaving the country in these years to Colombia and other parts of Latin America in a immense humanitarian tragedy.  In 2023 Venezuelans not Guatemalans entered at the US Border in large numbers, most of them middle class families that left Venezuela after hyperinflation and mismanagement of the economy. Realizing the danger by January 2024 Biden negotiated with Senate Minority Leader McConnell and his Republican representative Senator Lankford to pass legislation in the Senate closing the Border. All that was needed was the House to act and 30 years of Border problem would be solved.This was blocked in the House by new Speaker Mike Johnson on advice from former president Trump who chose to use the issue in the 2024 election. Biden then used his executive powers to close the Border leading to lower numbers of migrants under Biden by July 2024 than under Trump. Migration Border Czar was never a term used by Democrats in the Obama and Biden years. Biden who also served in a role given migration as one of the issues to handle under Obama, had this as only one of his assignments. Biden played more important roles in foreign policy with his experience as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for decades. Border policy was made by president Obama and his advisers. The same is true of Harris, Border policy being done by president Biden and his advisers. Similar to Biden's role as VP Harris was given assignment to cover foreign policy and was the US representative at 3 Munich Security Conferences in 2021-2024 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Chancellor Scholz of Germany said of Harris last week that he had full confidence in Harris as both competent and experienced. ...

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Kharg Island near Hormuz and Jask Island on Gulf of Oman two of Iran's main oil export terminals. Oil is pumped by underwater sea pipelines to storage tanks that hold 30 million barrels on Kharg Island then loaded onto oil tankers that make their way through the Hormuz Straits. The oil is shipped to teapot refineries in China- smaller independent oil refineries in China that have not faced sanctions. This oil is shipped at a discount. How does China pay for this oil? China gets 2.1 million barrels a day from this source. It is paid for with a $400 billion Chinese investment in Iran under a 25 year Comprehensive Partnership Agreement signed in 2021 during the Biden Administration in the US. The investment covers energy, infrastructure and technology in Iran. At $60 a barrel before the Iran War China would have an import oil bill of $46 billion for 1 years supply of oil from Iran. This was paid for in yuan based transactions and barter systems which involved Iranian construction projects performed by China and exchange of other products, raw materials. ...

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Democrats voice their opinions on president Biden's run for president in 2024. Most Democrats say they back Mr. Biden and Mr. Biden has pushed through a program that is already changing America and preparing it for a better future. Yet a bias against age remains though both candidates are divided by a mere 3 years with Mr. Biden following a healthier health routine and nutrition than Mr. Trump according to reports. It is still a year before the 2024 election season and Mr. Biden is now taking his case to the American people on the question of democracy, the values and principles that have to be upheld and which are being challenged. Major changes are taking place for new infrastructure, for climate change that never happened before and president Biden and his team are taking this before the American people. 

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Mitch Smith of the NYT looks at the Grand Rapids area for the 2024 election. Grand Rapids is atownof 660,000  which is the second largest city in Michigan. Originally populated by Dutch settlers it now has about 10% Hispanics in addition to about 10% blacks. The Hispanic population has increased over time. Some Republicans such as Ben Ingrebretson have drifted away from the party and voted for Biden in 2020. In February he voted for Nikki Haley, part of the 34% who voted for Haley in Kent County. He approves of Biden's view of America as "a beacon" for the world but does not approve of stimulus spending or forgiveness of student loans. Grand Rapids is also the area where governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, went to school and which gave her a 10 percentage vote margin.

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Guiding the debt ceiling talks in a safe way that does not distract in any way from the stronger economy that is taking shape with large investments in every sector, and which people can see and feel in their own lives, is the goal of president Biden. It would be a win for Biden if overall spending can be kept at the level of 2023 for the next two years. How he does this is by maneouvres that concede somewhat in some areas- one example is by reducing spending on the Internal Revenue Service by $10 billion from $80 billion to $70 billion, and shift the $10 billion saved to education and other similar spending. The idea is to mitigate the effects of small cuts by shifting money from other places in the budget spending plan. These maneouvres are designed to keep the overall investment largely intact and deliver results in 2023 and 2024 in a rebuilding of America that the people can see. 

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 Biden's kickoff speech for president in 2024- "We've got a lot more work to do." Biden was able to get the US on track for huge investments in infrastructure, chips, climate change, renewable energy, cost of living help, of trillions of dollars. He told a union audience- "Under my predecessor (Mr. Trump), infrastructure week became a punchline. On my watch infrastructure has become a decade headline- a decade headline." (Not much was actually done for infrastructure by Trump.) What Baker in NYT says Biden was not able to do is where Republicans blocked his efforts- to cut student loan debt, for pre-school education assistance, for tuition free community college, for parental leave, and help to workers and families struggling with the cost of living. Biden also helped tackle the period of mass vaccination and exit from the pandemic, and bringing unemployment to below 4%.  Baker has covered 5 presidents for the Washington Post and the NYT. His book on Trump is- The Divider: Trump in the White House 2017-2021.  ...

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Biden balances the order closing the US Border with Mexico with action to protect 500,000 undocumented spouses of American citizens from deportation and giving them a pathway to citizenship. Biden says it protects American values to keep families together. This will bolster the support for Biden among Latinos in 2024.

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Japanese prime minister Kishida joins president Biden in deciding not to run again with low popularity ratings and cost of living concerns of the public. The LDP administration of prime minister Kishida put through a $100 billion investment package to revive the economy in November 2023. In the first quarter of 2024 the Japanese economy GDP growth suffered from a 0.7% decline. Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida of the LDP party popularity has remained at around 25% and Kishida has decided not to run again for prime minister. His term expires in 2025. A new LDP leader will be elected. This report says growing voices in the LDP party persuaded Kishida not to run and have a new leader. Inflation which was tame for over a decade has increased with surging prices for oil and gas after the Ukraine war. The situation is similar to the US and EU where rising prices have hurt ordinary people struggling to make a living. Kishida committed Japan to investing 2% of GDP on defense. The effects of economic developments is that the Japanese currency is weakening. ...