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Biden gave a passionate and vigorous speech at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, Aug 19, 2024 comparable to what he did in the State of the Union message to the US Congress and people in January 2023 and January 2024. Gone was any semblance of the bad day at the debate that came after covid symptoms. The first night at the Democrat Convention brought before Biden's speech speakers Hillary Clinton, Governor Beshear of Kentucky, touching personal accounts of trauma of women who were denied abortion in rape and incest and mother's health conditions, Steve Kerr, US Coach men's basketball team at the US Olympics, and three members of Congress. Steve Kerr said it was the duty of Americans to protect American democracy and the respect for the dignity of people, workers and families, that is part of the values of the American people for two hundred years, values Biden exemplified and Kamala is shaped by. Ashley Clinton reminded people of her father's love for the country and family- telling the country how her father took the train from Washington D.C. to Wilmington Delaware just to see Ashley, Jill and the family for her birthday when she was just seven years, stayed for a few minutes at the station and after blowing the candles headed right back to D.C. Dignity, decency, values, personal sacrifice, courage, these are the values that Coach Steve Kerr said America expected from its leaders. Thes are the values of Joe Biden of Delaware as he went through 50 years int he US Senate, 8 years as Vice President and his term as president. And above all Biden used this experience to pass legislation  for the Renewal of America that makes him many speakers say the most consequential president since FDR. ...

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A 50 foot marble statue was placed at the canopy near India Gate of King George V in 1936, by Edwin Lutyens, in an irony of history only 11 years before independent India emerged out of the British Empire in India. It was not removed till 1968 and no decision was made on what should replace it until 2022. Today the statue of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose now stands at that place, Bose led the Indian Army's fight for independence from territory freed by the Japanese after Gandhi adopted Quit India in 1942 and most of the Indian leaders were arrested and Netaji escaped to East Asia. Part of the reason Netaji and patriots who fought to free India through means other than non violent protest were not seen as having made significant contribution was the sense that the Japanese invasion of China had shown it was another colonial power. However without the Japanese weakening British rule in Asian countries the British may have continued their rule in India. After the Japanese had proved the British, Dutch and French empires could be removed from Asia, the process that began with Naoroji, Tilak and Gokhale, and continued by Gandhi, Bose, Nehru and  Patel working together  seemed inevitably headed for success. Seen in this way a genuine understanding of Hind Swaraj can be gained. Mohandas Gandhi points this out in Hind Swaraj by saying that Gokhale was the true leader of independent India. In the true sense of genuine struggle the leaders and unknown soldiers who were jailed in the Andaman islands made significant contributions including Tilak. The struggle for Hind Swaraj was done by people who took the largest risks, and who weighed the future carefully. And this includes Gandhi and Bose,Tilak and Gokhale, and most of all the unknown people who were at the Salt March and Quit India movements.   ...

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What a kitchen looks like, what a kitchen renovation looks like with a budget of $1 million - or similar in simple style, no bells and whistles, could be done for less than $100,000. A kitchen one could use with small children or grandchildren out in the garden, as this one is for a Danish owner of a house on Lake Zug in Switzerland.

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Gradual recovery of the American economy. But a lot of uncertainty remains.

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Raghuram Rajan, Professor of Finance at the Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago, was appointed chief economist at the IMF in 2003. He presented a paper, titled "Has Financial Development Made the World Riskier," at the annual Jackson Hole meeting of economists and central bankers for 2005. Rajan says he had planned to write about how financial developments during Greenspan's 18 year old tenure had made things safer, but the more he looked the more evidence came up that the risk reward relationships in a normal functioning financial market had been terribly distorted. Market participants were being rewarded for wins but were not being asked to take on commensurate risks and impacts on their bonuses and rewards. He also cautioned about the use of credit default swaps which acted as insurance against bond defaults, and said insurers were generating big returns on this but with the appearance of little risk- even though the pain could be immense in a default. Banks were carrying credit securties on their books that posed risks to the whole financial system if things went wrong with the credit securities. Reaction from the gathering was unfavorable. Lawrence Summers, a former Treasury Secretary said, "the basic, slightly lead eyed premise of the paper was misguided."...

