LyrArc Article Gist
How a small Kansas town of Grinnell in America finds a way to deal with the rural-urban divide and covid anxiety generated in the tumultuous years of 2020-2021, is the subject with pictures of this report in the WSJ. Grinnell is heartland America and its residents find a way to set Kansas and America in the right direction. One one side some resident worried they would end up like Minneapolis or Portland with protesters. An incident of drivers along Highway 70 emptying shelves of toilet paper in neighborhood stores is seen negatively by some  Grinnell residents and leads to forming an Emergency Preparedness Group to prevent outside agitators from creating problems. Others like the Enlightened Ladies Group try to calm things down. Gene Tilton, 84, and his son 63 years, whose family arrived in Kansas in 1880's did'nt see the need for forming some sort of vigilante group. He raises cattle and crops on a 10,000 acre farm. Michael Machen who practiced medicine in Gove County for 35 years also felt the same way and believed law enforcement could tackle the problem if there was one. Sheriff Mesch attended the Gove County emergency Preparedness Group public meeting by invitation in January 2021. This about the time when the Capitol in Washington DC was stormed by protesters and the country was divided after the election. At that time after 19 months of coronavirus deaths, racial unrest and political violence America was on edge, communities all over America were struggling with the idea that the immediate threat they faced was from other Americans not foreign adversaries. The sheriff told everyone at the Emergency Preparedness Group's public meeting where he stood- law enforcement could handle any threat and he didn't anticpate anything his deputies could not handle. He told the Emergency Preparedness Group that he appreciated their sentiment though, if he needed help he would ask, yet concluded that is the only way. From that rebuff by the sheriff the Group paused its activity and shifted its message to offering to help anyone deal with the deep cold spell in February, to cope with snow, tornadoes, fires, rattlesnake bites and similar hazards. They sponsored first aid classes, and a "Homesteader Gardening Class." Soon their idea was "we're here to help people, the last thing we want is for people to be uncomfortable." "Gove County" says Don Tilton, "has moved on." So must America today. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
A federal committee in the U.S. now recommends no more than 6% of calories come from daily sugar intake not the 10% that is is the current guideline. It is smart to be wary of guidelines set in a different period when Americans and people in other parts of the world were not enough health conscious as they should have been. Artificially high limits set in guidelines serve as a danger to health, particularly as experts say obesity is like pouring gasoline on fire in fighting the coronavirus. Take a look at mean consumption today and it is not even the 10%, it is 13% double of what it should be. Nearly two thirds of Americans aged 1 years or older consumed more than 10% of daily calories in added sugar. And 70% of U.S. adults over 20 years are obese or overweight according to 2015-2016 figures from CDC. Today the figures from Europe and Asia, Latin America are also alarmingly high for obesity rates. Added sugar comes from processed foods from soda and pasta sauce to cereal and yogurt, and honey, sugar itself. Sugar sweetened beverages are common and dangerous. A 16 ounce grande pumpkin spice latte at Starbucks has 50 grams of sugar or 10% of a 2000 calories diet. The committee in the U.S. wants to see people eat healthy diets and does not want to discourage healthy foods like fruit and milk which people are not eating enough. It wants to see a shift away from processed foods to foods that have good health outcomes such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean meat and poultry. The beverage producers such as Coca Cola and Pepsi are a major source of resistance , as are Confectioners association, and other producers that benefit from setting the guidelines at 10%. It is not that for 3 decades as the obesity levels rose to the shocking and dismal health levels of today that the ideas of what constitutes a healthy diet were not known. It was just that we as a people did not care enough to fight for what is safe and healthy against whatever resistance was put up by producers with their vested interests, just as we as a people did not care enough to to fight to keep local manufacturing in place and the jobs and healthy communities across our land. A gram of sugar equals 4 calories. For a 2000 calories a day diet that is 120 calories to stay within the 6% that we should not exceed. Make a habit of looking at each packaged product and add up the added sugar grams and calories. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
