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The sense of conflict in China and US relations may not have developed in the shaping of Xi Jinping's thinking till the emergence of Mr. Trump. Jinping comes into the China shaped by Deng and Zemin after the collapse of the purely Communist experiment with modernization without access to western technologies and capital, and the experiment with American help. It is only after the realization that the Communist party had lost its sense of purpose in these years leading to the Bo Xilai episode, and the rhetoric of Mr. Trump against China, that the idea of first friction and then conflict emerged. The initial idea for Jinping before Trump was that this has worked for China- the experiment with the cooperation of the US in modernizing China. Trump's rhetoric and the Republican party's rhetoric about China stealing American jobs and technology after 2015 may have been targeted to win the election but it had an unintended effect after the tariffs of shaping Jinping's thinking about the future for China. Between the Bo Xi Lai episode in 2012 when it appeared he would be attempting to manipulate the Communist party's direction in unknown and unpredictable ways, Bo's trial in 2013 and the anticorruption campaign and the 2015 election campaign of Mr. Trump in the US, there must have been much soul searching in the party that shaped Jinping's thinking about the future for China after all the tumult of the 20th century starting with the Boxer rebellion in 1901. Stability is highly prized in China particularly for modernization. This perspective is important to grasp for world peace to be preserved with different coexisting perspectives about the world based on national as well as shared interests in issues such as climate change. US after its own disastrous experiment with capitalism that led to widening inequality of the kind not seen since Lincoln in the 1850's, the 2009 crisis, and the shift of jobs to China under a purely capitalist idea of how economies should function, had its own national interests in jobs, local manufacturing and Made in the USA. Once this process was underway after 2016 and grasped by president Biden after 2020, and supply chain reconstruction made the goal after covid, the US and China were on divergent economic and political paths.   That rethinking by Xi Jinping is not over as it may still be going on. The war in Ukraine may even convince Jinping and China's No. 2 leader Li Keqiang who studied the US constitution and American urbanization under mentors when he was in college, that Russia's prolongation of the war in Ukraine does not serve the interests of China. That risking relations with the European Union as Russia prolongs the war and finds itself in the complex problems of  a war it started, is not in China's interests in setting its own course for the future. ...

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China chooses periodic blockades or air-sea coordinated exercizes around Taiwan's 12 mile waters as a strategy to respond to US Indo-Pacific strategy of keeping lanes of sea traffic and navigation on oceans open to all nations. This is seen as less risky than an outright invasion. Military exercises in August 2022 are seen as preparing for such a strategy.  The US is the destination for $541 billion and Europe $521 billion in products Made in China in 2021, which make China the manufacturing powerhouse in the world. Without the export of $1 trillion in Chinese products thousands of factories and millions of Chinese workers would remain idle. It is unbelievable that China is risking so much with its Taiwan policy with no idea of what the consequences would be years from now. It took China three decades after the gradual opening by 1990 and a willingness on the part of American and European governments and business to give up much of their own manufacturing leading to loss of jobs in communities across both America and Europe and much pain from this loss, for China to get to $1 trillion in exports. This situation may never come back as the supply chains shift and jobs return home and to countries that are becoming competitive in infrastructure and capabilities in Asia. Such competition between nations is not unknown as it was with Imperial Japan in the Pacific just 100 years back. The US maintains its position as keeping navigation on the oceans of the world open and rule of law, and it is on these foundations that China was able to get the strong manufacturing and exporting position it has now that no nation has enjoyed in history to this extent. Only the British come close in the nineteenth century. So much of China's progress in the twentieth century was a result of cooperation and support from America, from the first university Tsinghua in Beiijing, to the war against imperialist forces of Japan, to the rebuilding of China's manufacturing and technological competitiveness with American business cooperation. ...

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His job covering tennis matches at Tennis Channel helped Chris Eubanks get a new perspective on the game from a safe distance. He did this as a way to find a channel for his energies after making it to the top 200 and stalling. He is now the top US player at Wimbledon playing in the quarterfinals after winning a five set match with Tsitsipas.

