LyrArc Article Gist
England coach Gareth Southgate reflects here on his penalty kick in the 1996 semifinals against Germany in Euro Soccer at the Wembley stadium. He recall that at the time the penalty kicks were handled as more a situation of luck not skill and practice. He took the kick with little practice and he recalls some negativity in his mind, and missed. Twenty two years later at a knockout stage game in Moscow he faced the similar situation playing Columbia. This time he was manager. But this time the team had changed its attitude. Penalties were seen as being about skills, practice and effort. His focus was on the process, and let the results work themselves out. He encouraged his players to take a positive attitude and think positively during the kick. Combining skill and process worked and England won that game.  In 2021 Gareth Southgate is the coach for the English team that plays against Italy in July's final at Wembley stadium. He writes this to inspire English teenagers to take the right attitude into the game.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The simple fact that other countries are subsidizing heavily the early period for building a new industry, as Taiwan has done in semiconductors, China in solar panels, and European governments in other industries, had serious industrial implications that were ignored for too long. US president Biden is following the same approach to bring back American leadership in manufacturing of semiconductors - supporting and nurturing American manufacturing. The unavoidable fact is that tens of billions of dollars are needed in risky bets on semiconductor manufacturing that is feasible only with the help and cooperation of governments. The choice is do this or lose leadership in one sector after another autos, semiconductors, renewable energy, and so on. What many fail to understand is that loss of this leadership leads inevitably to dependence, and loss of national sovereignty or economic security in some form or other. The path to leadership comes through gaining a storehouse of knowledge and technologies which makes it harder for new entrants including ones such as the US who have ceded this position of leadership completely as in semiconductors manufacturing. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
"We will never abandon the American worker and her community wherever it is located," says president Biden's head of the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA). He tells the Economic Policy Institute that many economists had questioned the policies that hurt American workers even as early as 1996. He joined EPI in 1992 and says he has followed the trade debate since then and heard the warnings as China entered the WTO in 2001 after years of negotiations in the last year of the Clinton administration.  Common sense questions were asked- Why asked Thea Lee now at the Labor Department is it good to have protection of intellectual property rights but not labor rights under NAFTA. On TPP and FTA's or free trade agreements in general he who writes the rules gets to benefit from them. Free trade having far less to do with free trade as generalized is the first thing he noticed when coming to Washington. Certain business groups captured the task of writing the rules in TPP  to benefit them.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Make no mistake president Biden is saying it is America's, and India's turn to reinvent the semiconductor industry with government capital support, and with the zeal and inventive capabilities of the US and India. This interview by Ben Cohen gives a glimpse of how Morris Chang now 92 years sees the founding of Taiwan Semiconductor in 1985 in retrospect in 2024. He talks about his early life in the US as an immigrant from China after 1949 and his work at Texas Instruments learning about the semiconductor industry. In the 1980's Japan was the rising industrial nation in semiconductors. By 1985 Intel which dominated memory chips faced challenges in quality and cost and cheap capital from Japanese capital markets encouraging exports. By 1988 Japan took over the market. What Morris Chang is not telling is that Chang already had the Japanese example in 1985. If Japan could do it on all three fronts quality, cheap capital with government assistance, and ten year effort Chang and Taiwan could do this and accomplished this which it has done. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
PM Modi inaugurates India's first Vande Bharat Express in Ahmedabad. New Metro in Ahmedabad and the Express trains increase multi-modal connectivity in Gujarat. Modi says the Vande Bharat train operates quietly with sound that is one hundredth of the sound that is heard on modern aircraft. A new rail station is planned for Ahmedabad and twin city arrangement with Gandhinagar. Modi says the transport infrastructure in Ahmedabad would be taken to the whole nation. He says Ahmedabadis have calculated the cost of travel by other transport including buses, and found the value that is in travel by Metro with ease, speed and time saved. And found that this beats transport by any other way for seamless connectivity and ease of use. Modi says he had a vision of such service when a global connectivity committee visited Ahmedabad when he was chief minister. Yet it was only in the last 8 years that he having moved to the federal government was able to get both federal and state funding to develop the new rail and Metro services in Gujarat using new technologies and experience. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