This like other reports in the NYT and other media fails to report the scale of people leaving Venezuela for neighboring countries in Latin America, the economic mismanagement, and the lack of fair elections. Venezuela has the highest inflation in Latin America leading to a continual flow of people overseas.  Inflation is at 270% in Venezuela and only Zimbabwe is worse. The country is an example of how the very socialist ideas to reduce poverty and increase social mobility can get mismanaged, lead to cronyism, corruption and increase inflation and poverty. About 7 million of 28 million people in Venezuela have left the country, or about 25% of the country's people a situation that is rare in the 20th and 21st century. A mixture of nationalism and socialist ideas led by the military -after failure of political parties to provide good governance-  have ruined Venezuela. US does not seek to intervene in other countries. It also has some version of the Monroe Doctrine by president Monroe 1823 not to let foreign or European powers  recolonize or intervene in the western hemisphere, renewed by Teddy Roosevelt 1903 and even in 1962 under Kennedy in the Cuban crisis with Russia's Khrushchev. Recent elections in Venezuela were not honored by the government in power. The question is how to not intervene and get embroiled in other nation's politics and confusion and yet preserve Latin America's independence from colonization of any sort or drug trafficking gangs. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
DJT comments on Denmark's comments on its contributions to NATO overseas operations like the one in Afghanistan. DJT stated the facts about participants such as Denmark that made small contributions in numbers- DJT said on Fox News -We’ve never needed them. We have never really asked anything of them. They’ll say, they sent some troops to Afghanistan or this or that, and they did. They stayed a little back, little off the front lines.” About 41 Danish soldiers were killed in Afghanistan and about 800 Danes went in. DJT is probably talking about the  brunt of the action being taken by the US including the effects of road side bombs. About 2500 US soldiers died and 20,000 were wounded and the US took the brunt of the fighting. These were Bush-Obama wars that during that time distracted the Nation from the serious challenges that emerged later in drug cartels in Mexico that led to more deaths in the US than in the Korean and Vietnam wars and World War combined, and the deindustrialization of the US that began with the Clinton era decision to allow China to enter the World Trade Organization without any safeguards continued into the second term of the Obama administration. In the European media there is rarely any mention of the huge losses from drug trafficking into the US that requires action along the lines of the Monroe doctrine which also protect Europe from drug trafficking into the EU. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Analysis of its findings in the WSJ story on August 18 shows the FDA unnecessarily delayed private labs from developing and using their own tests from Feb 9 when FDA test for coronavirus failed for its third component. The FDA said it would correct the flaws but repeatedly failed to do so until it finally allowed private labs to go ahead on their own- a costly delay of 3 weeks that made the test and contact trace strategy inoperable, because the time window was lost in those 3 critical weeks. In March through August the pandemic has now taken up about 5 million cases in the U.S. and 170,000 deaths, with no end in sight. During times like these and in a swiftly moving current of a river such as the time of a pandemic, the  teaching hospital labs and labs with resources and scientific reputation with their lightning speed have to have the freedom  to immediately respond. In this case the FDA should have released the private labs of teaching hospitals and the the highly reputable labs of well known medical companies to immediately start developing their own tests and using them, starting  on Feb. 10 the day after it was evident that the FDA test's third component was not working. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Bad effects on the liver of pain killers like Vicodin and Percocet, which combine a narcotic with acetaminophen. The FDA's advisory panel voted 20-17 to recommend a ban on the combination drugs. Even recoommended doses can cause liver damage. More than 400 people die and 42,000 are hospitalized each year from overdoses.

LyrArc Article Gist
Asking for broad powers for the government to seize non-financial firms like AIG, Treasury secretary Geithner argued that if these powers existed the government could have seized AIG and incurred a far lower cost of rescuing the company. Fed chairman Bernanke supported Geithner in this position before a Congressional committee hearing.

