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Hispanic immigrants make up a big part of the construction industry and a big part of industries like carpet making in Georgia. This has been hit hard and jobless rate for Hispanics is 6.9% according to the Labor Department up from 5.5% in April 2007. States with expandig Hispanic populations like Florida, California, Georgia and Nevada are hit hard by Hispanic job losses. Overall the jobless rate has gone up from 4.5% last year to 5% during th same periodand when one takes out the Hispanic component the jobless rate is down much less, which also tell us something about why the pace of the economic downturn is felt less among the whites and the rest of the population, because the construction industry got hit the worst and the Hispanics especially immigrants who dominate the construction industry are taking the brunt of it. The subprime story plays up here as well. From 1994 to 2006 the rate of Hispanic homeownership climbed to 50% frm 41% according to census data, at a rate more than double for the increase amon non-Hispanics. By 2006 47% of the loans issued for home purchases by Hispanics were subprime or loans with poor credit histories, double the rate for non-Hispanic whites, according to a paper by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, only exceeded by African Americans. In 2006 homeownership fell among Hispanics and one in 12 mortgages made to Latino households in 2005 and 2006 is likely to fail according to Catherine Singley, a policy fellow at the National Council of La Raza, an advocacy group in Washington. Georgia has one of the heavy concentration of new Latino immgrants, with a 70% increase in the state's Hispanic population between 2000 and 2007, according to census data. From one fifth of the construction work force in 2000 Hispanics made up one third by 2006 according to the Economic Policy Institute. Among foreign born Hispanics construction was responsible for 46% of the growth in employment from 2004 to 2006 according to Rakesh Kochhar, an econist at the Pew Hispanic Center, which tells us that the new Latino immigrants dominated the construction industry in places like Atlanta and in the rest of the country and are now getting hit the worst. Not only construction but industries that parallel the growth in construction like carpet making based in Dalton, Georgia, were dominated by Latino immigrants, so that as construction fell these towns and Latinos there are hit hardest. Investment manager El-Erian of Pimco points to employment as the key the critical thing to watch for the next 6 months and its useful to see that unemployment has increased by about half a percentage point to 5% from 4.5% April 2006 to April 2007 according to Labor Department data. As most of this unemployment has probably been taken up by the new Latino immigrants to the USA its probably not changed much excluding that component, which is possibly why the economy has not felt like it is in a recession when all around the signs of recession or what causes a recession are evident around us. Another way to say this is that there are built in hidden mechanisms of the American economy in its present form such as immigration, and possibly others that act as delay mechanisms that throw the recessionary impact back by anywhere from 6-18 months depending on how they operate and can blind one about the reality of oncoming storms. This was to be seen in 2005 for the economy with consumption spending and mortgage industry excesses, and which is why Pimco decided in 2005 at its spring meeting, that the big secular story was about the economic downturn. It actually took until 2007 for this to occur because of similiar things to what we are seeing now in terms of recessionary pain, then the new structured investment vehicles and other ingenious innovations in the mortgage industry may have extended the boom and delayed the economic downturn being felt till 2007. There is a lot of grief among Hispanic people. The numbers tell the story. For the 19 million Latino immigrants in the USA...

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Van Dam says its not that great being a worker in the U.S. because it is hard for the unemployed resulting from competing with workers in other countries with lower wages, and for those who are unemployed harder because worker collective bargaining is weakened over 3 decades. He cites a 296 page OECD report showing very little government support for unemployed and at risk American workers. It says this has contributed to higher income inequality and larger share of lower income people than almost any other advanced a nation. Only Spain and Greece are shown as having more households earning less than half the median income- showing large numbers of people are poor or close to being poor. In the U.S. an average of 1 in 5 lose their jobs each year, and 23% of workers 15 to 64 are in their job less than a year in 2016. The job churn hurts workers because of firing and layoffs being frequent, more than is healthy for a economy. The U.S. and Mexico are the only two countries not requiring advance notice before firings. And fewer than half of workers find a job within a year in the U.S. Two in three families with a displaced worker fall in poverty for some time. Unemployed workers with typically 26 weeks support get less support than any other country in the study. Only 12% of workers in U.S. are covered by collective bargaining. ...

