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Microsoft CEO completed 36 major acquisitions since taking over from Steve Ballmer in 2014. In this report Jay Greene of WSJ points out a significant change under Nadella. Under Gates and Ballmer the heads of companies acquired were not brought into company executives discussions. Nadella invited these heads to join the rest of the company's top managers to meetings to hear different views. Nadella says Microsoft would not have missed big trends had it listened more. Under Ballmer acquisitions such as Nokia were not properly handled. Even under Gates in the earlier period products in Search later developed by Google did not get the attention they deserved and heads of companies acquired did not get  to actively participate. The Not Invented Here Syndrome applied to Microsoft managers. The aggressive attitudes did not produce the best results. Like Apple's Cook who has a collaborative style, Nadella has set out to open up the company to different ideas and people. Nadella has shifted the company away from earlier products to cloud computing and mobile computing to produce better results. Under Nadella open source software programming receives the openness and respect it deserves, after the Ballmer years. The change in attitude is real and Nadella as a Microsoft veteran for 24 years has been able to steer the company in a new direction. ...

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Germany's national broadcaster DW.com looks into the details of the vaccination drive in countries around the world, including Germany, and finds that there is more to the story than meets the eye in headlines about safety in vaccinations. Many headlines do not tell the whole story carefully. DW revewed reports from Italy, Austria, South Korea, Germany, Spain, the USA, Norway, Belgium and Peru, and found that in most cases health authorites have not found causal links between the vaccination and deaths.  As of March 15 it says 360 million people have been vaccinated in 120 countries, or about 9.25 million a day.  DW.com cites the Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) which states: 'there is no indication that vaccination has caused these conditions, which are not listed as side effects with this vaccine. Information available so far indicates that the number of thromboembolic events in vaccinated people is no higher than that seen in the general population." As of March 10, 2021 30 cases of blood clots are recorded for 5 million people vaccinated with Astra Zeneca vaccine in the European Economic Area.  The Paul Ehrlich Institute which is in charge of vaccination in Germany has looked into 113 reported deaths in 46 years to 100 years old patients in Germany. Of these 113 deaths PEI finds that 20 died of the Covid 19 infection as it takes 14 days after the second dose for full protection, and 43 died of pre-existing conditions or other infections. For the patient population it says "they were seriously ill patients with many underlying diseases." PEI says "based on the data we have we assume they died of their underlying disease- in a coincidental time with the vaccination." A virologist at the Technical University of Munich, says that the deaths after vaccination are below the expected number of deaths without the vaccination.  ...

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Steve Bannon is described in this indepth report by Scott Shane as a workaholic, born to working class family with his father a telephone line operator, who went to Virginia Tech and joined the Navy in the hope of advancing a career in politics. At Virginia Tech he won a leadership position of the student organization. He was described by another student who knew him well as passionate but not likely to get much done. The period at Virginia Tech and in the Navy were the Carter years followed by election of Ronald Reagan. The election of Reagan had a huge influence on Bannon- the same overtones of that campaign of Reagan are seen today in the forgotten men and women, white working class families that Conservatives then and Tea Party Conservatives in the Obama years felt ignored. The downward drift of the lower middle class families that saw incomes drop as manufacturing hollowed out in the U.S. with foreign competition, the failure of establishment politicians of both parties to protect American manufacturing and working class families, added to the sense of angst for Bannon. Bannon just like politicians in the Obama camp such as Emmanuel, found the way to politics through finance and gains made as the banking sector and financial institutions made huge financial gains by 2008. This was a stepping stone for their political ambitions. Emmanuel who is also a workaholic and passionate about his views worked to elect a black president, Bannon choosing to do the opposite and push for bringing back the Reagan era. Most on the liberal side see him as part of a racist movement. Reagan was none of those things. How does one reconcile the two? It is possible that seeing the fight against the established politics as an impossible task, Bannon in his passionate temperament did not object to the support of right wing extremists, in the same way that Trump did. As both Trump and Bannon have people of Jewish origin and black people in their circle of friends or family. What incensed Bannon as described here by Scott Shane of the NYT, was that after the financial crisis of 2008, hardly any bank executives who had committed wrongdoing went to jail, his father's line operator retirement savings were devastated by the financial crisis, and working class families struggled harder than ever, that his daughter at West Point was with mostly children of working class families who were the ones fighting America's wars. Many ironies abound in the story. Bannon got his business start in the same financial institutions that were involved in the financial crisis of 2008, Bannon & Co was acquired by Societe Generale. He is from an Irish Catholic working class family in Richmond and attended Benedictine High School, with a mother Doris that worked on the campaign to elect Douglas Wilder, a Democrat, as the first African American governor of Virgina.  The other ironies are in that Bannon sees Trump as "an imperfect vessel" but still good enough, and Trump sees himself as "making all the decisions" when asked about Bannon, as a range of interests struggle to form a coherent movement on the right in American politics- an unlikely combination of a telephone operator's son and real estate magnate's son who built his own real estate business in luxury real estate towers far removed from ordinary men and women they represent. ...