LyrArc Article Gist
The European Banking Authority has lost credibility after two rounds of stress tests by the EBA failed to turn up the problems at Spanish banks that required a $125 billion recapitalization by the EU rescue fund. Now EU officials are turning to the European Central Bank as the eurozone's main banking regulator. The U.S. Federal Reserve is performing this role after the 2008 financial crisis, with the FDIC in charge of bank closures and resolution. ECB president Mari Draghi says, letting the ECB perform supervisory tasks, a decision made at the June 28 EU summit talks, is fully in line with the bank's mandate. Separate decisions will be needed for a bank resolution authority like the FDIC. The ECB will then have to hire hundreds of banking experts to make on site visits to eurozone banks and check their loan books and make independent assessments of bad loans, bank risks, and capital requirements. The important thing is an agency which is free of local and political interference to make the correct evaluations....

LyrArc Article Gist
PM Modi's win in Maharashtra, India's second largest state, and commercial center Mumbai with Ahmedabad, puts Vikshit Bharat plan to modernize India like China and Japan, on a firm footing. Some observers such as this one were of the view that the Chief Minister during Covid had done a good job, and that splitting his party with defections was not the right thing to do. Yet this view does not look at the infrastructure needs of the state and the nation which require effective government and government that can concentrate on delivery. It overlooks India's need to do what China and Japan have done to modernize their country in the last century. Vikshit Bharat is real, it is within reach, and Maharashtra senses this like the rest of the Indian nation. It is similar to Bumrah like Modi telling the Indian team that it had prepared well, now one should trust the process- which leads to Vikshit Bharat modernizing the nation - and give one's best. This led to Jasprit Bumrah taking the Indian team to a 297 run win over Australia at Perth after losing 3 Tests in New Zealand. A 14% vote margin for the NDA alliance called Mahayuti that is PM Modi's effort in Maharashtra, one of India's largest states which includes the city of Mumbai. This report says waves such as 2019 or ones in which Rajiv Gandhi won in 1985 were felt on the ground. This one was not anticipated. Yadav says in just 5 months after PM Modi's party lost in the Maharashtra Lok Sabha elections by 1-2% the shift is 15-16%. He says there is an additional 5 % deficit when a party contests a state election after a national election, widening the vote margin to 20 percent.  Of this he says the welfare schemes for women account for only 2-3%. The rest he can't understand.     ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The Economist quotes experts saying that drug innovations would not be affected by price controls on drugs. Pricing reforms can accomplish the reverse, spur innovation by doing as Britain and Germany are doing- pioneering comparitive reviews of drugs effectiveness and cost-benefit analyses aimed at reimbursing firms for new drugs based on their performance. Sanford Bernstein, a financial advisory firm, says in its study that a 20% reduction in what Medicare pays for drugs would not kill off innovation, it would reduce earnings per share of big pharma firms by 3-8%. As drug research is now done in many countries, and its a globalized industry, innovation is not likely to be automatically affected by price reductions in one country like the USA, according to Alna Garber of Stanford University and Patricia Danzon of Wharton Business School.

LyrArc Article Gist
Seoul is one of the cities that is shrinking in size during the pandemic. House prices doubled during the period of the pandemic. An average price of a home just 2 years before the pandemic was 341 million won or $252,000 now it is 626 million won in 2022. More South Koreans are moving to wide open spaces with more room and clean air. Seoul's population has dropped below 10 million and could reach 7 million in 2050 as population moves out to smaller more livable towns and cities. Says one teacher who moved out there is a higher quality of life, homes are bigger, prices much lower, and children can go outside and play instead of being surrounded by crowded places. Places at kindergarden are free and extra curricular activities are far cheaper. Another development is also taking place. The model of young people getting a degree and working at alarge corporation in the center of Seoul is now fading as young people start their own ventures or business as entrepreneurs. They can then use the flexibility of locating in places outside Seoul to attract talented employees who no longer like life in the big city compared to the outdoors and larger spaces in smaller cities. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
