LyrArc Article Gist
American singer Linda Ronstadt looks back to her roots in the Rio Sonora region of Mexico in this AARP excerpt about her years growing up in that region before her father moved to Tucson, Arizona. Her album Canciones de mi Padre, is the best selling non English music album in the US of all time. Her book is called- Feels Like Home- Song for the Sonoran Borderlands. It looks at the emotional and physical links between the US southwest and Mexico and the hold that this region has on the popular imagination. She says that wherever she has lived, wherever she has travelled, her soul is always winging it down the road, to the land south of the border. A stretch of desert she calls her foothold to the world. Today millions of Mexican Americans share this heritage and this kind of genetic memory. When the Spanish landed in the 1500's there was no border. The land and its physical aspects have not changed through waves of immigration- this story in the AARP magazine shows the agaves in the backdrop of the Huachuca mountains. Apple Music has Ronstadt's album and The Arbolitas, a song of the trees, etched in the Sonoran sunlight.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Hedge funds Greenwich Financial and Braddock Financial have told banks they will take legal action if loans are renegotiated in ways that hurt the funds. Many hedge funds hold mortgage securities.

LyrArc Article Gist
In an effort to fulfill a campaign pledge and yet not upset peace negotiations president Trump plans to go halfway by recognizing Jerusalem, while keeping the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv. 

In a sign of much policy has changed since the Obama presidency, new information cited by NYT shows Trump working closely with premier Netayahu of Israel to prevent a vote on Israeli settlement policies. Mr. Obama had decided to proceed with a vote and had sharp differences with Netanyahu that dominated press coverage in the second term. See search term Netanyahu.  The issue is a delicate one because it depends say experts on how Trump frames his decision, does it recognize West Jerusalem, what does it say about its status as holy city, and about Palestinian claims to East Jerusalem. It is fraught with risks as Saudi Arabia is likely to say no to negotiations if the issue is framed to only recognize the Israeli position.

LyrArc Article Gist
This Indian religious festival draws tens of millions every day to ancient cities Prayagraj, Nashik, Hardwar, Ujjain, on sacred rivers Ganga, Yamuna, Godavari and Shipra. It happens every 6 years as half Kumbh. The Mela or gathering in 2025 is in Prayagraj on the Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati river waters where they meet. It is the Maha or great Kumbh Mela that happens once in 144 years. Much preparation went into the gathering by the Indian government and some estimates of the total over 45 days are 600 million religious devotees seeking a bath in the holy river. 

BBC News shows different aspects of this Kumbh Mela religious gathering in Prayagraj, India. For the first time millions of people have come to India from all over the world for this Mela or gathering for Lord Shiva. Today is Maha Shivarathri, the day of Lord Shiva.

LyrArc Article Gist
Two senior American military officers will now lead operations in Europe. Army Gen. Christopher Cavoli takes over US European Command, and becomes the Head of all Allied Forces in Europe as Supreme Commander Europe, including NATO Command. Lt. Gen. Bryan Fenton will lead the Special Forces Command. Cavoli speaks 3 languages Russian, Italian and French, and has served as a foreign area officer. He also served as Director of Russia in the Joint Staff, and has a masters degree in Russian and Eastern European Studies from Yale University. General Eishenhower had this kind of broad experience in the years after World War I that helped him hold the position of Supreme Allied Commander Europe during the war with Nazi Germany. Lt. Gen Byran Fenton is from Seymour, Tennessee. He is currently based at Fort Bragg as head of Joint Operations Command. Both officers will have to be confirmed by Congress and will operate in a new situation with the insurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq now being replaced by conventional war in Europe and threats to Taiwan, the Indian border with China, and at the Korean peninsula. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Mike Pence's recent comments show that the US Capitol attacks were a traumatic event for Pence and the country. Former Vice President Pence said- "President Trump was wrong. I had no right to overturn the election and his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day, and I know history will hold Donald Trump accountable." Pence said it was a disgrace, and it mocked decency to portray it any other way. President Biden's speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia talked about this situation that democracy faced in America, over 150 years after Abraham Lincoln made a similar speech in Independence Hall at the onset of the conflict that led to the emancipation proclamation.  Biden said- "We must never forget: We the people, are the true heirs of the American experiment that began two centuries ago." Speaking of the flame of liberty that was lit at Independence Hall Biden also said- "That sacred flame also burns now in our time, as we build an America that is prosperous, free and just." ...

