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Emily Baumgaertner takes on the critics of children's vaccines. A major health advancement in tackling polio, measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria. The NYT says most Americans and doctors today have forgotten what a scourge these disease were in the last century. Polio one of the most serous killing or paralyzing half a million people worldwide in the 1930's and 40's. A scourge deadly as it happened suddenly in a day one could get paralyzed. US president FDR had polio which changed his whole life in the 1920's. In 1952 vaccines took this down from 22,000 in 1952 to just one in 1993.  Measles - the vaccine licensed in 1963. It is highly contagious. Tens of thousands hospitalized 400-500 died each year. It is 97% effective with 2 doses, its spread require 95% coverage rate. 16 measles outbreaks in 2024- about 300,000 children not protected, parents skipping it. Diptheira respiratory disease- 100,000 cases a year in 1920 to less than one today. One in 10 died from it says CDC. Vaccine TDaP. ...

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Compare the presidential election spending in France and US one sees a huge, really huge difference. In France by law the first round it is limited to 16 million euros and second round to 22 million euros. Companies cannot donate and maximum donation is euros 4600 per year. All candidates must be given equal time by networks after official campaigns start usually March 28. If you get 5% of the presidential vote you get about 48% of the $22 million ceiling and if not only about 5%. Its a fairer system considering about $5 billion will be spent in US presidential election 2024. It keeps out lobbyists and donors looking for silent favors as the pharma industry and the tech industry in the US that has prevented any legislation on fair drug pricing or oversight of the monopolies of Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta and others, taxation of profits of tech and fossil fuel companies, or passage of healthcare for all. Indian elections cost of 1.35 lakh crores or $13 billion in 2024 are also similar to the US with parties spending leading to much corruption in the democratic process and defeating its best character.  ...

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The effects of a health scare about chicken and hormones on China's internet sites is affecting sales of Yum Brands store outlets for Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) in China. As most of the stores are company owned compared to 11% in the U.S., this is having an outsized effect on Yum Brands performance. Fast growth in China can be an asset as well as a liability if not carefully handled. Food is an especially difficult field in China with careful management and control of supplies critical. The Chinese public is skeptical about government monitoring and checks of food supplies and pharmaceuticals after years of lax enforcement. Yum Brands has 5400 KFC and Pizza Hut stores in China, 14% of total global store outlets.

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Peters and Wessel provide profiles of middle aged American men in 2014- as tech workers out of jobs as technology shifts and worker skills fall behind, younger men with masters degrees in fields such as public administration where it is hard to find jobs and workers lack retraining, and other men who lost jobs from globalization or the 2009 economic crisis. About one in 6 working age American men 25-54 are without jobs- about 10.4 million. Of this group two thirds are not looking for work either because they cannot find decent paying jobs or are too discouraged looking for work, and are not counted in the unemployment rate calculated by the Labor Department. About three quarters of the working age men not working have only a high school education compared to 55% with jobs. Wages for highschool dropouts have declined by 25% since the 1970's, and 15% for those without a college degree but having a high school diploma- some of these men are going back to school, others lacking retraining are too discouraged to look for work and depending on a spouse or government benefits. It is these people U.S. Fed chairpersons Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen have in mind as they shape Fed policies since 2009 to not leave them behind....

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48% of British voters see immigration as the most important issue, says Ipsos. And 31% say their local area is housing more than its fair share of asylum seekers growing to 61% of Reform UK voters. Reform UK is now leading party with 34% of the vote to Labour's 25% and Liberals 11%. The report in the WSJ on Augu 28 shows how the Labour government did not live up to it's talk on immigration. It also shows how the Conservatives and Boris Johnson failed by opening up non EU immigration from Asia on the grounds that it would bring in the brightest and yet dropped the basic college degree requirement paradoxically or carelessly. Lobbying from health care home care hugely increased migration for this field under Conservatives and is only now being reversed by Labour. Labour has been too slow and the culture of Britain and Labour has not changed enough to grasp the problem. Their are vested interests in Britain such as universities and home care health care that have influenced the conduct of policy so that migration on non-eu has replaced eu migration after Brexit, but not attracted the most qualified immigrants. The 4% of the British population that entered Britain after Brexit as immigrants, millions arrived and now when Labour is trying to bring this down faces a large number of dependent applications. University students are now bringing in their dependents at rates that have skyrocketed. ...

