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It is not a story that most people grasp or understand- the long term effects of the US immigration surge of 2023 and its source mostly from Venezuela. The  US Congressional Budget Office says labor force in 2033 ten years from now will be larger by 5.2 million people and younger as a result of the immigration surge in 2023 from about 1 million immigrants each year in the 2010's to 3.3 million. About 2.5 million crossed the southwestern border in 2023. Much of it the result of the collapse of the Venezuelan economy and its middle and upper classes leaving the country. This was worsened by the US sanctions on the Maduro government including under president Trump, say experts in an adjoining NYT article on the 7 million people who left Venezuela to go to Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Chile since 2012, then making their way up the Darien Gap to the US. Something that could have happened under a Republican president if the US Congress could not reach bipartisan agreement on correcting asylum and parole policy. As a result of this surge US Gross Domestic Product  in 2033 will be 3% larger. When the large Asian economies are seeing a aging workforce, Japan for the last decade and China now following Japan, the US labor force will be younger than it would be without this unusual surge in immigration of the last 2 years. The federal deficit will be smaller at 6.4% instead of 7.3% in 2033 as immigrants will pay taxes on income. Another aspect of this larger infusion of immigrants is that after the pandemic shut down immigration entirely there were severe shortages in the hospitality and restaurant, construction, healthcare industries. And with the trillions of dollars in investment that the Biden administration is making with more factories - this will absorb most of the immigrant surge by 2033. With some positive effects in the competition with rising Asian economies China and India. Particularly consider with the younger demographic India of 1.4 billion people. It will mean more factories can be built in the US and there will be workers for these factories in the US at wages that keep the US economy competitive years from now in 2033. This is a sobering aspect of the current situation viewed from what will be seen by America's younger generation. And under the bipartisan compromise in Congress correcting asylum and parole policy that was shut down by the former president, Republican senators understood very well that the immigration surge of 2023 would have some constructive effects for the long term, while its effects on the short term would be mitigated by Biden's commitment to close the border in 2024. This did not happen, yet the future for America's younger generation is bright under the Biden plan for massive investment in manufacturing and jobs in the US, and with the millions of immigrants needed to fill the jobs that investment will create by 2033. It will make America with a younger work force than Europe or China, only India having a younger workforce in 2033. ...

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White House and Republican proposals in fiscal cliff negotiations to simplify the U.S. corporate tax code, remove deductions, and lower corporate tax rates from 35% to between 25-28%. CEO's meeting president Obama said corporate tax code needed to be addressed to improve U.S. competitiveness. CEO's showed a willingness to accept higher individual tax rates to generate revenues. White House proposals would give lower rates to manufacturing companies.

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David Stockman was Budget Director under President Reagan and known for his prodigous grasp of statistics in the national budget. Here he takes on what he describes as disproportionately large and destructive banking system for the U.S. economy, which he says the nation desperately needs less of. He supports the small tax of 0.15% of the debts other than deposits of financial conglomerates. His words are some of the strongest yet to come from one of the most prominent people on Reagan's economic team about how the nation's banking system has beome unproductive in supporting economic activity which is its reason for existence. The destructive effects on social cohesion and the middle class is emphasized. He says for years the Fed has run an insanely loose monetary policy that has encouraged this behaviour and socially detrimental profit seeking by the banks and other companies. He sees the big banks as dangerous institutions in today's economy engaged in a bull market culture which believes in entitlement and profitseeking behaviours regardless of its detrimental nature for the national economy. The recent profits of the banks in 2009 and the resulting bonuses are a result of the Fed's easy money policy and bank's gambling at the Fed's monetary casino as he puts it, with money obtained at little cost from Fed-controlled money markets. This article helps to eliminate the distorted perspective in today's climate that paints criticism of splitting up the banks, or otherwise restricting banks in engaging in proprietary trading and risky behaviours, as government interference. As Stockman puts it these banks are already in some sense wards of the state and not private enterprises and this issue is not relevant. The question now is how to set things right and this involves possible solutions such splitting up banks that are too big to fail, restricting risky behaviours and preventing proprietary trading, and other actions as unusual steps for unusual times to get things working back to normal. In other times Stockman would not have said this in an op-ed piece if this were not so....

