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A Whirlpool appliance factory in Amiens in the Somme region is slated for closure and relocation to Poland. Emmanual Macron made a surprise visit to the factory to talk to worker representatives. He says he cannot prevent the closure but can work to arrange for good terms for the closure. Marine Le Pen the far right candidate also visited the site at the factory gates where workers were on strike. Afterwards Macron said "I try to fix problems, not to exploit them."  Macron has come under criticism in the French press for taking too much for granted in the second round and not fighting for support the way he had earlier. Le Pen has appealed to workers facing factory closure and areas that have been neglected as factories closed in previous years. In the north and northeast smaller towns and areas neglected in the tech boom and facing deindustrialization have turned to Le Pen. Macron's effort to go into these areas is part of his style and his conviction that the problems have to be tackled in the deindustrialized areas, and to break the image that the National Front is striving to create of a candidate from investment banking that does not understand workers. ...

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French voters turned to parties outside the mainstream left Socialist Party and the right Republican Party for the first time in a run off presidential election. The National Front's Jean Le Pen made it to the runoff in 2002, then lost to Chirac of the Republican Party who won 78% of the vote. This time the Republican Party candidate Fillon had about 20%, the Socialist Party candidate Hamon won just 6% of the vote with the rest of the socialist vote going to a far left candidate Jean Luc Melenchon who had 19.6%. The winners were Emmanuel Macron, a former Economy minister under president Hollande of the socialist Party, getting about 24% and Marine Le Pen, the daughter of Jean Le Pen of the National Front, getting 21.5%. Compared to the U.S. the situation is slightly different in France because of the very high unemployment rate for young people- younger voters supported the National Front, and people especially in rural areas in the north, north east, and the south of the country around Nice and Marseille supported the National Front. Macron's movement En Marche, centrist party drawing support from centre right and centre left without clear ideology except to renew France and pro-EU, was strong in urban areas, among more educated people, especially in Paris and the area around Bordeaux and Toulouse in the south east of the country. Fillon did not do well in some traditional Republican Party areas including Nice, with inroads from Le Pen, who defined the party around anti-immigration, closed borders, and withdrawal from the European Union. ...

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Andy Street, Mayor of the West Midlands Combined Authority, says when you consider that London gets 7 times the infrastructure spending per person than West Midlands, "its not bloody surprising" that his region is not growing fast. West Midlands covers a large part of central England, including Wolverhampton, Birmingham and Coventry. Even life expectancy is lower by 8 years in Blackpool, and disposable income can be quarter in Camden compared to North London. Labor's Corbyn and Conservative's Thatcher in the British general election are both campaigning for reviving the regions outside London, that have seen investment in people and technology lag substantially behind London. Regional revival is the big issue in this election. Consider that London which accounted for about 15% of economic output in the 1980's now accounts for nearly 25% of economic output of Britain. Berlin is about 4% of Germany's economy, and Paris 10% of France's economy. A word of caution on Brexit is sounded by experts at the University of Birmingham, who say the whole process of Brexit is so complicated that it may detract from the task of reviving this region. Even though the political upheaval had origins in this discontent, was it more about shifting government attention to the gap between London and the rest of the country, and less about a complex process of withdrawal from the European Union. ...

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Currently Asian-Americans make up 62% of students at top high schools in New York. Mayor Blasio aims to give 20% of the seats to students who almost reach the qualifying scores on an entrance exam for Stuyvesant and seven other specialized high schools. Under Blasio's plan Discovery program for economically disadvantaged students would get 800 of the 4000 specialized high school seats for ninth graders in fall 2020 up from 250. 

Another view is presented by Parenting While Black organization of low income parents and children, who say that more important is to improve the quality of education for the city's 1.1 million students and start at the early grades. They see the high school debate for these 7 specialized schools as taking attention from the real problem to focus on s small sliver of students. The mass of students, the vast majority, they say are left to dangle in the wind.

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John Carney of the WSJ looks at the financial transactions tax proposed by 2016 U.S. presidential candidate Bernie Sanders to pay for high college tution costs.

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Seib points out why the current political landscape with the popularity of Trump and Sanders reflects demographic, economc and social changes in America compared to when Geroge H.W. Bush won the election in 1988 and Bill Clinton won in 1992. The Republican party is more populist, with older Americans, more Southern and conservative, making it harder for Jeb Bush or Wall Street backed candidates. The Democratic Party more liberal, more popular on both the east and west coast of the U.S., with younger Americans, diverse demographic groups, making it harder for Hillary Clinton as an establishment candidate. A Journal/NBC poll of Oct. 2015 shows 28% of Republicans describing their views as very conservative, and 26% of Democrats saying they are very liberal. Yet there is another aspect that will show up once the primaries are over. And this is the steady group of somewhat conservative and moderate combined in the Republican Party of 64%, and the steady group of somewhat liberal and moderate in the Democratic Party of 62% in the 2015 Journal/NBC poll. The moderates are up from 26% in the above 1990 poll to 31% in the 2015 poll for the Republican Party, and from 26% to 33% in the Democratic Party. So that one sees about a quarter of people polled in each party pushing for fringe views and a countervailing trend for moderate or close to moderate views with about two thirds support in the 2015 Journal/NBC poll for each party....

