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A federal committee in the U.S. now recommends no more than 6% of calories come from daily sugar intake not the 10% that is is the current guideline. It is smart to be wary of guidelines set in a different period when Americans and people in other parts of the world were not enough health conscious as they should have been. Artificially high limits set in guidelines serve as a danger to health, particularly as experts say obesity is like pouring gasoline on fire in fighting the coronavirus. Take a look at mean consumption today and it is not even the 10%, it is 13% double of what it should be. Nearly two thirds of Americans aged 1 years or older consumed more than 10% of daily calories in added sugar. And 70% of U.S. adults over 20 years are obese or overweight according to 2015-2016 figures from CDC. Today the figures from Europe and Asia, Latin America are also alarmingly high for obesity rates. Added sugar comes from processed foods from soda and pasta sauce to cereal and yogurt, and honey, sugar itself. Sugar sweetened beverages are common and dangerous. A 16 ounce grande pumpkin spice latte at Starbucks has 50 grams of sugar or 10% of a 2000 calories diet. The committee in the U.S. wants to see people eat healthy diets and does not want to discourage healthy foods like fruit and milk which people are not eating enough. It wants to see a shift away from processed foods to foods that have good health outcomes such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean meat and poultry. The beverage producers such as Coca Cola and Pepsi are a major source of resistance , as are Confectioners association, and other producers that benefit from setting the guidelines at 10%. It is not that for 3 decades as the obesity levels rose to the shocking and dismal health levels of today that the ideas of what constitutes a healthy diet were not known. It was just that we as a people did not care enough to fight for what is safe and healthy against whatever resistance was put up by producers with their vested interests, just as we as a people did not care enough to to fight to keep local manufacturing in place and the jobs and healthy communities across our land. A gram of sugar equals 4 calories. For a 2000 calories a day diet that is 120 calories to stay within the 6% that we should not exceed. Make a habit of looking at each packaged product and add up the added sugar grams and calories. ...

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The accompanying article from Pro Publica about Lighthizer's term at USTR shows the lack of results as China shifted production to Mexico and Vietnam - it shows it was going to be a long struggle, carried over into another 4 DJT years this time in 2025. That article showed tariffs are really not so much a weapon against other countries  as they are a way to signal to America's corporations to invest in supply chains in the US.  In Congressional hearings towards the end of his term at USTR in 2020 Lighthizer said -

“They have a system, and their system is challenging our system.”  Lighthizer told Senators that the U.S. struggle with China is “going to go on for years.”

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Who is this boy born in 1971 growing up in Dutch Apartheid South Africa who studied at Pretoria Boys School in 1988? The head teacher at Pretoria Boys was Armstrong who reflected the English values that came from the British settlement of South Africa in the 19th century till the Boer War period- the English fighting what they see as the less cultured Dutch settlers in Natal state around 1900.  The answer -Elon Musk, who went back to Canada, his mother's country. His father Errol Musk still lives in Cape Town, South Africa. Till 2016 Elon and his brother were alienated from their father over Apartheid and the relations between blacks and whites of that period.  The illegal immigration since 2016, fentanyl crisis causing hundreds of thousands of deaths in the US from illegal flows of drugs from Mexico and Canada with sourcing from China, the collapse of Venezuela and gang crime in central American states has changed the thinking of the Musk family since 2020, says this story in The Guardian. ...