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Where did the numbers in the US president DJT's charts come from wjen shown in the Rose Garden on Liberation Day April 2 2025? The number for example 68% for China comes from a ratio- deficit by country divided by total imports to US.  The numerator reflects the US concern about trade deficits. It is exports minus imports for China in this instance. In 2024 China's exports were $438 billion to the US. It's imports were $143 billion. The difference is the surplus or deficit China has with the US. China's surplus is $295 billion. China's surplus is also America's deficit with China when turned around and seen from the viewpoint of America. The denominator reflects the US concern about how much it is importing from each country- this is how much it is not making inside America and which it has to get from another country. The more that it imports from another country the less it makes at home. If labor in the US gets too costly and is not cooperative to make well designed reliable products more factories close and are build outside in another country. This has consequences- serious consequences over time as it spreads to different industries. FOr the first time in history. A foreign nation makes practically everything and US acts only as a consuming nation- this means the workers jobs and incomes in the US are destroyed. It is often a sign of serious decline in the Nation. $295 billion/$438 billion is 67%. This is the China number shown on DJT's chart in the Rose Garden. The tariff and non tariff barriers and currency manipulation that China conducts in trade with US is measured in this way as an estimate, much higher than actual tariffs which is why US products don't get the treatment they deserve in China's market.   ...

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If the trade war escalates to the point at which president Trump imposes tariffs on all Chinese goods imported into the U.S. on Jan. 1, 2019, China could retaliate with its own tariffs and this might affect Boeing aircraft as well. The results would be to tip the economies of both countries into a recession, and affect Mr. Trump's best chances for reelection in 2020. This can happen as Mr. Trump has a great deal of confidence in his negotiating style. The negotiations so far have shown China misread the U.S. and Mr. Trump leading to a strong U.S. response.  There is also the importance of not losing face, Mr. Xi's domestic audience, Chinese industry that sees a fundamental change from state subsidies model as eroding its position and offering resistance, patriotic sentiment making it harder to meet U.S. demands. Fundamentally for Mr. Trump it is about U.S. trade deficit and changing the huge trade surplus of almost $1 trillion that China enjoys each year with the U.S. which has been and is no longer sustainable. Mr. Trump also has the backing of Republicans on this issue and Democrats cannot afford to be soft on this issue as it involves American workers and jobs are at stake. Both sides could be in for a protracted negotiation as Mr. Trump feels it is right for Americans to expect fair trade and technology transfer that respects American concerns. In addition the U.S. could sense that it exports less to China, is less dependent on exports than China, and as the party that is hurt by unfair practices insist on its position. After Japan agreed to U.S. demands that it reverse a huge trade surplus in the seventies in which Mr. Lighthizer was the negotiator its growth declined sharply and is economy stagnated. China may sense inside that this could happen to its economy. Today Lighthizer the U.S. negotiator and Trade Representative could also push hard because of he was able to convince Japan to change its course. ...

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With Labour leading in polls Mr. Johnson faces a no confidence motion in parliament after 53 Tory members called for the motion. No elections are planned before Jan 2025. There are no choices for the Tories other than Mr. Johnson who could hold his broad coalition of working class districts in the north of England and affluent districts in London. Mr. Johnson has also taken England through the pandemic, vaccination drive, and pandemic aid programs to help the UK recover, which he reminded Tory members of parliament.  The partygate scandal refers to parties that Mr. Johnson says never happened but took place during the worst part of the pandemic which have created an impression of callous behaviour and disregard of rules. The Conservatives face another problem in that the US and the EU including countries such as Denmark, Germany and France are moving in a direction that favors leaders who are promoting a revival of manufacturing locally, creating local jobs instead of job shifting overseas, increasing minimum wage, and promoting interests of workers and families. Labor had lost credibility during the Blair years similar to SPD losing credibility during the Schroder years, France's Socialists losing credibility under Hollande, and the Democrats under Clinton-Obama, and a general loss of credibility of socialist leaders who failed to work for the interests of workers and families. Biden, Scholz, the German Greens under Habeck, and French under Melenchon are changing this today wtih a new and genuine commitment of respect for the dignity of workers and families, and women. There may be a sense of unease among Tories about how long the working class districts in the north of England will vote Tory when no investments are being made to fulfill the promises Boris Johnson has made. Yet Tories have no alternate leader and may be stumbling their way into the remaining part of their period in office as Britons look for a new future where the massive investments needed in manufacturing locally and in infrastructure take place to benefit workers and families. ...