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Peter Altmaier is director of the chancellery in Berlin, and is the person closest to Angela Merkel. This report in the Economist points out that Altmaier has played a critical role in steps taken by Merkel- as chief whip in parliament for the CDU during the Greece financial crisis and bailouts, as environment minister implementing the program away from coal based electricity, and in negotiating deals such as the deal with Turkey on refugees, and now with Brexit negotiations. Merkel has asked Altmaier to write her manifesto for the September 2017 election. A member of the CDU's liberal wing, Altmaier is known for being a scholar on German history, especially Bismarck, and a workaholic. Here he is mentioned as a bridge maker for the CDU to the Greens Party and was part of a group of CDU and Green Party politicians who met at an Italian restaurant in Bonn. As the moderates are now dominant in the Greens Party, a CDU coalition with the Greens could be shaped by Altmaier if the election results move in that direction. ...

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This editorial in the WSJ points out the dangers to the Republican party in taking the stand on immigraton along the lines suggested by Donald Trump in August 2015- deportation for all illegal immigrants, no birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants, and no remittances allowed for illegal immigrants to their home countries. It points out that remittances actually improve the economies of the countries south of the U.S. border in Latin America and reduce illegal immigration. There is a need for seasonal workers in farm areas where there is a severe shortage of workers even at $17 an hour. Reducing immigration is better accomplished by more guest worker programs. A likely result would be the move of farms and factories to regions with low cost labor in Latin America or other countries. For the Republican Party this type of policy would bring back the period of the 1920's, says the WSJ, when Irish and Italian immigration was opposed by the party, alienating the two ethnic groups till they were won back in the Reagan period- a sure way to lose in 2016....

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Paul Nuttall, a 39 year old history lecturer, takes over the leadership of the UK Independence Party, UKIP, from Nigel Farage. The Daily Telegraph cites a new analysis by the House of Commons that shows UKIP could replace Labor Party in 13 parliamentary seats if only one voter in fifty shifted to UKIP. Farage says UKIP inspired the Trump campaign in America. Nuttall in his acceptance speech said "I want to replace the Labor Party and make UKIP the patriotic voice of working people." Nuttall is seen as being the best bet for UKIP to retain its hold on former Labor supporters in traditional working class constituencies in the north of England.

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At Stuyvesant, the most selective of New York public schools the student body is 74% Asian, 19% WHite, 3% Latino, and 1% African American. Mayor Blasio of New York is using the Discovery Program to limit the entry to the program which accounts for about 5% of the overall admissions to kids from schools that have a poverty rate of 60% or higher instead of to economically disadvantaged children in the city.  Two views are presented here. One that of the New York schools chancellor, Richard Carranza who says "I just don't buy the narrative that any one ethnic group owns admissions to these schools." Mayor Blasio of New York says that only 10% of Black and Latino students get offers from the specialized high schools even though they account for nearly 70% of the city's high school population. The other view is that the state is failing in its secondary schools system because New York state tests show only 47% of the city's third through eighth graders proficient in English and 43% in Math, with the number for Black and Latino students dropping to 34% for English and 25% for Math. This means about half or two thirds of New York state's school children cannot read proficiently and the numbers decline with socioeconomic conditions. Even Mayor Blasio is working at the fringes as the problem is deeper and needs to be fixed at another level than by tweaking which segment of the economically disadvantage children should have access to the best schools such as Stuyvesant.   ...

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This essay in the Economist magazine describes the voter rejection of ruling parties and their candidates in France. Two presidents and two former prime ministers from the Socialist party and the Republican Party, Hollande and Sarkozy, Valls and Fillon face rejection. And another candidate from the Republican party Juppe also has fared poorly. This leaves two outsiders LePen of the National Front, and Macron a former Economy minister in the Hollande government who launched En Marche as his own movement for moderate change alternative in 2016. The rural-urban and less educated-more educated divide which was evident in voting in the U.S. election and the Brexit referendum is now seen in France, says this essay. Research from the Economist shows National Front support highest in outlying areas of major cities. The fears of immigration, terrorism, and globalization leaving parts of the working class behind are factors in this election. Support for the European Union is also a factor as it has suffered in recent years.     ...

