LyrArc Article Gist
The long awaited renewal of America's National parks may finally be arriving with massive funding of the National Park Service by president Trump in 2020. Billions of dollars of undone maintenance from washrooms, to restaurants, to camping facilities for people, and maintenance work in the parks is finally being tackled in 2020. A new law called the Great American Outdoors Act will put $9.5 billion towards this which now has a bill the size of $12 billion for undone maintenance since 1990's.  Everything from water pumps, to camping facilities, remodeled buildings, employee facilities and housing, adding staff, will now be tackled. At the Rose Garden signing Mr. Trump said of teh National Parks what Teddy Roosevelt has always said- "This is truly God's creation. President Theodore Roosevelt was right when he called these exquisite resources." Mr Daines  Senator from Montana who with another Republican Mr. Cory Gardener of Colorado got enough Republicans to support the bill to get it passed 73 to 25 in the Senate. This is a great achievement for the American people particularly at a time like this with the pandemic taking over 150,000 American lives and so many recovering from the coronavirus. There ia new appreciation of the outdoors, of trees, gardens and of parks. The national parks show the beauty of America and every child sees America differently once he has experienced a stay in one of the many parks from Yosemite in California to Acadia National Park in Maine. It is a gift to the generations made possible today by spending money first in America, and regaining the national spirit. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
This editorial in the WSJ commends Congress for the $2 trillion U.S. aid package for households, small business and large corporations to keep workers on payroll, and aid to hospitals. It also commends the Federal Reserve for swift action to maintain liquidity in all corners of money markets. It was important to prevent a run on money market funds and municipal bond funds. The U.S. Senate bill adds $454 billion for Treasury that can support further Fed action if needed. This has also resulted in a recovery in the stock markets. The editors of WSJ caution Treasury from intervening too far up the risk curve to help companies that had overleveraged themselves with risk before coronavirus hit. It makes clear that the U.S. central bank the Fed should only offer liquidity against good collateral to companies that were healthy before the shock. As president  Trump never tires of telling listeners to his daily briefings from the Brady room in the White House- Boeing and the airlines were healthy before coronavirus hit. It was not their fault that coronavirus hit so suddenly. These companies deserve government help, says the president. By making the distinction between otherwise healthy companies and companies that overleveraged themselves on their own, the Fed, Treasury, and the U.S. government can get more bang for the buck. The WSJ editorial also says there is a bit of good news in the behaviour of politicians, media and the public in the way they are ignoring the trivial politics and self-centred behaviours, including indiscriminately being critical of the president, and focusing on the important matters that affect all our lives.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Labour party in Britain is removing a never used anti-labour minimum services law that tended to worsen industrial relations and make it difficult to negotiate and resolve disputes over wages and conditions. The minimum services restricted the ability of 5.5 million workers to negotiate wage increases- it affected ambulance services, fire and rescue, teachers and rail services, border security to take industrial action, by requiring that a minimum level of service had to be provided. It was adversarial in nature and Angela Rayner call its effect as "poisoning industrial relations." We’re consigning it to history,” she said. “Scrapping this toxic legislation is our first step in ending the scorched-earth approach that has blocked negotiation and compromise to resolve disputes and prevent disruption." “This government’s new deal will create a new partnership between business, trade unions and working people and is fundamental to our growth mission.” A White Hall (British Civil Service) source says it was never used, Business did not want it, the legislation never worked, and Britain still lost more days to strike action than France or Spain. He says "it is the first major step in terms of resetting our relationship with the trade unions of this government." Jonathan Reynolds the Secretary for Business and Trade says- "The strikes act has not worked; it was a gimmick which inflamed tensions and only made serious negotiations harder, ultimately harming our public services and economy. It is telling that no single business ever used this pointless legislation. Putting an end to costly strikes that impact people’s day-to-day lives is key to getting our economy moving again and ending the chaos for our public finances.” ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Tim Walz uses a sports metaphor about being one behind, fighting for every inch in this football game to score, as he brings to life this final effort of 75 days to win the election for president Kamala Harris, for president Biden, and for workers and families across the 51 States. Read the full speech at the Convention as Tim Walz accepts the Democratic nomination for Vice President. "Their Project 2025 will make things much, much harder for people who are just trying to live their lives. They spend a lot of time pretending they know nothing about this. But look, I coached high school football long enough to know, and trust me on this: When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re going to use it. And we know, if these guys get back in the White House, they’ll start jacking up the costs on the middle class. They’ll repeal the Affordable Care Act. They’ll gut Social Security and Medicare. And they will ban abortion across this country, with or without Congress. Here’s the thing. It’s an agenda nobody asked for. It’s an agenda that serves nobody, except the richest and the most extreme amongst us. And it’s an agenda that does nothing for our neighbors in need. Is it weird? Absolutely. Absolutely. But it’s also wrong, and it’s dangerous. It’s not just me saying so, it’s Trump’s own people. They were with him for four years. They’re warning us that the next four years will be much, much worse." ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget is a non partisan nonprofit organization formed in 1981 by Connecticut Democrat Giamo and Oklahoma Senator Bellmon of the US Congress, senior members of House and Senate Budget Committtee. To educate the American public on issues related to the US Budgets, where money went and how it is spent. It's estimate for Kamala Harris plan for $6000 child tax credit is $10 billion a year. The existing $3600 a child tax credit in 2021 is estimated to cost $110 billion a year. Lyrarc estimate this will be offset by savings in Medicare of $36 billion a year from Medicare negotiation with Pharma as indicated by president Biden, and by $40 billion a year in billionaires paying 25% instead of 8.2% as a minimum tax per Biden, additional savings coming from very high income earners earning above $10 million. This would bring the cost of helping children in the first crucial years of life to below $44 billion a year. And making a huge investment in children at a time when everything has gone up in price from diapers, to baby food, to childcare and early childhood learning crucial for the future of America. We believe it is imperative to invest in children after the pandemic has cost 1 million lives and left for each dead person 8-9 persons in precarious situations financially. Educationally it has left children behind from missing crucial school years. These gaps will need to be filled and this is only one investment in the right place to correct this problem to prevent America from being handicapped forever by these problems and gaps in education in early years.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