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Any Asian conflict involving China would in a few months destroy Apple's value, CEO's would change quickly, and Apple policies change to shift entire production to India and the US in a rapid shift. Tim Cook would be seen as having gambled against America's interests, unresponsive and failing after repeated warnings.  Apple's goal of sourcing from India by 2027 a mere 26% of its iphones, means that a decade after USTR Lighthizer and DJT started the task of reshoring manufacturing to US and allies in 2016, the No. 1 outshoring company would still be making 75% of its dollar value iphones in China. A degree of overconcentration that would make no sense considering that Apple's 75% of manufacturing would be entirely at risk in 2027 after repeated warnings and inaction. The only option for Tim Cook in 2025 is to come up with new goals of shifting a minimum of 50-60% of its dollar value product manufacturing for iphones to India by 2027. . Tim Cook as Apple CEO has done little to prevent the overconcentration of manufacturing in China since 2016. About 10 years after DJT was elected to bring manufacturing back to India or close allies the simple idea of diversification was not implemented. Why? Having set up this system starting in 1998, a system that did not exist before that tiem when Steve Jobs hired Tim Cook with a winning formula to Make in China, a country just emerging from its Communist phase of failed state economy. By 2008 in 10 years the infrastructure was built in a backward largely agricultural economy that was rapidly modernizing under a market economy with state run capitalism under the Communist Party experiment. The Bush Obama 16 years were ones with America not responding to the challenge posed by this new system which could create huge surges in production capacity with focus on key technologies and flood markets. The next decade after 1998-2008 was one of rapid growth of this experiment which combined with design and engineering in the US generated few jobs in manufacturng in the US, but huge profits with huge margins fro a low cost base with a high image and technology innovation product. Lighthizer, Navarro, Jamieson had already sounded the alarm for American manufacturing and loss of jobs in 2016.  America's deindustrialization was becoming a bigger challenge by 2020 so that president Biden continued the policy of reindustrializing. In 2025 China 2025 Plan that was a warning in 2016 is already a reality with China flooding the world in solar panels, and ready to flood the markets overseas with electric cars. Apple may only get a reprieve, this exemption is not the same as the last one. National security is an issue, key technologies need to be protected. There is only one more opportunity to rebuild American manufacturing and keep promises.     ...

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As the Nation faces discord over the right Path Forward it is important to remember- the pandemic's costs for a once in a century event are still being added up. Not just 1 million dead. 1 million with struggles over Long Covid. The toll on the elderly affecting tens of millions of caregivers. 10 million affected by decision not to vaccinate- with adverse symptoms and at work, 20-50 million affected by the financial losses stemming from the pandemic hit to jobs and work in 2019-2020. As the Nation discusses its future there is a sense that many have been left behind even with the best intentions of government. With huge wins in infrastructure now and ahead of us,  the wins are not enough in cutting pharmaceutical and other day to day living costs. Harris has a plan and Trump has no plan for Cost of Living Action. Yet a lot more could have been done for cost of living action given a president with a single focus determination to fix problems, make the large investments needed and full support of both houses of Congress. It is this lack of full Congressional support of a determined president for taking action that has led to insufficient effort to fix cost of living, wages and public services- something that needs to change to bring help to the middle class and lower income working people of America. ...

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The difficulties of unwinding war stimulus that has increased jobs and wages in poorer regions of Russia, and the problems with unwinding a war economy, are discussed here by experts from Russia, the US and Germany. Other aspects include what to do with hundreds of thousands of new recruited soldiers who would be unemployed during a period when the economy's growth has slowed and wage growth is slowing. In 2024 new recruits were given 1 years bonus and were being attracted in large numbers. JD Vance mentioned this to the new Pope in discussions, and this report says even Putin does not know how best to unwind this war economy. Vance told Pope Leo XIV -“I’m not sure that Vladimir Putin himself has a strategy for how to unwind the war.” This is the view also from an expert at the Free University of Berlin, as rapidly demobilizing a large army poses its own problems. Russia could export the arms from new arms factories and keep people employed. This option is difficult as many African countries buy on credit and Asian other buyers may seek the latest technologies, others face financial difficulties or like India are diversifying and shifting to local manufacturing. ...

