LyrArc Article Gist
The pent up energy from 4 years in the Opposition and the preparation made in the months before the election for the first days in office are reasons cited for the speed in which executive orders were issued on the first day. Another reason is that the president's popularity is high following the election in November and it is likely to slip in the months ahead leading to possible loss of one or both the Senate and the House of Representatives in the midterms of 2026. The president signed executive orders to declare a national emergency at the US Border, to designate gangs and drug traffickers as terrorist organizations, end birthright citizenship, as actions to deliver for the 87% of people in the Pew Research poll and similar numbers in NYT poll who want the US Border and immigration under control. Other actions were about the fentanyl flows from China, Mexico and Canada, not enough is being done by these countries causing 105,000 deaths in 2023 and 107,000 deaths in 2022 alone. When the Vietnam War led to 60,000 deaths there was a huge outcry, nowadays heads of responding agencies have no serious answers, the nation is not in a uproar as it should be. This is what the tariffs are about and this is why the American people do not see tariffs in the way they were used in beggar thy neighbor policy during the Hoover administration of the 1930's. Cities such as Baltimore are hardest hit. Almost every county in America is hit from Knox County Tennessee, Multnomah Oregon, San Francisco California, Camden NJ, Bronx NY, Bernalillo New Mexico, Jefferson Alabama, Philadelphia Pennsylvania, Washington DC, Jefferson Kentucky, Denver Colorado, Milwaukee Wisconsin, Jefferson Alabama, Bernalillo New Mexico, Camden NJ, Bronx NY.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Sofiya Qureshi and Vyomika Singh along with Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri provide the first public briefing on the Operation Sindoor. They are women officers of the Indian Army and Air Force. The briefing was the first of its kind where details were provided by the Army, Air Force and the Foreign Ministry of India. It was a precisely done briefing showing the terrorist camps in Pakistan, Pakistan Occupied Kashmir and the ones targeted, and the link of each camp with a terrorist attack going back to 25 years. In this way it send the message that it is targeted at preventing this kind of terrorism at the source and as a preventive action to eliminate the chances of future terrorism, especially where it is targeting peaceful economic development and advancement of the whole of India.  Twenty three million tourists have visited Kashmir in 2024 and this has created a surge in the economy of Kashmir and increased the jobs and opportunities, the investment in Kashmir. The attacks at Phalgam are presented then as a direct attempt to turn back the tide of modernization of India. It is what the Japanese Kwantung Army did to suppress democratic forces in Japan and begin a war of imperialism in China. It was rooted before the Kwantung Army in the efforts to suppress the efforts of modernizers such as Sun Yat Sen by the Japanese. Gen. Joe Stilwell of the US led the struggle against the Imperial Japanese Army in China which is too easily forgotten in China as the first step towards the subsequent American effort in the 1990's to engage with China and help it modernize its economy. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Europe responds with platitudes and vague references to "benefits for everyone" and "detrimental" without facing up to the facts. How many American cars do you see on the streets of Germany? in Berlin or Frankfurt?- or Japan? in Tokyo or Osaka?-or South Korea? in Seoul? And how long has this been going on - since the 1980's. Europe's answer to the Marshall Plan and Japan's and China's to post war American help for recovery, was to exclude American cars and other products. GM and Ford have pulled out of China and so has VW. China's plan is to flood the world with electric cars, and Japan's to flood the world with hybrids. For far too long America has relied on capitalism that has no state involvement. In this kind of competition with hidden subsidies and national planning at the core of industrial growth in Asia. The US government has to have state involvement in it's auto, steel, aluminium, and chip industries, not to create trade disturbances but to create an even playing field for all, and rebuild a middle class destroyed by unfair trading practices of Asian nations and the EU, including Canada and Mexico which are simply used as bases to ship to the US. Ford makes 80% of its cars in the USA and GM can make the investments in new plants to raise its production from 60% in the USA to 80%. South Korea's Hyundai and Kia are investing $21 billion to make in the USA. Toyota and Nissan, VW, BMW and Mercedes can do the same.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
On my bookshelf is NY financier Felix Rohatyn's 2009 book, Bold Endeavors, citing the bold investments America has made in the past from Louisiana Purchase, Erie Canal, Transcontinental Railroad, Land Grant Colleges, Homestead Act, Panama Canal, Rural Electrification, Interstate Highway System, and how this needs to happen once again. NYT lacks this vision. In this Op-Ed it  leaves the field open after comparing Mamdani to De Blasio's failure to run NYC. NYT Editorial Board says Mayor Bloomberg was an effective manager and ran the city better than other mayors, it describes the accomplishments of Andrew Cuomo but does not give Cuomo second chances to use his experience to serve New York City, after Michael Bloomberg comes out in favor of Cuomo. This is  NYT and NYC dysfunction. It says there is so much to do in NYC to improve life in the city but refuses to make the tough decisions needed to make things happen, turning into someone who decides who gets second chances to serve the city and the country.  The Washington Post was clear in warning about the danger of a "free everything" Mayor as this has never worked and fiscal chaos happened in NYC in the 1970's, a NYC near bankruptcy in 1975 which Rohatyn tackled as head of NY's Municipal Assistance Corporation and $10 billon in bonds backed by New York state. NYT and NYC residents have short memories. Most have forgotten Rohatyn and his vision in Bold Endeavors, or were not part of the American fabric of the 20th century, which again points to the importance of history, civics and education. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
NATO members except Spain agree to spend 5% on defense, 3.5% on military and 1.5% on defense industry. Germany makes purchase of 35 F-35 fighter aircraft from the US for $8.2 billion in 2025 to be fitted with cruise missiles from Norway. Defense minister Pistorius says Germany has moved with "supersonic speed" on defense capabilities. This a big change from Scholz. New CDU chancellor in coalition with the SPD is Friedrich Merz who with a popular former defense minister Pistorius from the Scholz coalition and the new SPD finance minister in the Merz coalition Lars Kingbeil, is changing the way Germany looks at investing for the future. It has embraced defense of Europe and modernization of German infrastructure. German federal elections gives the coalition of Merz the 28.6 votes percentage of CDU/CSU in addition the SPD's 16.4% for governing with 45% of the vote, and additional 11.6% of SPD's ally the Green Party which supports it outside the coalition for total 57%. For this reason it is a coalition government with real clout to get things done for Germany's modernization. Much of the media focus is on AfD's far right 20.8% but this has been offset by the Left Parties gaining 14% of the vote in the formerly communist East (GDR) where the AfD is based. Thus about 60% of German voters support Merz/Lingbeil/Pistorius for some far reaching action by Merz well into 2030, for the first time since reunification in 1990. To add to this most of Europe including Germany under Merz has embraced a tough line on illegal migration similar to DJT in US so that far right AfD gains from discontent have reached their high point at 20.8%.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
A dispute in Brazil between the government committing part of the oil royalties from new oil discoveries in coastal oil producing states such as Rio de Janeiro to improving education in Brazil. Coastal producing states fear the loss of an estimated 3 billion dollars under this plan. Some of the money goes to states in the interior of Brazil such a Goias lacking educational facilities and funding for teachers.