This WSJ editorial sees president Biden's speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia as intended to give the Democrats the advantage in the midterm elections for Congress. It says Vice President Pence and other Republicans opposed Mr. Trump when he claimed he had won the election. Seen from outside the US in Europe, and Asia, other parts of the world there was a real sense that democracy was facing a critical time in the US. Mr. Biden's speech about the struggle for the soul of America is very real considering that the Republican party is today for the most part pro-Trump and lessons learned from the traumatic experience of 2020 are sometimes set aside. There were real issues with the future of democracy during the transfer of power to Mr. Biden in 2020, and the future of America's leadership in the world as the place where the Declaration of Independence inspires the whole world for 200 years, which cannot be ignored and will always be remembered, as much in America as in the world to which offers hope and acts as a beacon. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
German chancellor Olaf Scholz is on his first trip to Africa. He called for serious attention to problems of food and energy supplies, energy prices, in African countries. He visited Niger, Senegal, and this interview with DW.com was done in Johannesburg, South Africa. Scholz called for European countries to assume responsibility for their colonial past and to increase food supplies to Africa. He said "it is obvious that a lot of countries are suffering from this war" with the grain shortages that are hitting Africa hard. In the intervew Scholz tells DW Political Editor Michaela Kufner that he has talked directly with Putin and told him that the war "will never have a good outcome" for Russia. "They will go back in their opportunities of economic development for decades, tey will suffer and they are suffering, and for getting out of this Putin has to stop the war." Scholz said Putin had made the decision to wage " a very brutal war" with "an imperialistic approach" and manner of thinking. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
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. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
A new terminal is taking shape at 41st st and 8th Ave. in New York City. This is the new $10 billion Port Authority Bus Terminal. NYT taks a look at the design of this new terminal that will replace one that had become old and haggard looking. Port Authority officials say the old building was a rundown 1950's era building that was a poster child for a failed infrastructure facility. The NYT says this brick building darkened two full blocks of midtown Manhattan. In its place will be a a brighter open looking space that is state of the art and has 2 office towers. Much of the US infrastructure was built in the period of the 1950's and 1960's. Much of it is crumbling and old, and the investment taking place step by step under the Biden plan for rebuilding infrastructure with trillions of dollars in investment is working. Construction will take 8 years by 2032 with coronavirus pandemic delay figured in. Step by step it will change the way cities, highways, airports, bridges will look in the US in the coming decade. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Hospitals in New York City are coping better in the current wave of coronavirus variant in December 2021 as the symptoms of patients are milder and patients are going home quicker. This report covers NYU Langone, Northwell and Mt Sinai, Presbyterian  health systems. Only about 2% of healthcare workers were lost through dismissals because of the vaccine mandate at Northwell, which is the largest health system in New York City with about two dozen hospitals. About 400 covid patients turned up on Friday Dec. 17, a fraction of the 1350 last January and of the 3500 in early spring 2021. The head of integrated operations,, Dr. John D'Angelo says Northwell has enough staff to meet projected needs. Most covid patients had underlying health problems and a quarter are vaccinated up from 10-15% a month ago. Vaccinations and two years of experience make for a different picture now, though there will be challenges and I think we're going to have to think through a bit carefully, says Dr. D'Angelo. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
