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This report in the NYT says South Korea is putting itself at a disadvantage by investing in the US and with its commitments for buying LNG from the US. It like other articles in the NYT sells America short. The goodwill earned by Japan and South Korea by the approach to trade agreements that acknowledges the unfair treatment the US put up with from both partners for decades is something that will be remembered by the American people. Any agreement South Korea and Japan make with the US will be to the lasting benefit of the two Asian nations as it is built on shared goodwill of the American people and the people of Japan and Korea. Agreements with China are largely temporary adjustments in a larger situation of competition between the US and Europe with China and are transient arrangements.

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In and Interview with The Times of London Andy Burnham said yesterday: “You have to rethink how we run things to get a different approach to public spending and running the economy which is much more focused on early investment, early intervention, setting people up for success and much less paying for failure." “A concept I will talk about tomorrow is a 10-year plan for the country. I think that’s what it needs. I’m not saying that means I’m setting out to say I’m going to be here for 10 years, it’s more that we’re not in the right place structurally. “You go round large parts of Britain and they’re in decline still. The path we’ve got to lay is quite a long one. It can’t be done overnight. You’ve got to show people where we’re going and the steps towards it.” At Lyrarc.com we have called for a 10 year Plan for the US, this is a right step for Britain.   ...

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Peter Hotex of Baylor Medicine in the US is a pioneer and leader in getting low cost traditional vaccines to billions in Africa, Asia and Latin America.  Here Peter Hotez of the Baylor College of Medicine Tropical School is interviewed in The Hindu. He talks about how the new mRNA vaccines are "shiny toys" pushed forward in the US in 2020 under innovation drives, and that the vaccines made by traditional methods are just as effective and provide lasting protection. Without vaccinating the entire world population including the billions of people living in Africa, Asia and Latin America, there will be no end in sight for the pandemic, he says, and the best way to do this is through vaccines made by traditional methods, methods used by Bharat Biotech for Covaxin and Biological E for its vaccine. He said mRNA is a brand new technology  and "it will take years to scale it up to make 9 billion doses" of vaccine for poor countries. Baylor has developed the vaccine technology using traditional methods such as yeast fermentation expression technology used for Recombiannt Hepatitis-B vaccine. Its been around for 40 years. Baylor will transfer the technology to Indonesia, India, Bangladesh, all over the world. He says in terms of virus neutralizing anti-body immune responses it is as effective as the mRNA vaccines. Hotez is critical of some pharma companies- "the rest of them want to bicker about patents. we're not going to go down that direction." Baylor is providing its technology for manufacture to companies to fill the need in poor countries, without patent protection or quibbling about legal things such as indemnities, says Hotez. Hotez also thing recombinant protein technologies vaccine with its traditional approach could also overcome vaccine hesitancy, a key factor for unvaccinated in Europe and US which have stuck to mRNA vaccines. The newer technology behind mRNA could make parents hesitate to vaccinate their children with these technologies, and also be a part of the mental attitude of unvaccinated adults having hesitancy.   ...

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Internal Bank of England data showing Britain inside European Union 6-8% higher GDP and 75 billion pounds of higher exports of goods in 2025. This is the only objective assessment one can accept in judging what would be best for British workers and their families.  Also lost on the 2014 -2016 period that led to referendum on Brexit in 2016 just three years later is that it came after the 2009-2011 period for recovery from the financial crisis, the first entry of Conservatives and sharp austerity cuts in public spending by 2012, and the period of Covid that followed just 3 years after 2016 in 2019. The process of improving productivity and increasing competitiveness that could have happened, is a cost Britain suffered from Brexit becoming topic No.1, skewing priorities from reindustrializing to debate on a non priority item Brexit- with a lost decade as a result in addition to the 8% of GDP and 75 billion pounds that could add to these numbers. In this way UK lost about 10% of its GDP and 100 billion pounds of exports that without the that  additional public investment  did not happen from 2009 financial crisis, from Brexit divisiveness, followed by Covid. The result is 1.5% growth in GDP in UK compared to closer to 3% in the US. The lower growth alone can mean additional losses in exports in 2025 than are seen in numbers, and additional losses in GDP. This is the economic weakness  that hangs over Britain as it tries out a new leader in 2026. Only a bold action plan under a bold leader can reverse this decline. As shown elsewhere on these pages in Lyrarc, this is why a new leader needs to articulate a bold and well thought out plan to execute with the support of the British people. Andy Burnham has the potential to make this happen starting in 2026 over the next 5-7 years. He has to build on the work he did in the Greater Manchester region, and like Modi in India applying the lessons learned in his home state of Gujarat, step by step, year by year, build the industrial and economic capacity of Britain by 2035. It is not a feat for the timid, struggles will abound, yet it can be done with one step following the previous step in a continuous stride. In fact Burnham can now work with India to add about 1% of GDP because of the close trading relationship and centuries long synergies with India to get closer to 3% growth in GDP per year. At that point public spending and investment would rise to propel further growth. It is in the interest of every sector in Britain to pull together, the same in India, to lift these two main countries of the Commonwealth by the bootstraps. ...