LyrArc Article Gist
The Guardian provides this excerpt from the book- Chums: How a Tiny Class of Oxford Tories took over the UK. Simon Kuper says in this review that a small group of aspiring politicians used the Oxford Debating Society in the 1980's as a place to perfect the art of winning using jokes instead of facts. Boris Johnson was here, so was Michael Gove and Jacob Rees Mogg. A nursery for Commons, a kind of children's House of Commons, in other ways a gentleman's club.

LyrArc Article Gist
China has doubled its offensive capabilities at the border with India including heliports and combat aircraft capabilities in the three years since the Doklam incident in 2017, says this report from Europe. China's strategy is clearly to build enough offensive capabilities to secure advantages all along the border with India and maintain its position in Tibet, which happened with China's entry into Tibet in 1950 to secure water resources, increase its security following China's experience with the Japanese invasion through Manchuria.  

LyrArc Article Gist
Wolfgang Eder CEO of specialty and high end steel company Voestalpine with plants in the city of Linz in Austria has gone from a declining company in rust belt condition in the 1980's to a highly successful company in the high end steels industry niche. It has sales of 7.05 billion euros and profits of 765 million euros in 2006-07.

LyrArc Article Gist
Talk about Hoover by the WSJ for his signing of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in 1930 that set off a wave of protectionism and by Democrats criticizing the Bush administration's lack of vigorous response to the housing and credit crisis as smacking of Hooverism are signs of changing perceptions of the economic situation after the Bear Stearns collapse and the contracting economy.