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Xi Jinping is seen in this WSJ report as putting China on a course as a competitor of the US compared to other leaders such as Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin, yet these prior leaders faced a enoromous gap in technology and capital to make it ludicrous. The shrinking of this gap is a result of free markets theory that took no account of the national interests of the US or of the European Union in shifting manufacturing lock stock and barrel to China.  A deeper look at China requires looking at it from putting oneself in China's situation since the period of the 1912 revolution and the 1919 May 4th movement for Science, Modernization and Democracy, to better understand its motives and realities. Jiang Zemin could not pose the question of competing with the US at the time because China's per capita GDP was less than $100 in 1990 and by 2000 during Hu Jintao's term still about a tenth of American per capita GDP.  Even today with population in North America of about 500 million in the economies of US, Canada and Mexico, China lags far behind in technology and capital resources. The Biden administration does not believe in this idea of free markets theory, wrong from the beginning that prevailed incredibly and puzzingly for too long, that it does not matter where you make as long as it is made at the least cost anywhere. It ignored what China and the US under Biden both believe for the US or China that the US is its people and the people is the country. For the US the Civil war itself as Lincoln said in rallying people to the Union, was fought because labor was more important than capital. When looked at the situation in China as stated by Xi at the party congress recently is for having made progress for the overriding goal of Modernization to build a moderately prosperous socialist economy. Huge problems in China remain hidden- ensuring self governance that is honest and accountable to the people, creating jobs and opportunities for hundreds of millions of young people even as supply chains shift after the pandemic in Europe and the US, India and other countries to their home countries for Made In USA, Made in Europe, and Made in India. China is not such a believer in the flawed free markets theory of the non existence of national interest to not grasp the natural aspects of the US and EU, India wanting to build their own manufacturing up again to the fullest. In this situation it also probably realizes the need for a pause to the rampant free markets type of growth that has damaged China's water, air and environment as much as it has damaged the world through climate change. Quality of growth is the new ethos and this gives the US and China, India, the EU and other countries a common frontier to shoot for. The nuclear aspect is also there and managing this well is a common interest for all countries exercizing responsible leadership. ...

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India US relations are critical, and the human element with 4.4 million Indians living in the US is a critical part of this, Jaishankar and Blinken, foreign ministers of India and the US, told a gathering of students in Cambridge, Massachusetts today. This has completely transformed the relations between the 2 countries. "Students, researchers, academics and professionals who have contributed to America's progress even as they remain a bridge between our two societies," Jaishankar told the students. Yet this is not enough as a close understanding between the young Americans young Indians has to be built. "Your appreciation of a civilizational state and a democratic and fellow polity that is overcoming enormous odds is essential. After all we are natural partners when our people have a strong sense of connect," Jaishankar told the students. How many young people in America understand the enormous odds in a democratic country to vaccinate over 1 billion people or meet the basic needs for food and essential medicines for every person in the country of 1 billion. Yet this has been achieved in 2020 to 2022. America has a strong inward sense and insular attitude, and for this reason India needs to take the initiative to reach out to America. India's new education policy puts great emphasis on collaboration with America and European Union in education which has huge potential to build close understanding. To do this Jaishankar and Blinken together launched the Working Group for Education and Skill Development for the US and India. ...

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An assessment of progress in free trade and generating jobs in N. America under the NAFTA agreement between the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The agreement was signed under President Clinton in 1994. NAFTA removed existing tariffs on over half of the exports from Mexico to the U.S. and phased out remaining tariffs between the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The U.S. had two way trade of $918 billion with Canada and Mexico in 2010, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Canada is the U.S.'s top trading partner, with $462 billion in trade through Sept. 2012, and U.S. trade with Mexico- expected to overtake China- is at $369 billion in the same 9 month period of 2012.

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Larry Rohter says Mexico handled the swine flu epidemic much beter than China handled the SARS epidemic in 2002. Before it was brought under control SARS cost 700 lives, by contrast Mexico's response was much quicker and the government and health authorites in Mexico worked with labs in North America and the Centers for Disease Control ad Prevention in the USA, to prevent its spread. The cost in lives was much smaller, with 42 lives lost. Mexico is not the failed state that it is presented as in the media suggests Lohter. This is the impression created by adetailed account of the crisis in the WSJ, see the link, on the swine flu epidemic.

