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Private real estate handed over to a new generation in 2026 in the US is worth trillions of dollars.

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Mr. Trump told Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar at the White House he is disappointed with the way Brexit has evolved in the three years since he supported Brexit during the election campaign. Trump said "it is tearing the country apart. Its actually tearing a lot of countries apart."  After a series of votes in the British parliament Trump told reporters he gave May some negotiating advice. "I gave the prime minister my ideas on how to negotiate. I think she would have been successful., she did'nt listen to that." So what happened? What advice did Trump give on negotiating? There are only some hints on this. Theresa May told the BBC in an interview after Trump's visit to London in July 2018- "He told me I should sue the E.U. -not go into negotiations., Sue them."  Trump made a prediction a day after the referendum to Leave saying "the E.U. is going to break up." This was at the time of the financial crisis in the European Union with problems in Greece, Spain and Portugal. Since then the economies of these countries revived. Spain has 3% growth for three years even though it faces fresh elections. In his 2000 book "The America we Deserve" Trump pointed out his sense threat the U.S. should pull back from the E.U and save millions of dollars annually. In recent years he has suggested that the E.U was "a foe"  and "it was formed as a consortium so that it could compete with the United States." The problems in Europe happened in the period 2016-2018 with divisions emerging on the issue of immigration. This wave of immigration was a result of Arab and African conflicts and lag in Africa between development and the rapidly rising population. Chancellor Merkel was ill prepared to handle this wave of immigration and in retrospect her policy did little to address the roots of the problems of immigration from North Africa, a policy later adopted when popular support for immigration of this kind and scale declined. It affected the vote for Brexit playing into deep seated doubts about the benefits of EU membership in parts of Britain.  Mr. Trump supports no-deal Brexit which was defeated by large margins in the British parliament and lacks support across all parts of society, business and political parties in Britain. Trump own sense that Brexit has divided many countries and his dialogue with the Irish prime minister must show an awareness of the views of Ireland about the hard won peace and E.U. borders in Ireland.     ...

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Peter Baker offers an assessment of U.S. president Obama's 2015 State of the Union address in 2015, as marking the huge disconnect between him and the Republicans in Congress, after Republicans took control of both Houses of Congress. Obama offered programs for 2 years of free community college and student aid, and other programs that have no realistic basis without the two parties coming to an agreement. For most of the evening he appeared to be talking to his own party's base towards the end of his presidency. Baker asks if this was irresponsible considering that it had little basis in reality. Especially when opportunities to help the middle class and working class Americans were missed earlier in the two term presidency.

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LDP Komeito alliance wins 47 seats. Sanseito nationalist challenging LDP  government wins 14 seats in Japan parliamentary election July 2025. A tariff of 24% on Japanese car imports are increased by DJT to 25% in frustration over slow talks about an agreement. Japanese prime minister Ishiba is unlikely to remain in office more than a few months after losing majority in parliament. This means more uncertainty in the talks with the US over reciprocal and car tariffs. With the nationalists challenging the LDP's stiad party politics the LDP does not want to look weak in defending Japan's national interests.

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A lot of readers responded to this saying that the Nano will actually reduce the consumption of gasoline per passenger mile travelled and reduce CO2 emissions as the two wheelers it replaces are very fuel inefficient and polluting. Also future versions of the Nano can be improved to develop more fuel efficent ones and also with new technologies like hybrid and so on which reduce oil consumption and emissions even further. Meantime readers say it is important for western countries to focus their energies on developing other technologies like electric vehicles and other hybrid technologies that can then be transferred to Asian countries to fuel efficient and less polluting motorization possible there. The shift to smaller vehicles in western countries would also create a healthy balance and a global partnership in the true sense of the word to oil consumption and prices down.

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Dominic Randolph, headmaster of Riverdale Country School, New York City, is skeptical of the value of an education that focusses so much on test taking, IQ and scores, and does so little to build the character and resilience that is so essential to life experiences. He says the ability to handle failure and learn from failure to build a better life is something students fail to learn in the competitive school environment of today.

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Gage points out that crime in America is about half what it was in 1991. She traces the calls for law and order in American politics back to Coolidge and Nixon. Trump's reference to restoring law and order is about checking the calls for correcting social injustice, movements for gun control, and public protest such as "Black Lives Matter," not just criminals, says Gage. In fact strict deportation has been the policy in 2 terms of the Obama administration, with immigration from Mexico at an all time low, another of the paradoxes in relation to the Trump calls for a wall with Mexico that would cost $23 billion. 

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HDFC Bank CEO, Aditya Puri, has succeeded with conservative practices in lending. It is now India's second biggest lender by market value, after the government owned State Bank of India. HDFC's lending to consumers has doubled since 2008 under Puri. He believes in prudent lending and keeps an autographed copy of Michael Lewis's The Big Short in his office. This has enabled Puri to avoid the losses experienced by other banks such ICICI, and with India's growing economy HDFC has profit increases of over 30% for the last decade. HDFC is adding 2 million customers a year, says Puri. The bad loan ratio is estimated to be 0.2% in the third quarter of 2011, one tenth of that at State Bank of India. India's largest mortgage lender, Housing Development Finance Corporation, is the largest shareholder with 23%. Puri says he will focus on growth in India, and will continue to avoid taking the kind of risks that would make depositor's lose sleep at night.

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Weak and poorly equipped public health systems, densely crowded conditions, make coronavirus spread extremely serious in South Asian and African countries. India imposed a complete lockdown of the entire country. South Africa imposed a 21 day lockdown enforced by the military. Decisive and strong action is needed early. Pakistan acted early to quarantine pilgrims entering the country from Iran. Pakistan's government has announced a $20 monthly wage subsidy for poorer households. The average in Africa is 20, according to the UN, and South Asian populations are also very young. Generally hotter climates may offer some offsetting factors to makeup for the lack of strong public health systems. India made major strides in direct deposit to bank accounts of 1.3 billion citizens by the government for many social safety net schemes in the last 5 years. It has also computer records of all citizens under a plan underway for a decade. The nationwide rollout of 4G mobile technologies has connected every citizen including remote areas. This should assist in the identification and isolation of affected areas and people. Other factors that mitigate the spread will be access to medicine when medicine and vaccine is developed for the virus. India has a large pharmaceutical industry, scientific labs and other medical resources similar to South Korea, which should help limit the affected areas and people. ...

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Questioning assumptions on way to net zero emissions- heat pumps run on electricity need to look at overall costs. Cheaper electricity gets more heat pumps installed.

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Americans in retirement are able to rebuild their savings with interest on money market funds of over 5%. This is the result of 5% percentage points of consecutive rate increases by Jay Powell's Fed. In addition about $121 billion went to savers as they faced $151 billion in higher interest rate costs on mortgages and loans. The result with a strong labor market and lower inflation of about 3% is an economy that is resilient and can provide the 5 or 7 plus  years of growth needed for America to meet the challenges it faces with its allies in the EU, Asia and Latin America, Africa- to tackle climate change, to rebuild America's crumbling infrastructure, to invest in education and healthcare, to improve worker incomes, and build its manufacturing at home into a strong thriving sector for good paying worker incomes.