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The large mental health crisis that Ukraine faces is the subject of this report in The Financial Times. As the most severe phase of the war subsides the need for mental health support will grow rapidly.

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This exceptional NYT report by Noam Scheiber describes the impact of the Obama administration's new overtime pay rules requiring time and a half overtime pay for most salaried employees paid less than $47,476 a year. For a long time now firms in publishing, consulting, media, advocacy groups, and other fields have made young people work long hours for low pay without overtime pay just so they have opportunities later. This is especially true for the last decade when jobs were scarce, especially for young graduates. The rule is inspired by a need for better work-life balance, to widen opportunities to beyond the group where affluent parents supported their kids in these jobs, and by the sometimes abusive nature of the overtime work that could extend from 7 am to 7 pm or such hours at what amounted to minimum wage work for well educated but aspiring college graduates.

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Netanyahu and Gantz form a unity government in Israel with the two leaders alternating as prime minister every 18 months. The alternative was new elections for the fourth time. Israel like other countries needs a strong government to tackle the coronavirus.

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Canada, Australia, India, Brazil have some of the largest reserves of rare earth and critical minerals. Brazil has second largest reserves. This means the US can still change the current situation of a near monopoly on critical minerals by China in coming years by making the necessary investments early in these countries and in the US itself. Here is the situation in Brazil for rare earths. Brazil has said it will be open to investments that place a priority on rare earths processing within Brazil, not just rare earths commodity exports for processing in the EU or the US. China does most of the processing of rare earths in China, it imports heavily from Burma, Indonesia, Australia and Africa and does nearly 100% of the processing in China using research labs and production facilities funded by PRC government. Yet the search for and development of supplies of rare earths and critical minerals is still at an early stage so that with the necessary investments including in India, Indonesia, Australia, Brazil, in Africa, and in the US, the US and Germany, EU, India can change this situation by 2030. Brazil hold 21 million tons of reserves of rare earths, about a quarter of world rare earths reserves. Just in the last 3 years since 2023 3000 permits have been filed with Brazil's National Mining Agency compared to 500 in years before this. Australia and India are also catching up in rare earths minerals investment. Australian producers Viridis and Meteoric are doing advanced work in Pocos de Caldas mining area in Brazil. Canada is doing a project in Golas state. US company Rare Earth is putting $2.8 billion in Serra Verde. All this is being pushed forward by fast track investing supported by the DJT US government. Serra Verde historically sent rare earths in commodity form to China. Now DJT administration has setup private and public financing for a 15 year supply agreement to the US. Australia's Viridis can also get funding from IDFC operated by the US with discussions underway. Viridis's $360 million  Colossus project in Brazil sends rare earth in commodity form to a French-Belgian processing company in the EU. Brazil cannot afford to be too restrictive when it comes to processing- though that remains its goal -as Brazil wants to use its advantages in rare earths to increase investments and export earnings to support its slowing economy. Over time Brazil as part of this western hemisphere and as shown in "Brazil no Espelhos" or "Brazil in the Mirror" by Felipe Nunes, discussed in the adjoining piece on Brazil, is a part of the same social fabric of the Americas and its economic structure, its supply chains, its business, its democratic framework and processes. ...

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This report in WSJ by Mike Colias about personal politics exaggerates the impact of political party Republican vs Democrat in the switch to electric cars as most of the resistance comes from the lack of charging facilities and not enough technological breakthrough in cost and efficiency to make the switch. And much of the political resistance by a third of the population comes more from the idea that it supports China sourced materials. This comes from misinformation and old data as Biden has imposed 100 percent duty tariff on imports of China made electric cars and 50% on solar panels just last week. Americans including Republicans are realizing that the only way to compete with China's subsidized push for key industries is for America to do the same. This gives the American manufacturers the time and the support from the US government to compete with EV's made in China supported by Chinese government large not so visible subsidies over long periods. WSJ reports recently showed how China's prime minister supported building Tesla plants in China to observe American manufacturing methods and technology, in the process advancing its own technologies in EV's at a faster pace. Making Tesla's role contradict the idea that politics not misinformation and technological lag is causing resistance to EV's both of which will fade over time. ...