China has two ports in Panama and significant investments in port and maritime activity that give it an advantage over the US in its own backyard. The Panama Canal was one of the bold endeavors of the twentieth century. In Path Between the Seas, David McCoullough describes this feat of engineering, the lives lost to malaria, the efforts it generated to find a cure for malaria, and the indomitable spirit of McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt that every American can rightly be proud of.  It was handed over by president Carter to Panama, in the way Clinton handed over entry into the World Trade Organization without protections and written agreement for level playing field in trade in the 1970's and in the 1990's when US had no idea that American business would create from these beginnings in phases supply chain partner, competitor, and adversary for America.  In 2025 Americans can look back and see that American interests were not protected in a period of so called "American triumphalism" under Carter, Clinton, Bush, Obama that has since disappeared with the loss of American manufacturing and destroying the small factory towns across America- and also France and EU nations- that depended on manufacturing for jobs and standard of living.  DJT is simply charting the long road back for America to the Bold Endeavours and Spirit of American adventure that Americans see in themselves as a nation founded on the frontier since Washington's days in the Pennsylvania country in the 1750's. The Spirit the led to the founding of the new nation through a protracted war on the frontier with the British. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The sense that one gets from the confirmation hearings for Pam Bondi is that after Matt Gaetz pulled out, Pam Bondi with her relaxed and thoughtful manner, her experience as Attorney General of Florida, is a decent choice. Most Senators felt she had the votes for confirmation. She brings the same skills for Republicans as Susan Wiles, DJT's chief of staff- she brings a calm demeanor to balance DJT's penchant for speaking in a blunt manner.  Pam Bondi confirmed that if nominated as head of FBI Kash Patel would report to her. Chris Coon accidentally calls her "Attorney General," and says he looks forward with working with her. Coons is the Senator from Delaware that was closest to president Biden.  Senators questioned Pam Bondi, a former Attorney General of Florida who has done work for companies seeking to work with DJT, and defended DJT in the first impeachment hearing, at her confirmation hearing in the US Senate. The back and forth exchanges happened with Democrats Adam Schiff and Hirano. With Padilla Pam Bondi was not given the opportunity to respond as he insisted on a yes or no answer. Democrats Schiff wanted to know whether she would investigate Lynn Cheney or Jack Smith. Bondi said she had not seen the file and it would e improper for to say anything without studying the matter, and that she did not want to drag politics into the work at the Justice Department as had been the situation before. Hirano asked if president Biden won the 2020 election. Pam Bondi responded that "Joe Biden is the president of the US."   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Peter Funt points to the time before the internet when daily papers were delivered and radio carried the news between music, and it was hard not have it rub off while hearing the radio or glancing at the sports pages. This rub-off effect meant that even by casual listening or accidentally people got the news. Before cable television the news came from nightly and evening general interest news broadcasts. People usually caught the major news at dinner time or before bedtime as most entertainment broadcasting paused for news broadcasts. By contrast in today's environment news is pulled on the internet home page only from the sources and topics one has selected, or watching one of the 24 cable channels that are essentially covering a liberal or conservative agenda, leaving people less informed about current events except in ways that reinforce one's opinions or biases. Others get their news from tweets, or social media. Funt call this a complete inversion of the traditional process of getting news- where the traditional process was to combine what people wanted to see and ought to see, the new process was to give what people wanted to see. Add to this competitive pressures and budget cuts, and news was shifting by design and intent to what people wanted or were likely to click on frequently, even on sites like BBC News with proliferation of trivia. The net result- there is too much which poses as "news" but is not news such as trivia, less coverage of news, and as the title of this article suggests, too much media and too little general news to shed light on events that affect our daily lives. Funt was writing in 2009, when Google News and Facebook News Feed were just getting started. By 2016, this inversion was causing serious alarm because of the way misinformation was becoming prevalent. This article reminds one that this was not always the case, this is something that has developed only in the last couple of years- that it is not a constructive development, and which we now realize can have a disruptive effect on democracy through spread of misinformation. Funt cites Scripps News slogan- "Give light and the people will find their own way," - that there is a role for traditional general news in our daily lives which informs and lets us form our own opinions afterwards,  that the social media news feeds on the internet run by algorithms or 24 hour cable news channels run for conservative or liberal agendas is not a subsitutute,  that most of us can use the help of good editors, and good broadcasters.       ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Karen Elliott House, a widely respected expert on Saudi Arabia, gives her assessment of the Saudi situation as the Obama administration completes a nuclear deal with Iran in July 2015. She says the Saudis have few options in the short term. She also points out that the unfreezing of $100 billion in assets of Iran by the end of 2015, and the lifting of economic sanctions, could exacerbate tensions in the Middle East if Iran uses the money to increase support to proxies in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia has a large population of young people and high youth unemployment, increasing political risks, says Karen House.