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GM's relationship with Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation is the singlemost important relationship for the company. Its 50-50 joint venture with SAIC has sales volume of 2.6 million vehicles, 30.5 billion dollars in revenue, and earned GM a profit of $1.5 billion in 2011 for operations in the Chinese market. In 2009 just before seeking bankruptcy protection GM gave SAIC 51% ownership in exchange for a $400 million credit line GM used for its Korean operations and $84.5 million. Now that GM has recovered it has sought to restore its 50-50 role in the partnership. In a new agreement reached with SAIC, Shanghai GM will be split in two parts- a sales arm which will book revenues in which SAIC will retain a 51% ownership, and a operating arm in which the old 50-50 partnership is restored. The operating arm is where the budget will be set, product decisions made, hiring done including the next CEO. Under the arrangement made before bankruptcy GM retained a call option to buy back the 1% stake, as long as SAIC was able to book revenue. VW also has a 50-50 partnership with SAIC. Shanghai GM has a 14% share in the Chinese market, with a 41% increase in sales since 2009, making it spectacularly successful for GM. This is the largest market share of any company in the Chinese market, with VW coming in second. GM and SAIC also operate a venture in India. ...

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What are the systemic effects of one of the automakers going out of business? It affects the whole supplier base. This is the case in the event of a liquidation of assets, closing Delphi and so on. This was mentioned by Wagoner as the alternative and not prepackaged bankruptcy with DIP set aside loan for warranty financing which some experts are advocating in combination with a government loan with strings attached including a change in management. Some of the strings are covered in a New York Times editorial reflecting public opinion on the democratic side on this issue, and that includes removal of current management of Detroit auto companies, and fuel efficiency targets raised higher than legislation passed recently under heavy lobbying pressure from these automakers. Contraction of automakers and job contraction should be differentiated from liquidation of assets. The contraction of automaker jobs not just at the Detroit companies but also at Japanese plants in the US is going to happen even with a government loan to Detroit as Honda is also reducing its workforce and this will happen at Toyota also. The carefully planned bankruptcy with carefully and fully addressed warranty and other issues could be made to work along with sufficient government loan money in the $50-$70 billion range in return for equity and other conditions, and its not clear why the management of the Detroit auto companies see it as impossible and not just difficult, when they are already facing considerable difficulties in this market and with public opinion. Rampell talks about how jobs lost are not recoverable, and this is fairly obvious considering that the Japanese and the Germans are unlikely to relocate in the same areas that Detroit has located its plants , and prefer to go and build green plants to specification, and hire very carefully so that workers with the Toyota or Honda frame of mind are hired to work there. This can change depending on individual circumstances but is what they generally prefer to do. Also its important to bear in mind that forecasts that are being used of 13-14 million vehicle market in 2009 are just guesses, it could turn out that the sales drop to something like 10 -12 million vehicles, in which case there will be contraction of jobs on a large scale even at the Japanese and Korean and German plants which there is even now but on a smaller scale. ...

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There is considerable opposition among analysts, Congressmen, and experts to continuing with the current management at GM if help is provided to automakers. And GM's management is insisting on staying on which may complicate things. There is a strong perception throughout the country that management has failed the company, and now the economy of the midwest and the country. And some are arguing that bankruptcy or government receivership will be necessary to effect a complete restructuring of the industry after years of failure both by management and unions, the credit crisis having come as the last blow after a long series of mistakes and inability to get things right.

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NYT says DJT ratings have been resilient and stable around 43% in September similar to April 2025. Shows slight improvement on the economy and slight drop on immigration. DJT gets higher approval in fighting crime 48% supporting, 51% saying government was deporting mostly those needing to be deported, and 54% favoring deporting of illegal migrants. On the major issues of the economy, illegal immigration, the support is fairly resilient and stable says the NYT. Even the groups that say the biggest problem is the other side Democrats saying that of Republicans and vice versa, is only about 15%, or what has been seen in polarized periods in American history such as with Jefferson and Adams, Andrew Jackson after British wars,  Abraham Lincoln and Southerners before Civil War, Hoover and FDR as Depression progressed, and Harry Truman and Wendell Wilkie/Eisenhower periods of this history. The current polarization is not something new even though it is seen as unsettling to an onlooker. On immigration Eisenhower led Operation Wetback in the 1950's similar to today's effort to reverse illegal migration. Efforts to bring Common Prayer or Christian prayer to schools is part of America's history and Prayer existed in American schools throughout most of America's history, so that this is also nothing new. ...