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Baby boomers born in 1955 had 2 more years of schooling than their parents by age 30. By contrast baby boomers born in 1980 had 8 months more schooling than their parents by age 30. This is the shown in a study by Harvard professors Goldin and Katz. A big part of the problem is the high dropout rates at some high schools in the U.S. Another part of the problem which is growing today is the high cost of tution discouraging students from going to college, and the large student debt being borne by parents. Student debt reached $1 trillion in the U.S. by 2012.

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Founded in 1880, Carl Welcker's company has seen the changing fortunes of manufacturing for over a century, during depression and after the wars. Still the 50% drop in orders for this company, which makes the machines that make 80% of the spark plugs in the world, is like nothing Carl Welcker has experienced. Its a tragedy he says. Its the speed of the manufacturing decline that is causing concern. In Europe where a fifth of GDP comes from manufacturing industrial production is down 12% from ayear ago. In Brazil it is down 15%, in Taiwan 43%. In China exports are down 25%. In the USA, industrial output went down by 11% in February 2009, according to the Federal Reserve. The pattern of this decline recalls the pattern of 1929, as tightening creedit and consumer fear reduces demand for manufactured goods in one country after another, creating a downward spirtal that reduces global trade. And of concern is that trade is declining even faster than manufacturing.German exports are down 20% from ayear ago, Japan's have plunged 46%, and in the USA exports fell at an annualized rate of 23.6% in the fourth quarter of 2008. A company like Schutte in Cologne, Germany, expanded rapidly as globalization opened new markets in Eastern Europe and Asia. Sales more than doubled in 5 years from 58 million euros to 100 million euros. Which suggests that the extraordinarily rapid expansion of the last few years may have its reverse effect heightened in a slowdown, as those additional sales to China and Eastern Europe disappear. For the USA manufacturing accounts for 14% of GDP, for the world 18%, and for China 33%. But this creates a misperception about the importance of American manufacturing exports. First, manufacturing contributed more to GDP growth than any other sector of the US economy, and accounts for two thirds of American exports, says the chief economist for the National Association for Mnaufacturers in Washington. America's share of global manufacturing output, he says, has remained steady at 20 to 23% for the past decade. This covers jet engines, locomotives, pharmaceuticals, and high tech products. For countries like India where manufacturing accounts for 16% of GDP, the last quarter of 2008 saw the first quarterly production decline in over a decade. And industries like handicrafts exports have fallen by 55% to $1.35 billion, and textile makers have cut half a million jobs. ...

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Admiral Mullen chairma joint cheifs confirms most of what the British Ambassador in Afghanistan s saying about deteriorating prospects in the country. He understands the heroin growing issue brought up by US counter narcotics experts in the NYT recently, by saying "we've got to impact pretty significantly, pretty fast on the poppy issue". He is aware that poppy growing is abundant in the south and in Helmand province pours upwards of $100 million to finance the Taliban. General McKiernan who heads NATO forces there says that NATO forces would be authorized to attack narcotics bosses, their soldiers and infrastructure, if they are linked to movement of weapons, improvised explosives or foreign fighters in Afghanistan. Which is possibly a waiting mode till more troops are sent to Afghanistan as policing this rugged mountanous country with tribal regions and loyalties complicated by the narcotics layer and widespread corruption in the Karzai government and its loss of popular support requires many more troops than are now in the country and a sustained campaign. So far the US and European forces possibly outnumbered have resisted alienating the poppy farmers in the south through land based eradication. But with more troops Mullen's new approach and Petraeus's has to shift to something like that, at the same time as they follow Petraeus's new counterinsurgency doctrine in display in Iraq to draw down the Taliban strength to its core supporters by winning other tribal factions with no hardcore loyalties over to the American side....