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The local elections in Britain in 2019 show voter dissatisfaction with the mainparties. Both Conservatives and he Labour party each took 28% share of the vote. The big winners were the centrist Liberal Democrats with 19% of the vote. The Greens party also was a winner in the vote. About 8400 seats were up for election in this vote. Conservative party lost 1300 seats. The Labour Party disappointed because it was expected to win more seats as Conservatives did well in the last election in 2015, by winning 81 seats. The Liberal Dems and the Greens won 850 seats between them.  The stridently pro-Brexit Nigel Farage Independence Party did not put up candidates and a anti-Brexit party called ChangeUK also did not have candidates. Both will field candidates in the European elections causing the main parties to lose even more of their support that has dropped to 28%. This means Labour party leaders Corbyn and McDonnell might continue negotiations with Theresa May on Brexit plan. But as Rachel Sylvester reports in The Times today with May lacking support from her Conservative Party, her tenure as prime minister uncertain, there is little incentive for Labour leaders to go against the wishes of a majority of Labour MP's, voters, and members who are against Brexit. Corbyn also want to focus coming elections on austerity not Brexit. So this is not on Labour's agenda. Sylvester says a confirmatory referendum is looking like the only way out of the mess.    ...

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Andy Grove makes this passionate plea for the dignity of workers in America in 2010. It is worth reading in 2020 what this founder of Intel Corp and pioneering spirit of Silicon Valley has to say. Andy Grove of Intel says there is something seriously wrong when the unemployment rate in the Bay Area is higher than the 9.7% national average for the USA. American companies have added jobs like crazy in Asia, but things are sputtering back home. Hon Hai has 800,000 employees and makes most of the electronic and computer products for American companies. Grove says startups are not the answer, unless they scale up and create jobs the way Intel did starting back in 1968, with a $3 million capital infusion by investors. The move from the first production model to mass production is critical, as companies hire thousands of people. Innovation and scaling up have to go together. He makes his point clearly by pointing out that Apple has 25,000 employees. For every Apple employee there are 10 employees in China working on Apple iMacs, iPods, iPhones. And he adds that the same 10 to 1 relationship applies to other U.S. tech companies. And here Grove asks the tough question by first posing an answer. He says it sounds like- no big deal, we keep the high paying jobs, we keep most of the profits, but what kind of society are we going to have with highly paid professional workers and lots of people unemployed? And he doesn't mention that there are a lot more young people unemployed. He says the US has become very inefficient at creating tech jobs, and it would be a great mistake not to act decisively early on. And adds that the investments in such areas as solar power and electric car batteries have to be made early on to maintain leadership in these areas. Grove faults academics like Alan Blinder and others who say loss of manufacturing jobs and whole industries was no big deal. The U.S. has forgotten the value of manufacturing jobs. He wants to see America focus on jobs and rebuild its industrial base. And less of transferring engineering knowhow and new technologies overseas, technology that can help bring innovation and scaling up of factories at home. In his view individual companies doing their own thing, in a misguided fashion that jobs don't matter, is not the answer to the situation we face. The industrial economies of Asia, China at the present day, have focussed on jobs and technology, and scaled up. Grove reminds readers of the situation in America in 1932, when jobless veterans demonstrating outside the White House in large numbers were dispersed by soldiers with live ammunition and fixed bayonets. This makes him shudder at the very thought of it, and brings back memories of his early years in Hungary, as a young man in 1956. Are we listening? ...

