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Support in Germany for a global corporate minimum tax rate, which stops the race to the bottom in tax rates that starves essential infrastructure of financing. US president Biden made this a part of his effort for $2 trillion in spending to renovate decaying American infrastructure. Infrastructure that has deteriorated and suffered over four decades.

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Only upto a point does money make a difference and only in an highly unequal society that comes around every 100 years at times like this. This comparison here is with top 10% and bottom 10% when cost of things have gone up tremendously. It is a poor comparison and validates a society that does not value health and character over money. In a more normal situation where incomes are better laid out across the population for decent access to a good life, public investment for health facilities in every town or section of large cities, and looking at people in the middle from 20% to 80% in the income distribution -it is the choices made how much to spend on fruits,  vegetables, ancient grains, and the educational access in a fair deal society that teaches one to make good food choices, avoiding processed foods and eating less meat and poultry, exercizing, and avoiding alcohol and tobacco, meditation, yoga and spiritual life, and use of public health facilities for exercise, can gradually add up to better healthier living at moderate incomes.  ...

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French president Macron meets president Putin of Russia for a deescalation of tensions on NATO and Ukraine. Macron for the first time offers an approach that he calls the "Finlandization" of Ukraine. Finland maintained its independence as a neutral country in tensions between US and Russia.  President Biden says the US and Germany are united in their approach, and Nordstream 2 pipeline just completed to supply Germany with Russian gas will be shut down if Russia invades Ukraine. German chancellor Olaf Scholz says little during the crisis and is described as not "audible." Germany has fought two world wars with Russia and seeks a solution that recognizes Russian concerns about NATO yet one that is consistent with the alliance it has with America and concerns of its Polish and Baltic neighbors such as Finland, Sweden, and Lithuania. Meetings are planned for Olaf Scholz of Germany with president Putin of Russia in coming weeks, and with Ukraine in Kiev. ...

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The long and bruising process of exiting the European Union for Britain is being seen across EUrope as a lesson. Marie Le Pen in France and Salvini in Italy have dropped ideas of France or Italy leaving the EU. Nationalist politicians are now shifting to a new agenda of reforming the European Union from within. Voters are being reassured by politicians that it is best to remain inside the European Union. Chancellor Merkel has carefully guided the European Union through this crisis, first through the eurozone financial crisis, then through a period of migration to Europe from war torn Middle Easter and African countries, and more recently with president Macron of France facing the effort to get Britain to leave the EU. After Boris Johnson's win in British elections with 44% of the vote Britain now faces the difficult choice especially for hard line Brexiters such as Mr. Jacob-Lees Moog and Johnson, to either accept European rules, regulations and standards over which it has little control or lose market access to the EU. There is also the issue of Scotland which favors being inside the EU and a Scottish independence referendum. ...

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The importance of a gap year in education remains underutilized in Indian education because of a lack of role models. A gap year in education during the early college and postgraduate years can give a person new experiences and skills, a new sense of purpose, that he or she may carry over into further education and create additional opportunities over time. In this way the gap year actually reinforces the idea that is behind changes in the way education is being setup today, that encourage young people to try out different subjects in the sciences and the humanities to find what they are best at and where their interests lie. In the same way new experiences including travel, meeting people, trying out new activities can enhance one's personal development and growth as a person.

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Physical exercize done regularly, done daily, and a willingess to put up with the mundane, boredom of the mundane to put on the sneakers, getting out or getting on a treadmill, rower or bike, to keep pushing forward, day after day. This is important to ward off cancers, heart issues, metabolic disorders, and keep mental health. Good sleep is important, so is emotional wellbeing, mindfulness in its 4 forms, and meditation, prayer and reading. Healthy eating and eating habits that help build up health, and medication such as herbal supplements including turmeric and ginger use, are other important actions to take for healthy living.

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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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US DJT Tariffs impact 1 year later- global trade has held up well with US unemployment at 4.4% and economic growth at 2.1%. China imports down from 20% in 2016 to 10% ten years later in 2026. For DJT that was a promise kept leading to a sharp decoupling of the US economy from the Chinese economy that was leading to huge trade deficits of 1 trillion dollars. Too much of the world's supply chain was tied up with manufacturing in China. It got so bad under Reagan, the two Bushes, Clinton/Obama that the US and EU were facing deindustrialization with huge risks to the future of the US and Europe as industrial powers. 150 years of industrialization and scientific advancement, the great achievements of Europe and the United States since 1860's was going up in smoke over reckless policies of Republican and Democratic elites who gave little thought and barely understood the long run effects of their policies and textbook theories of the economy. Most economists from ivy league universities got it completely wrong. ...

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The head of the hospital group that represents 39 public hospitals in the Paris region APHP, Mr. Hirsch, says that by October 24 about 800 to 1000 coronavirus cases in intensive care ICU are expected taking up 70 to 90 percent of capacity in the Paris region.This has placed added urgency to the actions of the French government and tougher measures are expected following the Macron announcement of a curfew in Paris region and eight metropolitan regions in France.

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Amtrak Biden says is an essential part of the fight to tackle climate change. Rail has 83% less greenhouse emissions than automobiles, and 73% less than plane air travel. It also has the potential to create half a million good jobs. President Biden was known as "Amtrak Joe" because he used Amtrak for decades as America's Senator from Delaware. In this video president Biden speaks at the 50th anniversary of Amtrak in Philadelphia. He says one of the conductors on his daily route estimated Biden has done 1.5 million miles on Amtrak compared to 1.1 million miles on Air Force One. Biden says he has traveled on Amtrak for as long as Amtrak has been in existence- for close to 50 years.

