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Personal bankruptcy filings in the US rose to 1.53 million in 2010, up 9% from 2009. The filings are highest in the Pacific Southwest, and the Southeast. Filings in California were up 25% and in Arizona up 24%.

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John Fritze gives this exceptional report in USA Today with a gallery of black and white pictures on the life and work of an American who truly embodied some of the best spirit of America. Born on a ranch in the Arizona-New Mexico region in America's southwest in the 1920's she built in herself a remarkable resilience to start work in the law when women were not hired for legal work, choosing to start work as an unpaid legal worker at the county attorney's office in San Mateo because he had hired a woman once. Her response -"I loved my work and it was great," shows a remarkable attitude and one that reflected some of the ethos of America in the nineteenth century, what makes America and wins the respect of the world in Asian, African and Latin American countries. Her response at 75 years when retiring was to engage in work she loved and brought value to the nation- creating iCivics website to teach civics knowledge to children. She also led the College of WIlliam and Mary and engaged with young people. ...

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Spirit Airlines strategy to charge for almost everything from snacks to bags, reservations on the phone and other items for a flight- making it a bare bones flight like that of European budget carrier Ryanair- has proven very successful. Spirit's net profit per plane is now the highest by far in the U.S. airline industry. Spirit leads with $2.06 million profit per plane, followed by Delta at $1.21, United $1.19, JetBlue $0.51, Southwest $0.32, US Airways $0.21, and American at a negative $2.32 million, according to Ascend and FactSet Research. Spirit has stayed away from business fliers, instead pursuing the frugal flyer, other than the seat everything has a price. Boarding passes cost $5, water $3. Spirit started the trend to charge for bags. Southwest has moved away from the no frills arrangement and Spirit is gutsily moving that way. Carryons in the overhead bin run $30-$45. Compared to other airlines which get only 6% of revenues from add on charges, Spirit gets about 50%. Since 1989 Spirit earned $289 million, compared to $1 billion for way larger Southwest. Bill Franke, a former CEO of America West Airlines in 1990's, bought Spirit with the idea of modeling it on Ryanair in Europe, after Spirit could not turn a profit flying Midwest passengers to Florida. He teamed up with CEO Baldanza to run the operation on a hands on basis with only 1% going for advertising, and Franke doing some of the ads in emails. Running flight on a tight schedule means late flights and with tight seating and strict refund policies, Spirit has many complaints. It has the worst on time performance in the industry. Yet it has planes running close to capacity in today's frugal customer environment. Prices are about 30% lower than competitors according to industry analysts. Franke and Baldanza seem to revel in this, sensing that they have struck the right tone for a frugal flier, and outdone cost pioneer Southwest. ...

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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.  ...

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David Calhoun, CEO of Boeing, replaced CEO Muilenberg in 2020 so that Boing could address problems with it's 737 aircraft. A piece of a Boeing jet 737 9 has a piece of the aircraft blow off on an Alaska Airlines flight in January 2024. Calhoun was with GE running its engine business for two decades, joined Blackstone, before becoming the new CEO at Boeing. The 737 9 aircraft emergency evacuation shows that the safety culture at Boeing rooted in manufacturing practices at Boeing factories and supplier factories is weak. The problem for this plane was a door and a plug made at a supplier in Wichita, Kansas, and assembly at Boeing factory in Renton, Washington, says this report in WSJ. Airlines are voicing their concerns. Southwest and Alaska Airlines have entirely Boeing fleets and do not source from Airbus. A look at Calhoun's background shows that he worked with GE till 2006 and has since then worked for Blackstone private equity, without the manufacturing experience that would be needed to tackle the factory operations and work culture and practices at the Renton factory and its suppliers. Calhoun graduated with a Bachelors degree in Accounting from Virginia Tech in 1979 and is from the Philadelphia area.  ...

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  The state of Kerala is on the southwest coastal region of India south of Goa, and had its first encounter with the Portuguese in the sixteenth century. It is also the state with one of the highest literacy rates in the country. It lagged in industrial development after independence with a large number of people migrating to other countries. Prime minister Modi inaugurates the first Kerala Vande Bharat high speed train between Thiruvananthapuram and Kasargod. He also inaugurates today the Kochi Water Metro with  electric boats covering 38 terminals over 10 islands. Kochi is the commercial capital of the state. Modi said: "Our government emphasizes cooperative federalism and considers the development of the states as the source of the country's development. If Kerala develops then India will develop faster." "Kerala is a state of aware and educated people. Hard work and humility of people here is part of their identity." ...

