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About 12 million women left the workforce in the US during the pandemic. Women gradually returned to where there are 1.2 million more women in the workforce as of March 2021. In the new workforce remote work is an option for two career couples with children, wages are up, child care is up. WSJ looks at the situation of a 51 year old  mother of two boys ages 10 and 11, whose husband is a surgeon in the military. She quits work during 2021, and restarts work in a remote work job in 2023. Another worker with children decided not to return to the workforce. 

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NYT's Brad Plumer looks at the assessment of a report from REPEAT (Princeton), MIT, and Rhodium on how well the Biden Climate laws are building renewable energy- how well this is working to tackle climate change goals. The goal set by BIden was a 40% reduction over 2005 greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Electric car sales are moving at a pace that is consistent with the goals but renewable energy instead of being at an average of 46 gigawatts of carbon free electricity for 2023 and 2024 is falling short as it was at 32 gigawatts carbon free electricity for the US in 2023.

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A 900 mile long frontline from Kherson on the Black Sea north to Luhansk stretches Ukraine's forces along a long line in June 2023. A Ukraine effort to retake areas lost to Russia in eastern Ukraine and near Crimea as part of the counter offensive is only making slow progress because of land mines and lack of airpower. The successful Ukraine effort in 2022 to retake Kherson happened in an area which had two rivers and where Russia faced logistical issues of supplying its troops. In 2023 both sides have prepared for some time and it is very difficult for both.

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A year after taking office Argentine president Milei cuts spending by 30% bringing inflation down from 25% to 2.4% in November 2024. All sorts of programs are cut that had proliferated over the years. The resut is that the economy shrinks by 3.5% in 2024, only to grow rapidly by 5% in 2025 restoring a more stable pattern of growth and moderate inflation. Throughout it's history Argentina has faced high inflation and economic crises.A similar pattern in Brazil was broken in 1998 after two decades of inflation. It reached 56% in January 1990 dropping to about 2% in 1998.

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French farmers problems with rising costs are leading to protests in Paris and its surrounding highways. France lost about 20% of its farms in the decade 2010 to 2020, about 101,000 farms. Another 200,000 farmers reach retirement age by 2026, what happens to these farms is uncertain given the prevailing environment where farming is seen as a struggle to mmet rising costs and regulations, increase in cost of diesel to meet climate goals. One farmer says in France 24 that many young people avoid self employment because they would end up making less than a farm worker, which should not be the case. 

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The biggest decision coming out of the NATO and European Council meetings is Germany saying it supports stationing of long range missile systems in Germany by the US by 2026. German chancellor Scholz says the decision was a long time in the making and Germany supports it as a necessary step to secure the country. This happens as China's support to Russia continues through trade and economic relations and the Ukraine war prolonged for another year into 2025. Other decisions were to provide F-16's and added Patriot missile systems so that Ukraine can defend its skies from missile attacks.

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Wages are now consistently up more than inflationary pressures since mid 2023 to July 2024 by about 0.6 to 1.0% in Labor Department graphs about cost of living. This is good news for the US economy. It shows the policy of president Biden investing in rebuilding infrastructure and Science/Chips, and renewable energy is delivering for the American people alongside cost of living actions by the Fed's Powell and Biden. For the first time since 2021US CPI index for inflation from the Labor Department drops below 3%. It drops to 2.9% for July 2024. The Consumer Price Index increasing by 2.9% over the same month in the prior year 2023. This shows a definite trend for the cost of living to moderate after the supply chain events that increased inflation leading to lagging efforts for wages to catch up- cost of living issues for ordinary Americans. The costs of medical care and automobiles, automobile repair, food, all moderating. Housing costs still to moderate with higher interest rates.  ...

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Criticism of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the WSJ for some overreaching actions. Yet also the failure of politicians including previous presidents Bush and Obama, that lead to a situation where huge burdens are placed on law enforcement lacking resources and numbers for missions that have placed on their shoulders the accumulated problems of decades. DJT says president Biden was not one to support the scale of illegal migration in 2020-2024 and open borders that happened, and seemed both unaware of the real situation and losing control of the situation. DJT's repeated reference to Biden using the robo-pen also refers to delegation to Biden's Homeland Security head Alejandro Mayorkas, who immigrated from Cuba in 1960 as a child and grew up in Los Angeles, and both Biden and Mayorkas failing to take strong action as the gravity of the situation became apparent in 2022-2023. The record 2.2 million encounters at the Mexican border in fiscal 2022 were the highest in history under Mayorkas, the first Latin American to head US Immigration Service and Deputy head of Homeland Security appointed by Obama. ...