LyrArc Article Gist
Knight Capital's aggressive introduction of software with ony a short period between approval and implementation resulted in a wave of erroneous orders resulting in losses for the brokerage firm of $440 million. These losses were incurred as Knight Capital had to sell all the stocks it accidentally bought as a result of malfunctioning software that sent out waves of wrong orders on August 1, 2012. Knight accounted for 11% of the stock traded in the U.S. in the first half of 2012, according to TABB Group. It took 45 minutes for the New York Exchange to detect the problem, identify Knight Trading as the source and shut down trading.

LyrArc Article Gist
Igor Sechin, CEO of Russian oil company Rosneft, talks to the Journal's Gregory White after the completion of the BP-Rosneft deal giving BP nearly 20% stake in Rosneft. He says his goal is to make Rosneft "the most efficient." The deal made Rosneft the largest oil company in the world. Sechin sees that not as a goal set by management. Sechin started out as an aide to Putin in the early 1990's, and became chairman of Rosneft in 2004. The deal with BP gives Rosneft access to western technology to become the most efficient oil company in Russia. Sechin sees Rosneft's core business as technology.

LyrArc Article Gist
The survival of the failed Kim regime has cost millions of lives for the people of North Korea. Yet the international politics of the countries has focussed on other issues: the South Koreans wanted to avoid the burden of taking on the people of North Korea as West Germans did for the East Germans after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, China wanted to avoid a reunified pro-western neighbor to the south and the potential influx of refugees across the border, Japan and the U.S. were focussed on the nuclear threat from N. Korea. The result is a failed state and an uncertain future for the people of North Korea.