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Amanda Lacaze of Australian rare earths maker Lynas- what can be learned from her experience in rare earths? Lynas is a Australian mining company with a mine in an eroded volcano Mount Weld that has a concentration of rare earths metals. In 2014 it was faced with China's near monopoly of rare earths and price subsidies, lack of awareness in financial markets and the government about the importance of rare earths in manufacturing. It was a period under the Obama administration that after the Bush administration had little grasp of the importance of manufacturing in America and how its decline would affect communities across the Nation, economists trumpeted the virtue of free markets without grasping how China would wrestle control of manufacturing with state subsidies and aggressive pricing and of strategic new technologies.  This included rare earths where the monopoly was close to 100%- if it is 90% today it is because of companies like Lynas. Production processes at Lynas's plant in Malaysia were not sufficiently developed in 2014. When Amanda Lacaze (now 66 years and head of Australia's Minerals Agency) joined Lynas in 2014 the first problem aside from getting Japanese creditors to restructure loans because of aggressive pricing by Chinese firms was to improve manufacturing processes to get 95% quality instead of 48% quality (measured in number of quality rejected product). This was achieved in the first year. To do this she thinned her management ranks and closed offices in Sydney (to cut costs) and moved management to Malaysia where the problems in manufacturing processes would make or break the company. She was able to get creditor Japanese government backed Japan Australia Rare Earths financial institution to renew and extend loans. Had this not happened the company may not exist today. It shows the sheer foolishness that pervaded most of the American industry at that time, the failed economic theory that said America could not support its industry when rivals were supporting theirs, the Bush and Obama administrations that had no understanding of how the industrial competition was takin place in world trade that could substitute other nations for America' s dominance in manufacturing and did little to push back and regain the position for America in world trade. This ignorance continues in some sections of business today that cannot see the plain facts and refuses to see the enormous damage to the Nation from the destruction of its manufacturing base and loss of good jobs in communities across the US. Lynas is now getting contracts from the US government for rare earths and is the only reason China's dominance in rare earths in 90% and not 100% along with MP Materials of the US. Planning was discredited in the crazy euphoria that turned the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Communist Soviet Union, as economists never understood that planning that was used by the Soviets and Chinese in their Five Yer Plans is just borrowed from centuries of basic ways of conducting business that had originated with the Industrial Revolution in Britain. Without planning the growth of the British Navy and the industry that supported it Britain could never have gained the dominance that it did in the 19th century Industrial Revolution. As the Industrial Revolution spread in the US in the 19th and twentieth century every major company had a 1 year Operating plan and a Long Range Plan for 5 Years and 10 Years. The government would have identified rare earths with foresight as one of the newer technologies and the manufacturing infrastructure needed to support its development if these plans were developed at the different levels of government and at the highest levels. This was done under market economy in China. Instead DJT was forced to step back from trade negotiations with China for unfair trade when China held out with a threat to stop export of rare earths materials in 2025, because a huge hole or gap in planning happened at the highest levels of the US government. That happened 11 years after 2014 when Australian rare earths maker Lynas survival was in doubt under a new CEO Amanda Lacaze. This is only one of many misses in American manufacturing and industry, in world trade, that came from misguided economic theory and failure to grasp the basic facts behind the success of the Industrial Revolution in Europe and the US. ...

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Indonesia is a country with a long history of Hindu and Buddhist culture before conversion to Islam through traders from Malaysia and Sufi saints in the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Hanuman and other deities from India are also part of the existing culture and traditions. Communist influence has been alien to this culture and tradition as in India. It was part of the Dutch empire in the east and a source of European trade in spices from the seventeenth century. It is also a extensive island chain of Java, Sumatra and other islands with a population of 280 million very closely linked to India culturally and with links to America since independence. Indonesia was given a great deal of importance during the Cold War with Robert Kennedy and other leaders visiting Indonesia during the period after Sukarno in the sixties. By 2000 the US engagement with China had evolved to the point that neglected India, Indonesia and the entire south east Asian region in a preference for links with China.  The British division of India led to the US links with India and Indonesia being shaped by that division and the Cold War with Russia. The confusion of the struggle against colonial rule of the British and Dutch led to leaders such as Nehru and Sukarno who compounded the difficulties of the Cold War and perpetuated with it the old British idea of a divided South Asia on a religious basis that had supported British rule and set the conditions that made it possible for a small group of English civil servants to run the country. This led to the Indian and Indonesian relationship with the US being stifled as the US struggled to rid itself of the British obsession with a divided India. Culturally India and Indonesia are part of an extended region in Asia with development aspirations and a youthful population that aspires to better infrastructure, better education, healthcare and ease of living, and the better opportunities in life. This is what migration did for Europeans who left for America for a new life on the east coast and on the prairies of America. It has little to do with the obsessions of the British and the Dutch that divided the region between the Indus and the Ganges and divided the Indonesian islands. That phase is now coming to an end as China reverts to its Communist period leadership under a new generation led by Mr. Jinping, a son of one of the veterans of the Communist Revolution of 1949. The US has to evolve its relations with India, Indonesia, Vietnam and other countries into new ties of trade, culture and technological exchange. This is needed as it winds down its close trade relations with China in its supply chain to rebuild a new supply chain after the trade wars and the pandemic revealed the deep flaws of that supply chain. What is needed is not the efforts of one changing adminstration after another, but an effort started by president Biden that will last through different administrations as the US engages with Asia in the way that it engaged with Europe after FDR and Truman for most of the twentieth century. And one that rids itself of the obsessions of divided regions from the colonial period of the Dutch and the British. The1.6 billion people in India and Indonesia share a  common aspiration of being a major part of the Free World with America. ...