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The U.S. Border Patrol apprehended 327,577 illegal immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal year 2011, ending Sept 30. This is a steep decline from the 1.6 million apprehended crossing the border in 2000. The numbers have been dropping since the 2009 financial crisis and high unemployment in construction and other trades employing migrants. The figures for 2011 suggest a drop of about 25% from 2010. Researchers at the Pew Hispanic Center, say the balance now is about zero for people entering the U.S. across the border from Mexico and people returning to Mexico. In fact there are stories of money being sent to migrant workers without jobs in the U.S. by families in Mexico, which has affected the flow of migrant workers.

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The record shows that like other industrial states such as Illinois, Michigan and Ohio, Massachusetts lost many manufacturing jobs during the period 2003-2007, when Romney was Governor of Massachusetts. At the end of 2002 there were 338,000 manufacturing jobs in Massachusetts, by 2007 this had declined by 12% to 298,000, according to Andrew Sum, an economist at Northeastern University. Romney cites a drop in the unemployment rate from 5.6% to 4.7%. Prof. Sum who heads the University's Centre for Labor Market Studies, says this was people left the workforce during this period in large numbers. He says only Louisiana of all U.S. states had a bigger decline in the labor force when it was hit by Hurricane Katrina. The dot com bubble burst during the period before Romney took office. Massachusetts had already lost 158,000 jobs in 2001-2002 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Romney was unable to do much to reverse the job losses that continued during his term in office.

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Following president Trump's decision to increase tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods on May 9, 2019, the WSJ looks at the mistakes made by both sides in misjudging each other's negotiating position. Mr. Trump says he is willing to increase the pressure on China by imposing tariffs on all Chinese imports into the U.S. after what he sees as China reneging on its commitments on trade by deleting key sections on enforcement provisions and Chinese legislation for enforcement to take place in the 150 page agreement prepared for both presidents to sign.  Early on in the negotiations between Liu He and Mr. Lighthizer, China misread the thinking on the U.S. side. Chinese thinking was that president Trump's urging for the Federal Reserve to lower rates was a perception sign of the weakening U.S. economy. It also may have misread the extent to which Mr. Trump trusts Mr. Robert Lighthizer, who Mr. Trump respects for winning a good deal with the Japanese in similar situation of Japanese rejection of U.S. demands. Mr. Trump also thinks the U.S. has a strong economy, is the largest world producer of oil, strong economic growth in the last quarter of 2018, is also negotiating better deals with other countries including the ones with Mexico, Canada and South Korea. It is also much less dependent on exports to China, giving it a stronger position with more experienced negotiators. China has whole sectors of its economy dependent on exports to the U.S., and crucial numbers of jobs at stake.  China also misread the signals from its stronger than expected economic growth from stimulus efforts in the last quarter, leading to it staking out a tougher position than the U.S. would accept. The U.S. position was set after decades of waiting for China to change and was unlikely to be affected by any temporary considerations.  As a result the U.S. not anticipating the Chinese response of deleting key sections agreed to in advance from the 150 page written agreement gave a strong response. Mr. Mnuchin who accompanied Lighthizer in talks says Mr. Lighthizer "read them the riot act" to the Chinese side. For the Chinese side the effort now shifted to continuing good faith talks without appearing to back down. ...

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With a shortage of nurses and healthcare workers, some hospitals are dropping the vaccine mandate for healthcare workers. Shortages existed before the pandemic. The burnout for healthcare workers led to people dropping out. The lure of high pay has also led to nurses to travel to hot spots further crimping supply of workers. Recently workers who do not want ot get vaccinated have quit the industry or lost their jobs, some have left for facilities that do not follow the vaccine requirement. CDC estimates 30% of healthcare workers at 2000 hospitals in the US are unvaccinated as of September 2021. The Biden vaccine mandate would be effective for second shots by Jan. 4. A federal judge in Louisiana has ruled in Nov. questioning the president's authority for a vaccine mandate. Following that ruling HCA, AdventHealth, Tenet, Cleveland Clinic are among the hospital chains reversing earlier decisions for vaccine mandate. Other hospital chains in California Kaiser Permanante and in New York Northwell Health have kept the vaccine mandate. Kaiser had 98% staff vaccinated, with a similar situation at Northwell. Kaiser has 210,000 employees and Northwell 77,000. Utah Mountain also has 98% vaccinated.  Research on vaccine mandates suggests them to be effective. U Penn psychology research shows people are more likely to get encouraged to get vaccine than discouraged with a vaccine mandate not vaccinated working in healthcare in September will shrink considerably by January. ...