LyrArc Article Gist
This article in DW.com cites experts who point out that the Republican Party always had tensions within it because of the diverging interests of three groups that have allied together to form the party- Wealthy businessmen and corporate interests, evangelicals, and white working class people who have seen their incomes decline for several decades. The interests of each group have some overlap, are sometimes masked but frequently they diverge. Nigel Bowles, former director of the Rothermere Institute at Oxford University, says there is no particular reason that this coalition would hold together, that it was unstable to begin with, a wonder that it did not split up earlier. Scott Lucas, an expert on American Studies at the University of Birmingham, says that Reagan showed great skill in holding this coalition together, and Donald Trump has taken it apart by mobilizing only one constituency of white working class voters and leaving out others. The break between Republican party leaders Ryan, McCain, and state party leaders, with Trump is unprecedented in post war American politics, and putting it back together now looks like a lost cause in the medium term.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The Editorial Board of the Washington Post says people should be concerned about going back to the 70's when New York City struggled with funding and went downhill. The very goal of affordability that Mamdani is trying to achieve could end up being hit because the methods may not work at all. It says free bus service means a transit funding hole, city run stores would hurt privately run stores, and a rent freeze would depress housing supply. Greg Ip in the WSJ compares Austin with NYC with Austin seeing 20% increase in housing supply to NYC 3% in 2020-2024. Austin had a 23% jump in one year in housing prices but it came down and over 4 years rent increases in NYC are 20% in Austin 11%.  It is only that much of the New Yorker educated elites have let the city down so much by not finding solutions to the affordability crisis and not focusing on fixing infrastructure and modernization of the American cities, in the last three decades that this has happened- as a desperate young population turns to giveaways or free services across the board as a solution that never works. A fiscal crisis could happen as in the 1970's creating another vicious cycle says the Washington Post. It says one can only hope that the damage is at the margins. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Toyota said it will sell plug-in hybrid cars globally in about 2 years. Compared with todays cars hybrids will have ahigher capacity to hold electricity and can be recharged by plugging into astandard electric outlet.

LyrArc Article Gist
In his commencement address to to 1000 cadets graduating from the US Military Academy at West Point, NY, DJT tells graduates to think big, take risks and hold on to the culture. He says president Dwight D. Eisenhower who graduated from West Point believed that it was important to think big the harder the challenge, as problems sometimes difficult to solve become easier to tackle when one thinks big at the larger problem. Other advice was to hold on to the momentum achieved in any task to move on to the next step which may lead to big results. And always living with thrifty habits and hard work that pays of with perseverance. A certain CEO of a large bank who has been around almost forever says most important in life is to go out and listen to people, talk to people, the only way to find out what is happening. He also says courtesy and humility are very important. These are not habits DJT mentioned at West Point but are very important in real life along with hard work and perseverance to achieve lasting results. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
In Biden's address at the UN General Assembly he talks about climate change and Covid-19, and a foreign policy that brings together US and its allies in Europe and Asia. He said "the next decade will quite literally determine our futures."  He encouraged "competition" but he stressed he was "not seeking a new Cold War or a world divided into rigid blocks." Biden also said the US would spend $10 billion to end hunger and invest in food systems around the world.

Biden also increased US commitment for developing countries to reduce emissions to total $11 billion by 2024- in a recent interview Indian finance minister Sitharaman says India has done its work for COP21 emissions entirely without US or other funds.

In a few days Biden will hold a Covid summit where he will call for vaccinating 70% of the world's population. 