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The WSJ's Peter Nicholas, Carol Lee and John McKinnon describe the events leading to the election of Obama to a second term as U.S. president. A significant move by the Obama campaign was to spend heavily in the early part of the campaign to show Romney as a predatory capitalist by focussing on his record a a private equity business executive who focussed on profits. More voters perceived Obama as caring about people like themselves. The voter turnout was also carefully executed especially for minority voters. For the first time since Mondale's loss to Reagan fewer white voters supported a presidential candidate- only 38% of the white vote went for president Obama compared to 60% for Romney. Obama's campaign focussed on protecting the middle class and working class from sharp spending cuts. Voters major issue was the economy, with unemployment at 7.9%. Yet voters largely did not hold Obama responsible for the economy and considered Wall Street and the previous George W. Bush administration responsible for the events leading to the 2008 financial crisis....

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This essay from the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center which puts focus on preventive medicine looks at the food we eat in a different way. In order to have a real conversation on food it says ignore the latest fads on nutrition on keto, paleo or other diets, and think about how our ancestors ate in a healthy way that both prevented disease and provided the right nutrition. It was mostly plants as meat was not freely and easily available. So much so that the consumption of meat and animal protein may have gone up by as much as 90% today. Processed foods did not exist, and unprocessed plant foods were there in abundance. They were not called low fat low carb or vegan then. It is during the beginning of the 19th and in the 20th century that the production and marketing of shelf stable, nutrient poor, high calorie, high sugar and salt processed foods replaced the normal way our ancestors had their food leading to the public health crisis of today, both in health quality, outcomes and cost.  It says replace meat and where appropriate dairy healthier plant based beans, lentils, whole grains, and vegetables, fruits so that animal protein gets back to the levels of the centuries before the 20th century shift to processed foods. It says use common sense beans including soyabeans and lentil beans replace meat wherever possible and oats with berries and nuts replace eggs. Vegetable and garbanzo beans salad replaces cheese and yogurt reducing the cheese or yogurt to very moderate levels. Focus on wholesome food and eat like our ancestors did and exercize then everything else will fall into place. ...

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Southwest pioneered lower cost domestic travel under founder CEO Kelleher. It did not charge fees for checking in bags and seats were not assigned. This model is now being questioned as baggage fees are generating $1.3 billion at American, $1.2 billion at United and $1 billion at Delta Airlines. Even a smaller airline like Spirit generates $1 billion from baggage fees. Additional sources of income are passengers charged for seat selection. Southwest generates about $70 million from baggage fees and does not charge for seat selection. Southwest sees not charging for baggage as part of its culture and current management is not changing the status quo.

Other problems are that Boeing can deliver only a fourth of the plane Southwest ordered. As a result the airline is facing a crisis and Eliott Investment Management now owning 11% of the company is pushing for change including ouster of the CEO and the Board.

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Alas, economists and intellectuals such as Gita Gopinath of the IMF, just don't get it when they say the EU can increase growth by half percent meeting labor shortages using immigrants. As WSJ reports 50-60% of asylum seekers in Netherlands since 1999 are less skilled /less educated immigrants, are unemployed or on benefits.The new view across all parties is lets stop the immigration surges, its too overwhelming for the people to deal with, so that we can focus on cost of living and low wages for workers. Across Starmer's Labour in Britain, across Biden/Harris Democrats lined up with Republican Lankford in the US pledging to sign the legislation to close the southern Border, and in France Macron's premier Michel Barnier wants to do the same.   Mette Frederiksen of Denmark was a pioneer in the EU in showing that immigration acts as a distraction that hurts the working class as it distracts people from the key issues facing workers of cost of living and low wages, poor benefits. She was elected as a Socialist party leader in Denmark in 2015 and as prime minister in 2019. Sahra Wagenknecht, follows Mette Frederiksen, herself a daughter of immigrant, has formed her own party out of Socialist Die Linke in Germany which is now getting about 15% German voter support, 25% in the east, along similar lines to pause and stop immigration because it hurts the working class. In other parts of EU- France's Macron coalition has a prime minister who has called for a pause on immigration. US president Harris and Candidate Harris have pledged to sign bipartisan legislation drafted by Republican Senator Lankford to close the southern Border. The European Asylum Agency has the numbers at just over one million asylum seekers in EU in 2023 and agains in 2024 split by country- Germany 127,000 24% France 77,000 15%, and Italy and Spain 87,000 each 17% each Belgium, Netherlands and Austria 17,000 each at 3% each, Greece a bit higher. Some like the US and Germany with stronger economic base and industries can absorb the educated immigrants from middle class fleeing wars and strife, and less educated immigrants in construction and hospitality. The bigger danger is in creating support for parties that will use the issue to take whole economies and countries backwards by further depressing workers wages, benefits and rights, exacerbating social divisions around race and income that they say they will solve but have no economic policy to do this. All socialist and socialist democratic parties have grasped this in 2023-2024, some earlier by 2019. ...