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Upward mobility in China was weak and income growth for average workers sluggish during the years before the coronavirus outbreak. In this sense China is similar to the U.S. and Europe where upward mobility gains after the second world war were lost in the last 30 years partly from the loss of manufacturing to China. It is much worse now as the effects of the coronavirus lead to drops of as much as a third in income for ordinary workers. Lower income workers, the vast majority of Chinese numbering hundreds of millions now suffer from lost work or diminished wages. Small businesses cannot afford to pay the salaries paid before and as workers dip into savings or increase borrowing the retail spending is taking a hit. As a result economists see a vicious cycle of lower spending and lower incomes for the hundreds of millions of ordinary workers in construction and smaller businesses. Some small businesses could just close down because of weak demand affecting the economy over the long term. Before the coronavirus China went over three decades from being a Communist country with relatively equal distribution of wealth but lack of growth and technological development to a capitalist country with the structure of state control of the economy from the Communist period. The result is that 1% of the people control 33% of the wealth and the bottom 25% having 1% of the wealth, according to a 2015 Peking University study. China's president Xi Jinping, head of the Communist party, tried to reverse some of these trends by attacking corruption and making changes that began the task of reversing decades of unequal distribution of wealth under state sponsored capitalist growth. Investments were made in rural medical care, infrastructure and basic services. This did not have much impact because much of the pattern of growth over three decades continues including the housing bubble.  With coronavirus the trend is set for even more unequal distribution of wealth as many workers at the bottom half of the population in incomes either lose work, or see drop in incomes as businesses that hire them struggle from shoe factories to other retail business. Reports of informal economy and street markets in Chengdu in western China and bringing this part of the economy back by the state are effort to get people work in other ways. Researchers estimate that China's bottom 60% of household in incomes lost about $200 billion in income in the first half of 2020. In May premier Li Keqiang said 600 million people in China earn only about $140 a month. Many who lost income or jobs do not have support from the government as China lacks a program of comprehensive unemployment insurance as in Europe and the U.S. to help people get over bad times. 300 million migrant workers are particularly vulnerable to loss of income and dipping into savings.   ...

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China's agriculture based on small farms is undergoing a change as the government pushes automated farming and large farms in the face of limited imports from the U.S. China put tariffs on agricultural imports from the U.S. in retaliation for U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports. China's Agriculture Ministry says it will build 254 "strong agricultural industrial towns" as models for the country. President Xi stated on a visit to northeastern province Heilongjiang, that "unilateralism and trade protectionism are rising, forcing us to take the road of self reliance." The yield per hectare in the U.S. for soybeans is about twice that in China. Mechanized farming is limited in China because it would eliminate many jobs in rural areas. As the state has ownership of land and farmers merely use land, farmers are less likely to take risks with large long term investments. It can be risky for farmers to rent their land use rights to others, which would lead to consolidation.  Now a separate "Made in 2025" plan makes upgrading farm machinery and equipment one of the 10 goals. China may lift ban on genetically modified seeds now that ChemChina has acquired Swiss seed company Syngenta. China plans to partner with Asian Development Bank to provide $6 billion of loans, grants and investment to fund a list of development projects in rural areas, to modernize agriculture. WSJ cites a project of consolidation into an 8200 acre farm in Shandong province that  has increased yields 43% by investing in new farm equipment and planting machines, pesticide spraying drones. Scaling up has made this possible.    ...