LyrArc Article Gist
The first rally for Harris in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The road to the presidency goes through Wisconsin and Harris received enthusiastic support with Governor Tony Evers putting it this way-On the Tony Evers excitement scale that goes from ‘holy mackerel’ and maxes out at ‘heck yes,’ I am jazzed as hell to be welcoming our next presidential nominee to Wisconsin: Vice President Kamala Harris.” Harris used the same lines she used in Wilmington at her first rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In her legal career, Harris said, she “took on perpetrators of all kinds. Predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain.” “So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type”  On project 2025, the blueprint for the first 100 days in office of a Trump second term, the action items are ones that would jeopardize the safety of American institutions that were set up with so much care by Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and nurtured by the first president George Washington with little attention to himself, and protected by president after president through civil war under Abraham Lincoln, through 2 World Wars and The Great Depression under Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, through recovery under Harry Truman and Ike, only to falter under a series of mediocre presidents Reagan, Clinton, Bush, Obama and be endangered by a NBC television show and construction business person with support from new social media networks that were unknown throughout America history till 2010 and television networks that had degenerated into recklessly divisive behaviours to win silo audiences. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Stay at home lockdowns, closure of schools in South Africa and other African countries is harder because of lack of widespread internet, says this report in DW.com from South Africa. South Africa declared a 21 day lockdown on March 27. South Africa does better than the rest of Africa with 53% of the people able to use the internet. The internet access in other African countries is only for about one third of the people. This is actually lower than that in practice. Only 12% of Kenyans have internet in their homes, mostly in Nairobi and large cities, and 70% with internet access have this through their phones.

This provides opportunity to ensure wider use of radio as most homes have radio. There are new ways for teachers to interact with students. Teachers in Kenya hold a lesson on radio and students send in their questions on WhatsApp.

LyrArc Article Gist
Should 33,000 member Boeing machinists union approve a 25% wage increase over 4 years or ask for 40%?  It has been a long time since a CEO pleaded with union workers to not go on strike. Boeing has negotiated a 4 year 25% increase wage settlement, no non union plants in the South. “I ask you not to sacrifice the opportunity to secure our future together, because of the frustrations of the past. I also know there are employees considering another path—and it’s one where no one wins." We suggested Stephanie Pope coming from a family of machinists for CEO- her dad worked at the Boeing plant. Pope says Boeing has a $60 billion debt pile and the Alaska Airlines accident with a bolted door coming loose midair. Pope says- "In past negotiations, the thinking was we should hold something back. Let me be clear: We did not hold back with an eye on a second vote.” ...

LyrArc Article Gist
A third of 60 manufacturing companies surveyed by Manufacturer's Alliance say they will hold back on hiring till the "fiscal cliff" situation gets resolved and after they know what the effects of spending cuts will be on consumer spending.

LyrArc Article Gist
Much of India's relations with Britain as a colonial power, and the US as the first real democracy (defined in a new way without colonial interests) after Britain in the modern world, were set in the period when Gandhi mentored by Gokhale and Tilak in 1900 set the independence struggle of the 1930's and 1940's. Modi merely restored the Gandhian spirit with a development focus and honest administration. This enormous contribution of Gandhi revered by all leaders including Modi is a benevolent one recognizing the important and one might say virtuous role played by the US under Wilson and Roosevelt to colonized nations such as China and India as can be seen in the personal letter to FDR written in the 1940's by Gandhi. There are two defining relations of the US, the first related to its founding as a British colony and a war of independence fought with the help of the French. And the other related to Asia, to Japan, China, and India as they modernized in 1900-2000. Of this the relationship with the most ancient of ancient civilizations in India is the dominant US relationship in 2025, because it unlocks the mysteries of westernization without the religious ethos of Buddhism in an imperialist Japan and now expanding Communist China. This religious ethos of China, Japan and Vietnam lies in Indian soil and in the ethos of the Indian people, and where Gandhi drew his inspiration. From this ethos comes the idea that India as a true friend of America and a Europe (that includes Russia) cannot ignore the devastation of Ukraine and inadvertently find itself a participant through its purchase of Russian oil at $119 billion a year (even when China under a expanding Communist government purchases Russian oil at $136 billion a year). The cost of the war is about $213 billion in a Russian wartime economy which also hurts the Russian economy and the cost of living through inflation for the Russian people. India will seek to do some soul searching and find the right path Gandhi would hold on to for Britain, America, and rest of Europe including the Russian people. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
China's government is putting 10 Airbus orders for A380 superjumbo jets by Hong Kong Airlines, and an additional 35 Airbus A330 widebody planes on hold, in response to eforts by the European Union to enforce carbon dioxide emission fees under its ETS system.