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A UN Security Council ceasefire resolution passes with the US abstaining. It passed 14-0 including Algeria the only Arab country in the Security Council vote. It calls for immediate ceasefire and immediate release of all hostages. The other countries in the non permanent 10 members included Japan, South Korea, Switzerland, Slovenia, Guyana, Mozambique. This resolution supports the US efforts through working with Qatar and Egypt to reach a solution with a ceasefire and humanitarian assistance to the civilian population.

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Xi Jinping is seen in this WSJ report as putting China on a course as a competitor of the US compared to other leaders such as Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin, yet these prior leaders faced a enoromous gap in technology and capital to make it ludicrous. The shrinking of this gap is a result of free markets theory that took no account of the national interests of the US or of the European Union in shifting manufacturing lock stock and barrel to China.  A deeper look at China requires looking at it from putting oneself in China's situation since the period of the 1912 revolution and the 1919 May 4th movement for Science, Modernization and Democracy, to better understand its motives and realities. Jiang Zemin could not pose the question of competing with the US at the time because China's per capita GDP was less than $100 in 1990 and by 2000 during Hu Jintao's term still about a tenth of American per capita GDP.  Even today with population in North America of about 500 million in the economies of US, Canada and Mexico, China lags far behind in technology and capital resources. The Biden administration does not believe in this idea of free markets theory, wrong from the beginning that prevailed incredibly and puzzingly for too long, that it does not matter where you make as long as it is made at the least cost anywhere. It ignored what China and the US under Biden both believe for the US or China that the US is its people and the people is the country. For the US the Civil war itself as Lincoln said in rallying people to the Union, was fought because labor was more important than capital. When looked at the situation in China as stated by Xi at the party congress recently is for having made progress for the overriding goal of Modernization to build a moderately prosperous socialist economy. Huge problems in China remain hidden- ensuring self governance that is honest and accountable to the people, creating jobs and opportunities for hundreds of millions of young people even as supply chains shift after the pandemic in Europe and the US, India and other countries to their home countries for Made In USA, Made in Europe, and Made in India. China is not such a believer in the flawed free markets theory of the non existence of national interest to not grasp the natural aspects of the US and EU, India wanting to build their own manufacturing up again to the fullest. In this situation it also probably realizes the need for a pause to the rampant free markets type of growth that has damaged China's water, air and environment as much as it has damaged the world through climate change. Quality of growth is the new ethos and this gives the US and China, India, the EU and other countries a common frontier to shoot for. The nuclear aspect is also there and managing this well is a common interest for all countries exercizing responsible leadership. ...

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Retail and government hiring helped add 1.4 million jobs in the U.S. in August 2020. It has dropped from 15% in April. It was 3.5% in February before the pandemic. About 3.4 million individuals reported that their job loss was permanent an increase, while the number saying their job loss was temporary has declined to 6.2 million from 9.2 million in July.