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This Washington Post analysis of the Republican tax bill gives an exceptional view of the bill's impact and provisions. This is the first major change to the tax laws since 1986. The size of the bill is $1.5 trillion, with the Joint Committe on Taxation projection that the bill will increase tax revenues over a decade by $500 billion, meaning that it will cost $1 trillion being added to the deficit. What the bill does: 1. It offers a permanent tax cut to corporations by reducing the corporate tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent. Industries benefiting the most are mining, real estate, technology, manufacturing. 2. The individual tax cuts expire in 2025. They are skewed to disproportionately help highest income Americans, much less lower income Americans and much more highest income Americans compared to high income Americans. In this sense it is skewed in a an unusual way to the highest earning Americans- a sort of Trump effect in place. The top 1% get a tax break of $51,140 in 2019, middle income people earning about $100,000 get about $1000 a year in 2019, tax payers earning around $50,000 about $380, and those earning less than $25,000 about $60 a year in 2019. Taxpayers earning about 150,000 get about $2000 a year tax cut. (Tax Policy Center) 3. The basic assumption is that tax cuts are revenue neutral if there is economic growth and most of that growth comes from corporations investing in growth. The problem as Greg Ip points out in the Wall Street Journal is that countries trying thsi approach in the past such as Britain have not seen such growth materialize. Corporate profits are the highest in 15 years as percentage of GDP, according to Vanguard founder Bogle, and are now 20% of GDP compared 11% in 1980. If corporations did not invest with this level of profits how much additional investment is going to happen, ask critics, especially as demand drives growth and wages are not boosted under this plan.  4.  Because the bill's changes to current law makes it likely that 13 million less Americans will be insured over a decade- from fewer people signing up for Medicaid and on exchanges for Affordable Care Act- it will hurt lower income Americans. Skewing at both ends of the income spectrum of this type is rare in American history particularly in the twentieth century after the Depression of the 1930's, and poses risks for social cohesion, making it unpopular with most Americans. A CBS News poll taken Dec 3-5 shows 53% of all Americans opposed, only 35% support the tax bill just passed in Congress.  5. Then why did Republicans do this? Republicans needed a legislative success after failure to repeal the Obama Affordable Care law. This pressure led to passage with Republicans probably aware that this is temporary tax reform requiring a real effort by both parties working together after the midterm elections in 2018 and as the presidential election approaches in 2019.    ...

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The U.S. Justice Department opens an investigation of the largest airlines, Delta, American, United Continental, and Southwest for collusion in limiting expansion. The major 4 airlines control 80% of the domestic airline seats in the U.S. The 3 major airlines have grown slowly compared to Southwest in recent years. JetBlue and Spirit are also growing faster. Southwest plans to expand by 7% in the 4th quarter. U.S. airline domestic seats show slow growth since 2010, with growth picking up in 2015 over the prior year to 3.5% in 2015, according to Innovata. For 2013 and 2014 <0.5% growth in seats, in 2012 decline of <1%, 2011 growth of less than 1%, and slight decline in 2010. During the crisis 2008-2009 airlines cut seat capacity. Price increases have averaged 5% increase from 2007 to 2014 to $391, adjusted for inflation for domestic seats. The U.S. Justice Department investigation will look at "possible unlawful coordination."

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Brazil's currency, the Real, moved up to 1.7 per 1 US dollar, on the eve of the Presidential election in the first week of October 2010. Brazil's overnight interest rate of 10.75% attracts speculative foreign capital in the carry trade, where investors boorow cheaply in the US and Japan and invest it in Brazil. The central bank has kept these rates high to finance a current account deficit of $46 billion in 2010 -which is forecast to hit $60 billion in 2011- and to finance a high level of government spending. This spending is likely to continue with Ms Rousseff as the new President, as Rousseff plans to invest in infrastructure such as bullet trains and river dams, as well as the FIFA world cup and the Olympics. Government spending has increased by 18% so far in 2010. Exporters are affected by the artificially high value of the Brazilian real. Goldman Sachs economist, Alberto Ramos, says the real is overvalued by 55% compared to its fair value of 2.65 to 1 US dollar, based on a computer model that incorporates factors such as trade, inflation and productivity. Sao Paulo is already the most expensive city in the Americas, according to one survey....