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How Gazprom and Shell are changing their partnership to develop Sakhalin II: 1. The vanguard in Russian oil projects is Sakhalin II. In 2005 Shell announced the price tag would double to $20 billion. With forbidding terrain and climate and spread over a vast region in Russia's Far East, this is a really big challenge. Who owns what part of this project- Shell has 55% of the partnership in Sakhalin Energy Investment Company, a stake it picked up from Marathon which exited in 2000. Mitsui and Mitsubishi are other partners. Note the arrangement in the original contract which was signed in 1994. Under the 1994 production sharing contract with Shell Russia does not make much money till Sakhalin Energy recovers its costs. Upto that time Sakhalin Energy would pay 6% royalty on revenues. Following this Sakhalin Energy would get 90% of the profits until the project earned a 17.5% return. Taxes are 32%. Because of this arrangement the cost overruns at Sakhalin present a serious problem for the Russian government, as the returns for Russia depend on Sakhalin Energy first recovering the costs. In 2005 Shell agreed to swap 25% of its controlling stake in Sakhalin Energy with Gazprom for 50% of a field in western Siberia. 2. Shell is adapting its strategy in the changing oil picture. Comments by Malcolm Brinded, Shell's executive director for Exploration and Production indicate strategy in the changing global oil picture. Shell sees the importance of engaging with a Russian partner for the long run to make long-term gains with a first-mover advantage. For Shell the real returns would come from other players using Shell's expensive LNG plants and terminals. ...

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Mitsui, Mitsubishi, and GDF Suez each take a 16.6% interest in a liquefied natural gas (LNG) gas export plant being built in Hackberry, Louisiana. The investment by these companies totals $7 billion. The project is being built by Sempra Energy, based in San Diego. The project forecast to produce 12 million metric tons of LNG annually for 20 years awaits approval from the U.S. Energy Department. Low prices for natural gas in the U.S. -with the abundant shale gas supplies- of about $4 per millon BTU's compared to $10 in Europe and $15 in Asia are creating opportunities for investment. After the Fukushima nuclear disaster Japan has increased its imports of LNG to the point where it takes in about one third of the world's LNG market supples, according to Bernstein Research. Other companies which are active investors are Kogas of Korea, Sumitomo and BG Group of Britain.

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Catalans formed a 400 kilometer human chain from the foothills of the Pyrenees to the Mediterranean to show their support for a secession referendum on Catalonia's independence from Spain. About 1.6 million people are said to have participated according to Catalan government officials. Spain's central government seeks to delay the issue to 2016 because of the financial crisis and high unemployment in Spain. The Convergence and Union Party of Arturo Mas takes a moderate position on this issue citing the concerns of the the government in Madrid, and the the ERC party which is the second largest party is firm about its demand for Catalan independence. Sentiment in Catalonia favors more autonomy, and a better deal for Catalonia in finances from the central government. Spain has setup a decentralized system of government following the long period of Franco's dictatorship, when Catalan language and culture were suppressed.

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The most important way out of this crisis- which is at bottom a crisis in homeowners defaulting and walking away from their homes in large numbers to unsettle everything the Fed has done so far for the credit markets- is to do what Bernanke and Feldstein have urged months ago. And that is make sure large numbers of homeowners have do not walk away from their homes because they are under water. And the way to do this is to reduce the loan burden with the government stepping in. See the link to Feldstein. But Congress is not upto this task and there is no leadership to undertake this, and the Bush Administration is not upto the task either. So if the steps are lukewarm and action is a bit late as politics takes away precious time then the foreclosures and price declines spiral will be a serious danger.

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June sales are coming in at 12.5 million vehicles. And part of this drop is that there is a short supply of hot seeling small cars like th Honda Fit, Ford Focus, Toyota Prius, aand the Honda Civic.Honda's new plant in Indiana will increase its output of Civic by 200,000 per year. Honda sold 53,000 Civics in May 2008. According to JD Power Prius sell within 4 days of reaching the dealer. Ford has a 20 day supply of Focus cars, and it takes a month after putting a deposit on Honda Fit to have it available. While Honda has flexible production lines Ford cannot produce anything but SUV's at its Wayne SUV plant in Michigan so Ford has a lot of changes to make. About 20% of cars are small cars up from 12.5% and moving up quickly as supplies increase with the demand.