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The U.S. Census Bureau shows incomes of American households, the median household income, surged in 2015 by 5.2%. This increased by $2800 to $56,500. This is the largest increase since 1967. It shows that steadily improving employment and hiring is leading to improvement in incomes for the middle and working class. Ris in minimum wage has also helped . The largest increase was for the lowest 20% of the income tiers. Full time working women did better than men, with increase annually of 2.7% for women, and 1.5% for men. Nocitizen incomes increased 10.5% to $45,100, native born households went up 4.4% to $57,200. The number of people without health insurance also declined from 33 million or 10.4% of the population to  29 million people or 9.1%. Another way the changes are helping lower income households is the decline of the official poverty rate to 13.5% in 2015 by 1.2 percentage points from 14.8% in 2014. Through a series of small incremental steps the path is being set for a recovery of household incomes for the middle class and working class. A bright spot is that the improvement has affected all age groups, household types, regions and ethnic groups, though among full time workers women did better than men. In this recession older white men have had more difficulties getting back into the workforce. This is reflected in the political scene in 2015-2016 for the election season. ...

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Sandhya Sharma of The Economic Times puts a spotlight on the dominant role of China in global shipping by 2005. In 1980 China had a tiny role in global shipping, with bicycles a dominant form of transportation in Beijing. By 2019 this role had expanded to dominant position in all the largest modern technology container ports with global shipping volume having more than doubled since 2005. Much of this was done by working with major providers of container port technology such as Maersk of Denmark and other European shipping companies, with imported technology playing a critical part. India is starting from basics in its effort to develop its shipping in the Indian Ocean region with its large coastline facing the Suez Canal and the eastern coastline facing Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia. This was evident during the recent "Atman Nirbhar" global shipping meeting in Vizag- the Maritime India Summit 2021. The goal is to make the next decade one of rapid development of the maritime sector to secure India's position in global shipping particularly in the Indian Ocean region. Collaboration with major European technology providers will play a key role in developing container ports to the levels required for India's future role in global shipping. Sharma discusses the visit of premier Boris Johnson in April 2021 to India to forge strong trade ties.  The Indian prime minister held virtual meetings with premiers of Sweden and the Netherlands, two major maritime nations in Northern Europe for stronger trade and technology ties. These ties are part of the broader effort by the US, UK, and European Union countries to forge strong trade and technology ties with India now that it is clear to them that new supply chain will be needed over the next decade as China disengages from that level of its trade ties with Europe, US and India. New global supply chain means new global shipping container ports and global shipping links of India, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, with the US and Europe. Looking at what happened between sometime in 1995 and 2005, and in 2005 to 2009 when the global financial crisis hit, when China went from a miniscule level of world trade to predominance. And the years of the Obama administration 2008-2016 when this simply continued without any understanding of its implications for both sides, to levels of China's predominance in world shipping that can only be considered as unbelievable. Growing at over 12% through continued use of  imported technology from Europe and the US. Looking back at what happened one sees that this made China over dependent, its economy too intertwined with Europe and the US. This also made the US and Europe over dependent on China in its supply chain. It took the pandemic and the one term Trump administration, the crisis in Hong Kong, the situation in Ladakh and India's norther border, the South China seas and Vietnam,  for both sides to realize this was not in the interest of any of the countries involved.   ...

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The WSJ cites several surveys showing Hillary Clinton's large lead among voters less than 35 years is declining. This is the reason WSJ says that the overall lead of Clinton among all voters has declined to about 2-4 points. In Michigan for example a Detroit Free Press survey showing a 24 point lead for Clinton declines to 7 points among voters under 35 years, and causes a overall 11 point lead to fall to 4 points. Some of the support has gone to third party candidate Gary Johnson. In the 2012 election president Obama won the votes of about 60% of voters under 30 years, an important part of Obama's coalition. Of the 66 million votes cast 22% were from voters under 30 years age. As a result First Lady Michelle Obama will campaign on a college campus in Virgina. Senator Bernie Sanders will also campaign to attract the younger voters that made his campaign so strong, and Elizabeth Warren will speak at two Ohio universities in coming days. Sanders will stress the importance of Clinton's proposal for debt free college and funding more programs with higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans, and ask young voters to look further than mere personality to what they can expect to improve the lives of students and young people. This is happening 6 weeks before the election. A look back at 2012 about 7 weeks prior to the election in Lyrarc shows Obama with a 6 point lead, but only even with Romney when it came to handling of the economy because of the long recession. This shows how each election presents its own different set of circumstances and challenges. ...

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Senator Mitch McConnell, the U.S. Senate Majority leader, and Speaker Ryan, achieved a win in the U.S. Congress which is expected to set a new trend of bipartisan cooperation, as the House passed the bill in Dec. 2015 for $1.1 trillion spending with a vote of 316 to 113, and the Senate with vote of 65 to 33. The persuasion on the Republican side was based on giving Speaker Ryan a strong hand in negotiations with the White House in 2016. Ryan secured a lifting of the oil export ban for the Republican side in return for flexibility in spending. Ryan deftly sent the issue of Puerto Rico having access to bankruptcy laws to the committe chairmen to come up with a plan in March to get the needed votes. Democrats had pushed for aid to Puerto Rico. Also included in the bill that passed is giving more voice to emerging market countries China and India in the running of the IMF.