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Mexico sends 80% of its exports to the US, and China a significant $439 billion in additional exports to US, which makes it incredible that for so long it did not take effective action to stop fentanyl flows, and Mexico allowed migrant trafficking across it's borders through 2016-2024. Even in the face of this becoming an explosive issue in the US with DJT elected in 2016 and the Border Wall being built. A silent but still existing in plain sight idea that the US would tolerate such flows became part of the culture in media outlets in the US and Europe and China and other parts of the world, even when there was a storm of discontent building about manufacturing shipped overseas hurting communities in the US since 2010, with added burden of safety endangered in these neighborhoods from fentanyl, drugs and illegal migrants. What worsened this situation and pain in the US was the idea that somehow it was the US's fault, an incomprehensible disdain for the US, US that enabled the modernization of China, Mexico, and Canada's economies. China sends $439 billion in exports more than the US does to China (US exports $143 billion China $582 billion in 2024). It is only surface presentation of indignation of face saving that these trading partners are showing when the real facts point to an extraordinary and incomprehensible disdain for the US as a nation in decline. There is a feeling in parts of Europe of American disdain for  Europe, without mention of the disdain for the US in Europe, China, Mexico and Canada and other parts of the world. Particularly disdain for neglected communities in the US that have suffered for far too long under previous administrations of Clinton-Bush-Obama with shipping of manufacturing and jobs overseas and inaction on drugs and illegal migrant flows. The EU Canada retaliatory approach has not worked. When DJT proposed doubling the tariffs imposed by US in the face of Canada EU retaliatory steps, the EU and Canada pulled back. Part of the reason is that in the case of Canada it is an economy one tenth the size of the US. The other is that there are real concerns on the US side that Canada EU are not playing fairly in trade. And Canada, Mexico, China, have not stopped the flow of fentanyl into the US.  ...

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Japan's acute shortage of labor has even spread to the government sector says this report in DW.com. Japan's aging population means a growing need for immigrants from Vietnam and other countries. Nursing, elderly care had shortages which have spread to construction and delivery business, taxis, forestry companies and train operators. Many jobs remain unfilled. It is a situation the US may also experience in a few years as it is feeling the effects of shortages of workers in industries such as hospitality. NK Logisitics Research estimate is that 34% of goods will remain undelivered by 2030 because of lack of transport workers, that is 940 million tons of goods undelivered every year. Already taxi drivers have shrunk by 40% from the peak in 2009. Japan's immigration policy planned for an influx of 345,000 skilled workers over 5 years in 2019 but this came a bit late as the pandemic delayed the influx. Now it has a new urgency. Even with the influx of new immigrants Germany has 1.6 million jobs unfilled according to DW.com citing research in an accompanying article on German workers in today's Lyrarc.com. The US needs an organized program of immigration to attract foreign workers yet the influx from Venezuela of mostly middle class educated people into the US through  events no one had foreseen or expected may years from now be seen as meeting the needs of sectors in the American economy that needs good workers, in the same way that Japan and Germany see their economies and worker shortages. ...

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Every year India Youth Day is observed on the 12th of January on the birthday of Swami Vivekananda. Vivekananda 1863-1902 preceded Mohandas Gandhi in the first period of the Indian struggle for Independence from the British Empire. The book Hind Swaraj by Gandhiji which set the blueprint for India's independence struggle was inspired by and followed in 1909 only a few years after Vivekananda's death in 1902. Vivekananda also inspired Indonesia's Sukarno in the struggle for independence from the Dutch Empire during the 1930's and 1940's. The population of India and Indonesia which represent the height of the ancient Vedic civilization of South Asia is in 2025 1722 million. It also encompasses China Japan Korea and Vietnam with a population of 1750 million when we consider India as the centre of Buddhist civilization. About 3.5 billion people with a common heritage in ancient Vedic and Buddhist civilization. Matched only by Christian civilization with 1.0 billion people in the Americas and 750 million in Europe. Combined this is two thirds of the world population. Under the British, Dutch and French Empires India was kept separate from cultural and religious contact with Indonesia, Vietnam, China and Japan. There is a convergence of culture and religion in Asia in the 21st century first between India and Indonesia and Vietnam, and second between India and Japan, Korea. That convergence will grow between India and China in the rest of the 21st century as ancient but modern civilizations with a common history. ...