President Biden made the decision to allow about half a million Venezuelan migrants who cannot be deported because US has no diplomatic relations with that country, to work legally. In New York half of the 100,000 migrants who arrived there in 2023 are putting too much pressure on the social safety net, a crisis for the school's shelter system, schools and budget. New York Democrats lobbied heavily for a change in the system. Mr.Biden made the decision to allow the Venezuelan migrants to be able to work legally. NY Mayor Adams and NY Governor Kathy Hochul lobbied heavily. The city had to house 60,000 migrants and it imposed a strain on the system. It was estimated to cost $12 billion for the city over a number of years. In the long run it will help New York State and the US with shortages of workers, yet in the short run the Republicans and immigration skeptics are protesting the arrival of migrants. Migrants arriving here after August will not be covered to not increase migration over the Mexican border.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares is an engineer from Portugal who joined Renault as a test track driver in 1981. In 2014 Fiat merged with Chrysler and in 2021 the PSA Group merged with Fiat creating the Stellantis car company with sales in Europe and the US. As CEO of PSA Group Carlos Tavares headed Stellantis. Tavares has skills in persuading unions in Europe to work with him, and motivates his people with his working style. At Chrysler even with losses from 10% absenteeism he has managed to reach operating profit margin of 16.4%. Stellantis plans investments of $35 billion in EV vehicles by 2025 which means it is putting back profits into investing in the future. Stellantis is today larger than GM or Ford. It has 47,000 employees in the US.  Earlier PSA had acquired lossmaker Opel from GM in 2017. Tavares is known for his careful attention to cost, and he has skills in negotiating with the labor unions in Europe for job cuts to stabilize loss makers.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Michael Gove resigns from the Tory government of Rishi Sunak days after the announcement of UK elections on July 4, 2024. Here he says a greater implosion than gaining about 150 seats  for the Tories party could even blow away his chances in a solid Tory seat. Much has changed in Britain since the days of Brexit which is highly unpopular today with the British public. The Times Tim Shipman looks at the controversial decisions of Gove and how he added credibility to the Leave campaign when he had previously advised Cameron against holding a referendum. Today 58% of British people support joining the European Union. Gove's actions and that of others including Johnson, Cummings and Sunak show Conservatives in a poor light leaving Britain in a precarious position with low growth and little room in finances for the kind of investment Britain needs for its infrastructure, public services and its economy. It is a lesson that sudden ill thought out moves for political advantage by politicians and poor decisions can create chaos and diminish a nation's prospects. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The election of Claudia Sheinbaum of the Mexico Regeneration Party Morena with about 60% of the vote, a margin of 30% over the Opposiion parties Galvez, shows the strong support for current  president Lopez Obrador who is limited to one term of 6 years. Sheinbaum, a close associate of Obrador during his time as Mayor of Mexico City, and his successor as Mayor, was chosen to run by Obrador. Morena Party won 6 of 9 governor elections in states and 253 of 300 Congressional seats, practically sweeping the whole country except for Guanajuto. This shows that the Mexican people believe that Obrador had carried Mexico through the pandemic, through the difficulties in relations with the US and the negotiation of a new trade agreement with US and Canada, and set the country for steady growth by support for the economy and good governance. He has also helped build popular support by working to improve the standard of living of the poorer classes in Mexico. Obrador tackled corruption in Mexico to give Mexico good governance following decades of corruption. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
There are four pillars to this fight Biden and Harris are now waging. Biden tackled infrastructure by getting the Congress to pass the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act to put trillions of dollars into rebuilding aging and dilapidated American roads, bridges, airports, ports, rural internet. This also tackled Manufacturing and factory jobs in the US neglected for 3 decades, the second pillar. The third pillar for Biden was getting American wages that had fallen behind to catch up by supporting labor in wage negotiations.  Something was missing as Cost of Living for housing, childcare, remained. This is where Harris has stepped in with Jerome Powell of the Fed. Powell cutting interest rates to make housing more accessible and Harris putting in $25,000 for first time homeowners for a down payment, build 3 million new homes, $6000 for childcare for parents, and $50,000 for small businesses to start. Specific programs at specific targets in FDR type "bold, persistent experimentation" activity. Put together the four pillars mean giving strength to the US economy which Powell says is "in solid shape." ...