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Indian PM Modi meets DJT on Feb 12-13, 2025, at the White House. Focus is on trade, and on defense issues. Shown alongside is the situation of illegal migration from India, mainly from the Punjab region of India and from Gujarat. India will make the case for its exports based on the new supply chain shift reducing overdependence on China, and the shift to Make in America for jobs and factories.

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Left party Syriza did better than the government parties in the EU elections. A new parliamentary election would have to be called if prime minister Samaras cannot find the 180 votes needed to elect a new president in Feb. 2014. Syriza is calling for writeoff of some of the massive 318.6 billion euros of debt owed, 85% of it to France, Germany and other foreign governments and IMF. To offset Syriza's popularity Samaras is likely to use the improved confidence of investors in Greece to raise funds on capital markets, and access funds from a Stability Fund. By exiting the IMF program early and not taking 12 billion euros of IMF funds due for 2015-2016, Samaras can take independent steps to revive the Greek economy and reduce the burden of cuts. Greece will run a primary budget surplus before interest payments in 2014, as it did in 2013. GDP is down about 25% and unemployment is at 26%. Anger in the early years reflected in Athens riots, is now replaced with anguish and despair among ordinary Greeks and some public suicides. The current debt repayments is for debt to be repaid to IMF in 10 years and the EU loans in 32 years, with 10 years of interest payments at 1.5%. Even then the debt is already at 178% of GDP, way above the initial target of 124% of GDP set by IMF-EU for 2020. As a backup strategy German officials including Asmussen and Schauble, and ECB's Draghi are meeting with Mr. Tsipras of Syriza to ensure a smooth transition if this becomes necessary, without the uncertainty in financial markets created by earlier Greece elections....

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Amy Hood growing up in a small town in Kentucky, then a move to Nashvile, Duke and HBS. She joined Microsoft in 2002 on its investor relations team. She moved into management the same time as Nadella who is CEO. Before the pandemic Microsoft's capital expenditures and investments cost about $16 billion. It is now 4 times that at $64 billion. It is Amy Hood's job as Chief Finanacial Officer to see that all that money is well spent for products with demand. AI services bring in about $10 billion annually.  Yet this may just be deflecting by Wall Street of the real question about the funding needs that are being neglected in education, health care and child care, when huge amounts of capital are being diverted by capital markets in ways reminiscent of the warnings of Franklin Roosevelt at the Democratic Convention of 1932. Warnings that the whole capital markets system was not working right, was only defunding the vital needs of the American people. ...

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This WSJ report tallies the cost of maintaining U.S. forces in South Korea and Japan and shows that much of that cost is being paid by the governments of South Korea and Japan. This follows Mr. Trump's comments about the high cost of maintaining U.S. presence in the East Asian region. The editorial says the presence is essential to U.S. security and maintaining peace in the region. Japan is paying 100% of the $12 billion to replace the Futenma facility on Okinawa, and 94% of the $5 billion for the Marine Corps station Iwakuni in southern Japan, and even 36% for facilities on Guam, South Korea providing 93% of $11 billion for Camp Humphreys being built for all U.S. forces in Korea by 2017, says WSJ.

