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Vice President Vance's attempted thaw in relations with Iran (the Memorandum) and the Iranian response in missile strikes to interrupt open navigation in Hormuz on Omani side route breaking ceasefire happens on July 8, 2026. Early on in the US strikes the focus was on Iranian underground nuclear sites with preparations for nuclear weapons. When Iran shut down the Hormuz channel to navigation the US extended this to a naval blockade. As the US bombing of military targets in Iran continued in May and June the WSJ and other media were critical of the US. DJT turned to JD Vance to get the Iranians to negotiate a ceasfire with a Memorandum of points they agreed to included a plan to have talks on nuclear issue, open up the Hormuz channel, lift American naval blockade and American sanctions to Iranian oil exports. This WSJ Editorial Board commentary says Iran has not acted on as it said it would - no talks on nuclear issue are started, and Iran launched missiles against shipping in Hormuz.  This WSJ editorial says Iran does not intend to open Hormuz or discontinue its nuclear weapons efforts. In this situation the only options for the US are to find alternative sources for oil for India and Japan, and China in tacit cooperation with the US to find alternative sources as well as make more efficient use of oil. China is now doing without the 4 million barrels it was getting from Hormuz and has decided to do without these supplies altogether. For the UAE and Saudis to find alternative routes to get most of the oil out, UAE to increase output outside of OPEC to reduce prices. All of these actions are taking place and the ceasefire offered a breather for that to get established creating a new situation where if Hormuz remains unopened the rest of the world will be able to go on as before without being seriously affected. Better management of overall oil supplies is already taking place, inventories are building up, so that at some point Hormuz does not affect oil prices significantly. This is the best and most realistic option and the US, China, India, Japan, the EU, are going ahead with it. ...

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Putting a distance from the negative thoughts of the mind is essential to getting a good healthy mindset. This means not believing what it says. It also means woking hard to be able to change one's life in many positive ways and believing that you frame your own destiny. It is said that a wandering mind is often more of an enemy than a friend, in ancient wisdom. Developing a new calmness, being able to meditate, requires putting a distance from negative thoughts and not believing the thoughts of a wandering mind. This is called cognitive defusion. It is also part of what is needed for yoga and meditation. 

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Rep Marie Perez 34 years, of Washington State, is one of the new members of Congress who feel there is a sense of disrespect for people without college degrees, that Democrats have to go back to the days of John Kennedy when a majority of voters without college degrees supported him. John Kennedy had more support from people without collrege degrees than with college degrees. In 1960 John Kennedy had 52% of people with high school education, 65 years later Biden had only 41%. The 11 percentage points gap is what is needed to be filled to bring the Democratic party back to what its core values are, core values lost after entry of Silicon Valley people and finance industry people into the Democratic party -muddying up the core principles of the Democrats since Woodrow Wilson and FDR from the 1900's to Kennedy in the 1960's, standing up for the rights and aspirations of workers and families.

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How European countries Germany, Poland, Britain, France, and Italy are increasing their defense forces and defense budgets to counter Russia's invasion of Ukraine and its military preparations is shown here in DW.com. Under chancellor Merz Germany plans to invest 5% of its GDP in defense for the first time and build Bundeswehr defense forces as the best in Europe. A key factor says DW.com was the speech of chancellor Scholz three days after the invasion of Ukraine, a speech that changed minds in Germany about the needs for defense in the 21st century. It is called the Zeitenwende or turning point speech on Feb 27, 2022.