LyrArc Article Gist
In a major effort to halt increased missile attacks on Kviv and Ukraine by Russia DJT makes a decision to send Patriot anti missile systems to Ukraine financed by Germany. “It’ll be business for us, and we will send them Patriots, which they desperately need, because Putin really surprised a lot of people. He talks nice, and then he bombs everybody in the evening. There’s a little bit of a problem there, and I don’t like it.” In Congress Senators Graham and Blumenthal have 85 Senators behind a bill to support Ukraine and place penalties of upto 500% tariffs on countries that support Russia in its war effort by buying oil -including China, India and Brazil. Graham says- "China, India and Brazil buy oil and petroleum products and other goods from Russia—that’s the money Putin uses to prosecute the war.” Graham adds- "the U.S. had reached a turning point regarding Russia.” ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Emily Baumgaertner takes on the critics of children's vaccines. A major health advancement in tackling polio, measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria. The NYT says most Americans and doctors today have forgotten what a scourge these disease were in the last century. Polio one of the most serous killing or paralyzing half a million people worldwide in the 1930's and 40's. A scourge deadly as it happened suddenly in a day one could get paralyzed. US president FDR had polio which changed his whole life in the 1920's. In 1952 vaccines took this down from 22,000 in 1952 to just one in 1993.  Measles - the vaccine licensed in 1963. It is highly contagious. Tens of thousands hospitalized 400-500 died each year. It is 97% effective with 2 doses, its spread require 95% coverage rate. 16 measles outbreaks in 2024- about 300,000 children not protected, parents skipping it. Diptheira respiratory disease- 100,000 cases a year in 1920 to less than one today. One in 10 died from it says CDC. Vaccine TDaP. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Both presidents Biden in 2024 and Carter in 1980 faced high inflation that reduced their popularity, under Biden over 9% and under Carter 13%. Cost of living became a major issue as wage increases did not keep pace with inflation. WSJ attributes the inflation under Carter to policies of Richard Nixon and failure of the Fed under Miller and Volcker to control inflation. It attributes the inflation under Biden to Covid spending and on top of that the Spending under the Inflation Reduction Act and other bills passed to rebuild infrastructure. Biden and Fed's Powell did bring inflation down in 2024, and it had also to do with supply bottlenecks, opportunistic behaviour by retailers in 2022-2023.  A significant weakness for Biden was the Border and failure to act quickly under Homeland Security head Alejandro Mayorkas, against whom the Republicans started impeachment proceedings. Added to this was the continued flow of fentanyl destroying American lives. Another weakness was the unease of parents with policies on transgender. On foreign policy the Obama policy of funding Iran under the nuclear negotiated agreement increased risks for Israel and emboldened Iran. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
After the Biden years when foreign born employment surged the decrease by 773,000 shown by Trend Macro in foreign born employment in the WSJ is an adjustment from the effects of open border policies. This also prevents downward pressure on wages for American workers in construction, hospitality and retail- the story of the last 20 years. This is similar to what would have been seen in the Eisenhower years after Operation Wetback led by Gen. Swing and AG Brownell in 1954. Just as by 1956 the foreign born employment declined after years of uninhibited growth and open borders in the years of World War II. Note that Mexico's agribusiness owners were against open borders in that period and the Mexican government was also against open borders and the loss of labor from Mexico needed in agribusiness. Today the situation is somewhat different but in the sense of an adjustment it may be very similar. Just as in 1956 Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956 had a mandate for making this adjustment DJT has won a mandate for a similar adjustment in 2024. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
European Central Bank executive board member Benoit Coeure, says the ECB will act quickly on a program to buy government bonds, so as not to fall behind the curve in taking action. He said the ECB had a moral and legal responsibility to act, considering the low annualized inflation of 0.3% in November 2014. Analysts say this could come as early as Jan 22, at the next ECB meeting, because the meeting in March may be too late. Coeure pointed out that the design of the program will be made in the manner similiar to that of the Outright Monetary Transactions Program of 2012, so that broad consensus is achieved. The ECB's staff is currently working on this. The U.S. and Japan have implemented monetary easing programs with quantitative easing, and the ECB is now moving in this direction to increase growth and bring inflation to about 2%. The ECB also now plans to put out detailed policy minutes after each meeting. The euro is expected to weaken further below $1.24 with the announcement of the program....