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Sindhi sentiment in Pakistan. Behind the calls for democracy and elections sentiment is gathering in the Sindh that supports looking after Sindhi interests. Because the Punjabi majority in Pakistan has dominated the bureaucracy and the military and looked after the interests of the Punjab. The nature of the Pakistani state not providing safeguards and devolution of power to the provinces, there is some basic underlying tension even without the problems that have been piled on it by the migration of Pashtuns and Punjabis into Hyderabad and Karanchi, and the killings of 2 popular Sindhi politicians in the Bhutto clan, and the army's suppression of a Sindhi revolt in 1983 with harsh treatment of Sindhis. Now the aftermath of the new Bhutto killing is taking a new turn with calls for Sindh and its 38 million people to go its own way. The Bhuttos have not supported it but the sentiment is now appearing to take a life of its own, disregarding Zardari and Bilwal, spouse and son of Benazir, who are said to be of Baluchi descent. The large dam on the upper reaches of the Indus river benefits military officers who own land there but shrinks water supply to the Sindh which is on the lower reaches of the Indus river. This further aggravates tensions. The province is now run by Punjabi associates of Musharraf and this does not help matters as Sindhi interests may have been ignored. If there is sentiment for a separate state, the state of Pakistan that was built in 1947 and how it has shaped itself with Punjabi military running things is not designed to handle that kind of upheaval very well. It lacks the checks and balances, devolution of powers to provinces enough to keep local representation strong, and the avenues of expressing sentiment being kept open for local ethnic communities. The Pakistan military is strong and there are nuclear weapons, but how effective is that if the goodwill and sentiment of the Sindhis is lost. In the long term the only hope may be for an economic union much like that of the EU in South Asia in which the Punjab, Baluchistan, and the Sindh could coexist with India and among themselves in whatever form the political aspect of states takes shape, making the politcal shape of states less relevant, and like the EU putting the years of internecine strife behind them. Looking towards a better economic future, open trade, investment, communication and infrastructure links in Southern Asia and parts of Central Asia and Iran. ...

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Brooks is critical of Republican intransigence over reducing tax expenditures in the negotiations with the Obama administration in early July 2011.The Bowles-Simpson commission on the U.S. budget deficit specifically targeted a number of tax expenditures for savings to reduce the budget deficit. This resistance comes from a ideological fervour for no tax increases that does not grapple with the realities of spending cuts and the need for an approach that looks for savings wherever they can be found. That approach also leaves room for maintaining spending and not making deep cuts where such spending adds to future growth prospects for the U.S.

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Germany's defense chief Carsten Breuer talks with the BBC ahead of a NATO summit at the Hague, Netherlands inJune 2025. He says Russia is producing tanks and ammunition at a rapid rate that suggest some of it is going into stocks, which may be a threat to Baltic region. Under the SPD government with the Greens of chancellor Scholz Boris Pistorius of SPD was Defense Minister and was favored as candidate for chancellor. SPD true to its origins under Willy Bradt sought  German good relations with Russia even after the Ukraine war and limited its scope. Under CDU chancellor Merz note that Boris Pistorius is the only SPD minister from the Scholz government to remain, and in the position of Defense Minister. As the US deescalates with Russia for a larger role in Asia-Pacific Germany takes on a bigger defense role in Europe, yet with a desire for a swift end to the Ukraine conflict and a settlement that secures independence of Eastern European states.  ...