LyrArc Article Gist
Krueger and Posner, eminent economists, say the reason wages have stagnated in the U.S. with wages not having budged much over a decade 2008-2018, is not only because of globalization and automation as long term trends. They attribute this stagnation in wages to "monopsony power," or power American corporations have over workers because of their stronger bargaining position and because workers have few alternatives.  For most of this period 2008-2018 high unemployment as reflected by the people out of work and taking part time jobs or having stopped looking for work, shifted bargaining power to companies. The Economist magazine pointed out that workers have not shared in the profit and gains corporations made during this period. Here Krueger and Posner show additional factors such as non compete clauses in worker agreements that have depressed wages. Half of franchise agreements prohibit competition for labor. Outsourcing work to other companies that hire workers means these outsourcing companies have more power over workers than the original companies using the labor. Unions represent only 7 percent of private sector workers by 2017, compared to 35 percent in the 1950's, so that there are no mechanisms to counteract the greater bargaining power gained by companies vs. workers. The way workers have roots in the communities they live and the consolidation of employers into a few companies in a particular area, mean fewer options exist for workers.  Senators Warren and Booker and the anti-trust division of the U.S. Justice Department are in agreement on this issue of widespread use of noncompete agreements that is considered unlawful, says this report in the NYT, offering hope for a solution to bring a better balance between the rights of workers to fair wages and companies seeking profit for stakeholders. Issues about workers, lack of gains for workers, prevalent outsourcing, and the frustrations of labor with parties that had lost touch with their worker base- such as Labor in Britain, SPD in Germany, Socialist Party in France and the Democratic Party in the U.S. - have led to political upsets with support shifting to other parties. This has not led to significant change to improve bargaining power of workers to correct the imbalance that now exists between labor and companies, leading to calls for change. Eric Posner is a law professor at the University of Chicago law school and co-author of a new book "Radical Markets: uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society." This book turns the popular notion on its head that free markets have produced the imbalances that hurt social cohesion and democracy, by saying it is precisely the suppression of free competition such as for labor that have created this unhealthy situation. This is true in other areas where monopoly power has developed in other parts of the U.S and European economies in 2008-2018, as also for distortions in capital allocation that hurt infrastructure and other public investment. Krueger is a professor of public affairs at Princeton University and former head of the President's Council of Economic Advisors in 2011 under Obama, showing that Democrats themselves failed to correct this imbalance leading to a shift to other parties and Mr. Trump, who also appear to lack ideas or solutions to this problem that affects social cohesion and democracy. This is contrary to the vision of American or European society of better opportunity for all shared by all Americans and Europeans for most of the twentieth century. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
This article is about neighbors in the Tennessee countryside. Robert Frost, America's poet in the 1960's was from New Hampshire, and celebrated the countryside in the state in poems such as Birches, Mending Wall, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.  Neighbors one with pines and and the other with an apple orchard, Frost sees no need for a wall, then has second thoughts. Coming back to old truths was something Frost grew accustomed to. With walls for trade and walls for international borders there is a return to the truths of old- "He will not go behind his father's saying And he likes having thought of it so well He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors." When we take down barriers to trade one has to do it in a way where both sides are following the rules, till then both sides live with some barriers.     ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The effort to shift China's economc growth away from the rampant overbuilding in housing and industrial capacity of the past to domestic consumption, and focus on meeting the demand for better medical care, quality of food, education and other quality of life products. China's leaders met at the Central Economic Work Conference in Beijing in Dec. 2015 to work out ways to make this shift so that growth rate of 6.5% and other goals can be met. Plans include reducing industrial overcapacity, dealing with overinvestment and unused inventory in housing, reducing financial risks from high corporate debt to GDP ratio approaching 160% estimated by Standard and Poors Ratings Services. By comparison the U.S. debt to GDP ratio is 70%. A steep rise resulted from the huge China stimulus program of 2008-2009, when the ratio was 98% for China. Experts such as Derek Scissors of the American Enterprise Institute are pessimistic about the prospects of successfully implementing reforms, saying reducing industrial overcapacity was a goal of the new Jinping Li-Keqiang leadership in 2013, but not much progress has been made in 2 years....