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"So that Berlin remains our home" posters and signs are all over Berlin, Germany. The escalating housing crisis in Berlin is leading to a referendum on September 26, same day as national elections. This referendum is about taking over developer housing over 3000 units with compensation and is supported by a small majority of voters in Berlin. The referendum  required gathering 175,000 signatures in a few months. The Left Party in the Berlin coalition government of SPD, Greens and Die Linke supports it , Greens are skeptical and SPD is opposed to expropriation. The referendum needs 25% yes votes to expropriation which may not happen. More likely is that housing developers will have to work with the government to come up with solutions to the housing crisis in Berlin.  The referendum is constitutionally compatible with the Basic Law in Germany which says- " Land, natural resources and means of production may, for the purpose of nationalization, be transferred to public ownership or other forms of public enterprise by a law that determines the nature and extent of compensation." Private developers expansion has made housing less affordable for Berlin residents and the target is Deutsche Wohnen, which owns 113,000 housing units in Berlin. This trend shows how different the public opinion is in Berlin after decades in which the housing concerns of local residents were set aside. Clearly Germany needs to invest more in housing infrastructure that is affordable and enhances the opportunities for ordinary workers in Berlin to live in the city. ...

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Desmond Tutu who died yesterday, was one of the three leaders with Nelson Mandela, and De Klerk who shaped a new South Africa with an attitude of rebuilding through reconciliation that stands out in the recent history of Africa and the world. South Africa's potential and the lives of the South African people are better under a framework that brings all communities together for unity and cooperation. After years of fighting Apartheid policies Tutu headed the Reconciliation Commission when De Klerk and Mandela crafted a way out for South Africa from segregation and international isolation. After failures of the ANC under Jacob Zuma, Desmond Tutu called for changes. He also was the first to point out the failings of African countries that descended into misrule and oppression. Tutu was as important to South Africa as Mandela and Klerk in the way he made democracy work by calling it out when it failed to live up to the ideals. Born in 1931 he witnessed the transition of African countries into free nations, with some failing to achieve the aspirations that drove the freedom struggle. The son of a teacher he followed in his father's footsteps after graduating from the University of South Africa at a time when black schools suffered from crippling lack of resources.  He went to King's College, University of London on a scholarship, and earned a bachelor's and master's degree there. Living in England helped free him from the self-contempt that results from racism, he says in his 2006 biography. Like Gandhi the years spent in England gave him a sense of what could be learned from this experience in shaping the future. He returned in 1975 and fought Apartheid using Gandhi's methods of non-violent non-cooperation. In 2025 South Africa will have completed 50 years since that time and can look back at how far it has come even with the shortcomings. And the steps that can now be taken for modernization as India and other nations move forward to show democracy can effectively deliver on good governance and economic progress to fulfill the aspirations of the people for a better life. ...

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The 60,000 workers from places like Jamaica, Barbados and other places who built the Panama Canal, the lives recreated in The Canal Builders, by Julie Greene, a history Professor at the University of Maryland. Who were they, what were their jobs, what were their daily lives like, what did they eat, how were they governed.