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Lael Brainard, head of the National Economic Council, and former Vice Chair at the Federal Reserve answers questions at the Council of Foreign Relations in Dec. 2024. Points she made are- The inflation we experienced was correctly diagnosed by Powell and the Fed as caused by Supply shocks from the pandemic not 1970's style embedded expectations inflation.  The response was to free up the supply by freeing up the clogged Los Angles Ports with labour and logistics coordination, and other actions. It also included redoing the supply chains to reduce dependence on China as only supplier. The 2017 tax cuts mean revenue will be 1.5 percentage points lower than the historically 18% of the GDP. This will increase the deficit. Biden administration had kept the deficit in control and reduced it by making offsetting adjustments when investment in certain areas such as childcare was done. The childcare tax credit is important for American families. Action is needed to increase the supply of housing. These are reminders of what is needed for the new DJT administration to keep the American economy on a strong footing says Brainard.     ...

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It makes for good political rhetoric, but in reality the flow of money goes both ways. A lot of investments are made by American companies overseas. This time the flow of oil money because of high oil prices, from the USA and Europe to the Middle East is being recycled back to the USA in the form of investments in the US through small equity stakes in companies and more so through purchases of capital equipment and services to build Saudi infrastructure projects. The $500 billion investment plan over several years in Saudi Arabia is to build everything from new cities, aluminium plants, electricity generation plants and chemicals and plastics plants. The fears and rhetoric are overblown, as the USA also invests overseas with holdings according to the Treasury department of $6 trillion of foreign stock and debt. The acceleration of foreign investment in the US is to be seen in the numbers, as the dollar gets weaker, and its more advantageous for Canadians and Euuropeans to invest here. Last year $414 billion of foreign investors money went into buying stakes in American companies and building factories and purchasing stock, according to Thomson Financial. Thats up 90% from 2006 and represented one fourth of all announced deals. This year in just 2 weeks foreign investors poured $22.6 billion in just the first 2 weeks of January, and that represents one half of all deals. Shows how quickly the picture is changing. One way of looking at it is that Americans buy a lot of foreign goods and the money Americans use to pay for a lot of imports is now being returned to the USA in the form of foreign investments. Note that foreign investment is desirable because it brings new ideas and technology and new management methods to the host country from other countries. These foreign investors in many cases are able to make these investments overseas because they are good at what they do, having them in the host country benefits the host country and shakes up competition in the particular industry in the host country that is receiving the investment. This is why economies once relatively unfavorable to foreign investors like Japan and S. Korea are now passionately seeking foreign investment to make their economies thrive through the exchange and inflow of new ideas and ways of doing things. The same can be and is true for the USA. The other aspect is that most of the investment is still from countries like Canada, Germany, Japan, S. Korea which are big free trade partners of the USA. Manufacturing investment is heavily skewed to European and Japanese companies. Foreign multinational investment (Sony, Toyota etc) grew to $43.3 billion in 2007 from $39.2 billion in 2006 according to OCO Monitor, and will accelerate significantly as companies like VW and other German companies find it cheaper to build in the USA and shift more manufacturing here. To get an idea why the rhetoric is overblown Canada spent the most in buying American companies, $65 billion in 2007, according to Thomson Financial. Russia spent $572 million and India $3.3 billion. How will this improve the chances of the USA making it out of this recession? Five million American work for foreign companies in the USA. Of these one third are manufacturing jobs. These jobs pay about 30% more than jobs in American owned companies. Figures from Treasury Department. There will be more of these jobs as companies like VW build plants here. Roubini Economics estimates that an infusion of about $300-400 billion is needed for the USA to overcome the effects of the current mortgage and credit crisis. $414 billion was invested in the USA by foreign investors according to Thomson Financial in 2007, going up from something like $200 billion in 2006. If this pace continues becasue of some of the same underlying reasons as the weaker dollar, stronger economies overseas, then $200 billion additional investments this year would add that much to a stimulus package of $150 billion by one estimate, to provide a boost of somewhere around $350 billion. In the range of the needed boost. Companies like IBM and GE which have significant investments in India and China and investments in software or infrastructure industries that are growing rapidly or Caterpillar with growth in construction overseas, may keep growing through this downturn. This recession may hit selectively and differently, not be a complete hit to the USA economy, and could prevent it from going beyond 2009 with recovery in 2010. ...