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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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China faces the problem of an ageing population as births decline and their are fewer young people to support senior citizens. The shift to a two child limit after the policy limiting children to one per couple has not accomplished the goal of restoring the birth rate. The Central Committee of the Communist Party and the president Xi Jinping have taken the decision to allow three children per family.  This comes at a time when the old policy meant a fine of 10 times the disposable income for having a third child. The law was not enforced in all regions but acted to deter larger families. Yet there is a cultural effect of decades of having smaller families that will not be easily overcome with a change in the law. In Latin America smaller families are the result of decades of cultural change towards smaller families. Young people are increasingly aware of the cost of raising and educating an additional child, and the effect on the standard of living. Experts say it is too costly to raise another child  and housing is not cheap in China.  This discussion with 3 billion comments over Weibo in the discussion of this policy in China last week, misses a more obvious point from the graph shown in this report in The Guardian. That graph shows the curve for the birth rate in 2019 dropping faster in South Korea and Japan than in China, so that in 2019 the birth rate in Japan and South Korea was lower than in China. This shows that even without a one child policy the birth rate in Chia would be closer to that of South Korea after industrialization progressed and society experienced profound cultural and economic change. Japan today has the lowest birth rate in Asia. The Latin American experience also confirms this shift to small families. ...

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New information from the recordings of the World Health Organization as reported by Associated Press, show that during the week of January 6 WHO's lead experts were having difficulty getting information about the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China. Maria Van Kerkhove, an epidemiologist and the WHO technical lead for coronavirus says she was going on very minimal information. The WHO's top official in China, Gauden Galea, says in one of the recordings that they were in the situation where information was given to WHo officials in China only 15 minutes prior to it going on China's state television CCTV. In early January Michael Ryan, the WHO's chief of emergencies, says he feared a repeat of the SARS epidemic in 2002, which was initially covered up by Chinese officials, according to the AP report shown in the Guardian. Ryan says he found himself in the same situation as in 2002 SARS, endlessly trying to get updates from China about what was going on, and adds that WHO barely got out of the SARS with its reputation intact given the transparency issues, in the AP report shown in the Guardian. By June 1 about 6.3 million confirmed cases are reported of coronavirus in the world and 375,000 deaths, and huge losses to economies and people. China's authorites did not lockdown Wuhan till January 23, by which time this report in the Guardian says at least 5 million residents had left. China denied entry requested by the U.S.on January 6 for a team of experts into Wuhan, The team was not allowed into Wuhan for a crucial period of 6 weeks during which the virus had time to spread in the western world. This is taken up in Mr. Trump's letter to the WHO, and the work of Gro Harlem Brundtland is clearly stated in the conclusion of that letter. Brundtland was head of the WHO at the time of the SARS epidemic in 2003, and acted decisively with early warnings to prevent its spread.  Because of the extremely contagious nature of the coronavirus the failure of early warning systems resulted in enormous damage to lives and economic losses worldwide.  ...

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There are now 2 Lefts in France after the failure of a no confidence motion in parliament on premier Francis Bayrou. Le Monde says the Socialist Party under Faure made a responsible choice to work with "reconciliation" in mind at a difficult time for the slowing European economy, changes in government in US and Germany in 2025, and no settlement in Ukraine. The Socialist party made certain of key changes in the government's policies for the remainder of Macron's term as president as the price of it's support and for ongoing discussions.