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DW.com shows the Straits of Hormuz where the Persian Gulf meets the Gulf of Oman before it meets the Arabian Sea facing India. Ships cross a narrow space of 2 miles in the narrowest point that is 21 miles wide in the Straits of Hormuz. The UAE, Oman face Iran in that area. 20 million barrels of oil by tanker traffic cross the Straits of Hormuz every day. India, China, Japan and EU depend on the Straits of Hormuz for oil supplies making it critical for sea navigation. Iranian parliament  has threatened closing of the Straits as aresponse to the US strike on nuclear weapons development sites. China and India lose cheaper oil supplies from Iran as a result of the Israel-Iran war. Russia, Saudis, UAE, Qatar, gain because it increases the price of oil supplies from Russia. Iran loses a source of oil revenue with damage to its oil facilities. The Israeli economy is resilient and its stock markets are showing rapid growth as the war changes the Gulf region and  Southwest Asia, South Asia moving it in the direction of economic and business deals and agreements that enhance improvement in the lives of the people away from decades of conflict from the colonial era in which the British and the French gained control of the Gulf region and Iraq, Syria after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the anti colonial regimes that failed to provide development, the CIA's intervention under Dulles and Eisenhower to remove the democratically elected government of Mossadegh in Iran in 1953 and its repercussions in the Reagan period with Rumsfeld/Reagan compounding that error by supporting Iraq's Hussein leading to 3 decades of loss of American lives in the region's wars and also endangering Israel. ...

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After the war ended there was concern about jobs for the returning troops by the millions from the war in Europe. Joblessness had increased under Harry Truman to the point that his popularity dropped to 22% by 1951. Truman's Commission for Miratory Labor pointed out that immigration was causing social ills and increasing joblessness in the southwest. When Eisenhower was elected in 1952 there was opposition from unions in addition to small farms to migratory labor. In 1954 Operation Wetback was launched to return 1 million migrants back to Mexico.

Note that throughout 1910 to 1950 the US completely restricted Chinese, Indian, and Asian migration to America, even though the Chinese labor helped build the transcontinental railroad.  

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A 850 megawatt solar project, the largest in the US outside of Las Vegas runs into opposition from environmentalists concerned about the effect on views and on tortoises other endangered species. The planned project on top of Mormon Mesa would put over 1 million solar panels 10 to 20 feet tall in the Nevada desert. Across the US 800 utility scale solar projects are under contract for generation of 70,000 megawatts of electricity, enough for 11 million homes, for more than Texas. Over half of this solar capacity is going into the southwestern US, with its sunshine and open land. For the first time the ardent advocates of renewable energy such as the Sierra Club are now opposing such projects. Solar made up one tenth of one percent of US energy in 2010, in 2020 it made up 4.5%. It is growing very rapidly because costs are going way down. Even before government subsidies solar is now below the cost of natural gas. Projects near Martha's Vineyard on the Massachusetts coast took 12 years to get sate and federal approval for wind energy. These battles are similar to ones being fought in Europe. The US is better positioned for solar because of vast desert spaces in the American southwest. President Joe Biden plans to use this advantage of solar and wind to get to 100% renewable energy by 2035. ...

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United is looking for a merger partner as its one of the weakest of the large airlines. But no good fit is to be seen. United emerged from bankruptcy in a fairly weak condition and has not been able to come up with better margins. Its margin is only 2% compared to 6.1% for Southwest. Its planes are 20 years old and no new orders are being placed. Its possible that the airline may be sold piecemeal, such as its maintenance operations, its cargo business, and its Mileage Plus frequent flyer program.

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Some of the airlines that are seeing significant increases in airline passengers are Etihad Airways, and Quatar Airways, others like Ryanair, Lufthansa, Air France-KLM, Southwest, singapore, Cathay and LAN airlines are seeing increases in passegers. This separates them from airlines especially in the USA that are having to pay higher fuel prices with a weaker dollar, and lower proportion of international traffic and a very competitive market. As some airlines are shrinking others are buying new fuel efficient planes and moving into routes left by the shrinking airlines, and using their cash reserves to hedge fuel costs, and some like Singapore Airlines are attracting customers with premium services for premium prices.

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American, Alaska Airlines, and Southwest Airlines are the only 3 airlines that never filed for bankruptcy. Analysts say that this has left it with a higher cost structure, and estimate that American's costs would be $600 million lower if it has the contracts Delta and Continental have. Delta Airlines merger with Northwest in 2008, and the planned merger of Continental and United, does not affect American Airlines management. CEO Arpey sees American as more nimble and trying to build something profitable, and sees being smaller than these newly merged competitors an advantage. American is focussed on markets around 5 major cities- Dallas, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami and New York. In international travel it has One World partnerships with British Airways and Japan Airlines.

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After meeting with Rishi Sunak, the Finance Minister and the Business Secretary Alok Sharma prime minister Johnson is keen on getting things to as normal as possible in the summer to save jobs. About 3 million jobs could be lost, some permanently if businesses cannot open by summer, especially in the hospitality industry. This could push unemployment up from 1.3 million  to 2 million. The Times reports that at one point in the meeting Johnson said "Christ!" In mid March after he had the virus and Britain saw a surge in cases Johnson made health a priority even quoting Cicero in Latin that the health of the nation was the priority. Now this is changing with the jobs situation becoming a major risk. Much of the loss of jobs is likely say experts in the red wall districts that Johnson took from the Labour party in the election, and the prime minister feels a special responsibility to these districts. Johnson also said at one point about youth unemployment 18 to 24 years that is bleak, that he wanted to have an apprenticeship for every young person. The critical R rate is higher in the northwest and the southwest of England, compared to London. In England overall it is between 0.7 and 0.9. It needs to be around 1 to avoid spreading the virus.  As part of the social distancing guidelines ministers are also discussing changing the distancing on public transport so that it is 1 metre instead of 2 metres, so that reopening to get back to close to normal can be done sooner.     ...