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After 2 years of the pandemic's devastating effects on health, governments around the world decided to protect ordinary people from the effects of higher prices for staples and food with the increase in inflation. This WSJ report takes a detailed look at different countries and how they after coping with the effects on total debt and debt servicing needs of moves such as subsidies and tax cuts. The situation is exacerbated by the Ukraine war which affects wheat exports from Ukraine and Russia, and the high oil prices as a result of the war. The effects shown by country are- China- consumers are protected from high oil prices by regulated retail gasoline prices. As oil prices keep going up state owned refineries will bear a disproportionate share of the burden of high prices. India- The government has set aside $40 billion in aid as subsidies for oil and fertilizer. This will support farmers and consumers for fiscal year to March 2023. It will make it harder to cut the budget deficit from 6.9% of GDP to 6.4%. Pakistan - A subsidy of $1.5 billion was given for diesel, gasoline and electricity by the Imran Khan government. This did not have IMF approval and talks are taking place on the IMF program between the government and IMF for it to continue. Rampant inflation has led to reduced popularity of the Imran Khan government. Argentina- A new program to refinance $44 billion in debt with IMF assistance is being affected by the subsidies for oil and electricity. About 800,000 tons of grain are being diverted to the domestic market from exports. Agricultural producers such as Argentina have better protection from higher food prices. In Argentina 40% of the people are living below poverty and the country has 50% inflation.  Malaysia and Indonesia- Both countries are exporters of commodities and higher prices could provide additional revenues to meet higher import prices, says the WSJ. Egypt- higher prices for wheat imported from Ukraine and Russia where Egypt gets 70% of its wheat needs have increased cost of subsidies by $1 billion. Kenya- Fuel subsidy costs will increase by $500 million over 2 years. Europe- In France 400 million euros relief package and in Spain 500 million euros relief package for energy price increases. In Germany cash payments to taxpayers, heavily discounted transportation tickets, and price caps on gasoline and diesel.   ...

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The 2016 primaries with Sanders and Trump have brought to the forefront voter dissatisfaction with the agenda of both parties, especially so for Republicans with the lack of specifics and personality driven campaign of frontrunner Trump. On a whole host of issues from poverty, wages and inequality, regulatory reform, to trade, borders, security, ISIS, both parties are facing questions from voters. Particularly the Republicans who have lacked specifics during the two terms of the Democratic Obama administration with a divided Republican Congress, and the risks for Republicans running for Congress under frontrunners Trump or Cruz who have provided few details on their agenda. The Agenda project of Ryan will have about 25 meetings and prepared specific agenda, including white papers and legislation, that would give Republicans hope to run on positive proposals that are placed before the Republican Convention in Cleveland. Chairmen of House standing committees were assigned 6 areas- health care, taxes, national security, regulatory reform, poverty, and Congress reasserting constitutional authority. Ryan told the Ethics and Public Policy Center on April 19, 2016- "A lot of people don't like conservatism as they know it. For too many people Republicans seem to be caught in a time warp. They're thinking, 'We don't control our borders. Wages are going nowhere. College and healthcare keep getting expensive. ISIS continues to spread. And what are Republicans going to do about it?' So we need to adapt our policies to meet the challenges of the 21st century."...

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Fact check looks at the facts and what candidates claimed happened. Jeb Bush is right says fact check about the casinos Trump tried to get started in Florida. Fiorina overstates what she accomplished at H-P. Kasich is largely right about fixing the finances in Ohio. Trump is wrong about the U.S. being the only country with birthright citizenship- there are 30 countries according to The Center for Immigration Studies. Trump throws the number out of $200 billion, as what it is costing the U.S. for illegal immigrants. An estimate by The Federation for American Immigration Reform put this at $113 billion a year in welfare programs. From this one has to deduct what illegal immigrants pay in payroll taxes to get a good estimate. Trump says he never went bankrupt, he means not him personally- his companies have filed for bankruptcy Chapter 11 protection. Considering how many times Trump has misstated, it would be useful if the network broadcasting the debate would have an independent company do the fact check at the same time as the misstatements are thrown around, and show this on the bottom of the screen or during the advertising breaks, because it is very important to viewers to get the right information. In our opinionated partisan environment it is important to let candidates know that they cannot get away with it by misstating facts, over and over again....

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David Wessel points to some problems with the Paul Ryan budget proposal. Ryan's plan does not balance the budget till after 2030, and Congress would have to raise the debt ceiling each year till then. The changes to Medicare Ryan proposes would limit how much the government spends, but the savings from this do not come for a decade, as people expected to retire in the next 10 years will still have Medicare. Ryan's proposal shows how deep the cuts will have to be if deficit reduction is done without raising taxes. Pete Domenici and Alice Rivlin who developed a deficit reduction plan, said they were disappointed that the Ryan plan "fails to address the need for new revenue," which they consider crucial for truly tackling deficit reduction. The Obama budget failed to offer a comprehensive deficit reduction plan, leading to openness for new ideas. The health care delivery system in the U.S. needs to be efficient and costs need to come down. Ryan's proposal gives no idea where the efficiencies will come from. Would they come from competition between private insurers? How will escalating healthcare costs be controlled. Another consideration is that even with its problems Medicare is less costly to administer than private insurance. Everything depends on seniors shopping vigorously for the best premiums because risks and costs are borne by seniors, with the idea that this will somehow control escalating medical costs....