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This report in WSJ shows how European countries are maintaining salaries of employees who would otherwise be laid off. Governments have setup programs in France, Britain, Germany and other countries to provide employers with the money for 80-84% of salaries up to 2500 pounds ($3165) in Britain and 5330 euros a month in France. As a result 1 worker out of three in the private sector in France for subsidy applications for 6.9 million workers are already received. For the German program 2.4 million workers will get this benefit. About 1 million companies in Europe retain employees with this program of governments simply sending out the salaries with funds directly to households. This helps to keep out the stress for families, particularly families with children. It is as if the employees are not really laid off but asked to stay at home for manufacturing facilities and work from home in shorter hours where work can be done remotely.  Money is quickly deposited into the bank account of employees in these countries, though it is slower in Italy and Spain. It is as if the European approach is put the whole economy on pause for 2 months and restart it almost like before with only a small dent in employment once the coronavirus is pushed out with lockdowns and strict control actions. This will cap German unemployment at 5.9% compared with 5% last year, only a modest increase. The cost is not that much considering what it accomplishes. 10 billion euros is the cost in Germany where the state fund for this has 26 billion euros. 10 billion pounds in Britain. And 20 billion euros in France.  The U.S. adopts a similar approach also through its $349 billion program which provides loans to companies with less than 500 employees to meet payroll for 8 weeks and pay some overhead. Loans are forgiven based on job retention and employees on the payroll and only if the employees are retained. Another program is for companies larger than this. And a third program targets entire industries such as airlines, aerospace, and companies in other industries so that they do not have to layoff employees. U.S. unemployment insurance is modified to work along similar lines maintaining incomes of employees laid off because of the pandemic. Another program sends checks directly of $1200 to households with lower incomes to help them and to help people at poverty level or without jobs. The thrust of both the European and American efforts is the same, lose as few jobs as possible, keep people's incomes steady, and do this in a way that the economy can pick up quickly to the former level in as short a time as possible. Compared to Europe U.S. unemployment will be higher predicted at 9.8% with the expected rebound lowering the unemployment in 2021. ...

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Most Americans pay less in taxes, including state, local and federal taxes, today than in 1980 in inflation adjusted dollars. The taxes have gone down by 2-3% for incomes in the range of $50,000 to $150,000, and gone down by 3-4% for incomes between $150,000 and $350,000. Taxes have gone down over 7% for incomes above $350,000. The main reason is the decline in federal income taxes.Tax rates increased in the period to 1990 and declined from 1990 to 2010. The Democratic party and president Obama are pushing for increase in taxes for incomes above $250,000. Republicans are resisting the changes citing disincentives to investment and growth for small business which generates a large proportion of new jobs created in the U.S. economy. The New York Times study shows the percent of the U.S. population that makes between $200,000 and $350,000 almost doubling in the period 1980-2010 and at the same time its share of the U.S. income remaining the same - many small business owners who hire employees would fall into this income category. Republican's response is for tax reforms that reduce loopholes, deductions and other tax expeditures that disproportionately help the wealthy. Democrats say this cannot create enough revenues to address the deficit, when mortgage deductions, charitable deductions are excluded. The back and forth is leading to stalemate but also opening up discussion for the first time on whether the mortgage and charitable deductions make sense in today's environment. A significant portion of revenues lost in the mortgage deduction goes to affluent households, subsidizing larger borrowings to build larger homes than otherwise, according to the Brookings Institution. Politicians have resisted changes that would go against powerful lobyying groups in the past, yet the impasse has opened up new thinking outside the box because of the pressing need to come up with a solution....

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The US added 103,000 jobs on net in December 2010, acccording to the Labor Department. The jobs were mainly added in leisure and hospitality (especially the food services and drinking places subsector ) and in health care. Payrolls for other industries show no growth. A different government survey, which is based on how many people are without jobs but are actively looking for work, fell to 9.4% in December 2010 from 9.8% in November. But part of the reason for this is that many people stopped looking for jobs.

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The European Union goes forward with $39 billion for Ukraine aid. The aid is backed by interest from the $300 billion in Russian assets in Europe frozen when war began. Another $15-20 billon is expected from the US when legal questions about frozen Russian assets are resolved- the US asking for a 36 month review of sanctions to replace 6 months in place in 2024. The European Union offices in Brussels have done a poor job of communicating how the EU is  aiding Ukraine with its own resources. Lyrarc.com had to point out that Ukraine aid from EU was about twice that of the US at about $200 billion compared to about $95 billion for the US. Former president Trump stated that this was just the opposite the US spending twice what the US was spending. Media in today's world means little or nothing because it operates highly fragmented and organically outside the control of any particular source online, television or print. And established sources apart from bias are spread so thin many important matters for the betterment of people's lives or giving a true picture from which to make observations, are left to wither or distort. The highly formal  corporate environments of the EU are impervious to the outside so that institutions such as the ECB, European Union headquarters are out of touch with the people worldwide.  ...

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Job seekers and job stayers make no difference in pay increases about 4.6% increase for the US in Jan and Feb 2025.