LyrArc Article Gist
People in Japan are living longer healthier lives. So much so that people are working well into their 70's. In Nagano, Japan, people say that those in their 40's and 50's are like a child with a runny nose, and people in their 60's and 70's are in the prime of their careers. In this WSJ report, 38 years old Norohiro Aizawa is a part time farmer, who says he plans to work into his 70's like many farmers in Japan. Today his father in his early 70's is active and in charge. Sachiko Kobayashi runs a crafts business, has a job making box lunches, and a garden full of pumpkins and radishes. She is 65 and gets up at 3 am. In Nagano she is called by the term pre-elderly, not elderly. For elderly she has a long way to go. Japan has 29% of the population in under over 65 years group, Europe 21% and US 17%. Yet something else is happening. People are just taking better care of themselves and their health, and living, working longer. A 70 year old today in Nagano is in health status like a 60 year old one or two generations ago. Perceptions of what is elderly have changed.    Japan's White Paper on the Elderly in 2021 shows studies suggesting that many in the 65-74 year group do not share traits associated with the term elderly.  Only 6% require care by others. Half of 65-69 year olds hold jobs, and a third of those in their early 70's also hold jobs. Life expectancy in Japan stretches into the late 80's for women, and early 80's for men. This is almost 5-8 years more than countries like the UK with a strong national health service. In April 2021 a revised Employment Law took effect, telling big employers to offer work to workers until age 70, up from previously government sanctioned retirement age of 65 years. Government says it is meant to protect the right of people to work longer. There is even a term called late-elderly.  Oshima 82 of Nagano, leads a volunteer group that shoots video of community festivals and works late into the night, and is cited in this WSJ story as saying that even if people called him late elderly, his response is oh yeah? I don't care. It is all about living a full life, terms don't matter at all when one stays healthy.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Republicans hold a lead over Democrats on foreign policy and managing the economy. An anti-incumbency mood favors Republicans with more Democrats up for re-election. Healthcare is not a major issue in the election. Women voters continue to provide significant support to Democrats.

LyrArc Article Gist
Some of the memorable parts of president Biden's speech at the AFL-CIO campaign rally today June 17 that will go with the best of FDR and Lincoln about what America stands for were: "This is America we can do any damn thing we put our minds to. And guess what? We are not going back to the false promises of trickle down economics.  We are going forward. We are going forward." "I really mean. this. I know I'm called a cockeyed optimist, but this is based on history. We're the most unique country in history. We are organized on one notion. Every other country is based on ethnicity, religion, geography. But the United States is based on an idea. The only country in the world based on an idea. Think about it." "Why are we doing it. Because we said, "We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal" (applause)  "endowed by their Creator with some inalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." "We've never met the goal. But we've never- other than the Trump administration- tried to walk away from that goal. And it gets better every time we push." ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Remote work offers flexibility yet household chores and childcare make it feel like they are doing two jobs. Women hold 79 million jobs in 2024 Labour Department says. Of the prime age group of 25-54 years 78% of women are working or seeking work. Women doing remote work sometimes feel caught in a situation where after the pandemic and years of doing childcare and chores they do not have the opportunities of fulltime work that men have.