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What is the right retirement age for health is an important question. Dana Smith points out that the number 65 that started with the system of social security started in US  by Bismarck in Germany in 1889 and Social Security in the US in 1935 by president Franklin Roosevelt has no basis on the grounds of health of the population and longevity. Since that time people live much longer to about 74 years and for 45% of the people in the US who are in the knowledge based work the ability to work continues past 65 or 67 years.  For the remaining people who are in professions involving physical work such as construction or in the restaurant industry the situation is quite different, requiring a category based retirement age that takes this into account. For these people health outcomes would deteriorate if they continued to work in stressful work for longer. Another factor to be considered is to ask what this means as a national goal. Would a nation aspire to give its citizens an opportunity to travel, broaden their minds and engage in other activities they would like to do which they could not do while working full time. In this situation these years after retirement could give people a chance to live happier lives. It is not to be taken lightly as the current protests in France show. Age discrimination in France also plays a part as there may be fewer years of work opportunity if employers stay away from people over 50 years or discriminate against women. With childcare and care for elderly, part time jobs, women work longer for smaller pensions than men, leading to a sense of unfairness. French protests show that the outcomes need to be weighed carefully from a health and national goal standpoint and the retirement age set accordingly with flexibility for harder work.  Following the pandemic years and the cost of living crisis the protests in France show the need to develop a national consensus on the issue of retirement age, and rules plus culture change in industry that ban age discrimination for workers. Special provisions for women and people in construction so that the system is seen as fair to all parts of the workforce. ...

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A farming family at Misty Brook Farms in Albion, Maine realizes how suddenly you find contamination from forever chemicals in the soil. You can't see this, can't feel or taste it, say farmers in Maine. Some time in the past sludge from waste water treatment plants in Maine was used as fertilizer for the soil without realizing the danger of toxic chemicals such as PFAS, called forever chemicals. This story in the WSJ shows the damage it is doing to agriculture in Maine and other parts of the US.

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NYT reporters look at the details in the Biden $1 trillion infrastructure spending bill passed in the U.S. Senate. For the first time in decades Congress and the president take a serious approach to investing in America's infrastructure. It covers investments in modernizing and improving  rail, broadband, nuclear, roads and bridges, with additional investments in environmental protection, and renewable energy. It does not give president Biden all that he has asked for and was achieved through compromise between Democrats and Republicans in Congress who agree that big infrastructure investment is needed to upgrade old infrastructure.

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The Labor Department reports that there is no U.S. productivity growth in the 4th quarter of 2014 over the prior year. U.S. productivity growth is about 1.3% for the period since 2009, showing a weak expansion. Job gains of 295,000 in February 2015 show an improving jobs picture, yet wage gains are tepid. This is partly due to slack in the labor market not reflected in the official unemployment rate of 5.5% for Feb. 2015, with a large number of part time workers who do not have full time work. The low productivity growth is another reason for low wage gains in this economic recovery. Economic growth is also weak with economists estimating GDP growth for the 1st quarter 2015 at 1.5% annualized. GDP growth is in the 2-2.5% growth range since 2009. Hourly wages are up less than 2% since 2009, with hourly wage growth in Feb. 2015 at 2% over the prior year. Weak business investment is part of the reason for the sluggish economic growth. Macroeconomic Advisors estimates the capital investment for equipment software and buildings is seeing growth of only 0.3% in the last decade, much lower than in the last forty years. With most of the gains from the internet technology advances already made there is less prospect of a sudden increase in productivity....

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Arsene Wenger was 47 in 1996 when reports said he had resigned in the very first year that he took up the coaching role at Arsenal. The media was skeptical about this Frenchman and outsider with a persistent question "Arsene Who?" On that day after returning to London from a visit to the south of France to meet a friend Annie, Wenger decided to immediately go out and meet reporters outside Arsenal offices. He told the media  that the reports were totally unfounded, the rumors of photos of him in preposterous situations false. Time passed and still more lies were published, says Wenger.Then suddenly the British media including Sky News responded with apologies to Wenger for the rumors.  At no time says Wenger in his new book, "My Life in Red and White," did he lose his conviction that the British could be counted on to be fair. He says that he had to stand up to the brutality of the moment. That only in this way could he keep up his optimism and values and not let this destabilize the club. ...