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Former Fed chairman Paul Volcker has opinion about the financial crisis that is deeply felt. He wants the wall that separates banks that take in federally insured deposits from the public separated from the risky trading activities of investment banking houses. That would essentially put us back to the situation that existed before Glass Steagall Act of 1933 was revoked in the 1999. The lessons of the thirties apply today. Says Volcker "people say I am old-fashioned and banks can no longer be seaprated from nonbank activity, but that argument brought us back to where we are today." The Obama advisers like Geithner and Summers are close to the bankers- see the links to Geithner and Summers- and believe that extensively regulating the banks would prevent the banks from engaging in risky practices. However as this reporter Louis Uchitelle of the NYT has not pointed out, the problem is that this is more easily said than done. The very fact that there were close ties between Geithner and Summers and the bankers during the Clinton Administration and Geithner as head of the New York Fed under the Bush administration, and the aggressive lobbying by the investment banks like Goldman and others who are now banks to water down any regulation on derivatives trading and on other supervision, can only lead to a situation where neither Volcker's solution or the Obama people's solution is put into effect. THis will only invite another crisis. With the public anger even worse as the bonuses and compensation from trading profits by Goldman and other banks come through cheap money created by the Fed- see links- for the purpose of addressing the financial crisis. Volcker would separate JP Morgan and Bear Stearns trading operations and separate Merrill from BofA, and Goldman would revert from abank holding company to a investment banking house. Volcker believes that the pay on Wall Street "has gotten grotesquely large." Volcker believes that the separation of deposit taking institutions from investment banking would reduce trading profits and consequently automatically reduce these large bonuses. So is Volcker being ignored by the Obama administration, even as his glow helped the Obama people win public support as a better steward of the economy than McCain during the election campaign? During the crisis Volcker headed the president's Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Today he is rarely seen in his Washington office, he talks to administration officials mostly on the phone, at 82 he is not knocking on doors, and the advisory board has been assigned to look at the tax law on overseas corporate profits. Volcker agrees with most of the Obama plan on financial regulation including higher capital requirements and and pay guidelines, but if this is not enacted because of lobbying by bankers then the nation will have the benefit of neither the Volcker Plan or the Obama Plan. ...

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As Goldman Sachs is about to report its first quarterly loss since 1929 of $2 billion it finally ends its long profit making run. In a Bloomburg interview on December 14, Ace Greenberg an old investment bank hand at Bear Stearns, says the days of investment banks like Goldman Sachs are now past. The old model investment banks are gone.

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France's Health minister announces that health care workers will not be allowed to work after September 15, 2021 or receive a salary if they are not vaccinated. Health pass will be required to access bars, restaurants, trains and flights in France.

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India stands true to the principles of Mohandas Gandhi and joins Pope Francis in strongly condemning the killing of innocent civilians in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as Gandhi would have done in his own way when he even paused the nonviolent struggle against the British after the burning of police stations in British India. Of no less significance is the danger of food insecurity caused by the war in Asia, Africa and Latin America which India is meeting. India is America's true partner in the free world in a way that even Germany, France, even Britain fail to be now that we know Merkel's policy "errors" and Macron's lofty ambitions for Europe, emboldened Russia in its invasion of Ukraine. American and German business integration of the American and German economies with China may also have emboldened Russia and China in their perceptions of world affairs that directly conflict with China's Buddhist history, Gandhi's view of the world, and India as the land of the Buddha.  Mr. Biden will talk with Modi about the invasion of Ukraine , the Indo-Pacific, and the building of strong India-US partnership. A major issue that has not been discussed at this level is the challenge India is facing and meeting of food security after the war in Ukraine. Pakistan, Sri Lanka and many developing countries are feeling the effects of the war with soaring food prices denying access to basic necessities in these countries. This extends to countries from Asia to Africa and Latin America affecting hundreds of millions of people.  India is providing food assistance following its effort to share vaccines in a remarkable effort that has not received the world's attention. Vaccination for over a billion people in India has taken place in one of the significant achievements during the pandemic. This was combined with food security assistance to hundreds of millions of people in India in India's population of 1.2 billion people. India is now in a position to meet some of the world's food needs with its own efforts in agricultural production. In this way the role played by the US since World War II for peace and security is being met by India as a significant partner in the free world, and in a way this is returning the kind of help the US offered India during the period of famine in the sixties. US president Biden understands this as he will discuss "mitigating the destabilising impact on global food supply and commodity markets" of the war in Ukraine. These are the hidden costs of the war that are not less painful than the gory war scenes unfolding today in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and because they are about food they are of no less importance. ...

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Internet content and communications provider Yahoo, is losing ground. Compared to a 4% growth for the Internet overall, Yahoo's increase in unique vistors was 4%, according to comScore in the 4 months of 2010 to April. Total minutes dropped 11%, and page views dropped 13% in same period, compared to double digit increases for the Web. Yahoo CEO, Bartz, lacks a background in journalism and content development. And AOL is pursuing a similiar strategy. Yahoo agreed to acquire Associated Content which aggregates content from bloggers, and it is making trials with local content in Detroit and Cleveland for user engagement. Bartz plans to revamp the email interface. Analysts sense that the repair job will be tough for Bartz as Yahoo's image has suffered.