LyrArc Article Gist
Ariana Huffington of the Huffington Post recalls her days growing up in Athens. She says from her own personal experience that the children should not be penalized for the mistakes of their parents, that the next generation should not have to live desperate lives for the next decade under ECB policies that leave no room for growth. She adds her voice to voices in France, Spain, and other countries in the eurozone about the impact of current EU and ECB policies on Europe, and says exiting the eurozone is a difficult option, but like the Argentine example offers more hope for growth for the young generation in Greece.

LyrArc Article Gist
Shiller says that his CAPE ratio for the U.S. stands at above 25 in 2014, from 23 in 2013, above the 20th century average of 15.21. He looks at possible reasons for the CAPE remaining above 20 for long period of about 20 years, except when it dropped to 13 following the 2008 financial crisis. CAPE is similiar to the price earnings ratio except it uses the average of the last 10 years earnings. Reasons he gives are low interest rates, high bond prices, Fed policy, and the lack of alternative investments in a low interest rate environment that puts more money into the stock market in the U.S.

LyrArc Article Gist
According to analysts Yahoo's 24% stake in Alibaba and its stake in Yahoo Japan is what gives its share price momentum. U.S. Yahoo operations are estimated by Topeka Capital Markets to provide only about $10 of Yahoo's value per share. Alibaba's operations as a retailer in China account for $30 of the value per share, and Yahoo Japan $7 per share in value. Yahoo's current share price in Jan 214 is $40, having doubled in the past year. Analysts say there is not much CEO Marissa Mayer can do to reverse the slow decline in Yahoo revenues as it competes with Google, Facebook and other competitors for premium display advertising.

LyrArc Article Gist
Orlik says higher inflation means China's gdp growth in 2012 was actually about 5.5%. Stephen Green of Standard Chartered Bank includes rising prices of health care and education in an alternative measure of inflation and based on this GDP growth is 5.5%. This is lower than the official estimate of 7.8% for 2012. Labor markets are tight suggesting China can still manage at this slower level of growth without risking the problems from high unemployment. The additional flexibility gives China's new leaders room to address problems of inequalty, rural-urban disparities, pollution, healthcare, education, and the need to refocus development away from state owned companies, for a balanced development approach.

LyrArc Article Gist
Brown makes a stirring appeal to the British public and to members of his own party promising to take Britons through the difficult economic circumstances they face at a Lobor party gathering in Manchester, England. 11 years of Labor governments is leaving the British people with fatigue with Labor administrations and gives Conservatives high poll ratings but Brown as persevered amid all the rumors about challenges to his leadership and skeptical public. He has handled economic affairs for Labor for a long time and brings considerable experience at a time of economic crisis for Britain, and he will need to show the kind of leadership Britain needs in the present crisis.

LyrArc Article Gist
Th iQ gives 54 mpg, and is Toyota's smallest car yet, showcasing its new space saving design concepts. To squeeze in 4 seats the fuel tank is flattened and placed below the floor. Seats are thinner, a/C system is smaller, dashboard is shaped to give more legroom, the jack and spare tires are taken out. The car has airbags, and the world's first rearwindow curtain air bag, atoal of 9 airbags. It will go into sale in Japan for $13,420 on November 20, 2008. There is the Smart, the iQ and the Nano, different ways to get at the smallest car, and in different price segments.