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The introduction of a tax on sugary drinks to fight a surging diabetes rate, setup of a universal social security system, unemployment insurance and tax reform by the Nieto administration in Mexico in 2013. Taxes on high income earners will increase from 30% to 32%, a capital gains tax of 10%, and closing of some corporate tax loopholes such as tax consolidation to offset losses in one subsidiary against gains at others, are part of the tax changes. The remarkable aspect of these changes is the Pacto de Mexico signed by the three major political parties, centre left and right, to provide Mexico a new competitiveness for the economy, eliminate monopolistic pricing, introduce testing of teachers in the education system, combat health risks such as diabetes, and the social reform of seting up a social security system that Mexico lacked. Nieto said in a televised address while being flanked by the leaders of three major parties- "the tax reform is a social reform." For the first time in decades Mexico is poised to compete in a global economy with a new spirit of change and renewal....

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This article by the Editorial Board of the WSJ says president Biden should back up in action his words that "the United States will defend every inch of NATO territory with the full force of American power." It calls for more front line forces and munitions on NATO territory." Biden has deployed 100 planes and 120 ships through the NATO alliance, and added 12,000 troops to these states to bring the total to 100,000. The Editorial Board of WSJ has this to say of Merkel. After Merkel's statement condemning the invasion in "the strongest terms" and calling it "a turning point in European history" WSJ says, only now does Merkel tell us. WSJ's Editorial Board says that no one did more to make Europe and NATO vulnerable to Russia with her energy policies and failure to spend more on defense. Moreover Merkel helped build the geopolitical situation to the disadvantage of the US, NATO, Europe, and India, in interconnecting the German economy with China's, as can be seen in the logistics of German port city of Hamburg overwhelmingly tied to China's. A lot that Germany has to reflect on as Annalena Baerbock , Habeck, Lindner, and Scholz, and German business, labor, reflect on Germany's vision for the future in the free world, and the lessons of America's Berlin Airlift in 1948. ...

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Full Yield is a startup in Boston that is trying to help address the nation's obesity problem by introducing healthier foods and meals in cafeterias. It plans to introduce a line of Full Yield branded food made from fresh items and natural ingredients for sale in corporate cafeterias and prepared food sections of local supermarkets. It is based on a simple idea that if you eat healthier food you will be healthier. A study in the Jan-Feb issue of journal Health Affairs says 75% of the $2.5 trillion in health care spending deals with obesity, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer. And how much of this traceable to obesity and bad eating habits, smoking and lack of exercize? This study says most of the cases are preventable by changing these behaviours. Dr. Kenneth Horpe, chairman of the department of health policy and management at Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, shows that if trends continue U.S. annual health care costs related to obesity would reach $344 billion by 2018, which is 20% of total health care spending. In 2009 it accounts for 9%. Thorpe says if even the 1987 levels of obesity were reached it would free up enough money to cover the uninsured population today. For American companies the problem has grown to alarming proportions and yet no nationwide coordinated plan bringing together companies, government, universities, public interest organizations, and other groups exists in the U.S. The CEO of U.S. grocery chain Safeway, Steven Burd, says Safeway was spending $1 billion to cover health care insurance for workers by 2005, with costs rising 10% a year- this meant putting out twice in health care insurance than Safeway's earnings and hitting another $500 million by 2010. Between 2004-2009 the costs of insurance surged 31%, making this the fastest growing single corporate expense, according to Towers Perrin. This reduces incomes of workers as companies pass on part of the extra cost, and reduces the profits that can be put back in new investment for economic growth....