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Southwest ranks 4th, American and United 5th and 6th in this survey in the WSJ. The top ranked airline for US quality travel is Delta Airlines in 2024.

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Eco-power washes for engines developed by Pratt and Whitney, a manufacturer of jet engines, is aservice that costs $3000 to $5000 per wash. It helps take the dirt and sludge off the engines that accumulates after ears of flying. The caked on grime from the inside of the engine can reduce fuel consumption by 1.2%, which adds up over time. Pratt estimates that if the entire industry used this service $1 billion in fuel costs could be saved and emissions of carbon dioxide reduced by 3.2 billion pounds. There is additional savings in maintenance as the engines run cooler when cleaned, and airlines can avoid costly overhauls for as long as 18 additional months. Wasdhing takes 90 minutes, is clean and pays for itself in weeks. Southwest started its program in April and by late May 2008 had done 248 washes. It estimates savings from these washes at $1.6 million.

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Delta, Southwest rank at the top of airlines in America for the least canceled flights and mishandled baggage. The lowest ranking from the Transportation Department was for American and United.

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The Hispanic vote counts for crucial vote margins not only in the southwest but in places like Pennsylvania and Virginia where they are 5% of the voting population. About 10 million Hispanics voted up from 7.8 million in 2004 accounting for 8% of the voting population. That is an increase of 2.2 million voters and abig part of grass roots efforts to get them to register both by Hillary Clinton, and Obama. This grass roots effort was crucial. And mobilized by immigration policies of the Republicans and by the economic downturn and by a new generation of younger latino voters they voted nationally 66% to 32% for Obama over McCain. In Florida the older generation of Cuban Americans were eclipsed by new younger Cuban American voters and South and Central American immigrants giving Obama 57% to 42% edge over McCain. In Colorado the Latino vote was 17% of the vote with 73% of Hispanics voting Obama. Newly registered voters were 35% in Colorado, 34% in Florida.

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The regulatory mood in Washington and airline lapses leading to special maintenance inspections for all airlines by the FAA.

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Companies with good credit ratings are paying higher interest rates and others are finding it harder to borrow as investors flock to safe Treaury bills and government debt. And in 2009 about $700 billion in debt has to be refinanced. Southwest Airlines needed $400 million partly to cover losses from betting that fuel costs would remain high. It is the only domestic airline with an investment grade rating. It had to pay interest of 10.5%, twice the rate it paid in 2004 to raise $350 million. It is doing the borrowing now because its CFO says it does not know what the credit markets will be like 6 months or a year from now. Corporations borrowed $172.7 billion in the 4th quarter, down from $179.1 billion in the last 3 months of 2007, with businesses trying to borrow ahead of further deterioration in credit markets and overcrowding as the government steps up its borrowing to meet the needs of the $825 billion stimulus spending. Businesses that cannot get the access to the credit as refinancing comes due or find the high interest rates (sometimes approaching 20%) onerous, may not survive. ...

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Jack Healy, who the NYT says writes about the rapidly changing politics and climate of the American southwest, provides this report from the border town of Nogales, Arizona, on the border with Mexico. In this desolate isolated border region America's future is being decided- Biden being the only Democrat since Harry Truman in 1948 to take Arizona and by just 10,000 votes. There near Nogales the border wall Trump built ends abruptly at the Kelly ranch in a picture shown in this report. Rural Santa Cruz County is except for migrants a solitary and quiet place along the border. Mr. Kelly moved here in 2002 and runs more of a hobby ranch unlike the bigger cattle ranches in the area. Migrants make their way through this part of the border and the Kelly ranch. In the most recent episode a migrant is shot and Mr. Kelly reports the shooting to police. Healy looks at the lives of the rancher and the migrant to give a snapshot picture of what life is really like on the border. And the different sides of the story seen from the rancher's and migrant's situation.  A border area where in a vast dry mesquite region ranchers on the Arizona side live alongside Mexico with people facing high unemployment where people are looking for work and choose to take the risks of crossing the border illegally. Crossings that are made at points on the border wall that end in canyons and riverbeds where migrants and their smugglers make their way. It affects the lives of the ranchers and the migrants in many ways. Ranchers who are in isolated areas- the Kelley ranch is 170 acres- feel isolated and vulnerable as they see a threat in the network of smugglers sending migrants across the border. This is also where the future of America is being decided. After the overconcentration of manufacturing in China, there is the border with Mexico, two regions that have little to do with each other but determine politics and emotions in the US about workers, about migrants and about borders. By understanding both sides of the story president Biden became the first president since Harry Truman to win Arizona in the presidential election of 2021. He won it by just 10,000 votes with a recount showing about 360 more votes. Without Arizona and Georgia both won by Harry Truman in 1948 Biden could not have begun the process of tackling the major issues facing America in 2021. Keeping uppermost workers and families, keeping uppermost the people of America as Truman had done in 1948.     ...