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The Obama Center in Jackson Park, Chicago, is a 20 acre complex opening on June 19, 2026, built by Todd Williams Billie Tsien Architects. The Obamas chose land that was once use for the World Columbian Exposition World Fair. Using public space was controversial, made up for by a new branch of the Chicago Public Library, a basketball court and playgrounds. The most controversial part is the Obamalisk (obelisk type) tower which is as dour as one can get. One of Obama's speeches with letters on the tower top the architect says is not legible, but thats just fine he says, as if it is empty rhetoric. Or as Kennicott says just rhetoric, ornament, did all those words 17 years back really matter or were they merely oratorical good vibes. So much has happened since then that Kennicott rightly looks at the new Obama Tower with skepticism of what Obama ever accomplished. In healthcare the Obamacare plan is now not working or being replaced. Obama continued the wars Bush started, were they really that different.  At every turn from the entry there are questions like this. At the entry itself with the Declaration of Independence there is a display of unequal treatment, questioning the very experiment of Jefferson, Washington, by placing their formative ideas for a new society that had already been born in Britain with the abolition of slavery in 1772 with Somerset vs Stewart. Ben Franklin forming the Abolition of Slavery Society in Pennsylvania as early as 1775 and becoming its president in 1787. None of the founders get any credit for envisioning a different society, than they had to live in, and which even Abe Lincoln struggled with from 1850's till the Emancipation as way to win the Civil War. The entry to the Smithsonian has done the same. Yet it is this same document the Declaration which says "All men are created equal and they are endowed by their creator with some inalienable rights, life liberty and the pursuit of happiness,"  that has inspired  and given new hope to hundreds of millions of Chinese and Indians, Africans, and other Asians by 1900 and 1950, the vast majority of people on the planet. Philip Kennicott of the Washington Post asks the questions over and over in this report-  was America sleeping when it should have been alert? Lighthizer and Jamieson says this on this page that 5 million jobs were lost, economic growth was down by 1% to 2% instead of 3% of the period 1960-2000, and $20 trillion in America's wealth transferred overseas by the combination of Bush-Obama in the 2000-2020 period, manufacturing decimated, wages stagnant, America's working class communities destroyed, all the while this high minded rhetoric went on. As Kennicott says the period of rhetoric and oratory is gone, in the past, the presidency merely decades of decadence of America's elites as Marco Rubio says in a new book. ...

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 JD Vance as key negotiator of the Memorandum of Understanding with Iran announced June 17 2026 in France at the G-7 Summit in Les Bains, France. Vice President Vance says-about why everything not being put in writing. “There’s a lot of discussion, the MOU, the gentlemen’s agreements, the final deal—words don’t matter, ladies and gentlemen, we’re about verification.” As with the detailed previous agreements the words have little meaning if the intention is to build a nuclear weapon while all the time saying it was for peaceful purposes.  Vance does not mention that in the next 10 years the worst hit from Hormuz are the poor countries Pakistan, India, Arab World in North Africa including Egypt, and even a developing country when it comes to per capita incomes way lower than Europe like China. There will be all these countries backing the US as high oil prices mean economic catastrophe for these countries. This is really what the president DJT means by he did this to prevent economic catastrophe. China has sustained the Iranian economy through this period and China has clearly stated that it expects denuclearization, expects Iran to reverse policy to make a nuclear weapon- as it is the crux of the memorandum's intent. Without it the US would not enter any agreement and there would be no war. Opening up Hormuz is critical for these countries including China to continue their industrial modernization. Vance says- “We have all of the cards." “If the Iranians want the benefit of the bargain they have to give us the things that are necessary to get those benefits.”  There is in Iran itself three groups, one the people, second the elected government of Pezeshkian elected in 2014 to reduce the cost of living and improve living standards, and third the Revolutionary Guard Corps. The entire Arab World, the entire Asiatic Muslim world represented by Pakistan and neighbors find this Memorandum as a lifeline, a step away from the brink of economic catastrophe, which is not shown in the media, all these countries pushing for their very life to get the US to give a chance to two of the three parts of the Iranian people and government (who will ultimately decide Iran's long term course as a part of West Asia as a regional economic development and modernization zone). There are huge stakes here for West Asia and East Asia in this Memorandum of basically intent on the part of the US (consistent with its history and purpose as Nation), and this remains the key guarantor for this opportunity for Iranian people and people of West and East Asia in their progress to modernization and economic progress similar to the path taken by Europe and the US after many struggles of their own (not to mention the Civil War that made the US and two World Wars that made the European Union).    ...