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Tesla with a tiny falling market share of 6% in China is being outmaneuverd in China even as it gains benefits for the company and for CEO Elon Musk. It fails to make Tesla competitive in world markets ceding leadership to China.  Tesla gets 68% of 2023 profits of $10 billion from China operations. China operations of Tesla produced 947,000 electric cars 53% of its total with China sales at 600,000. Tesla was able to complete the large factory near Shanghai, the largest of its 7 plants, in record time with assistance from China's government. Elon Musk knows premier Li Qiang of China a Shanghai Communist party official which facilitated the building the Chinese plant, lower 15% tax rate instead of 25% till 2023. This 2023 1 million car production is actually not giving Tesla a foothold in the Chinese market, as Tesla's market share is falling from 7.8% to 6% of the market. What it has given China's local companies such as BYD is a world level competitor for China's local companies to compete with, learn from as China develops its own world class electric manufacturing capabilities. BYD has its own unique battery technology and is making the batteries in house. Local companies dominate a very competitive landscape in which there is very little room for error, with companies consolidating. This suggests that Tesla may be an insignificant competitor in China in the future even as it has enhanced its profitability as a company in its domestic American market with its China operation.   ...

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Closer scrutiny shows that tech companies that have gradually bought into or expanded into new technologies have market power that works to the detriment of democracy in the US. It also fuels a race of other companies with opposing views such as News Corp to use its market power resulting in rival groups not the people of the US able to form their own judgements about the best policies for the American people and the world. NY Times says of Google's Class B voting shares that have 10 votes per share giving founders Larry page and Sergey Brin control of the company that it is OK given their motto "don't be evil." Yet this advertisement of benevolence may just be a way of preventing close scrutiny of the company. Google through You Tube and Podcasts controls huge parts of the media space in 2024 in streaming services that are replacing cable television in 2024. What effect it is it having on public discourse in the US and is a separate class of voting shares a detriment to democracy? This report says NASDAQ and New York Stock Exchange oppose this and this type of Class B is because it was set up before Google went public. NYTimes takes a casual approach to all this by saying it is Google followers, people who come after Brin and Page, or someone who buys the company,  who might be sloppy or greedy.  Closer scrutiny shows that tech companies that have gradually bought into or expanded into new technologies have market power that works to the detriment of democracy in the US. It also fuels a race of other companies with opposing views such as News Corp to use its market power resulting in rival groups not the people of the US able to form their own judgements about the best policies for the American people and the world. ...