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This WSJ report shows how a record 4.4 million American workers resigned from their jobs in September 2021 alone. WSJ shows map of US with the states where this is happening marked with "I Quit." States with the largest quit rates have large share of employment  in food, restaurant, hotel and entertainment industries- Hawaii, Montana, Utah, Oregon, Colorado, New Hampshire, Louisiana. In the northeastern states the education sector which accounts for a larger share of employment the quit rate has risen at the fastest pace since January as shown in the Labor Department numbers. For years wages, benefits and working conditions in the food, restaurant, grocery store, hotel and entertainment industries, supply chain logistics, lagged behind, exacerbating inequality and widening the income gaps between working class Americans and the professional and other classes. Increases in minimum wages lagged behind the cost of raising families, rent and grocery bills. Professions such as nursing, children's education, critical to the nation's health were also left behind in wage increases as the tech boom rewarded different sectors in outrageous ways worsening the social divide and creating pools of income scarcity and income abundance in indiscriminate ways. The pandemic is changing all this. Workers in states with higher proportion of workers in these sectors of the economy are saying "I Quit," as they seek better opportunities elsewhere and better working conditions. The checks to working class Americans in 2020-2021 as aid for the pandemic, the child credits, investments in affordable housing, child care, early childhood education, and other aid in the Biden Families and Workers plan are giving workers for the first time in decades the right to choose better working conditions and incomes over worse working conditions and incomes that were set without regard to their role and contribution to the welfare of the whole country and people.  After the lockdowns in the northeastern states, States such as New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island,  with higher vaccination rates and rebound in the economy are seeing higher job openings. This is making it possible for workers in the northeastern US to quit jobs in educational services and other sectors  for better paying jobs, better working conditions, remote work options, and improved work-life balance. ...

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Gina Raimondo, US Commerce Secretary, visits Beijing to help restore key aspects of the US China trade and business relationship. Her visit follows visits by Anthony Blinken and Janet Yellen that helped rebuild the relationship after the pandemic and the rhetoric and actions of the Trump administration had weakened ties. The balloon incident and the visit by Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan further strained relationship with China. This is changing as China increases engagement following the pandemic and president Xi is expected to visit the US for an Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation APEC meeting in November at which president Biden will meet Xi.

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Chinese leader Xi Jinping .at APEC Summit in Gyeongju and meeting DJT in Busan, South Korea, October 30 2025. At the Summit and in meeting with DJT temporary trade arrangements with US and concerns expressed by Japan's PM Sanae Takaichi. The US, China and Japan are in a delicate diplomatic effort to continue working with each other till issues are resolved.

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"I feel rather a lot of hope that if Andy Burnham does become prime minister, he will bring the human understanding with him that he will have acquired when studying English at Cambridge 35 years ago," says University of Cambridge chancellor Smith. "He may well be our first prime minister to have studied English at university, and that would be a very good thing." A good understanding of Chaucer and Shakespeare is a way to understand human nature, life's uncertainties, the English language from its origins and its development over a thousand years, understanding the history that went with the language, and the religious undertones of society from the days of the Tynsdale Bible, what moved people and how it turned out over many centuries. This is very useful for a British prime minister. The education just supplements all the positive aspects of the person, and helps him grow into a fuller person. This is why you have English majors leading to further education in other fields and in important contributions from science to space, physics to the law and business. It has just become hugely undervalued in the last 4 decades leading to some of the gaps we find in better grasp of economics, politics, physics, science, law, business, that have led to the Nation's relative decline since the 1980's. Hank Paulson, Treasury Secretary, Angelo Giamatti, Baseball Commissioner, Steven Spielberg, movie producer, Clarence Thomas at the US Supreme Court, Anne Mulcahy, CEO of Xerox, Mario Cuomo, governor of New York, and Harold Varmus Nobel prize winner in 1989 in medicine for his finding how genes origin in normal healthy cells that transform healthy cells into cancer cells, all had degrees in English. And many brought this passsion for language into other fields by adding degrees in law, medicine, science, other fields. How one can combine English with science is seen in the extraordinary example of the first American woman in space Sally Ride who had a degree in English alongside a degree in physics in 1973 and went on to get a PhD. in physics in 1978 from Stanford University. ...

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How the visit is presented in China, what the Chinese people are seeing of the US president live and on their screens, and of the two leaders Xi and DJT agreeing to a policy of mutual respect and harmony in relations after a decade of mistrust during both the first DJT and the Biden administration. The choice was clear- mistrust and risks for world peace or the mutual respect that leads to harmony in relations. And both leaders are making the educated, decent and good choice.

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Asymptomatic people infected by coronavirus are acting as spreaders of the coronaavirus making it more essential than ever that everyone wear masks. This is a widely accepted practice in Asia- wearing masks to prevent others from getting a virus. This now needs badly to become the practice in the U.S. and Europe. The longer it is delayed the worse the crisis can get and the longer it takes to eradicate it. Even low grade cotton masks are useful as is the practice in Asian countries. It is now part of the new guidelines of the Centers for Disease Control in the U.S. This needs to be adopted as safe practice everywhere.

