LyrArc Article Gist
A study and analysis in the One Earth journal for climate change action shows oil companies owe about $209 billion annually to pay for damage caused from climate change. The leading companies accounting for about 10% of global emissions are Gazprom and Saudi Aramco. These companies have benefited greatly from the oil price surge. The US and European oil majors who also have profited greatly from the oil price surge come next. Further distorting the effects of wars, financial crises since 2010, the war in Ukraine creates price surges from which oil companies benefit while the vast majority of people in the world are affected by a cost of living crisis made worse by higher energy prices. This is what is important to keep in mind as the US under president Biden prepares to play a leadership role in correcting these unneeded and bad distortions on how it affects the lives of workers and families in the US and Europe, as well as in Asia, Latin America, Africa. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Both sides have taken a pause in negotiations yet they are getting closer. There is also the conversation that we are not aware of that is taking place between McCarthy/McConnell and Biden about G7 leaders asking Biden on the debt talks. McCarthy will not want to affect the Ukraine counter offensive with all the talk about a debt default impacting the credibility of the US. McCarthy also could pass an agreement through the House with Democrats support with a small faction of Republicans not supporting him if push comes to shove and matters reach a critical point. By negotiating in good faith Biden is surely doing the right thing. The important thing is to let moderate Republicans have an opportunity to support him in the task of Renewal of America. The bigger task is 2024 which Biden has his eyes on, because this is how America will be made or unmade with the right choices and the right priorities. And Biden needs independents and Republicans who might consider supporting him to get things done for America's Renewal. House Speaker McCarthy's Republicans now support keeping spending at $1.65 trillion the 2023 levels. The Biden administration would consider a program of small cuts- no deep cuts. And only for 2 years. On work requirements for government aid to the poor and vulnerable Biden says he supported work requirements when he was a Senator in the US Congress. He outright excludes any work requirements for health benefits. Biden understands that in an economy with jobs going unfilled in construction and hospitality industries, and in child care and teaching, nursing, with higher minimum wages, people looking for work could find work to make a decent or tolerable living.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
White collar jobs at risk and white collar professional layoffs are leading to a pause in the jobs market for white collar work.

LyrArc Article Gist
Baer and Zuckerman give this friendly account of how a law student from Melbourne found himself a single Australian in New York. He went on to join Morgan Stanley and took over in 2010 at the height of the faulty mortgage financial crisis. His patient attitude and quiet demeanor  stemming from growing up in a family of 10 children helped him take on the responsibilities at the bank when banking was getting a bad name for its responsibility in causing the financial crisis. His mother was a nurse, his father an engineer, both underpaid and stressed professions compared to banking which has caused crisis after crisis in an effort to get outsize rewards. This Australian American later told colleagues, that around the dinner table his middle class parents discussed current events creating an interest in reading and world affairs. We get this as it was our own experience. What has he to say then about both the absence of this middle class today in the way it was, and more than two thirds of American eight graders lacking proficiency levels in reading, 75% lacking proficiency in Civics and History shown in NAEP tests? Not much different in Australia or the British Commonwealth too. His name James Gorman, who now retires at the age of 64. How could he give back by supporting a Movement for Global Literacy, what we have also on this site? Lyrarc.com acts a driver for this much needed literacy in reading comprehension, history and civics. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
About 25 Lake Meads are being lost says this report in FR 24 citing research by American and French scientists, as lakes and reservoirs are drying up around the world. The climate signal pervades all factors, says one expert.

LyrArc Article Gist
This report says Biden and other G7 leaders toured the Hiroshima Museum but does not say that they visited the East end of the Museum shown in an NHK documentary where most of what happened, of people who lived and died in Hiroshima on that day, are shown. It is not shown that Mr. Fumio Kishida is himself a cousin once removed of a 4 year old boy whose remains are shown at the museum. Mr. Obama also has not visited the East end of the museum according to reports. Lyrarc.com has suggested that the NHK documentary that was broadcast in Asia last week should be shown to G7 leaders if they have not actually seen that part of the museum that shows the lives of the people on that day. The point is not to see the dead as from one nation but as people who could be from any other nation in a different conflict with different countries, the responsibility of any one nation or of nations on opposite sides should not obscure the importance of seeing the dead as just human beings- without nationality.     ...

LyrArc Article Gist
This view from the Guardian by David Adler from July 8 2019, gives a third perspective on Greece as it goes into elections. It looks at the turbulent period of 2015-2019 when a new leader Alexis Tsipras promised to lead Greece out of the eurozone crisis by standing up to the ECB and Germany, instead of looking at Greece's own responsibility in letting debt buildup till it overwhelmed Greece. Adler says Syriza was too much on one end blaming Germany for strict conditions on a loan bailout, and after this did not work embracing the loan program in a complete reversal causing much anguish to his own support base when this led to callous implementation.  Mitsotakis is careful to say in his interview with Reuters that the vulnerable have to be protected while also committing to a path of economic growth for Greece. It says 50 billion euros was provided to help people with the cost of living crisis, pensions were increased, minimum wage increased by 20%. It also shows the need to judge by looking at the situation not by labels of centre left or center right, are people better off, will people be better off in the future, are all the bases education, healthcare, public services, infrastructure covered? Is the government honest with the people and doing everything it can after listening to the people? ...