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This piece by Cambanis in the NYT shows how even Syrian Free Army soldiers have switched sides to join the ISIS extremist Sunni militia. Sheikh Hassan a Syrian Free Army brigade leader describes the case of Mustafa who switches sides for a higher salary wih ISIS. ISIS gave Mustafa triple his salary at the Free Syrian Army - increasing it to $400. In a region with many unemployed youth the ISIS pays salaries for joining, and taps Sunni frustrations in Iraq, with money raising and financing capabilities a critical part of the organization's capabilities. A piece by Nordland shows how the ISIS's crude but effective money raising uses taxes and other illicit ways to increase revenues. This provides a unique insight into what is happening in Iraq and Syria after the failure of the U.S. to effecively support the Free Syrian Army and moderate groups in Syria, the premature withdrawal from Iraq, and the frustrations of Sunnis built up under the government of prime minister Maliki openly favoring Shiites. This has provided an opening for extremist groups in the region, and created more tangles for the Obama administration as its policies to distance itself from the region have not let it extricate itself from the U.S.'s important role in the region. The vacuum created by these policies has been filled by extremist organizations and created about 2 million refugees- a large humanitarian crisis and undone years of effort by U.S. soldiers in Iraq. ...

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Israel's Yesh Atid (there is a future) party came in second with 19 seats after the party of prime minister Netanyahu in Jan 2013 Israeli elecions. Yair Lapid helped organize the middle class protests for social justice in the summer of 2011. He founded the Yesh Atid party to fight for better opportunities for the struggling middle class. Many of the votes came from Tel Aviv. Lapid writes a column for the newspaper Yediot Aharonot under the title, "Where's the money?" He writes in the newspaper: "This is the big question asked by Israel's middle class, the same sector on whose behalf I am going into politics. Where's the money? Why is it that the productive sector, which pays the taxes, fufills its obligations, performs reserve duy and carries the entire country on its back, doesn't see the money?" The summer protests were about an Israeli middle class that is falling behind like the middle class in the U.S. Yair Lapid started as a print journalist and went on to anchor the Channel 2 Friday evening news. His father is a Holocaust survivor from Budapest, Hungary, who went on to become Justice minister. Unlike his father who was strongly secular, Yatid's support comes from all parts of Israeli society including the ultra-religious, and is mainly focussed on the middle class. ...

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In his annual budget speech to Parliament, chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, said things are much worse than appeared 5 months ago. Britain will have to borrow 57 billion more pounds, and the budget deficit is to reach 175 billion pounds or $255 billion. The British economy will shrink 3.5% thisyear instead of the 1.25 percent predicted in November, 2008 This is the highest deficit of any nation in the G-20. Britain's net borrowing is exppected to reach 11.9 percent of GDPin 2010, and finances can't be balanced before 2016. In March 73,000 jobs were lost for a total unemployed of 1.46 million. With smaller numbers of people paying income taxes, and smaller corporate tax revenues, the revenues are just not there for Britain to spend heavily to make its way out of this recession. The renewable energy projects like wind farms and biotechnology are small, and shows the government has difficulty paying for larger programs. In an effort to increase revenures the government imposed a tax of 50%, up from the current 40%, on individuals earning more than 150,000 pounds, which was promptly criticized by the British Chambers of Commerce as a disincentive to bring talent to London as a world financial center. Darling also added acar-scrapping scheme like the one in Germany. Opposition leader David Cameron said in Parliament "everyone can see the utter mess this government made of the British economy. Our children will be in poverty for decades." ...