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Clint Eastwood talks about stuff in politics, real people, in a way that is humorous, and is asked about his various roles in movies he has made that show relations between countries and races. He recalls the time playing golf with the president and another real estate billionaire, when both told him within earshot of the other that all the real estate deals that the other was making would go bad. This he says was funny. In all this he was always the lone guy, as in the movies. This guy is 89 and he has still got stuff for some interesting movies, and he has ideas about the country and what it needs.  Mr Eastwood was mayor of a little town in coastal California in 1986 for 2 years. And yes he did not like all the regulation in the state. He tells about his removing one in the city that banned the public sale of ice cream, besides drinking a lot of tea and chatting with everyday folks. Most have forgotten and others simply from a new generation. The 2008 movie Gran Torino is one in which a Korean War veteran faces up to immigrants from Laos in an inner Detroit suburb. And what happens? Eastwood says people liked this one that grossed $270 million because it showed how someone with views at one extreme could learn more and shift to the other extreme just from seeing and talking to different people who you have not encountered before. Eastwood portrayed the American male when it was a kind of manliness unabashed. The thing about Eastwood is  that he he is sensitive to all that this meant in an intelligent thoughtful way that takes us by surprise. Some of these characters he played did not have the niceties, abrupt he calls it or that gruffness of masculineness, even a bit dumb. Talking about relations between countries and of race Eastwood had some ideas to make the Japanese language "Letters from Iwo Jima" - to give the view of what it was like for a Japanese soldier sent out from the islands to Iwo Jima. The famous battle was one he did from the American point of view in "Flags of Our Fathers." About that Japanese soldier he is sent out and told that he wasn't ever coming back. It won Japan's equivalent of an Academy Award. The interview in the WSJ with Varadarajan closes with Eastwood feeling  for the genteel ways, not calling names out loud, of an older time, without the masculinity that he himself portrayed, or only appeared to be that way when in reality he was intelligent and sensitive to other people and their ways. Perhaps that former mayor of New York, says Eastwood, offering his own idea of a switch back to older genteel ways for the country.   ...

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A group of neurological expeorts in the UK help us with advice. Includes things like avoid hearing and vision loss that lead to not driving or isolating. Social interaction and learning are key so take up a hobby, find new interests , learn a new language, travel, and link this up with other people, new people you can meet. Get plenty of exercise, core building. Nature walks, hiking in the mountains, swimming, outdoor activity. Good sleep begins in the morning so that by the time it is 9.00- 9.30 pm one is ready to go to bed. It helps not to stay up late. Eating healthy, olive oil and Mediterranean diet instead of butter, and eating fruits and vegetables, nuts.  Mindfulness helps. There are four forms of mindfulness. On the leftside Menu for Lyrarc there is under Lyrarc Insights the section Mental Well-Being which gives a translation from the original Pali text of the Buddha describing the Four Forms of Mindfulness in the Sattipana Sutta. This spiritual training, a reading of the Bhagavad Gita or the Bible, nourishes brain health and gives clarity of mind. ...

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US president DJT speaks at the Economic Club of Detroit, looking back at a year of rapid action on the US Border, Big Beautiful Bill, Tariffs action, Cutting Cost of Living action on several fronts, and action against drug/people trafficking by Venezuela, Mexico. Highlights of the speech which comes to a state that decided the 2016 election for DJT and which is the center of America's automobile industry started by Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan. He had restored the automobile industry to the days when it was the leader in the world and when names such as Henry Ford, Alfred Sloan of General Motors, were the envy of the world, by bringing auto manufacturing back from places like Mexico, Japan and Germany. Back to America after years of reckless outshoring by American business under the Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations, on the advice of equally reckless economists and advisors to these administrations. The president did not say this but this restoration continued in a different way for labor under the Biden administration that followed DJT policies but focused on the other side of the coin for the auto industry - protecting worker's wages by Biden standing on a picket line for the strike by unions for higher wages. After these wages were restored from years of outshoring and pressure on wages, the need to do the work of bringing companies back through tariffs on imports as leverage in tough negotiations with Japan, South Korea and Germany was left to DJT and his administration. The president stated clearly that the economists and predictions were proved wrong on tariffs as none of these predictions of tariffs passed on to American buyers have come true. As DJT made certain the companies not to lose their business in the US decided to avoid taking that road and acted to reduce their profit margins and costs. As Scott Bessent, a veteran of Wall Street and now Treasury Secretary who conducted these negotiations for DJT, has repeatedly pointed out the tariffs were a way to get these tough negotiators and their governments from Japan, S. Korea and Germany to cooperate. It is nowhere written in the code of fair conduct of nations that the US should helplessly after decades of letting these countries benefit put its workers out of work and its industries get destroyed, when the US was taking on the additional burden of protecting these nations from hostile neighbors. ...

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Davies points out the dire situation of Greece's banks as the negotiations are called off and Greece calls for a referendum on July 5, 2015. In the week before the referendum if Greeks take out the 60 euros a day that they are permitted to withdraw from banks, the banks may have barely enough cash for the 3.5 billion dollars needed to do this. Only the emergency funding line from the ECB stands between Greece and the collapse of its financial system, says Davies. He says full banking union with depositors insurance, resolution authority, and other changes are needed to protect weaker banks in the eurozone. Contagion effects could affect Portugal's Banco Commercial Portugues, Italy's Monte de Paschi, and Austria's Raiffieisen bank, says Davies.