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Reaganomics, trickle down economics, it is clear don't work. James Mackintosh says in WSJ, the latest version of Reaganomics, in the form of the LIz Truss budget in September 2022 with cuts in corporate taxes, no relief for vulnerable populations in the cost of living crisis as in all other major European countries and in the US, is already getting a bad reception in financial markets with the tumbling of the British pound.Times have changed there is nothing to be gained in its approach as there are no trade unions strangling growth as in Thatcher's time that need to be restrained, and not that much red tape to increase business flexibility. Most of the privatization has already been done and some of the state run companies are operating much better today than privatized companies handling water and other services.   Instead the problem is one of much needed investment in infrastructure and public services, and social protections after the pandemic. Businesses are not being crippled by high corporate taxes. Instead the opposite is the case, with windfall profits, so that the opposite approach taken by president Biden to use the higher tax on profits of Tech, oil and other companies to finance social protections and a huge climate energy initiative made more sense, leading to the passage of the $369 climate bill  and Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.  The WSJ makes these points- Britain has a higher current account deficit and higher debt at over 100% of GDP compared to the period of Thatcher in the 1980's when debt was only 40% of GDP. Most important is what the WSJ says about what has happened since the 2009 financial crisis and the austerity policies pursued after that crisis that were worsened by the pandemic so that public services in Britain are actually crumbling. Politically this lacks popular support and little backing at a time of a recession in the British economy, because such policies require public support to go through a tough period . And taking this trickle down economics today when Britain faces a cost of living crisis may be an unwise act of taking an approach that is no longer relevant or shown to be working at the worst possible time, says the WSJ. ...

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Boris Johnson was never for austerity and says this in his new book, yet he failed to make the major investments in the British economy in the way Biden has done in the US, and in some ways has left Labor's Starmer with difficult decisions with the strained budget finances of Britain. Of the investments he protected from John Osborne and his austerity plans as chancellor under Cameron Boris Johnson says- “Those big investments – Crossrail, the Olympic site, the Westfield Centre at Shepherd’s Bush – were fortuitously timed for London: vast counter-cyclical programmes that kept the spades going into the ground and people in work.” This was as Mayor of London in 2016. Of Osborne and Cameron so little is left, and so little came out of the period of austerity other than the failed investments Britain failed to make, simply a lost decade for Britain. And the diversion of Brexit under Johnson not taking Britain to a good place for the standard of living of the British people. Of the intraparty conflicts in the Tories he says Sunak's resignation as chancellor should never have happened calling it "worse than a crime," and a mistake for Sunak, the party, and the country. Johnson says that many days as PM he would come back to No.10 flat, exhausted and working into the evening when he should have been talking to colleagues, MP's to keep them all together. After Sunak's resignation from Boris Johnson's cabinet the Tory Conservatives split further apart, this time in the Boris Johnson faction of the party. Sunak's elevation to prime minister was short lived ending up with the Tories going downhill from there.  On the singular goal that led to the splits- that of Brexit- Johnson has little more to say than that in his travels he had found people wanted more Britain. ...

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The campaign in German schools "Smart ohne phone" or "Smart without a phone"  for school children in 2025. One student at Dalton High School in Alsdorf, North Rhine Westphalia, Klara Ptak, is cited in this report by  Oliver Pieper in DW.com. Klara 17 years old says- "A total of 51 phones were seized — that's a fairly significant number considering we have 700 students. And you can really see a difference, especially in the younger kids. They used to stand around in a circle staring at their screens, and now they are playing football, badminton, or board games together. It's a dramatic shift." A survey by the Körber Foundation, and pollster Forsa, says that parents of children ages 12 to 18 complain that their children's time spent on social media is out of control and is their leading source of stress. The German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina is for banning phones upto tenth grade, it wants to keep children under 13 away from the internet for social media completely. It is interesting to note that the younger student are fine with it and adapted quickly seeing the benefits. This shows that a new generation of student can be trained for a different lifestyle. Today in the Washington Post Linda McMahon and RFK Jr. team up on an article saying just this that time spent on screens lifestyles along with nutrition and food fail school children badly, reminding people about the saying in Latin since the 2nd Century by poet Juvenal -"a healthy mind in a healthy body." ( Latin -"mens sana in corpore sano").   ...