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The Hindu's Piyush Pandey describes the fire sale of assets that is planned as the Reserve Bank of India pushes forward with the effort to clean up the balance sheets of Indian banks. Indian banks have an estimated 5 lakh crore of bad loans. Separately Crisil ratings agency cited the bad loans in the banking system as a hurdle that must be cleared for India to make the necessary investments in infrastructure in the next five year period 2018-2022. The Hindu's own review shows a startling amount of debt in the ten largest corporate business groups in India-  500,000 crore of debt to the banks. Anil Ambani's group alone owes 121,000 crores to the banks, with some of the businesses not able to service the debt. Canadian pension funds, Nippon Life Insurance and other foreign companies are taking stakes in business as this process takes place. The Mukesh Amani Group alone has increased the debt load as a result of the 150,000 crore rupees spent on Reliance Jio. Other investments that have led to losses is the steel business of Tata Group in Britain, which is down to zero value, says the Hindu. This report gives details of the fire sale for the other leading companies in India. ...

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A big change and a rare combination of events is causing labor costs to rise. China's new labor law makes it more difficult for employers to reduce wage costs by methods used in amarket environent without an enforeable code of conduct. The costs of certain raw materials like plastics have gone up significantly. Environmental laws are taken more seriously. And just when wage and raw material costs are rising the government in response to international pressure on the trade surplus is phasing out tax rebates on the less sophisticated products like toys, apparel, leather etc with the intention of moving into more sophisticated products like electronics and cars. As a result after years of falling prices in 2006 prices of Chinese goods in the US went up by 2.4%. And China is putting pressure on commodity prices worldwide through its growing use. All this contributed to USA inflation going up 4.1% in 2007 from 2.5% in 2006. How will this change in 2008 and the years ahead just when the USA is entering a recession and period of sluggish growth? About 7.5% of American spending on consumer goods come from China. With the weaker dollar in relation to the yuan, Chinese factories get fewer yuan for their exports to the USA, the depreciation of the dollar being about 7.6% in 2007 with more depreication ahead in 2008 and 2009. Factory wages have gone up by 80 % in the last few years and the lowest factory wage is about $125 according to experts. Chinese factories have already factored all this into their new pricing asking for price increases of 20, 30, 40 or 50 % according to the American Apparel and Footwear Association. What to expect then on the retail shelves of stores in the USA? Expect a price increase of 10% on Chinese goods. This means from now on Chinese goods instead of lowering inflation in the USA will actually add to inflationand the area of cheap goods coming to a close. As it takes time to move production to places elsewhere in Asia like Vietnam and India its going to be some time before another country takes the place of China....

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A detailed account by Thomas Schweich, a senior official and deputy in the law enforcement bureau to Anne Patterson, Assistant secretary of State for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs. He talks about how the Pentagon and the UK military have thwarted efforts for aerial eradication of poppy fields which has worked in other countries like Columbia. In fact Anne Patterson was an Ambassador to Columbia and knows about this first hand. He also talks about how through their efforts northern Afghanistan was cleared of poppy fields but how the cultivation has shifted to the south to Helmand and Kandahar provinces. The government officials in these provinces are actively involved in the poppy farms that are being setup there and support Karzai and help him organize the Pashtun vote for coming elections. So Karzai is protecting these officials and because of this opposes aerial eradication and does not support using Afghan Army for land eradication. The military in the U.S. and the UK does not want to take more casualties by turning against them the officials and farmers who support the government, but this is a short sighted policy because this helps make the Taliban insurgency stronger with access to cash and weapons because they also are actively setting up farms in their areas of southern Afghanistan. Aerial eradication takes care of poppy farms in all areas and has been effective in other countries. In the long run the military takes many more casulaties because of the bigger insurgency and Taliban they have to deal with. The military's policy is called "Sequencing," and its basically we'll deal with drugs later which is based on a complete misperception and understanding of the situation facing them. Schweich is in the thick of these battles and has fought them wit courage it appears from this account. He has the support of Secretary of State Rice but has not been able to get the Administration to get Karzai to change the way he is operating. It risks making the situation and insurgency in Afghanistan a lot worse if not corrected. Its a call for action and for educating the public and clearing all the misunderstanding and myths and fog about whats happening in Afghanistan....