It has to be said that both McCarthy and Biden have shown patient leadership and an optimism about America in getting to an agreement on spending and the debt ceiling in May 2023. They are not taking chances as they sell the deal they made to their party in Congress. Biden feels confident that the agreement will make its way to his desk to be signed and he had spoken to McCarthy on Sunday afternoon "to make sure that all the T's are crossed and the I's are dotted." McCarthy says "more than 95% of those in the Conference were very excited. We are the first Congress to cut voter for cutting spending year after year." The deal basically freezes federal spending at 2023 levels till 2025 and allows some increase in defense spending and veterans benefits. Dusty Johnson Republican of South Dakota says Republicans will overwhelmingly support it. He says not much was expected from the Freedom Caucus whose support was not expected. Senator Mike Lee of Utah and Rand Paul of Kentucky do not support it, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina thinks there is not enough money for the Navy in the agreement. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
American singer Linda Ronstadt looks back to her roots in the Rio Sonora region of Mexico in this AARP excerpt about her years growing up in that region before her father moved to Tucson, Arizona. Her album Canciones de mi Padre, is the best selling non English music album in the US of all time. Her book is called- Feels Like Home- Song for the Sonoran Borderlands. It looks at the emotional and physical links between the US southwest and Mexico and the hold that this region has on the popular imagination. She says that wherever she has lived, wherever she has travelled, her soul is always winging it down the road, to the land south of the border. A stretch of desert she calls her foothold to the world. Today millions of Mexican Americans share this heritage and this kind of genetic memory. When the Spanish landed in the 1500's there was no border. The land and its physical aspects have not changed through waves of immigration- this story in the AARP magazine shows the agaves in the backdrop of the Huachuca mountains. Apple Music has Ronstadt's album and The Arbolitas, a song of the trees, etched in the Sonoran sunlight.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The 22 states that formed the state of Rajasthan 22 months after independence in 1947 were part of the Rajputana Agency under the British Empire in India. It spanned 330,000 square kilometres with an agent under the Governor General in charge at Mount Abu. All had Hindu rulers except Tonk and most of them were Rajput except for Jat rulers in Bharatpur and Dholpur. These states were not affected by the 1857 revolt against British rule because they remained loyal to the British. Sardar Patel, deputy prime minister, headed the States Ministry with VP Menon as Secretary. The integration to form the new state happened in stages. The first union was the Matsya Union of Alwar, Bharatpur, Dholpur, Karauli, at the eastern edge of the Rajputana Agency by March 18, 1948. Nine other states near Udaipur in the south east merged to form the Rajasthan Union by March 25, 1948. On March 30, 1949, Patel pulled in 4 states bordering Pakistan, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Jaipur, and Bikaner into Greater Rajasthan. The Matsya Union was merged into this state. In 1956 under States Reorganization Act Ajmer was added from federal rule and Abu Taluk was integrated into Rajasthan. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Prime minister Modi addressed the 44th foundation day of the BJP party by video conference, with the speech screened at 100,000 points across India for party leaders and social workers. "BJP is working with the mantra of Sabka Saath-Sabka VIkas-Sabka Viswas- Sabka Prayas ( which means 'with everyone, for the development of all, with the confidence of all, with the efforts of all). we have always given topmost priority to social justice and empowerment in our hearts and working style. Social justice is not a part of political sloganeering for us but an article of faith for us." "The BJP lives social justice, follows it in letter and spirit. Getting 800 million people free ration (food) is a reflection of social justice. The facility of free treatment up to Rs 500,000 offered to 500 million people without discrimination is a strong expression of social justice." On Lord Hanuman, whose anniversary is today, Modi said India was realising its potential and strength like Lord Hanuman did after eliminating self doubt. "If we see the whole life of Lord Hanuman, he had a 'can-do' attitude that helped him achieve big successes." ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Amazing pictures in black and white from another era of the 1950's and 1960's of Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.  Including a picture of Nehru and Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan the president of India, in cricket caps and holding bats in a cricket match at the National Stadium. Some from the Indian Express archives that you may never have seen before. Taking a walk in the mountains with Edwina Mountbatten of Britain, and holding the Dalai Lama's hand closely as he walks with him. Nehru is remembered for his leadership of post colonial India in 1947 with Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel as deputy prime minister, for his work at the Constituent Assembly drafting India's Constitution, and taking India through its first 15 years and building India's democratic structures through linguistic state creation and border conflicts. His work with leaders like Vallabh Pant, Mohandas Gandhi, Sardar Patel, Sarojini Naidu, Subhash Bose and others in the 1930's laid the ground for the first home rule assemblies under the British and made it possible for India to gain the experience needed to sustain democratic institutions for its first 100 years which come up in 2047. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Srinivasa Raghavan reviews 3 books in the Business Standard on Periyar, Kamaraj, and MGR. Brahmins are a caste in India that held sway under the British rule in Madras in the Madras Presidency and dominated the professions and local government. Madras presidency was named Tamilnadu after independence. Think of Brahmins like the Boston Brahmins as upper caste, and the Irish as another deprived caste the Vanniyars in Madras state.  Madras was a very caste conscious state Periyar led a movement of Self-Respect for the lower castes improving their social condition. Kamaraj was from the entrepreneurial Nader case and was part of Gandhiji's satyagraha in Tamilnadu in 1925, going on to lead the Indian National Congress Madras wing by 1940. Madras state was very poor in those days- with 80% of the population illiterate under British rule and with agriculture based extreme poverty. Kamaraj changed the face of Madras, adding schools and high schools, midday meals in schools, and set up industry with large public sector projects, brought dams and electricity to the state, between 1954 to 1963, 13 years of transformation, may be the biggest in India in the period 1950-1975. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The Truss government UK budget in September 2022 does little for the most vulnerable populations in the cost of living crisis. It also fail to take any significant steps to build up energy supplies. Of all the governments in the G-7 countries France, Germany, Italy, Canada, it is the weakest when it comes to promoting social cohesion or taking action to promote both energy supplies and renewable energy for the transition during climate change. Spain has just introduced a wealth tax for the 1%. Nothing like this is seen here, instead the highest tax of 45% is scrapped at a time when the wealthiest are seen by most people in all the G-7 countries as the most able and even willing today after the pandemic to provide help to the vulnerable and weakest parts of the population. It is seen as delusional by some as it does not inspire much confidence in the financial markets and many in the Conservative party itself. It fails the test even Mr. Boris Johnson set himself of leveling up in Britain between the well off and the less well off in society which led to his election and the election of the Truss government with Johnsopn's support. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The president says of the remarks by the former president about European countries that do not meet defense budget needs that Russia could then do what the hell it wants, that it was un-American and strange. Biden said- "History is watching. History is watching. History is watching. Failure to support Ukraine at this critical moment will never be forgotten." He also pointed out that most of the $60 billion in military aid will be spent in the United States, it will create American jobs, it will renew the defense infrastructure of the US that is needed. Senator Tillis, Republican of North Carolina also said this on the floor of the Senate in the bipartisan Senate. effort. The House of Representatives led by a small faction in the Senate has changed Speakers 3 times, and the new Speaker Mike Johnson from Louisiana lacks extensive experience and is in this role for a few months. He is now faced with deciding how to move forward even with president's call to have a vote immediately on the biparitsan approval in the Senate for $91 billion in aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan that passed 70-29 with 22 Republicans voting for. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
An Indian born researcher takes on the mission of saving German forests and making them more resilient to climate change. Somidh Saha is at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. In this video from DW.com he shows what is being done in Germany to protect forests.  Woodlands are under threat worldwide from urbanization and industry. About 80% of German trees are not in good health according to a German government study. Damage is shown being done by the bark beetle to trees already weakened for other reasons including drought. Saha says one has to be careful in evaluating how much of a country's space is healthy forests. In India he says it is sometimes said that 21% is forest land. Yet this includes plantations of many kinds- tea, rubber, coconut and so on. The healthy part of forests of high quality and suited to wildlife is a much smaller part of India. The COP26 in Glasgow was unique in one way- for the first time a zero deforestation target was set for the world. World leaders promised to end deforestation by 2030. Protecting forests protects the planet from climate change as forests act like a carbon sink.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The Ukraine, Israel and Indo-Pacific aid bills are passed in the House of Representatives with 316-94 vote on April 19, 2024. Vote rule set with support of Democrats made a simple majority vote sufficient to  pass. It was a significant win for both parties as 165 Democrats and 151 Republicans voted for the bills. 