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The Obama administration's Small Business Jobs Act of Sept 2010 set aside $30 billion to stimulate lending to small business. Only 7% of 7700 U.S. lenders have signed up for the program so far. The deadline to sign up to participate has been extended from March 31 to May 16, 2011, by the Treasury Department. Banks have been hesitant to sign up for various reasons: banks say they see a stigma to taking these loans, and need additional staff to handle the extra paperwork. Banks say there isn't enough demand for loans from small business, or that there is enough capital already to handle larger better collateralized borrowers with the others considered too risky anyway.

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There are 2.3 million federal workers outside of the US Post Office and military. WSJ analysis shows more than half of the Congressional Districts with the largest proportion of federal workers are Republican districts. How do you get these Republicans to sign off for layoffs in their own states and districts asks the WSJ. DOGE faces a tough fight on this. The other issues are about getting the work of government done where the layoffs to cut costs are done in a way that reduces the productivity of workers with conflicting goals and instructions so that important work doesn't get done. US Treasury's Fiscal Data Site shows the US federal government spent $6.9 trillion in 2024 or 23% of the US GDP. The Government Accountability Office last year issued a report that fraud, waste losses were about $521 billion, this is about 8 percent of the US federal spending in 2024. To get this done, to cut waste and fraud requires a patient effort which also does a job of convincing the people of America that the cost cutters are doing a good job, cutting fat not bone or muscle. DOGE led by Musk require much patient effort - loud, high profile actions could hurt with distractions.  It is different on runaway illegal migration and 490,000 deaths from fentanyl over 12 years, where action cannot be loud enough to get America's voice heard and action taken to prevent any more deaths. Biden and Democrats signed up in 2024 to Republican Senator Lankford's bill, so that it means both Republicans and  Democrats now have to deliver on this.   ...

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Jean Raspail is the French author  of "Camp of the Saints" and of "Me Antoine de Tounens King of Patagonia," winner Grand Prize of the Novel 1981 Academie Francaise. Written by Raspail, the son of the Founder of Le Figaro French newspaper in 1973, Camp of the Saints is a book describing Raspail's extraordinary vision of how boats from Bengal would suddenly appear at French shores carrying millions of people from Bengal fleeing conditions of squalor and extreme poverty. 1971 was the year of the Bangladesh war with millions of refugees from Bangladesh at the time called East Pakistan pouring into India from Bangladesh, hit by massive floods the year prior, and then facing an army of occupation from West Pakistan's Punjab ethnic group dominated Army. While calling Raspail's Camp of the Saints "openly racist" Le Monde does not show the events described here as being entirely real- the squalid and the squalor into which Bengal had been plunged by a over a century of British rule in India that as Gandhi showed in the 1920's in "Young India" magazine spent most of the budget on policing, and very little on development except rail for logistics to hold the Empire together. On this the French Left or French Right or the European Left or Right is silent, preferring not to open up the similar situation facing China Hongkong, Shanghai as Treaty ports and Beijing after the Boxer rebellion, the Middle East with Sykes and Picot creating artificial states of Syria and Iraq, and controlling states of Iran and Egypt, and Indochina as French colony. It is not "racist" it only shows what Raspail might have seen on television at that time of the truly squalid conditions, including a famine in Bengal in 1944 that was aggravated by British policies. If Raspail imagined that boats from Bengal would arrive at the shores of France it is not something that is not connected to reality, it is the squalor and squalid conditions- except the reality the so called Right and the Left failed to say was a result of the centuries of colonization that made the region miss the Industrial Revolution. Western India around Bombay and Ahmedabad was far more developed by the 1970's and more so by 2003 when Camp of the Saints was republished. In 2026 Camp of the Saints is outdated. Northern India, Western India and Central India is in the kind of rapid modernization that happened in China, with bullet trains, ports and new highways, new industrial infrastructure, housing, going up every year under the Modi Government. In the paradox of today the Modi government is referred to as racist or religious right without reference to its essential condition, its very spirit of modernization based on science and technology acknowledging and revering the contributions of European nations and America. Bangladesh is eastern Muslim part of Bengal. West Bengal is part of the federal Union of Indian States, and has fallen into disrepair and industrial backwardness within Indian states because of the lack of the rapid modernization that India is going through, under mismanagement of the scale of Venezuela. Much of the media in the west does not report the scale of the mismanagement of some of the states in India that were built on the legacy of the early decades after independence of policy to slow down industrialization and corruption that destroyed infrastructure investment. The federal government of India and the states run by the party at the federal level in northern, western, central and north eastern India oppose migration to the US and Europe and are now growing at the fastest pace in the world, faster than China, growing at 10-12 percent a year. Bihar state in India is the home of Lord Buddha and the origins of Buddhist civilization of China and Japan. It has a population of 130 million and is growing at 22% a year in 2026. India needs its young people at home, even though it is willing to loan some of its technical people to Germany and Europe and the US. The Indian federal government policy and policy of these Indian states run under federal policy is to oppose migration and find jobs for millions in a rapidly modernizing economy at home. This then is the reality in India, as well as China, with 2.8 billion people. No one in India, not Gandhi if he were here today, not the government in the Indian federal union and states faults Raspail and others and calls them "racist," because of the extraordinary help first Japan, then China and now India receives from America and the European Union to develop and modernize quickly. In fact Indians look with admiration on the western leaders in science and technology, the scientists and inventors of Europe and the US, and are eager to emulate them in the future. And this is true also of the people of China, and reflects the aspirations of the new generation. ...