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The yen is at 134 to the dollar in June 2022 having dropped by 22% in 2022. The US Fed is increasing rates while the Bank of Japan is keeping its low interest rate policy. Japan's inflation is at 2.5% compared to 8.6% in April 2022 for the US. The last time the central bank intervened to buy dollar was in 1998 with severe yen overvaluation which is not the case now. The yen's weakening means the parts Japan imports from its supply chain in Asia now cost much more.

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$469 million in immediate access to Bangladesh from the IMF and $221 billion for climate change action agenda in Bangladesh as part of $4.7 bailout by the IMF. This plus an addition $1.3 billion from development partners such as India gives Bangladesh time to sort out problems in exchange rate management, manage remitttances from overseas, and increase exports. Import compression and other action helped Bangladesh to generate a $2 billion surplus in the first half of the 2023-2024 fiscal year after large current account deficits in two previous years of the pandemic. 

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

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The European Recovery Fund package finally gets settled after long negotiations over the weekend. It is settled by lowering the nonrepayable direct aid to countries hardest hit by the pandemic of 500 billion euros the initial target to 390 billion euros. The change was made to meet Dutch demands that are based on right wing parties in Netherlands critical of the deal and upcoming elections in the country. Mr. Rutte of the Netherlands held on to the end. He has been in power for about ten years by following the Dutch mood carefully. This time both Merkel and Macron, both France and Germany supported the 500 billion euro plan for nonrepayable aid to countries particularly in southern Europe that took the brunt of the pandemic- Spain, Italy and Greece. The EU's executive branch will now for first time issue debt on a large scale to fund this nonrepayable aid and additional loans of 360 billion euros. There is also a multiyear EU budget of 1 trillion euros for 2021 to 2027 designed to meet the goals of European recovery. The way the EU is setup a lone holdout or a small country like the Netherlands with the help of two other small countries Denmark and Sweden could hold up the agreement against the interests of the larger nations Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal. Poland and Hungary also strongly supported the 500 billion euro target for nonrepayable aid. The combined population of these countries is about 314 million compared to just 17 million for Netherlands, 10 million for Sweden, and 6 million for Denmark. In addition Merkel has recovered her footing in Germany after the pandemic and most right wing parties in Europe have lost ground during the pandemic. That Mr. Rutte could push this far in the face of the need to show solidarity at a time like this shows weakness in the fabric and structure of the EU, and its rules and organizing charter. Normally a blocking minority would need 4 countries and 35% of the population to block EU proposals supported by the majority. This could be used if the blocking is seen as not in the common interest. In recent years most decision are made with unanimity, but this is one in which solidarity needed to be shown without the long negotiations taking some of the spirit and vigour behind the earlier plan. ...

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Susan Carey interviews the new CEO of United Continental Holdings Inc, Jeff Smisek. Mr Smisek is a lawyer for the law firm Vinson & Elkins LLP. He brings to this job, which involves negotiating labor contracts and bringing together reservation systems of the two merged airlines, prior experience in the 1995 turnaround of Continental. Smisek was part of the management team that helped turn the airline around. The important things for Smisek is getting the people in the merged airline embrace a positive culture, and this he says begins with honest communications. He is heavily focussed on this part, as he says this is a service business, and employees won't give the best service unless they really want to. Next he is focussed on execution of the integration aspects. And third, what he calls the day to day tackling and blocking of operating the airline. His management style is to get a lot done by walking around and using an informal style, by being direct. He would like to see the airline make money in the tough times and do even better in good times, and invest in people, product and technology....

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Tracy Dolgin, CEO of the YES cable sports network takes a novel approach to managing by reversing the Peter Principle. The Peter Principle pointed out that people start by being good at doing what they do, every time they get promoted they manage more and do less, to the point that they are not hands on anymore and are into meetings, shuffling paper, sending too many memos, often into political interdepartmental rivalry, making them worse at their job in terms of productive effort. Dolgin's says she created a flat organization and hired people who were good at doing and with functional expertise who loved to be hands on.

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A good way to prepare for travel to the Scandinavian region is information given by Sean Newsom in The Times.