LyrArc Article Gist
Harris supports some of the most far reaching efforts to help workers and families with cost of living action. Teachers would benefit with pay raises, workers earning less than $100,000 a year would benefit with special support of $500 a month to meet cost of living increases, $100 billion would be invested to support housing affordability using a estate tax on the wealthiest households. Harris proposed Rent Relief Act would provided refundable tax credits giving renters who earn less than $100,000 the ability to recoup housing costs in excess of 30 percent of their incomes. One of the more egregious situations today is shown in the WSJ where 25% of people renting apartments in the US- middle and lower income people- pay over 50% of their income on rent leaving less and less for food, transport, childcare. This would make a huge difference for these households. Affordable Housing is a big issue in many states including Nevad and Biden had proposed a 5% cap on rent increases after 20% increase in the last two years of the pandemic. Harris's proposal goes beyond this to help the hardest hit households. Harris supports emergency relief funding for homeless. And she supports spending $100 billion in communities hurt by discrimination in getting housing. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The daily commute has has defined the start of the day and the end of the day clearly in a way that is not happening with working from home during the coronavirus. Microsoft Teams manager Ms. Janardhan is looking at ways of modifying its Teams package of workplace collaboration tools so that users can better demarcate these two parts of the day. The virtual commute feature is a way to focus on wellness as a priority. It puts more attention on how people feel and think in different parts of the day and even includes a 10 minute meditation session option for the end of the day. The program now asks people how they are feeling and if they are feeling overwhelmed the virtual commute assistant will ask if they want to block time off in their calendars to focus on destressing activities or stuff they enjoy doing, even just taking a break. Marking the start and the end of the day has become more difficult for many while working from home. Half of the chat volume on Teams happens between 5pm and midnight in the last 6 months up 48% from months before the pandemic. More and more companies are finding that organizational resilience depends on employee wellbeing when working from home during the coronavirus which brings up new stresses that people never faced before. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Utah governor Spencer Cox and call for introspection on open debate and discussions without rancor and strife. Cox launched a “Disagree Better” campaign in 2023 with Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis in an effort to restore civility and respect in open debate between differing viewpoints. After all there have been strident difference of opinion since the founding of the Nation and the many crises it has faced. The years leading to the Declaration of Independence to the War with Mexico, the Civil War, the peace movement before World War II, the McCarthy years, Nixon years, and the strife over DJT rhetoric and style of politics. Cox says- “It’s important to understand that in our political system today all of the incentives are lined up against this concept of dignity and respect,” he added. “We made a decision that we would only run for this position if we could do it in a different way and it had to be a positive vision.”  “Social media is a cancer in our society right now, and I would encourage people to log off, turn off, touch grass, go hug a family member, go out and do good in the community."   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Merkel tells Hungarian news portal Partizan that the Baltic States and Poland made efforts to reduce efforts for dialogue with Russia, and that this dialogue and meetings were also made difficult during the Covid pandemic. Merkel did not address other issues of EU and US relations with Russia over the decade when Russia was not integrated into European structures as a Northern European power. Britain and Netherlands also supported Poland and the Baltic States in efforts to keep NATO as a force and counterweight to Russia in Europe, something Merkel did not cover. Merkel appears to have been selective in covering only this issue in EU-Russian relations and not the larger issues that Merkel never addressed of ending the Cold War structure of NATO that Britain, Netherlands and Poland had favored. The result is that without German or US leadership the Cold War structure of NATO favored by Britain, Netherlands and Poland has been expanded to include Sweden and  Finland, and without a clear resolution of the Ukraine issue created a new situation. This situation is the return of the Cold War in another form with Russia and China, losing the opportunities presented to both sides to use trade and improvements in standards of living to create a durable peace for economic development and addressing the problems that have led to deindustrialization of US and European Union countries. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
In Lithium ion batteries and key pharmaceutical ingredients, special semiconductors China is able to use the concentration of manufacturing capacity anc dependence on China to prevent the US and EU negotiating a way to recover lost supply chains. Supply chains that were carelessly turned over to China, a developing country at that time, by business executives of the US and EU in the 1990-2020 period who lacked vision and foresight. China's policy is to increase the dependence of US and EU, to tighten this dependence to achieve its goals. XI Jinping says WSJ wrote in a 2020 essay- that he wasn't for weaponizing it but that China must “tighten the dependence of international industrial chains on our country” so that it would be a way to respond and create negotiating room for continued access to technologies and markets in the US and EU were the US and EU to make efforts to recover the supply chains they had inadvertently and carelessly turned over to China. This action by US and EU business executives should be considered one of the major and ignominous failures of American and European business management of that period 1990-2020 which has made it difficult to even make the initial effort to recover these lost supply chains. As with the banks in the 2009 financial crisis that generation of management continues to operate as if nothing has happened.  ...