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A careful examination of the Case-Shiller 20 City Index shows that even though housing prices increased by 5.9% year to date through July 2012, when looked at year over prior year only 2 cities Minneapolis and Detroit show an increase over 6%, other than Pheonix at 16%. It increased only 1.2% over the prior year in July 2012. Sixteen cities showed increases, Atlanta, Chicago, Las Vegas and New York showed declines. For this reason the interpretation of this one month data should be done cautiously as it can be skewed by unusual factors such as lower short and foreclosure sales according to experts.

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Philippe Varin faces some tough decisions when he takes over Peugeot-Citroen. Unlike the turnaroungd he achieved at Corus steel group where the booming demand from China for steel helped, this time the auto market in Europe is declining by about 30%. He has to navigate betwen the interests of the Peugeot family which has 45% of the voting rights, employees who are affected by the cost cutting, the French government which has required no closing of factories for as long as the company receives governement aid. Peugeot-Citroen received a low interest loan of 3 billion euros from the French government. Questions he will have to address, as do all auto manufacturers in the USA and Europe relate to overcapacity as demand declines. And for Peugeot this has to be tackled without factory closures. And the other major issue facing auto manufacturers worldwide is how much to focus on the fuel efficient small car segment. Peugeot has key strengths in this segment and Varin may decide on refocussing on this segment....

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Ukraine's efforts to repair a power grid damaged by Russian missile and drone attacks as the Ukraine war enters its final stages before a settlement of some sort is reached.

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The European commissioner for industrial strategy, Stéphane Séjourné, says “Whenever European public money is spent in Europe, it must contribute to European production and quality jobs." The Guardian supports this view for an industrial strategy to create jobs and economic benefits for Europe in 2026 to match "Made in China."

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Activity in downtown San Francisco remains at about a third of prepandemic levels, with remote work having caught on for tech companies during the pandemic employees are there for only half of the week. Office vacancy rates are 28% for downtown. In a strange twist Silicon Valley that led the shift of manufacturing to China and ignored that this led to loss of tax revenues for the towns across America, and decline of these towns that lost factories, is now facing the same situation in its own backyard. Office based industry provides three quarters of San Francisco tax revenue, and faces a $780 million deficit for the next 2 years. Mentally ill on streets near a Whole Foods, and dealers in Fentanyl, homelessness, lead to closing of a Whole Foods store in downtown San Francisco. Thomas Fuller and Sharon LaFraniere provide this report in WSJ of the situation in downtown San Francisco in 2023. Reports from California show the failure to build enough housing during the tech boom for the average American, and apartments for homeless costing hundreds of thousands of dollars and years behind schedule. The mayor is looking for tougher laws to put mentally ill off the streets. There is no consensus on action. Tech investors people hope for another Tech boom to tackle the situation, yet tech companies are retrenching and face government scrutiny even breakup. Even a speeded up effort to add 20% of the housing stock of the city of San Francisco by adding 83,000 apartments from Mayor Ms. Breed would take 8 years.  ...

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Questions raised in this Hindustan Times report about whether India's participation in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization makes sense now after the pandemic and the new arrangement in global affairs. New supply chains and trade alliances formed after the pandemic are likely to be very different after the pandemic and formed with dominant consideration of each nation's economic interests including manufacturing in the home country.  India joined the SCO to forge ties with the central Asian countries. But this no longer makes sense as India's manufacturing ties with individual nations such as Britain, Japan, Taiwan and the U.S., European Union may make more sense and build on "Made in India" initiatives than older thinking and approaches. Britain after Brexit, Japan and Taiwan after a realignment of trade relations, are keen on expanding business and trade, investment ties with India. India has many opportunities to pursue for mutual economic benefit with these countries. Germany, France and other EU countries, the U.S. are also keen on expanding trade and investment with India to boost their economies after the pandemic. This is a crucial juncture for India to plan for the next 10 years for a changing world in which India becomes a dominant story in manufacturing. Australia's participation in the RCEP may also not be long term under the prevailing climate of trade relations with China. Australia India trade can be expanded with new efforts.  ...