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  A new German party called BSW,  Bundnis (Association) Sarah Wagenknecht, means Germany nationally could see a smaller Social Democrats party in parliament making way for the socialists who want to keep out migrants. Across East Germany a new party is challenging the AfD from the socialist side getting the protest vote against pro-migrant policies.The socialist BSW party is taking votes from the SPD and DIe Linke Left, from Free Democrats and Greens in the state parliamentary elections in East German states of Thuringia, Saxony, Brandenburg. Nationally SPD may be 15-20%, BSW 10%, and CDU 30%, AfD 10-15%, FDP 10%, Greens 10% in a new shape for German parliamentary representation. The AfD and far right in Germany is challenged by the BSW with both parties opposing policies that led to large scale migrant flows into Germany of Angela Merkel.  BSW is the socialist party of Sarah Wagenknecht which is opposed to migrants entering the country as it distracts from tackling the problems of the working class in Germany and burdens public services when needs are greater among the local communities.  It sees the ruling Christian Democrats, Social Democrat and Free Demcorats, Greens, as out of touch with the problems of working class Germans struggling to make a living. BSW also opposes the wars in Ukraine and Gaza for the same reasons as it takes away resources that are better used to tackle problems at home. The AfD party also opposes migrants but is seen as feeding on the grievances of people of old east German communist state who feel left behind by the reunification of Germany. As a socialist party BSW is for addressing problems of inequality and poverty, childcare, cost of living action, housing, and many of the problems of the working class. Mette Frederiksen Danish prime minister has combined socialist ideas with anti-migrant position in Denmark. A similar position is being taken in the US by the Biden Harris administration in the US by closing the Border with Mexico.  Who is Sahra Wagenknecht and the BSW? Bundnis Sarah Wagenknecht or Association of Sarah Wagenknecht is a socialist party that grew out of Sarah Wagenknecht's own experience growing up in the socialist state of the German Democratic Republic during her formative years in East Berlin.  Born to a Iranian father who disappeared in Iran, and a German mother she was raised by her grandparents. She was active in the socialist parties Die Linke group in parliament since 2000. She received her bachelors degree in philosophy and New German Literature at East Berlin Humboldt University. Followed by MA at Groningen University in philosophy of Marx-Hegel and a doctoral degree from TU Chemnitz in Economics. She was member of parliament in the Bundestag and leader of the Die Linke group. The twin 2009 financial crisis by banks pursuing excessive leverage profits and unethical dealings, the euro crisis that followed of state actors misrepresenting their finances, the rent seeking attitudes of finance, pharma, tech monopolies and other industries has led her along with Italian economist Mazzucato to question the existing system. ...

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All three countries in the South Asian neighborhood now face economic crisis of large proportions - Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, all turning to the IMF for help. In the case of Sri Lanka there was help from the beginning from India. It was lack of jobs and not enough jobs generated even with a decade of 7% economic growth. It was in protests over job quotas reserved for independence soldiers that led to the ouster of Sheik Hasina's government. This report in NYT shows overdependence on garment exports which generated growth for decades under PM Hasina as having a drawback during Covid. The disruptions in the supply chain during Covid hurt Bangladesh when garment earnings dropped. At one point the industry was closed for months. India provided assistance including vaccines during Covid and India is the largest destination for Bangladesh exports with economic ties to 5 Indian states. The recovery from Covid has not been strong and has led to reduction in foreign exchange reserves. In 2022 Bangladesh turned to the IMF for assistance. Not enough jobs were being created for a large population. In 2000 the population was 129 million, in 2019 before pandemic 165 million. Today in 2024 it is 171 million, increasing by 33% from 2000. By contrast in a communist state Vietnam population increased by 22 million to 99 million or 29% in 2024 from 2000   Foreign exchange reserves dropped during the pandemic to $23 billion in July 2023, in the last 11 months it dropped by $4 billion to $19 billion. By comparison Pakistan's are at $13 billion, up $4 billion in 11 months. Foreign remittances from Bangladeshis overseas are another source of foreign exchange. The major problem of getting tax revenues with people and business not paying taxes due is a problem for Bangladesh and for Pakistan. India has made huge gains through GST and digitization of economy to get tax revenues to support economic growth and infrastructure. And under the leadership of prime minister Modi there is discipline, girt, a strategic focus, with good governance, that is similar to what helped transform Japan and China into industrialized nations. This is missing in Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh and in Burma. This gives some idea why in the present budget north and eastern Indian states of Bihar, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, with a combined population of 230 million people are in a specially designated region for development. It is a gathering momentum against centuries of foreign occupation and neglect similar to that seen in China. ...

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Chief of TechMet a company in mineral resource development says that it will take years to dislodge China's dominance in rare metals mining and development for metals critical to technologies in car batteries, wind turbines, cellphones. This includes nickel and cobalt for car batteries.Last week president Trump signed an executive order declaring a national emergency and authorizing use of the Defense Production Act to speed development of mines. The U.S. imports 80% of its rare earth elements from China, with further supply coming indirectly from the country. For 14 of 35 critical types of minerals the U.S. has no domestic production. Gallium for light emitting diodes in cell phones is one of these metals. Half of Barite a metal used in hydraulic fracturing for shale oil is imported from China. To get some idea of the neglect in U.S.policy in these area under three administrations, the U.S. in the 1980's was the largest producer of rare earth metals and the technology to process them. Today there is only one mine the Mountain Pass mine in California, and no processing plants. It takes about 10 years to develop a mine. Just as in health care products essential to tackle the virus the U.S has found its manufacturing and technology base left in woeful shape after manufacturing and mining were neglected in a failed policy. Under the guise of globalization corporations transferred essential manufacturing from the U.S. and Europe to China, without understanding the importance these products played in the life of countries, and governments neglected to help local manufacturers and mining companies. Governments play a critical role as China has done by providing loans and grants to develop the national industrial base. Tariffs and quotas are also used to promote local development of the manufacturing base and mining base. Another factor is that investors are more able to invest in these companies when the government take some of the risk with its help and active support. With the Trump executive order comes a new awareness in Canada, Australia, and European Union which are now taking active steps to nurture and develop the local resources. ...