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This editorial from the Times after the New Hampshire Republican primary- in which rival candidates attacked Bain Capital- says that leveraged buyouts by private equity firms like Bain Capital were only one of the causes of the growing income inequality, and by no means the principal cause. And they had little to do with the subprime mortgage crisis that led to the financial crisis and recession in 2008, which aggravated the income inequality. A serious factor was the lowering of wages in manufacturing in competition with lower wage countries in a globalized economy and the decline of good manufacturing jobs over three decades. The increase in low wage jobs in the retail and service sector with the decline in manufacturing did little to arrest the growing gap in wages.

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Entergy is one of the largest energy companies. Its CEO for nine years, Wayne Leonard, talks to Joseph Rago of the Wall Street Journal. Its the No.2 generator of nuclear power in the USA, and uses coal for only 7% of its energy. He has made his name in nuclear energy, and here he talks about the government's cap and trade program and nuclear energy. He points to today's technology as far superior to the technology that was used in the Failed Three Mile plant, that put back nuclear energy plants in the USA for decades. He believes that price signals are needed for CO2, and the cap and trade program helps to do this, so he supports the cap and trade program. He admits that self interest colors perception of Entergy, compared to coal using utility producers like Duke Energy and American Electric Power. With coal only 7% in its portfolio of plants, and big in nuclear energy, it stands to gains from a cap and trade program, whereby Congress will set a ceiling on emissions, then allows businesses to sell any of its extra allowances that stand for the right to make emissions. And in doing so creating the largest commodity market, in carbon backed securiites. He and the government agree on the point that the allowances should be auctioned off, rather than given away as the companies with many coal plants believe. And the billions in new revenue from these allowances would be returned to the public. He understands that the view of companies like Duke and AEP, that use coal and would have to increase rates, and face the anger of ratepayers as they pay more for the allowances. He also thinks the bill should be written with a fine pen, so that if Congress mandates 20% of energy come from renewables. That it should specify replacing coal not natural gas as what this replaces, to get rid of the most polluting sources. He points to the real need for looking at things globally, as doing things locally, even to show responsible leadership in the world community, can lead to no progress in the global picture. The reason is that China is going ahead with the rapid construction of conventional coal plants. It has surpassed USA coal capacity, and is on track to double it sometime in the next decade. If the USA closed down every single coal plant, and all the time new coal plants are going up in China and India, then we would have ruined our economy, and it was'nt making much difference globally. And he says, if we just say lets lead and people will follow us, "its silly", because China isn't going to follow us, especially when they have $2 trillion invested in their coal plants, and they still aren't feeding feeding all their people. So how to deal with this? Develop the new technology for carbon capture for existing conventional coal plants, and help the Chinese with retrofit technology to curb emissions in a realistic manner. At this time most current funding is devoted to technology for second generation systems, that are still 10-20 years away....

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Hyundai has gone from being seen as cheap to being an excellent value in this recession like environment. About 30% of buyers consider Hyundai for a purchase- the numbers are from Hyundai research. Globally Hyundai is now fourth after Toyota, GM and VW, and has 8% of the USA market. People are asking is a premium brand worth $5000 or more dollars extra. And Hyundai projects a wise decision by buyers. Even Cadillac buyers are seen shifting to Hyundai. Hyundai sales in August 2009 were 47% above August 2008, and for 2009 Hyundai and Subaru are the only 2 companies expected to increase sales in the USA. An Accent sells for base package at 10,000, luxury car Genesis at $32,000, less than competitors.