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 President Trump says China is backing off in negotiations to address U.S. demands for a fair relationship on trade. He says the U.S. will increase tariffs from 10% imposed in September 2018 to 25% on $200 billion of Chinese goods starting May 10, 2019. China has put tariffs of 10% on $60 billion of American goods exported to China responding to the American tariffs in last September.  The U.S. says since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001 with the approval of president Clinton it has unfairly benefited in trade with the U.S., leading to closure of factories and loss of jobs in the U.S. with state subsidized Chinese exports to the U.S. contrary to the spirit of the WTO and its rules. China has made promises to correct this and not kept them says the U.S. side in negotiations led by Robert Lighthizer. The tariffs moves are a tactic of president Trump to get China to relent and make fundamental changes in the way it exports to the U.S.  So far the Chinese response has been tit for tat. But this can change. As this report points out what is already known that China benefits far more and exports far more to the U.S. than the U.S. does to China. The $60 billion of American goods exports on which China placed tariffs represent two fifths of China's imports from U.S. With smaller exports from the U.S. to China, China has not much leverage in trade negotiations in this kind of tit for tat retaliation. It hurts China's exporters and economy much more than it does U.S. consumers. The increase in prices for U.S. consumers are also not expected to be significant, according to this report in the NYT, if China increase tariffs further. Aware of this and China's belief that past administrations have not responded is a guide to what the Trump administration can or will do, has convinced president Trump that there is no other way to get a fair trading relationship that respects U.S. interests, its jobs and workers. As Robert Lighthizer who leads the U.S. negotiating team faced this type of response from the Japanese when he negotiated with them (shoving off U.S. demands to reduce Japan's trade surplus in the eighties before accepting them), the U.S. thinks this strategy will work again. In any case it sees no alternatives to achieve its goal of a fair and balanced trading relationship. The U.S. international trade deficit in goods was up to $891 billion in February 2019 even after the tariffs on Chinese goods in September, showing that it will take a lot more to turn this as well as other trading relationships around.   ...

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Apple to ship 25 million iphones made in India to the US for the June quarter 2025, meeting 50% of US demand. This will reduce iphone tariff from 20% for China to 10% for India. Apple will take $900 million in added costs for the tariffs for the June quarter and higher costs for future quarters. Apple made 24.8 billion on $95 billion in sales for the 1st quarter of 2025.  Apple will not get the $20 billion payment it gets from Google for making Google search the default search engine on Safari web browser. This is 25% of Apple profit. A federal judge declared this payment illegal on antitrust grounds. Another federal judge has referred Apple's App policies for criminal contempt investigation. Apple has been late to recognize the dangers of concentrating production in one country. Eight years after the 2016 election won by DJT Apple has not corrected this concentration in one country. Apple has focused on proift alone ignoring the potential for education for it's products such as the iPad. The public perception of Tech companies is that Tech is all about profit alone without regard for the Nation, education, investment in American communities and jobs, and other needs. ...

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Josh Gotbaum, head of the U.S. Pension Benefits Guaranty Corporation and the reorganization of American Airlines (AMR). Gotbaum's strong response made AMR reverse its decision to shift $9 billon in pension liabilities to PBGC, which would have increased PBGC's current deficit by one-third. PBGC is funded by insurance premiums paid by companies sponsoring private sector retirement plans. It has handled 10 pension defaults since 2002- nine in the airline and steel industries. It deficit stood at $26 billion in Sept. 2011, up from $23 billion the prior year. PBGC funds retirement benefits for 1.5 million people, and sends out 800,000 checks.

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The memorial to Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) by the American architect Louis Kahn takes shape on Roosevelt Island after a 30 year effort. It sits at the southern end of Roosevelt Island right across the river from the United Nations Plaza. The memorial will open in October 2012. The project cost $53 million with the work starting in October 2010. For years the project lacked funding. The memorial has five parts, an entry, triangular garden, forecourt area, a sculpture court and the "Room" which provides a meditation place for reflecting on Roosevelt's legacy and the Four Freedoms of speech, worship, want and fear.

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About 43% of newly admitted students in 2014 at nine undergraduate campuses of the University of California (UC) system are the first to attend college in their families. The UC system has striven lately to attract more students from underperforming high schools with many Latinos or Hispanics. About 28.8% of students admitted in the UC system are Hispanics in 2014, 27.6% White, 36% Asian American and 4% Black. 13% of students admitted are out of state paying tution of $35,000 per year compared to $13,000 in state tution, out of state students tution subsidizing the in state students. It was 5% in 2010.