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One of the leaders who has emerged with solid skills and with patience, firm resolve is Olaf Scolz, former mayor of Hamburg, finance minister and deputy chancellor. He is leader of the SPD and has a shot at chancellor in coming years. His hard work has led to increasing popularity during the pandemic and he is in charge of disbursing the euro recovery funds for recovery of Germany and the rest of Europe.  Being labor minister under chancellor Schroeder in 2003 did not help as he tried to sell Schroeder's labor reforms with harsh cuts for welfare recipients and he ended up looking like a bureaucrat and someone doing somebody else's work.  But hard work persistence in doing the work that mattered has helped him regain respect in Germany. Leading the youth wing of the SPD, then in 1998 joining the Bundestag, running a business law practice in Hamburg, on to the mayor's office, now Scolz is a transformed figure as he appears more emotional, more accessible, friendlier. ...

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A student of international law at Georgetown reflects on a career in the State Department and at NSA and CIA. Avril Haines head of National Intelligence Agency says the law can only take you so far, finds what she is doing in government conflicts with her own beliefs on what is right, that building a more ethical society is still an aspiration.

The adjoining story in the WSJ says Avril Haines headed the NIC during it's meeting with president Biden on Aug 24, 2021, on the origins of a plague like crisis- that resembles the Black Death in Europe which took 25 million lives and after which Brittanica says it took Europe till the 16th century to recover pre-1348 population. At that meeting says WSJ FBI WMD scientist Banaan and FBI, and the DIC scientists were excluded from sharing their views with the US president on the origins of the Covid virus that took 7 million lives and three times that number in unreported deaths.

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Biden looks set to having DJT at the White House and attending his Inauguration. He has accomplished much says Pat Schumer, Minority Leader in the US Senate. He also believe it or not looks quite healthy and active, and likely to look like that a few short years hence in 2027-2028. It gives Biden who did in one term for Covid response and vaccines, infrastructure investment and rebuilding America, withdrawal from foreign wars, what has never been done before in just 4 years, an opportunity to enjoy life after 40 years of public service. And by letting DJT tackle issues of Border and fentanyl flows from Mexico and China in the first 2 years, of unfair trade that have not been resolved for decades, so that America can benefit from the the best of both parties resources and strengths. Contrary to what so called "smart heads" say the two party system is working by engaging people in an ongoing vigorous debate and bringing fresh faces into public service. 

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Jeannie Rice runs Marathons at 77 years and has amazing physiology. Aerobic fitness and endurance capacity of a 25 year old. Her inspiration is Joan Benoit Samuelson who won gold at the inaugural Olympic women's marathon in 1984. Joan Benoit who is 67 says now it is she who is inspired by Rice. When exercise is done at a good level over the adult lifespan it results in cardiovascular and physical endurance and capacity to perform at a high level.  Jeannie Benoit's diet- avoid sweets and fried foods and eat lots of salads, fresh vegetables, rice, fish and nuts., some cheese. Her passion: loves running and wants to inspire young people. She also goes out socially to have fun and relax. Her personal goal - to inspire older runners. She says- “I feel as young as when I was 50, and I’d like to be doing this well into my 80s. That’s my personal goal." ...

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Without FW De Klerk's vision and leadership, and courage to go against the instincts of Afrikaaners in the National Party, could South Africa have ended up in civil war and become like some other African nations a failed state? This was a distinct possibility in the 1990's and a failed state today would be much worse than any of the difficulties that South Africa has faced so far. By 1992 with release of Nelson Mandela and 1994 with elections based on universal franchise, De Klerk had dismantled much of the system of Apartheid or race based rule of white Afrikaaners. Apartheid was a system of racial segregation based government imposed by a white Afrikaaner government in 1948 and which continued till 1994. Afrikaaners are descendants of Dutch immigrants to the Transvaal and other regions in British South Africa. They briefly fought a war with the British called the Boer War from 1899 to 1902. Today there are about 2.7 million Afrikaaners in South Africa, about 100,000 in Namibia, about 41,000 in Zambia. As best seen on the cricket grounds white and black Africans in South Africa and Namibia are part of a new mutiracial country. Much of this made possible by De Klerk's courage as a Transvaaler who made the right choices after assuming the leadership of the National party in 1989, coming from provincial roots in Transvaal.  ...