LyrArc Article Gist
Iran War and rescue of pilot of downed F15-E in mountainous terrain in southern Iran April 4 2026. CSAR or Search and Rescue Missions become a critical part of the war. The pilot was a colonel trained for the mission and spent 24 hours in mountainous terrain which was monitored by US forces, after intelligence located him in a mountain crevice. For this to be possible unlike in the Vietnam War and Korean War other nations are not involved as in the earlier Cold War.  The US under DJT as president has shifted to respecting Russia as a Northern European power that it can talk with (meetings with Putin in Alaska 2025) and China as a trade partner (planned meeting in Beijing in April 2026) that it can talk with unlike with previous administrations of Biden, Obama and Bush where China had afree hand in economic matters and global trade and Russia was shut out of the world economic system by elites who ran the government in the US at that time. Russia seeks reintegration in the world political and economic systems, and China seeks acceptance as an economic power which the US respects, both points in which the US has offered to accept. US has also repeated the line to China that it was not going to do the job of keeping Hormuz open for China and Japan to get 90% of oil imports, and in oding so risk losing its soldier's lives, while China and Japan can quietly watch doing nothing to help free navigation of international waters. Note that the narrowest strip of water of 13 miles separates Oman from Iran so that a part of these waters are on the Omani side and not on the Iranian side making free use of that Omani part under international law possible- in which sense Iranian hostile activity closing the Omani side also is a violation of free navigation. This is not pointed out by Iran or Japan or even Britain who are benefitting from US action and remaining silent or being ambivalent or accusing US of being interventionist even when everyone knows MAGA base rejected Bush in the Republican party and the elites and embraced DJT for great part because they want nothing to do with interventionist adventures in the Middle East for certain. US is getting a bum rap from European allies and from China, India, Japan and the media inside the US and in those countries as if the US seeks oil from the Middle East. It was Britain where a lot of the posturing goes on about non intervention that started this oil based intervention since 1900 in Iran itself, and in artificial states of Iraq, Syria, that it created out of the collapsed Ottoman Empire in World War 1. Sykes and Picot were the US and French diplomats who set that up. US under DJT has accomplished self sufficiency in oil and US has no need for anything from the Middle East, no desire to even get involved, and MAGA well grasps that fact and wants to keep it that way. Only nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles with long range to hit US and EU are reason for US action, which is reason enough for EU, China, Russia to set their own goals so that non proliferation in dangerous areas is prevented. So that the people of China, Russia, India, Europe and the rest of the world can enjoy the fruits of their own labors after a century of severe hardships and struggles which the American people if not their elites respect, and the fruits of peaceful cooperation which the American people extend to the World, and to China, Russia and India. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The tendency for European left traditional parties to take on the ideas of the populist politicians, "parroting" them in the words of EU Commission president Juncker, is the topic of this article in Der Spiegel, It says Emmanuel Macron has the right idea of speaking up for the European Union, and what has been accomplished in the last 3 decades. This article gives a picture of the difficult days before the euro with repeated devaluations in Portugal and Italy, hurting pensioners and workers, and small business, that people have conveniently forgotten or have short memories to recall. Der Spiegel points out that the populist politicians say Brussels has too much power, yet fail to realize that some of the problems come from the eurozone being run on the basis where all 19 finance ministers of the countries in the eurozone make the important decisions. And these finance ministers have their own interest groups back home and national budgets as their dominant considerations. The journey itself to the future is important says Spiegel, going back to the past is not a solution, however useful it is for political calculations of politicians. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
This editorial in the New York Times is strongly critical of former president Barack Obama for accepting $400,000 in speaking fees from Wall Street for a single speech. It says the news is causing people to question the ideas and words presented by Obama in his books about the dangers of losing sight of the interests of ordinary people. It gives the impression says the NYT, that Obama is cashing in like everybody else, and that his talk was empty. The editorial says the millions raised by Hillary Clinton led to her defeat in the election. Obama is reported to plan a foundation with the work of training a new generation of political leaders. This NYT editorial says it would be better to stay true to vision and purpose, to walk the talk for president Obama, especially now that a recent poll shows two thirds of voters, including about half of Democrats say that the Democratic Party is out of touch with the interests of the American People. By associating this closely with wealthy donors leading Democrats contributed to this. During a period when some of the remarkable achievements of the last fifty years such as the European Union are being called into question, when ordinary working people, young people and older people are struggling, this is all the more a tone deaf approach by politicians. The idea of helping train a new generation of political leaders through a foundation sounds bizarre in this context, and seems to suggest politicians believe there is always a solution through marketing their audacity and money.