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This is a big desicion by the Obama administration, and has global implications for the amount of oil consumed and the emissions discharged. The Obama administration will introduce one national standard for automile emissions and mileage standards, replacing the patchwork of standards and skipping over the challenges to the California standards by using those standards to set the national rules. The rules take effect in 2012. It will create a new national standard for a car and light truck fleet in the USA, that is 40% cleaner and more fuel efficient by 2016 than it is now, with a new average of 35.5 miles per gallon. The current national standard is 25 miles per gallon, and this standard has fallen way behind the Japanese and the Europeans. The Europeans went through their battles for fuel efficiency a few years ago with auto industry resistance, and this was finally settled with tougher standards, giving the European industry advantages in technology over the Americans. The American car industry stalled higher standards, and what standards were passed were whittled down by heavy lobbying in Congress. As a result a battle raged between those interested in conservation and the environment and the Detroit car industry, especially in a deteriorating global environment for this type of prolific oil consumption on American highways. This lack of foresight on the part of Detroit carmakers, and their management, accelerated their financial collapse in 2008 and 2009, as large car and truck sales collapsed. That this tough new standard of 40% improvement in 2016, would in fact not have been possible without this fiinancial collapse and turning to the government for a bailout - with the entire board of General Motors being replaced- is one of the ironies of this situation. This decision will almost certainly accelerate the development of smaller models, and bring the kind of attention to them that will give them the quality and features and comfort to make them command higher prices and become profitable, as is the case in Europe. For too long the American small car became synonymous with being a lesser car in many dimensions of design, quality, comfort and performance, so that it became a cheap car that you upgraded from to a larger car as you became affluent. It had been that way, but did not have to be that way after the world had changed. And the larger models like the pickup trucks and large cars are more likely to be phased out with the new regulations. This will also bring a `new sanity to oil prices, as the reduced consumption in the US will accomodate the increased consumption in India from the small cars like the Tata Nano which look set to sell in the millions, and still keep oil affordable for tight budgets worldwide. In this sense it is a victory for global good sense. For President Obama this is a personal quest, as he co-sponsored 2 bills in 2006, during this second year in the US Senate, one to raise fuel economy standards, and the other to encourage the use of alternative fuels....

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Novax vaccine could be a game changer for the poor countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Novax has 90% efficacy overall and 93% effectiveness against the UK, South Africa and Brazil variants. The Delta variant was not there during the trials. Novavax has signed an agreement to provide 1.1 billion doses to Covax, the organization which is designed to send vaccines to poor countries. India has contracted through Serum Institute of India to make 100 million doses. UK has ordered 60 million doses that may be sent to the developing world.

Novavax vaccine goes for regulatory approval in the third quarter of 2021.

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Senator Kerry ask is there an exit strategy for the war in Afghanistan and is there abetter way to achieve the objective of not destabilizing Pakistan.

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Reasons why the U.S. Stimulus spending failed to give the economy the boost it needed.

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Venezuelan illegal immigrant lawsuit reaches US Supreme Court for birthright citizenship. What did the US Supreme Court rule? Alongside we provide the summary of the US Supreme Court landmark decision which is coming in two parts, this being just the first. Simply stated the US SC ruled that district courts can give the plaintiffs relief in their individual circumstances but do not have the authority to extend this to into a "universal injunction." Three states and a Venezuelan illegal immigrant allowed into the US under the asylum policy make the case. And each case may have individual merits but does it apply to a whole geopolitical event? Yet the sheer numbers, the scale running into millions of people, amounting to it being an invasion, a geopolitical event resulting from Bush-Obama-Trump-Biden failures to assert the Monroe Doctrine and prevent intervention by foreign, specifically European powers in the affairs of the American continent. Yet at no point in the administration of the last 9 years has this situation been anticipated or this situation been singled out as one that no asylum policy of any nation is designed to tackle. The efforts to fix things as far away as the mountains of the Hindu Kush have frittered away the important resources of the US military to maintain the Monroe Doctrine. It can be said that the basic error was not to see president Monroe's policy for what it was - an effort to prevent the French, the Spanish or some other European power to bring back colonial rule or in some ways unsettle the affairs on this continent. The US Supreme Court is aware of the surroundings of this event as it takes up the issues of immigration and efforts by foreign powers to unsettle the fabric of the Nation. ...

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Netflix offers paid parental leave for upto 1 year in a fluid arrangement that lets parents decide how they want to do it, when they want to return to work, and when to take time off. This offers the flexibility to do this without having to worry about work or finances, a stated goal of the company.