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Will the long awaited Obama plan do enough to reduce foreclosures and help the economy? $75 billion will go to help homeowners facing foreclosure. But it continues the earlier course of letting it be voluntary for banks and lending institutions to decide if they in fact want to reduce the mortgage payment to 38% of the borrower's income. If they do the government provides an incentive of $1000 for every loan modified, and more payments if the borrower stays current. If the lender decides that its not in its interest to make concesssions to reduce the payments to 38% of the borrower's income, in exchange for the $1000 incentive, it could well decide to do nothing, and even continue the current practice of adding on interest and penalties that actually increase the mortgage payment in many cases. Is it enough? Clearly no, if Mark Zandl, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com is right, and helps only 1 million of the estimated 14 million people who are under water, and the homes are worth much less than the outstanding mortgage. As Martin Feldstein has pointed out for the last year since early 2008, its these people who are under water that need to be helped, and not in a piecemeal or voluntary way as Obama is suggesting. It only goes to show that after all the rhetoric, Government both Republican and Democratic, differ only in degrees in the way they are responding to the foreclosure crisis, that is at the root of the financial crisis. The tidal wave of foreclosures, the other 13 million borrowers that are not helped by this plan but are under water, with growing numbers because of growing layoffs, suggest a serious failure to tackle the problem, with serious consequences for 2009 and beyond....

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US Naval Blockade Day 10- US stock markets up 4.1% for 4 months, oil price $95 a barrel, prices at pump $4.02 down from $3.94 a month back. If all the US seeks out of an agreement is getting nuclear material out of Iran to keep nuclear weapons out of the Middle East based on 5 decades of war in the Middle East- Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, and now Iraq/ Lebanon- this is to protect the people of the world from nuclear weapons, including China, India, Brazil, Russia, EU and other nations. This was the goal of Democratic administrations also, only the Republican approach is to err on the side of safe and take zero chances on future nuclear escalation while the Democratic administrations were based on trust, trust which is not a sure thing in the Middle East political and cultural environment. Some of DJT comments were bluster, but the basic position is the same- against nuclear proliferation for a safer planet. In this light the Naval Blockade only seeks not to block Iran's path to a prosperous economy and a bright future for its people. Iran's economy is affected in the same way that India's and China's, Africa's is affected, for upwards of 4 billion people compared to 100 million for Iran. Africa, Pakistan and Bangladesh, Indonesia, among the poorest in the world, poorer by far than Iran. The economic impact on this part of the world is not part of Iranian perceptions. The economic impact on Gulf kingdoms an adversary of Iran is by comparison only a small fraction of the impact on the poorest countries. In this situation US is working to support the poorest segments of the Chinese people ( the part of China in the hinterland that is the one third not urbanized) and the Indian people through its cooperation and direct or indirect support. In this perspective the US economy stands as a steadfast support for US policy of fairness and respect for all nations since 1900- US is not one of the colonial powers such as Britain and France who created some of the artificial states Syria, Iraq, out of the remains of the collapsed Ottoman Empire in the interest of their Empires by 1921, and setup regimes in Iran for its oil, that are the source of today's problems and wars. No Empire of Britain and France promised Iran $28 billion as this Nation does today if Iran ships nuclear material out of Iran for a 100 percent shift to a peaceful Middle East that works for the modernization and industrial development of its economies in the interests of the people. ...

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Costs of climate change include food insecurity and drought, floods and fires. FR24 pictures show 10 figures from the 2021 Report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: code red for humanity.

Shorter growing seasons lead to declines of 6% for corn and soy, and winter wheat 3%, rice 2% relative to 1980-2010.  2 billion people face food insecurity. Costs from extreme weather events in 2020 was $278 billion. 4 million deaths attributable to air pollution in 2019.