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Some local governments in China are making vaccination mandatory. China is setting a goal of getting 64%  of the population fully vaccinated by the end of 2021. In European Union countries mandatory vaccination by country or region is now being put in place to fight new coronavirus variants that spread faster in the population. The reopening of economy, business and tourism is increasing the risk from variants in summer 2021. The mandatory vaccination is a way to increase the percentage of the population that is vaccinated. Getting younger people who lag behind to get vaccinated is important to protect the percentage of the elderly population that is still not vaccinated. There are risks also to the younger population as seen in previous waves of the pandemic. The initial hesitation to make health pass showing a person is vaccinated mandatory was because only a small fraction of the population was vaccinated in Europe. Now that over 50% are vaccinated in most EU countries and UK, that hesitation thinking that it is discriminatory to those people who did not have access to vaccines no longer exists. Ample vaccine supplies and the misinformation spread about vaccines are making action on health pass necessary to protect the overall population. National governments in France, Denmark, Austria, Greece, and local governments in Germany, Portugal and other EU countries such as Ireland, Italy, see the danger from coronavirus variants that spread quickly as too big to take any risks a second time. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
To understand the situation in Hong Kong and in China, it is necessary to know about the early years of the Cultural Revolution around 1966 to 1976  and the period of economic and cultural experimentation that followed its failure. This is the period in which China's leader Xi Jinping was growing up and went to University, a period during which his father XI Zhongxun was persecuted in party struggles about ideas driving the party. Ironically the Cultural Revolution was a period when China under Mao launched an effort to stamp out western and capitalist influence in China promoting efforts to go back to the countryside where most of the people lived, in sharp contrast to the opposite of attracting western technology and urbanization pursued today.   Xi Jinping's father as party leader in Guangdong province 1978-1980 after rehabilitation under premier Deng in the period of experimentation with economic models, never lost faith in the party's ideals and what it sought to achieve. China's rejuvenation after centuries of backwardness and the disaster of the opium wars that led to opening China to opium trade by Britain and the ceding of Hong Kong as a British colony, remained indelibly in the mind of the father and today in his son in the form of the "China Dream." The South China Morning Post gives useful insights by looking at the early years of Xi Jinping. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Erfurt is a very German city in the heart of Germany with its many churches and medieval past, the home town of Martin Luther. Katrin Bennhold provides this exceptional report of how Erfurt is coping with new refugees from talking to town officials and observing the process of resettlement. Erfurt has a population of 208,000 with only about 500 Muslims, and few people from Africa. The town's mayor sees it as the biggest challenge since World War II, larger than reunification with the east, as 300 migrants arrive every week and 4000 have to be resettled by Christmas 2015. Under Germany's quota system the state of Thuringia gets 2.5% of refugees, and Erfurt gets 10% of this. When the Soviet bloc expelled 14 million Germans from the eastern territories in the bloc, 670,000 passed through camps in Erfurt. The difference now is the language barrier, and the anxiety among some Germans of how this could change their lives, which is visible from the questions asked at a town hall meeting in Erfurt. Because of the suddenness with which Germany was confronted with the refugee problem it will take time to get organized- in September 2015 there is a shortage of housing space, cots, temporary shelters, translators, social workers, and some of the infrastructure has to be put in on an improvised basis. Rarely has a people come under the spotlight of world attention in modern communications media, in the way small cities and towns throughout Germany are now facing, and providing a glimpse into the hearts and souls of so many....

LyrArc Article Gist
Daisuke Wakabayashi's exceptional account of how Steve Jobs directed the project to develop the iPhone starting in 2005 upto to the introduction in 2007. At one point Jobs gives Christie, the engineer leading the very small project team, 2 months to put it together or he would find someone else to do it. This is similiar to the way in which Sony's Morita approached his project team working on the Walkman telling them what he wanted to see and the size of the device. Jobs payed attention to all the details from how the phone names addresses appeared on the screen, dialing from the phone book, the swiping action to start the device, the music, and the colors on the screen. Only in on the project's detail were Bill Campbell, Apple director, and Jony Ive, Apple design chief. Christie was approached by Scott Forestall in late 2004 about this secret project codenamed "Purple." Christie is the engineer who joined Apple in 1996 to work on the Newton, and early touch screen device that failed because the technology was not developed enough at the time, making the device bulky and cumbersome. Christie was working on software for Mac computers in 2004. Greg Joswiak, Apple vice president for iPhone marketing, monitored other phone makers to see if they were coming up with a device that migrated the iPod's music features to the phone. Hence the absolute secrecy for this project. The project team is amazingly small. The practice of small teams can be found at Amazon and Kayak....