LyrArc Article Gist
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. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
This report in WSJ focuses on the problems of surveillance of the opposition conducted by the Mitsotakis government compared to the interview Mitsotakis gave Reuters on the island of Crete also shown here. That interview concentrates on the economic achievements of the Mitsotakis government in pulling Greece out of the severe eurozone debt crisis of 2010 when it lost about 25% of economic output. It borrowed more than it could pay off and interest on debt, debt payments, quickly overwhelmed the economy during 2010-2015. Greece's opposition party Syriza failed to tackle the crisis when it was in power, and almost put Greece out of the eurozone rejecting the strict conditions of loans from the European central bank. It mentions comments such as the old Balkans ways of doing things still prevalent in Greece, the lack of transparency in the surveillance of the opposition. This could be said also about the way debt was allowed to accumulate and overwhelm Greece by 2010. Syriza blamed Germany but failed to ask Greece to assume its own responsibility in letting debt buildup in lack of transparency of all parties involved. Mr. Mitsotakis pulled Greece out of the debt crisis and put it on a stable path of growth since his election in 2019. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Work requirements is one area in which Biden and McCarthy have a point of agreement in the debt ceiling discussions. Biden says he has supported work requirements in the past. Biden also says he would do nothing that affects health benefits. Under Biden the jobs market is the best it has been for over two decades which makes it easier to have some sort of work requirement for people able to work before they can collect government aid benefits. This makes an agreement possible in which Biden and McCarthy continue discussions with Biden building some form of rapport with a Congressman he has known in the past from his days in the US Congress. An agreement he pulls together would then have the support of most Republicans and be passed with the help of all Democrats. This would meet with opposition from a small faction of the Republican party, opposition that McCarty has become accustomed to including the prolonged voting it took to get himself elected as Speaker. McCarthy and most Republicans are in favor of Ukraine and the EU support for Ukraine at a critical time. They including Mitch McConnell who is present in the negotiations would not want to do anything that spirals America into a financial crisis during a Ukraine counteroffensive with Biden and Scholz's support that could end the war in Ukraine. Biden probably shared the concerns of his G7 counterparts with the Republicans about this. McCarthy and Biden could then simply say they only worked to do the possible and move on to the bigger battle in 2024. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
This WSJ report looks at how the sudden increase in interest rates by the US Federal Reserve is impacting mortgage rates and home buyers in the US. Mortgage rates going up from 3% to 6% over a short period of 24-36 months is doubling the mortgage payment for many home buyers and affecting the affordability of homes for Americans in most cities.

LyrArc Article Gist
Italy is only now waking up to the challenge of climate change. Over a 36 hour period northern Italy's Emilio Romagna region received half the annual rainfall. A similar situation was experienced with sudden rainfall and floods in Germany last year.

LyrArc Article Gist
ESPN is shifting from its traditional television business for which viewers pay cable television companies to a full streaming service with the expected demise of cable television.

LyrArc Article Gist
See Pep Guardiola describe how he approached the game against Real Madrid in the semifinal of the Champions League soccer in this video from The Guardian.

LyrArc Article Gist
As the heat wave in Spain, in western Canada and in other parts of the world shows, the situation is not getting better. Climate change action needs a new urgency.

LyrArc Article Gist
Turkey and the UN negotiate a 2 month extension for the grain deal that allows Ukraine ports to ship grain through the Black Sea. The grain supplies are crucial to meet needs of countries in Africa and Turkey's own needs. China's peace negotiators arrive in Kviv for discussions with Ukrainian officials. 

LyrArc Article Gist
Democrats in the House of Representatives need about five votes of moderate Republicans to get approval for spending that exceeds the debt ceiling if no agreement can be reached with the Republicans under Speaker McCarthy. This is one of the options Democrats under president Biden are keeping open if the spending cuts Republicans are asking for hurts workers and families in ways unacceptable to values of fairness to all segments of society supported by Lincoln, Wilson, FDR and Truman that have shaped America over two hundred years. T Though it is not readily apparent in an America where about 22% of 8th graders are able to get a passing grade in civics and history in NAEP tests, a rereading of the writings and speeches of Abraham Lincoln show the same concern for the rights of all segments of society that are found in Wilson and FDR or Truman. This is also what Biden means when he calls this a struggle for the soul of America. More not less funding for education, more not less funding for health after the pandemic and cost of living crisis, more not less funding for public services at a time like this where there is a fracturing of society as well as isolating certain segments of society from others such as the growing distance between workers and families from places such as Silicon Valley and capital markets in America.  ...