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  “And 5 million manufacturing jobs were lost while racking up trade deficits of $19 trillion." The Washington Post does not deny this as false, and this is the crux of the point DJT has made what everyone with eyes to see has seen for 40 years. DJT sometimes exaggerates to make his point. False should mean the meaning is false not that a particular number 70% vs 50% for India's tariff on Harley Davidson motorcycles. It should also consider PM Modi's stand for India- to support the US position when it comes to American factories closing by the thousands and destroying not just it's manufacturing but also it's middle class, just as Gandhi would have done. That close is India's sentiment for the American people and the Republic, and the defense of its recovery as a manufacturing nation for its workers and families. DJT did not say that it is a poor country as the Washington Post says is "Trump's telling." As Greg Ip of the WSJ pointed out in 2024, it is that the US simply cannot sustain the blows to its workers and its manufacturing base from a $1 trillion deficit year after year with China. Before bringing economist's into the picture one has facts of what the devastation to American workers has done to communities across America. DJT said and most workers will stand by his words- "For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped, and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike. American steelworkers, auto workers, farmers, and skilled craftsmen. They really suffered gravely. They watched in anguish as foreign leaders have stolen our jobs, foreign cheaters have ransacked our factories, and foreign scavengers have torn apart our once beautiful American dream." Not a single report in the US and foreign media reports of Liberation Day Rose Garden speech by DJT on April 2, 2025, says that DJT said he would trust what he sees with his own eyes and experience for 40 years, and not economists who have turned their backs on American workers, turned to a UAW worker from Detroit and asked him to tell what he saw for 40 years.  "Brian, I’d like to have you come up here for a second. Okay? I just see him sitting. He’s been a fan of ours, and he understands this business a lot better than the economists, a lot better than anybody. Brian, say a few words, please. Would you?" And this what Brian a retired autoworker from Macomb Conty, Michigan saw for 40 years that economists refused to see in their economic theories- "I have watched my entire life, I have watched plant after plant after plant in Detroit and in the Metro Detroit area close. There are now plants sitting idle. There are now plants that are underutilized, and Donald Trump’s policies are going to bring product back into those underutilized plants. There’s going to be new investment. There’s going to be new plants built."     ...

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The Economist cites figures showing Canada lost 500,000 manufacturing jobs since 2005, with employment in manufacturing down to 1.7 million by 2013. From 2000 to 2013 manufacturing's share of GDP declined from 18% to 10%. This situation is shown by the decaying manufacturing towns seen in Ontario. About 500,000 manufacturing jobs were lost between 2005 and 2013, as the price of oil increased to the $100-$120 range and the Canadian currency was overvalued, leaving the Canadian economy more dependent on energy exports. Some of the auto manufacturing supplier base has shifted from the midwest to southern U.S. states, reducing the attractiveness of Ontario for manufacturing investment. Overvalued currencies have hurt the manufacturing sector of commodity producing countries dependent on exports of mining products or oil, especially Brazil and Canada. The depreciation of the Canadian currency in 2014-2015 may not help, as many of these jobs are not likely to return.