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India is seen as critical for the US to develop alternatives to the existing supply chain where manufacturing is concentrated in only one country. US is positioning itself as a key supplier of defense needs of India through joint development and manufacturing in India. GE has a proposal to build jet engines in India, which Jake Sullivan, US National Security Advisor, calls just the kind of effort that will make it possible to rapidly build up the American relationship with India for advanced technologies and the supply chain in manufacturing. 

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Government aid in the US played a critical role in helping workers and families cope with the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. Government aid played a similar role in Europe and India.

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The US booster vaccine drive is lagging behind as only 30% of Americans fully vaccinated have taken the booster vaccine, according to CDC. Only half of Americans over ager 65 have taken the booster shot. In New York City only 1.5 million Americans out of 8 million have taken the booster vaccine. This report in NYT shows Dr. Oshita's 3 urgent care clinics in Sacramento, California, and no rush of people to get the booster vaccine. It is scary, he says, of the lack of a rush of people into the vaccine centers. This is happening as the new omicron variant is spreading.

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Paletta, Hilsenrath and Solomon give an exceptional journalism report on the silence and tension in the room at the meeting on Monday, October 13, 2008, at 3.00 pm in the Treasury building. It was an historic meeting between Treasury Secretary Paulson, Fed chairman Bernanke, and FDIC chairwoman Sheila Bair on one side, and the head of America's leading banks on the other side. The situation was explained, the bankers asked questions, bankers were not allowed to negotiate, and at one point Bernanke had to intervene saying there was no need for this meeting to have a confrontational tone. Wells Fargo's Kovacevich asked why banks had to accept a capital injection. Kenneth Lewis of Bank of America softened the tone of the meeting by saying that "any one of us who doesn't have a healthy fear of the unknown isn't paying attention." Even before the meeting an anxious John Mack of Morgan Stanley asked Paulson for the reason for the meeting and Paulson told him, "come on down, you will be pleased." John Mack who had fought so many rumors of the firm's demise, was surely pleased with the $10 billon injection of capital in Morgan Stanley by the government in return for preferred share and a dividend of 5%, which helped assure markets about Morgan Stanley's future. Goldman Sach's also received $10 billion. The meeting was ended at 4.30pm. Before this Timothy Geithner, head of the New York Fed, acting as the point man went around handing each CEO a term sheet with a place to sign. Another meeting was setup for 6.30 pm and at that time all the term sheets were returned - and all were signed. There was no meeting. Treasury officials and Fed officials and others had hoped that the intervening time would give CEO's a time to talk to their boards, to think things over, and clear their heads. In a few hours the government took preferred shares in the nation's leading banks and injected $125 billion into the largest banks. Treasury injected $25 billlion in Bank of America, Citigroup, and JP Morgan Chase, And between $20 and $25 billion in Wells Fargo, and $3 billion in Bank of New York Mellon, and $3 billion in State Street. Another $125 billon would be injected into other smaller banks in coming days. Officials at Treasury, Fed and FDIC and other government officials hoped this would give a "confidence shock" to the nation's banking system. ...

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It is important to know the cause of 0.3% contraction in first quarter 2025 for US economy. It is says WSJ because of a 5% hit from net exports, the difference between exports and imports, as importers rushed to import more before a tariff deadline. Imports by the US increased by 42% in first quarter 2025. Some include MIchigan Governor Whitmer who supports the tariffs as a way to take back America's industrial base, build factories in the US, say the uncertainty of the way tariffs were implemented is damaging confidence in the economy. For instance could the US have excluded the EU, Japan, UK, India as allies, and focused on China.  The problem with that approach is that it would single out China. It means other nations Japan, South Korea, Germany are not investing in the US, also have used trade for unfair advantage, are not called out. This would put China in an odd position. It is better to call out all who benefited from unfair advantage including China, Germany, Japan South Korea, Taiwan, because this has more credibility, giving all a honest and fair picture that they could then look at themselves in the mirror and correct. In the short run it looks messy, the tariff methods look erratic and back and forth increasing tariffs is also messy and unruy. Yet when every major trading nation knows deep inside that US is only saying it like it is asking only for fairness in trade, it will lead it to negotiate a fair trade agreement with US. ...

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The US looks at outpacing Europe with faster economic growth because of a rapidly progressing vaccination drive. The slow pace of Europe's vaccination drive will affect tourism in Europe in the summer of 2021.