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DW.com's Barbara Wesel describes the chaos in the Conservative Party and the British prime minister Theresa May's stubborn pursuit of Brexit. Speaking in the House of Commons Theresa May showed no flexibility to reconsider her decision to present a 558 page Brexit document detailing the negotiated agreement to parliament for a vote, even though it lacks the support of the Labour Party and prominent Conservatives in her government. Two Brexit Secretaries have resigned. The Transport minister resigned calling for a second referendum on Brexit. May continues to stick to her basic argument that she is following the wishes of the British people given in the first referendum. Even though she is Conservative MP for Maidenhead supporting Remain, and campaigned to stay in the European Union. Wesel says May has proved once again that she has an unrelenting stubbornness. Lacking even the ability to take into account the variety of opinions carefully presented in parliament from different angles by MP's. Once May has latched on to an idea there is no way she can be drawn off her course, and she has continued saying it is in "the national interest" at every turn without defining this in the particular context. The session in the House of Commons clearly showed Brexit's flaws, as in reality the Conservatives themselves have serious misgivings about the far right Brexiters push for separation without clear understanding of where this takes Britain and the British economy. The Labour Party sees this as an opportunity for a change in government. ...

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This podcast in the WSJ takes up a Chinese startup Luckin Coffee that had major investors in the U.S. and China, including big banks in the U.S. and Europe.  The idea is simple- sell coffee in China to aspirational coffee drinkers following western lifestyles using mobile app. It is the story of huge investments and losses, and collapse of a NASDAQ listed company with what the WSJ investigation calls fabricated sales. Why are infrastructure and health, education products starved of capital left high and dry, while billions are poured into such investments with huge losses. All you need is this article in the WSJ of Sept 16, 2015, shown in today's articles. Showing forecasts of rapid growth of coffee consumption for an aspirational western lifestyle consumer in China, and a small mobile app investment to attract investors in a startup -if you refashion the coffee retail outlets as a tech company by selling coffee for delivery/takeout by mobile app. Luckin Coffee in China shown in the podcast in today's articles did this and attracted billions of dollars in investment from investors, including large banks and financial companies in Europe, U.S. and China, only to collapse in 2 years with losses and investigations in China and the U.S. Luckin Coffee soared after its NASDAQ stock exchange listing in 2018 only 1 year after its founding. WSJ calls it "brazen" the effort to add tech hype to a coffee company and have it listed on NASDAQ in just over a year, only to see its sales and value collapse just as quickly. $400 million in convertible bonds losing 90% of their value, the stock losing most of its value and NASDAQ delisting the stock after $311 million in fabricated sales were found as reported in the South China Morning Post. For U.S. investors the problem is that Chinese companies can list on the NASDAQ or other stock exchanges in the U.S., but U.S. investors cannot look at financial records of companies in China. Yet there are basic questions- why is it a tech company? Why are investors like big banks and other large financial investors pushing so much money into such places when there is so much that needs to be done in health and infrastructure investment, and real tech investment? 5G or 6G? Health systems? Ocean Grounds has a coffee store in Shanghai, Pacific Store has coffee retail outlets in China, and Starbucks is still in the business with retail outlets - remember none of these companies are tech companies. In 2017 Luckin Coffee started by making it look techy with a mobile app and refashioned itself as a tech company.  What is so big about a mobile app as there are hundreds of millions of apps. The rest came from making it look like Starbucks, right down to baristas, fancy coffee machines, and opening stores near Starbucks, according to the Podcast in the WSJ.The difference between Starbucks and Luckin Coffee - the price Luckin Coffee would sell for about $2 compared to about $4 for a Starbucks latte. Yet do this by pricing at closer to Starbucks and issuing promotions discounts constantly on the mobile app, that would bring the price to about $2. That is all it takes to make a tech company nowadays. No scientific research, no science and technology, no technical experience, nothing of the kind that led to the invention of the computer chip or the vaccines that are now being developed, or research activity of any sort. Banks, financial companies are willing to channel huge amounts of money into these places and lose it, as they did in We Work, and are doing at companies such as ride sharing app companies, as well as other app companies without any core technological component or value added such as infrastructure or health products. Only it is not the bank's money but the people's money and savings that are deposited at banks and channeled into investments. At the same time as investments in much needed infrastructure and health, education, services that really matter to us as a society, are neglected and starved of capital.     ...