LyrArc Article Gist
The low voter turnout helped protest parties such as the National Front in France and the Independence Party in Britain. The average across the EU was 43% turnout, with turnout in Britain at 36%, Slovakia 13%. Renzi in Italy led the Socialists there to 40% of the vote, and Merkel's CDU got 35% of the vote in Germany. The UMP came in second with 20% of the vote to Marie Le Pen's National Front's 25%, and Hollande's Socialists at 13% in France. In Britain the Independence Party won with Labor and Conservatives in second and third place. There are deep misgivings in Britain for Jean Claude Juncker who is the candidate for EU President from the centre-right European People's Party, which has 213 seats in the 743 seat parliament. Misgivings stem from whether Juncker can deliver on promises for a EU without much of the bureaucratic tendencies for Britain's 2017 referendum. The German SDP party's candidate is also contesting the election for EU president. Next come the centre-left parties of Socialists and Democrats with 190 seats. In the past EU president was chosen not by parliamentary election but by government leaders....

LyrArc Article Gist
The benchmark price of U.S. crude oil dropped to $31.41 a barrel on January 11, 2016, as oil prices continued to drop sharply following a slowdown in China, appreciation in the U.S. dollar and no cuts in production from Saudi Arabia. Analysts expect a crisis for energy producers that is deeper than ones in 1986, and five plunges in oil price all the way back to 1970. With the oil prices at $30 and expected to drop below $30, the companies that took on a lot of debt have no choice but to keep up production. In the process many may find themselves in bankruptcy. Private equity with capital of $100 billion is likely to come in at this point to buy cheap assets without the debt, say analysts. U.S. banks energy portfolios are small, with Wells Fargo energy exposure only 2% for oil and gas loans in the third quarter of 2015, or about $17 billion. Loans that are rated "sub-standard. doubtful or loss," are projected at 15% of loans to energy producers, about $34.2 billion, in a biannaual review by banking regulators. The unusual aspect of this energy price slump is that production is not declining with falling prices- oil production in the U.S. was estimated by the government at 9.2 million barrels a day in Jan 2016- 1% higher than at the beginning of 2015 when prices were over $40 a barrel....

LyrArc Article Gist
Peter Schiff says home prices are still too high. They would have to decline another 20% just to fit the long term trend line indicated by the Case -Shiller index of an average 3.35% increase each year, based on long term historical data. He says economists underestimate how distorted the housing market has become, and how little it has normalized since 2008. This is based on average increase in home prices of 3.35% per year for the 100 years between 1900 and 2000, as determined by Yale economist Robert Shiller, which is just a bit above the average rate of inflation. Taking the January 1998 10 city index of 82.7 and following the 3.35% annual trend line, he says the index would be at 126.7 in October 2010. Case-Shiller showed that it was 159.0 for October 2010. Schiff uses this to show that the market needs to drop by 20.3% from the current level to get back to the trend line. He says that the home buyers tax credit, record low interest rates, and the increased presence of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing administration have for now put a floor on housing prices. Conditions in the US housing market with high inventories, the high unemployment, savings depletion and debt, point to this overshooting by 5-10% on the downside. See Roubini, who points to housing losses in 2011....

LyrArc Article Gist
From the beginning, the infrastructure building component of the $787 Stimulus Bill, was never really what it was described in the rhetoric of the Obama administration. Even using the broadest definintion of infrastructure spending, the money allocated was never more than $150 billion, by one estimate. And only 8% of the total or $64 billion, went to roads, public transport, rail, bridges, aviation, and waste-water systems. The money allocated to high speed rail was about $8 billion, too small for high speed rail network for the US, and this has proved to be a debacle. Work moved slowly, so that by October 2009 work under the highway and transit programmes had seen work start on $14.3 billion of projects. The new $50 billion infrastructure plan from the Obama administration, includes ideas for a National Infrastructure Bank. But by now the public mood has turned against spending, and political support for a gas tax to pay for it is lacking. The ultimate irony of this situation is that the public thinks the stimulus bill has taken care of infrastructure. So many false expectations were created, and vigorously built up by the Obama administration, such as describing the stimulus investment as "the largest new investment in infrastructure since Eisenhower built an interstate highway system in the 1950's." The irony is that the public perception is that the stimulus has already taken care of the US's infrastructure needs, says the transport director of the Chamber of Commerce....