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WSJ on how America's political establishment lied about Covid's real origins in a Lab in Wuhan, China, after some in the American scientific community ignored prudent warnings about possible accidental release, and sent the virus from the US lab to a lab in Wuhan that was not fully prepared to handle it. In reality the Biden administration erred when it did not conduct an open assessment of what had happened, because this would have earned and kept the people's trust instead of dividing the country into vaccine believers and vaccine unbelievers.  Sections of the virologist community in the US and in China that promoted such research against the advice of others in the scientific community could have accepted their error with humility. The people of Asia have made great advances in this century- some call it the Asian century- great advances in manufacturing and in science. Yet they are not so fragile, the people in the Buddha lands and the land of Gandhi are not not so fragile that they could not accept that what they had achieved was on the shoulders of what hundreds of European scientists and inventors had done over three centuries since 1700. And that there was much to learn. The Chinese people and government can look with great self-respect for what they had achieved in the last 100 years not to need the condescension of the virologist community.  In a sense this divided the US people's perceptions of China, with half of the country skeptical about the virologist community's explanations accepted by the Biden administration. This was not in any way good for China and the Chinese people. In fact one can say that by handling this with an open mind would have clearly built more trust in China-US relations, and that China- US relations reached the lowest during the end of the Biden administration point with the Balloons incident. And recovered afterwards to this point of mutual respect under a frank president with candor and respect. This vaccine blunder also created further culture wars conflicts around the US, to ones based on race, LGBTQ, and other less consequential matters than the deindustrialization and loss of America's manufacturing base and its best jobs in huge numbers under the watch of Bush and Obama administrations, and their followers in the Republican and Democratic parties. What happened is that the country was split on race, gender, immigration, and belief in Christian values. Issues such as nuclear non proliferation (Iran) presented in ways that adversely affect the US. by calling it something else. In all such issues honesty is the best policy, dealing in a straight forward manner wiht the public is the best course, for reasons that are timeless and well recognized. Failure to do so on the part of the Elites only creates distrust of official explanations by the people of America. ...

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After Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, he hired Tim Cook in 1998 to help transform Apple's manufacturing organization which had become dysfunctional by that time. Tim Cook with a Masters degree in industrial engineering at Auburn University and MBA from Duke, worked in operations at Compaq Computer at the time. Cook trimmed big inventories and brought quality control and the supply chain to high standards. He will run Apple during Steve Jobs absence for health reasons.

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Some insights into the thinking of Robert Rubin from an interview by Ken Brown and David Enrich with the former Treasury Secretary in the Clinton administration about the 2008 financial crisis. As Justice John Paul Stevens. the longest serving Supreme Court justice on the bench once said, those who administer the judicial system form the backbone of the law. In a like manner those who administer the financial and economic system form its backbone, which is why Rubin faces some tough questions in this interview. At the time he was Treasury Secretary, the NYT magazine ran a story on Robert Rubin, as the kind of person who liked to put things down rationally on a note pad, and think things through on the basis of this rational analysis. This is how he approached the Mexican financial crisis of 1994 and the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Here is some of that note pad Rubin, in the context of CDO's and risk taking, with something gone awry. Risks that according to this NYT report Rubin encouraged at Citigroup in 2004 and 2005, on the basis of the idea that Citi's competitors were taking on more risk and making bigger profits. His note pad approach appears to have led to conclusions by Rubin that considering the additional profits that could be made by Citi by ramping up the risk taking in 2004 and 2005 and afterwards like its competitors, it could lead to losses if things went wrong, but these losses would'nt come close to wiping out the profits made during the good times. The cyclical downturn he expected to see in 2004 and 2005 when he is reported to have added his voice to others that the bank take on more risk, was a cyclical downturn of the type he had seen during the 1994 Mexican devaluation and the 1997 Asian financial crisis. He had no idea that it would be a cyclical undervaluing of risk added on to a housing bubble, and to a triple A ratings issuance that was misguided. Rubin says here that there was hardly anyone who saw that low-probability event as a possibility. Was the housing bubble a low probability event, and were the issuance of ratings by the credit ratings agencies compromised by the drive for more business a normal pattern, or would some digging up of facts and some innate skepticism of the prevailing current in favor of one's own instincts that something was overdone missed in the notepad analysis of a supposedly rational approach? Or was there a feeling that somehow the U.S. with its long tradition of technology, its work ethic and sophisticated financial system was somehow immune to something as severe as what the Asian countries were experiencing in 1997, or what happened in the 1930's. Asked about his view of what happened Rubin says that looking back there was an enormous amount that needs to be learned. Rubin is also in a quandary when he has to respond to the public concerns about excessive executive compensation. Rubin made $115 million in pay since 1999, excluding stock options, while under his purview as the highest ranking board member Citigroup let some of the problems that it faces now accumulate. As Citigroup faces $20 billion in losses in 2008, a bear raid on its stock by short sellers who ironically were able to do this because of some of the lax regulation set in motion in the Rubin Greenspan years leading to the suspension of the Uptick rule, and the $45 billion government bailout last week. Rubin may have helped Citi but in a different sort of way. He was able to persuade Treasury- Treasury Secretary Paulson was a fellow executive at former employer Goldman Sachs- through the days before the bailout, ensuring government help was on its way. Citigroup shares had dropped to $3.77 a share in the third week of November 2008, losing 50% of their value in one week, as the discussions took place. ...