Drought leads to migration in Africa and Asia as crops and cattle wither in the heat from lack of rain. The estimated share of global surface area affected by extreme drought for any given month in 2020 is a shocking 19% according to this FR24 report. Also shocking is that until 2010 this figure was rarely above 5%.

 

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France goes to the polls on April 10. Marie Le Pen is shrinking Mr. Macron's lead in the polls. Most of the other candidates other than Mr. Melenchon show less than 10% support from voters including Valerie Pecresse of the Republicans who have failed to arouse much enthusiasm The Republicans and the Socialist party of Mr. Mitterand and Mr. Hollande were defeated in the last presidential election by Mr. Macron. Today the choice is between Le Pen with her inexperience and her policies skeptical of the European Union and Mr. Macron who is more experienced but lacking an effective social policy in addressing the social problems in France raised by the yellow vist protesters. Immigration is an issue in this campaign and Mr. Macron has taken a tougher stand on immigration and cultural issues following several terrorist incidents. There is a general lack of enthusiasm with 25% of the voters not expected to vote, many of them 25-34 years old. With 37% of the voters not decided which way they will vote and some votes cast even if the candidate selected was seen as having some drawbacks, the elections in France are a vivid contrast to the recent election in Germany with the Greens and Social Democrats ending the CDU's four terms leading the government under Merkel. Mr. Macron only campaigned in the last 8 days before the election.   ...

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India is a major farm exporter with over $50 billion in exports of farm products. New trade agreements with US and EU will shrink the current $14 billion surplus over imports as imports increase to meet US and EU negotiation requests.

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DJT commenting on the prospects for peace in Ukraine on August 19 after the meeting with Putin in Alaska and EU leaders at the White House by August 18. He comments on Russia's problem with European peacekeeping force- “I don’t think it’s going to be a problem, to be honest with you. I think Putin is tired of it. I think they’re all tired of it. But you never know. We’re going to find out about President Putin in the next couple of weeks.”

On the reasons for making this effort to get everybody together to the table- not a Peace Prize as the media says. As usual DJT says something few would expect to hear-

“I want to try and get to Heaven if possible. I’m hearing I’m not doing well. I really hit the bottom of the totem pole. But if I can get to Heaven, this will be one of the reasons.”

 

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This editorial view in The Guardian says the Tories win in 2019 was a result of homeowners and mortgage holders feeling richer with the soaring house prices in England. It could hurt the Conservatives as interest rates rise and house prices drop. Conservatives could lose support gradually, then suddenly as home prices drop fast. It cites the forthcoming book Shattered Nation by Prof. Danny Dorling of Oxford University on the extractive model of housing in Britain being out of step with its European neighbors. Dorling says that had house prices gone up with inflation in the last 70 years, the average home in Britain would have cost 63,000 pounds, that is twice the median UK salary of 31,000 pounds. Instead government's ONS shows price of average house in Britain is 296,000 pounds in 2022 August, up 36,000 pounds- the price increase of 14% is one year's salary. Dorling says money is siphoned off from the less well off to the already wealthy when paying excessive rents, buying an overpriced house, or keeping up with larger mortgage payments. Lawmakers don't see the problem Dorling says because so many of them are landlords including Mr. Sunak. ...

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Krugman points out that about 13 million Americans without insurance gained health insurance under the Obama plan. He says if it is turned back 8 million whites without a college degree in that 13 million will lose health insurance. Of these eight million about two out of three voted for Trump, so that 5 million Trump supporters could now lose health insurance even though they are older and have more health conditions. Krugman says this aspect of the election campaign was not covered well in the misinformation and social media information of the 2016 campaign, and the lack of media focus on the important issues in the election. On manufacturing jobs he says most of the jobs lost are not returning, and only token jobs such as at a Carrier plant in the news will take their place.

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President Biden gets his $1.9 trillion aid package through the U.S. Congress with 220 votes for and 211 against. All Democrats except one voted in favor and all Republicans voted against. Earlier the $15 minimum wage was dropped from the bill to get it through the Senate. Also kept were income criteria to prevent the $1400 check to individuals in households going to the most affluent income earners. The Senate vote was close - 50 to 49 in a party line vote. The Biden aid package comes on top of earlier aid under president Trump in 2020. This aid is likely to provide enough stimulus to the US economy to restore growth to levels that were there before the pandemic hit.