LyrArc Article Gist
The general elections of 2015 show a nation divided, with Labor strong in the north of England and the Midlands, the conservatives in the south of England, the SNP in Scotland, and the UKIP competing for votes with Labor in the north of England. The election also raised questions about seats and representation in the voting system when SNP gained 56 seats with 1.5 million votes, half the votes cast for UKIP, and UKIP gaining only 1 seat. The Conservatives won a majority of the seats, 330 seats with a third of the popular votes. Voters distrusted both the Conservatives and the Labor party but distrusted Labor more, says Malik, and decided to stay with the Conservatives. Malik reminds readers that as late as 1992, Conservatives won a third of the popular vote in Scotland, and close to half of the votes till the 1950's. Now there is only one Conservative member of parliament from Scotland. Labor suffered a severe defeat in its base in Scotland with the SNP gaining 56 of 59 seats. Labor also lost the seat that was previously held by former prime minister Gordon Brown. On the EU the election promise of prime minister Cameron to hold a referendum on Britain staying in the EU in 2017, creates more uncertainty. David Cameron put the situation in the right words- " I want to reclaim the mantle that we should never have lost, the mantle of one nation, one United Kingdom....

LyrArc Article Gist
American tennis player Doris Hart from the University of Miami once played three Wimbledon finals in one day because of rain delays, winning all, in 1951. She made up for lack of speed on the court because of leg and knee issues with finesse, using drop shots and a strong serve with an all court game to win. Her story is unique because she spent many years as a child recovering from a bone infection, called osteomyelitis. At one point a specialist even suggested amputation because of the infection. She recovered and went on to win titles in Australia in 1949, France 1950 and 1952, Wimbledon 1951, and the U.S. 1954 and 1955. Her view of today's tennis game is that not much strategy is brought into the game compared to an earlier period, making it less fun to watch. Her story of recovery and persistence is similiar to the story of Glenn Cunningham, one of America's fastest runners, who broke the world record in the 1500 metres at the 1936 Olympics, and became the fastest miler in the world in 1938. Cunningham from the University of Kansas had leg issues because of burns suffered when he was 8 years old from a fire. Doctors recommended amputation at one point for the infection. Doris Hart says in her autobiography, "Tennis with Hart," never to let despondency take over, to respond with faith, courage and patience....

LyrArc Article Gist
The close ties developed in the postwar years between Japan and Boeing. Japanese suppliers supplied 16% of the 767 model in 1982, growing to 21% in 1995. By 2011 with the 787 Dreamliner Japan's role had increased to 35%. ANA and JAL almost exclusively use Boeing planes, shutting out Airbus from the Japanese market. New upstart airlines are beginning to order from Airbus. The Japanese government also supports suppliers of Boeing in Japan. Employment is also a consideration as 43% of employment in Japan's aviation industry is linked to Boeing. The battery on the Dreamliner 787 is supplied by Kyoto based GS Yuasa Corp., and Kanto Aircraft Instrument Company near Tokyo makes the circuit board that runs the battery. Battery related fires have led to grounding of 17 Dreamliners operated by ANA and 7 Dreamliners of JAL airlines in Japan. All Nippon Airways is the first and largest operator of the new Dreamliner aircraft. So tight is the relationship that Airbus has in total about 44 planes flying in Japan, with newer airlines such as Skymark expected to use the new Airbus A380 superjumbo aircraft in 2014. ANA and JAL typically do not bargain hard on pricing with Boeing because this supports Japanese manufacturers. ANA managers say it was involved in the design of the jet, including the use of a durable Japan made paint. In the 1990's Boeing studied Japanese manufacturing methods to improve work on its assembly lines, which goes on till today....

LyrArc Article Gist
Meet Victor Brown, one of the remaining 450 workers at Buick City, GM's sprawling plants in Flint, where in the 1980's 27,000 workers built GM cars. Victor Brown of Clio, Michigan, and O.C. Cooper do not want to leave, and have repeatedly turned down buyout offers from GM preferring to stay with GM even if it enters bankruptcy, and take their chances. Since 2006, GM has persuaded 60,000 of its hourly employees- about half of the total hourly workforce at GM in the USA- to take cash buyouts and leave. Cooper says, this is the only life he knows, he is 64, a machine operator at Flint North, a run down engine plant in Flint, Michigan. Every day for the 42 years he has worked here, he gets up, washes up, and drives to the plant. He can't imagine anything else. If he leaves he will give up $60,000, for apension half that amount, with no guarantee that its secure after a GM bankruptcy. Victor Brown is 55, a repairman with 36 years at GM, he is divorced and putting a son through college. A year ago he and others turned down a buyout offer for $62,500 to retire with all benefits, now this is down to $20,000, and a car voucher for $25,000. GM needs an additional 21,000 jobs to be cut and closing of 13 plants in its latest restructuring under help and supervision from the Obama administration. ...