55 Republicans and 39 Democrats voted against. It was as Speaker Johnson had said earlier for each Congressman to vote his conscience. Speaker Johnson said it was the best possible bill "we could get under the circumstances." He said if this wasn't done then Democrats would have bypassed Republican leaders and forced their own package of bills through the House. As a nod to the former president $60 billion in aid to Ukraine has $9.5 billion in forgivable economic loans. Overall similar to what Democrats had passed in the Senate over a month earlier. “I hope at the end we can take care of our responsibilities. Ukrainians desperately need lethal aid right now. I mean we can’t allow Vladimir Putin to roll through another country.” - Mike Johnson, Speaker ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The story of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city only 25 miles to the border. Santora and Hicks give this report on life in the city which faces constant missile and other attacks with much of its power and other infrastructure destroyed, and schools operating deep inside subway stations. Nothing like this destruction has been seen in European cities since 1945. Europe had only the Balkan conflict limited to Yugoslavia 1991-1995 as the country split into several states, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, and Slovenia and the US settlement in 1995 following NATO bombing in Serbian Bosnia. The Ukraine conflict stretches back decades starting in 2014 with the Maidan protests in Kiev and fall of the pro-Russian Yakunovych government. After a brief war and Russia taking Crimea it ended with the Minsk Agreement in 2015. Russia had supported separatists in Donbas region. Russian is the language in Russia and Ukraine and both countries share a common historical heritage. It started again with Putin's complaints about NATO enlargement in 2021, followed by an attack on Ukraine in 2021 bringing Finland and Sweden into joining NATO, and US support to Ukraine's defense.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
How a winner take all economy that pays a lot for what are called the "greedy" professions in law, consulting and finance, impact women. In these professions 24 hour or almost 24 hour availability has led to quadrupled income levels. To do this as this NYT article shows someone has to go part time time or be there when the children need it, or when the maximum work hours spouse is out at work, for doctors appointments and other needs. In many cases this is the woman as shown in examples from the law and other professions in this article. Women are finding that this shift to longer hours in these professions, consulting, law and finance, mean they have to voluntarily give up working the similar long hours that their husbands are putting in, especially when well educated women marry well educated men. A more normal level of schedules would enable both partners to work full time, and have time for each other and the children. This is one of the ways the U.S. is different from a country like France which provides the added benefit of better child care to promote balanced lives and more opportunities for women to advance their careers and use their education. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
One perspective of what Silicon Valley is focused on is shown by Reid Hoffman. It does not mention climate change, not one word on climate change, no words on cost of living action, little is said about factories and jobs for reviving American manufacturing, helping workers and families and redesigning the world's supply chains. It is critical of addressing monopolies and regulatory action by the FTC even where it is needed. It calls for huge investments in AI that would leave little for investments in science, education, healthcare and infrastructure, and says "trust us to do the right thing." It calls for pro-innovation direction when pro-innovation has been the thrust of policy for three decades with the results that we have seen leading to widening gas between the upper and lower classes and shrinking of the middle, a pharma industry out of control in pricing, and negligible investments in education by so called "tech" companies who like Apple have outsourced manufacturing to China. A return to tech and Silicon Valley is not needed as embedding it in the nation's policy making priorities is the Nation's problem. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Akio Toyoda, CEO of Toyota may be out of step with the times. As other companies move forward in leaps in developing electric vehicles, Toyota moves slowly and deliberately. Now he is stepping back and Toyoda who is 66 years old is giving the CEO position to 53 year old engineer Koji Sato. When it comes to digitization, electrification and connectivity, Toyoda says that he belongs to an older generation and he wants the younger generation to decide what future mobility will look like.  Toyota under Akio Toyoda has concentrated on hybrids and plug in hybrids which make up about 30% of global sales. Toyota has fallen so far behind in Ev vehicles that it is not even in the top ten car companies making EV's in the US. Its belief was that from an emissions standpoint hybrids do just as well as EV vehicles. By 2035 only zero emission vehicles will be allowed in the EU. In California this includes plug in hybrids only by 2035. Toyota is now making a U turn after studying Tesla's approach and using a new platform dedicated to EV's and set a goal of 3.5 million EV vehicles by 2030.   ...