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It says a lot about America at this time in 2025, and should be reassuring to all that these women are standing tall in their effort to do this- to pursue satisfaction of contributing to national life and professional lives, and being good parents involved in raising children. Shown in this report in WSJ as examples of Conservative Women are Alabama Senator Katie Britt 43 years, May Mailman deputy assistant to the President, and ,Shannon Clark. Other women shown are former North Carolina governor Nikki Haley,  Karoline Leavitt, press secretary to the president, Huckabee Sanders, governor of Arkansas. They all say their faith, grit, family and spouse, and setting priorities, are helping them both make it in their careers and be engaged parents at the same time. Pew Research shows of women in both parties Republican and Democratic, about 70% want careers outside the home, and about 88% want good parenting at the same time.   ...

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Ankara, Turkey's capital city, during the street protests in Turkish cities. Protests in Ankara were at Kizilay Square and at Kugulu Park. Ankara is the centre of Turkey's secular history under Ataturk and the years since.

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WSJ reporters Chow, Schechner and Kostov provide this exceptional report from the 11th Arondissement in France, scene of the terrorist attacks in Nov. 2015, describing the conflicting visions of French society- one secular and the other in other parts of the country anti-immigrant. The National Front of Marie Le Pen sees immigration as "a mortal threat to France" and won about 25% of the vote in France in the 2014 European parliament elections, a first for a anti-immigrant party in Europe. It did very well in rural areas and small towns of northwest France and southern France. The debate on immigration is now dominating headlines in Europe, including Denmark, Norway, Germany, France, Rumania, Hungary, and other countries. The Syrian refugee crisis has exacerbated the situation.

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EU leaders from Germany, France, and UK meet Zelensky of Ukraine In London, June 7 2026. Rubio says US has halted mediation efforts till such time as Ukraine and Russia show some willingness to negotiate a settlement in earnest. So far that has not been the case. The response of EU leaders and Russia is only likely to continue the war in 2026.

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Iceberg 23a in the Antarctic Weddell Sea is shown here in spectacular photographs as it melts and breaks up. See these photos on the impact of climate change in real life in one of the remote areas of the world.

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A major problem for parents and the schools may be knowing this and use this knowledge to keep increasing prices is that the true value of education is about your own effort and the quality of teachers, that the major state universities provide everything one needs for a good education, one just has to work hard at it. There is nothing about a Northwestern or a Brown that cannot be done by studying in the UC state system universities or state universities across the Nation, yet paradoxically the idea is kept up of the added value of a prestige name when much of a good education can be achieved at state universities costing $13,000 a year or $52,000 for 4 years at a UC Riverside or UC Santa Barbara. Michigan state instate at $16,000 and Arizona State at $13,000 a year are similar to other options.Upper middle class families struggling to pay for colleges that charge anywhere from $38,000 a year to $96,000 a year for so called elite. A shocking 40% increase in college tution is not justified by the colleges who seem to be impervious to the impact of these price increases when no such price increases were seen in the post war decades that followed 1950. Here a father who works as a director of a manufacturing company with incomes in the range of $200,000-$250,000 a year faces the difficult decisions of letting children make the decision and yet having to make sober choices about affordability. With about $200,000 set aside for tution expenses for 2 children parents face tution that can cost for 4 years $160,000 to $250,000 for 1 child. In this situation Brown cost $93,000 a year but reduced it to $65,000, Northwestern and Cornell wanted $96,000 and $81,000 a year, Notre Dame $38,000 a year and UC Berkeley $52,000 for instate tution. This means there is little left for the second child's college tution when the first child 4 year cost is in this case $65,000 a year for Brown University and $260,000 for 4 years.  ...