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No less than the Editorial Board of the NYT says  Democrats have their heads in the sand when it comes to reflecting honestly about transgender -with the Cass Commission of Britain's NHS advising serious caution- and social issues. Lack of acceptance about the need for strong action on issues of trade that have hurt ordinary Americans with the destruction of manufacturing and the middle class. Some of this was done with Biden taking a stand on trade by keeping the DJT tariffs on China, and supporting US manufacturing. But this was not enough- stronger action was needed especially with strong tariffs action as the last resort needed to get Canada, Mexico and China to stop fentanyl flows to the US in 2025 and protect the middle and working class in the US in their neighborhoods.  Yet on immigration the NYT does not come flat out and say that opening up the border was the single biggest error of the Biden administration. And a failure to talk openly to the American people in a fireside chat reminiscent of FDR about Venezuela and Mexico. Part of the reason was a misconception about American power when it could be used to good purposes and has been in history. The Monroe doctrine of the 1820's asserted American right to prevent colonial powers returning to the American continent north and south. This was a good idea and helped this continent develop freely and independently. The US has a right to prevent migrant trafficking and fentanyl flows in its backyard in the American continent, including taking economic action, when it causes serious disruption leading to 7 million refugees and millions of migrants crossing borders. It also has a right to create an even playing field for trade, that not DJT alone but advisers with great experience, Robert Lighthizer, Deputy Trade Representative under Reagan- who negotiated with 1980's Japan on the same grounds as we do with China today- strongly advise the president to do.   ...

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This NYT analysis of fund raising by the Republican and Democratic parties for the 2020 election campaign shows Republicans hardly raising any money from people with incomes over 250,000 and very little from incomes over $200,000 with most funding coming from the base white working class and lower and upper middle class. For Democrats fund raising is significant at the levels of income over $200,000. Geographically the Democrats get most of their funding from the east and west coast areas.  This reflects the changes in the parties starting in the the 2008 elections when higher income groups in software, finance, and in professions of law and medicine and Silicon Valley tech shifted to Democrats. The Democrats also held onto minority votes. In 2016 this changed with a sharp turn with tech on the west coast and finance professionals on the east coast shifting to the Democrats. The PPP agreement under Obama favored tech over the auto industry, and renewal fossil fuels such as solar were favored over the oil industry and fracking. In 2016 this helped shift the votes in Michigan and Pennsylvania to Republicans. Older manufacturing industries, oil and fracking were supported by Republicans who pushed back against ceding global dominance in manufacturing to China. By 2020 these changes are now entrenched with white working class voters in industries decimated and communities destroyed by foreign imports mainly from China, supporting Republicans. Republicans under Trump have made regaining the manufacturing leadership of the U.S. that was the situation after World War II, a top priority for the U.S.  The minority vote shifted with Hispanics moving towards Republicans to a much larger degree than before. The urban rural divide is similar to Europe where the similar impact of foreign imports mainly from China have destroyed older industries and led to sharp decline in older towns and communities outside major cities. This is the situation facing the U.S. and Britain, France, Italy Spain, and Poland. Germany as a manufacturing country dependent on exports is also affected but to a lesser degree. The unwholesome aspect of this is that the larger urban areas are divorced from the rest of the country  and rural small towns, smaller cities. In some form reintegration has to take place. The vast majority of the working class classified in today's terminology as the less educated lacking a college degree and white are  paradoxically with Republicans, and the wealthy professionals and industries in software, finance with Democrats. Nothing makes this more evident than a quick look at the map of the U.S. with blue on the opposite coasts for Democrats and mostly red in between and in the south. This is unprecedented in American history. A rising tide that lifts all boats in the U.S. and the return of the U.S. to the position it held after World War II could change this in the next decade. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
After much effort and coming second to American Athing Mu, then in 3 way competition, with Mu and Kenya's Mary Moraa, every time coming in second, Keely Hodgkinson is patient and persevering. Till the Olympics in Paris where she comes out ahead of Moraa and takes the gold for Britain in the 800 metres. Andy Bull of The Guardian looks at British runner Keely Hodgkinson.

At the World Championships in Eugene, Oregon, Keely shadowed Mu and tried for first only to come short and missing by 8 hundredth of a second. In the Paris Olympics Mu was out with an injury and Keely had to race with Kenya's Mary Moraa who had come out ahead at the 2023 World Athletics in Budapest. In this race Keely runs alone to the finishing line.