LyrArc Article Gist
This article in The Indian Express shows that even though Subhas Chandra Bose differed with Mohandas Gandhi during the late 1930's, Bose had a deep respect and affection for Gandhi in mobilizing the Indian people for Swaraj. Bose's relationship with Nehru and Patel were of people at the same level and appeared to compete for attention compared to the relationship with Gandhi which was one of mentor and follower. In the end Bose's restlessness at British refusal to negotiate Swaraj and Gandhi's patience led to Bose actively resisting British rule in 1940.  Mohandas Gandhi had deep faith in the Bhagavad Gita and believed the lines in the Bhagavad Gita where it says- "Whenever, O descendent of Bharata, there is decline of Dharma, and rise of Adharma, then I embody Myself. For the protection of the good, for the destruction of the wicked, and for the establishment of Dharma, I come into being in every age." Gandhi wrote in his Discourses on the Bhagavad Gita on November 11, 1930- "God dwells in our hearts as the holy spirit within us, and when yearning for knowledge, like Arjuna, we take our spiritual difficulties to Him, and seek his guidance, seek refuge in Him, He is ever ready to instruct us." The other way in which Gandhi differed was in his deep insights and views of the British as a people that Bose lacked. Some of this came from his days in London and some of this from his days in South Africa working with and negotiating with the British. Mohandas Gandhi says in Hind Swaraj in 1910- "The English merchants were able to get a footing in India because we encouraged them. When our princes fought among themselves they sought the help of Company Bahadur. That corporation (British East India Company) was vested alike in commerce and war. It was unhampered by questions of morality. Its object was to increase its commerce and make money. It accepted our assistance, and increased the number of its warehouses. To protect the latter it employed an army which was utilized by us also. Is it not then useless for us to blame the British for what they did at that time? The Hindus and the Mahomedans were at daggers drawn. This too, gave the Company its opportunity, and thus we created the circumstances that gave the British control over India. Hence it is truer to say that we gave India to the British than India was lost. The causes that gave them India help them retain it. Some Englishmen say they took India and they hold India by the sword, both these statements are wrong. The sword is entirely useless for holding India. We alone keep them." Gandhi''s view of India was of a nation of shopkeepers, even citing Kruger of South Africa when he was asked if there was gold on the moon. Kruger said likely not, for if there was the British would have annexed it. By 1945 when Gen. Wavell, the Viceroy wrote back to London that he would require more army divisions to control India than Britain could afford, or the British people had the will to support or had commercial interests worth protecting after the war, the British moved up the year of their withdrawal. And began the negotiations with Gandhi for independent India.  Gandhi also says that in his reading of Vivekananda's writings the love that I had for my country became a thousand-fold. Gandhi looked to Vivekananda for inspiration in some of his ideas on Swaraj. Bose says Vivekananda's writings sent him into raptures yet saw Vivekananda "simple as a child" not realizing the spiritual strength Vivekananda had drawn from which overcomes all. As the Lord says in the Bhagavad Gita- "I am the Self, O Gudakesa, existent in the heart of all beings, I am the beginning, the middle, and also the end of all beings. Of the Adityas, I am Vishnu, of luminaries, the radiant Sun; of the winds I am Marici; of the asterisms, the moon."   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Indian PM Modi to visit US on Feb 12-13 2025 to hold talks with DJT at the White House. India accepts the 18,000 undocumented migrants as DJT says he is confident that India will do the right thing on this issue. Talks will centre on the new supply chain and reducing overdependence on China for manufacturing, bringing jobs and factories back to the US and how Vikshit Bharat 2047 fits into the US plan for a diversified supply chain in Asia.

LyrArc Article Gist
Elizabeth Duke helped forge consensus and compromise in policy as Governor of the U.S. Federal Reserve in the five year period following the 2008 crisis. She stayed on till July 2013 to help formulate the new capital rules requiring banks to hold more capital to handle any future crisis conditions.

LyrArc Article Gist
Reserve bank of India's Governor Dr. V.Y. Reddy, who was a strong regulaor and did not allow mortgage securitizations, derivatives, and increased the reserves banks had to hold in case things went wrong. He had strict rules for bank lending in the real estate industry even as a real estate bubble developed in India, all of which is keeping India's banking system in good shape as it faces the global credit crisis. Criticized at the time by bank executives for his strict no nonsense rules, he is now regarded highly by Bank CEO's in India. One of this no nonsense rules was that banks had to hold on to loans they made on their books as banks all over the world have always done in the past, because it made good sense as banks were likely to police themselves for loans they were responsible for. Vague and possibly dangerous experimentation in the name of productive change was frowned upon and the tried and tested rules were followed.