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John Cochrane provides a no-nonsense assessment of what is happening in the euro-zone financial crisis. He says Americans should stop swallowing all that talk about "contagion" from Ireland. He puts it in plain language- there is no bailout of Ireland, this bailout is about bailing out of German and British banks that made risky loan to Irish banks and the Irish government. And he says that European governments if they choose to bailout German or British banks should do so frankly and openly and not by covering it up as a country bailout. If they did this he fears the governments and the German and British banks would face some serious questioning about their risky bets on Irish debt and the Irish property bubble. The German insistence that debt-holders would have to take a haircut, or losses on the face value of their bonds, has been diluted by the French inserting a provision that this would be after 2013 and on a case by case basis. Cochrane sees the vagueness of a case by case threat as the worst combination possible. He says this relies too much on the assessments of IMF and EU officials. The result would be for big financial institutions to bet on a bailout and to lobby these same officials hard. Cochrane's says the big culprit in the problem facing the euro-zone is short term debt. If Europeans won't let governments default, then they must insist on long-term financing of government debt. It is the short term debt of these countries that creates a crisis atmosphere. If investors become pessimistic about long-term debt, bond prices can go down temporarily without causing damage. The way a crisis happens is bad news develops, and governments having financed with short term debt need new money to pay off old debts. The way to handle this refinancing crisis is to have a large forced exchange of maturing short-term debt for long-term debt, and this is what occurs in "restructuring." And this kind of restructuring ocurred with the Brady plan that helped Latin American economies recover from a debt crisis in the late 1980's and early 1990's. This is the only viable solution, as it will be virtually impossible to bail out all euro-zone countries- Portugal, Spain, Italy and so on. For the US this is an eye opener to get its own financial house in order. US government debt is also tilted to short-term debt maturities, with the majority rolled over every year. and the Fed's quantitative easing will tilt this further to shorter term debt. And in the US, many states and local governments are in serious financial trouble....

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President Obama's 15 member Independent Payment Advisory Board, which is given the task of reducing Medicare costs and holding them to GDP growth and half a percentage point after 2018, under the Obama deficit reduction plan.

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Unemployment at 7.3% was lower in Rochester, New York, in October 2011, than the 9% in the U.S. Entrepeneurial activity has taken the place of jobs with large corporations, as Kodak has seen job declines that are severe- from about 55,000 in 1980 to less than 10,000 today. Xerox and Baush & Lomb also have downsized, and are down to half of the employees they had in the 1980's. Former Kodak engineers now work for smaller companies doing pioneering work in medical and other fields. The result is smaller incomes- average income in Rochester was $47,333 compared to $66,327 in New York state and $55,739 in the U.S., according to the Center for Governmental Research.

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How the failure of the world trade talks may affect other negotiations of world issues like global warming and efforts to cut emissions worldwide. How livelihood security could play out in areas like global warming and emissions control.

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As part of the trade deal with the Trump administration China agreed to buy $54 billion of oil and liquified natural gas from the U.S. by the end of 2021. This is showing up in U.S. oil making up 7% of China's imports by mid September 2020 from 0.4% in January. By the endo of October forecasts show U.S. exporting 700,000 barrels a day to China. The U.S. is displacing Saudi and Middle East oil as Saudi exports now make up 15% of China's oil imports from 19%. This also shows that president Trump's trade deals are working to help balance trade with China and remove the disadvantageous position the U.S. was placed in by three previous administrations.

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The US with 5% of the world's population has 25% of the world's prisoners. The US has 2.3 million peope behind bars according to the International Center for Prison Studies. China with 4 times the population has 1.6 million people in prison. The US has 751 people in prison per every 100,0000. It varies a lot within the states Louisiana at 1138 per 100,000 and Maine at 273 being the lowest, Minnesota at 300 is more like Sweden at 80 per 100,000 people.Interestingly it shot up in 1975, for a long period from 1925 to 1975 it was about 110 per 100,000. Explanations are given such as the war on drugs but only 500,000 are in prison for drug offences, so its only part of the explanation. tougher sentencing, availability of handguns and higher murder rates, and even the election of judges who respond to public opinion favoring tougher sentencing, are all given as answers. Interestingly Canada's crime rates parallel those seen in the US but the imprisonment rate has been stable for the last 40 years according to one expert Mr. Tonry. He says that english speaking countries have higher prison rates than French and other European peoples. Higher prison rates for black people are known to be the case in English speaking countries but no figures are given here. This is part of the problem....