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The Ethics Commission appointed by Chancellor Merkel following the nuclear disaster in Japan has recommended that the German government close all of its nuclear plants by 2021. Merkel said that Germany will end its dependence on nuclear energy and use nuclear as a bridge technology till other sorces are developed. Germany gets 22.6% of its electricity from nuclear energy, according to the Energy Ministry. It has 17 reactors, six of the boiling water type, a design used at Fukushima, and 11 using pressurized water. A former Environment minister, Klaus Topfer, heads the panel, with the other 22 panel members draw from the energy industry and nongovernmental organizations. While recommending closing the plants "to eliminate risks," the panel said it would also boost the German economy. It said "a withdrawal from nuclear power will spur growth, offer enormous technical, economic and social opportunities to position Germany even further as an exporter of sustainable products and services." Germany has already moved ahead in developing wind and solar energy sources, and is developing leading edge technologies and capabilities in the area of environment friendly alternative energies. Wind and solar energy and renewable sources already meet 16.5% of Germany's needs. Italy and Switzerland said they would not develop new reactors after the Fukushima nuclear reactor meltdown. Only Germany with its strong environmental consciousness across all parties is making a decisive break with nuclear energy. ...

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Munich Security Conference is being organized by Christoph Heusgen, the conference chair, who was an adviser to Angela Merkel and previous German  Representative at the United Nations. It will be held Feb 14-16 at the Bayerischer Hof hotel in Munich. JD Vance will be attending for the US with alarge delegation including Keith Kellogg US DJT envoy to Ukraine and Zelensky of Ukraine. German federal elections are on Feb. 23, 2025 with CDU's Merz holding a lead. Pete Hegseth Defense Secretary is not attending the conference. Hegseth has expressed views skeptical about Ukraine. Mark Rutte, the former Dutch PM is attending as Secretary General of NATO. The Munich Security Conference Report cites DJT and says- "Indeed, the notion of 'resource scarcity' has become a central premise of Republican foreign policy thinking." Germany barely spends 2% on defense. DJT wants to see 5%. DJT's comments are published in the Munich Security Report- "We were being ripped off by European nations both on trade and on NATO." "If you don't pay, we're not going to protect you." ...

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A moment of reflection by Joe Biden at the candlelit Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool in memory of the 400,000 Americans who died in the pandemic of 2020-2021. Mr. Biden plans to vaccinate 100 million Americans in the first 100 days.

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 Housing and lack of rental housing units in Amsterdam a top issue in 2025 elections. There is an estimated shortage of 400,000 homes in Netherlands, about 5% of the total housing units in the country. D66 party of centre-left has proposed 10 new cities. The Labour- Greens propose a tax on vacant properties. Geert Wilders Freedom Party proposes a "crisis plan" and fewer rules. Young people from overseas find the situation worse than in New York City. A 2024 law on affordable rents has led to landlords selling off properties instead of renting out space.

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Independents make up the largest voting bloc in Arizona. Mr. Biden swung 60 precincts to win by 10,000 votes in 2020, and did well with independent voters. NYT looks at the situation in Arizona for 2024. Much depends on Maricopa county which includes Phoenix. About 60% of Arizona votes are in Maricopa county. Other states which are closely contested are Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia.

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The Russian economy will suffer a loss of about 7% of GDP in 2022. After 2023 over the next five year period Russia will feel the effects of a drop in energy demand as it tries to find markets to replace European demand. The shift to renewables will accelerate in future years and will affect the demand for Russian fossil fuel supplies.

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The EU has set a goal of getting 20 million tons of grain exports out of Ukraine in 3 months using EU transport infrastructure. This is vital to feed many parts of the world. Ukraine exported 44 million tons in the 2020-2021 growing season. Russia is conducting a blockade of Odessa on the Black Sea to prevent Ukraine exports from leaving.

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Part of the problem of high unemployment of 20% for young people in China is that the university enrollment rates jumped between 2012 and 2022 from 30% to about 60%, doubling in one decade. This comes at a time of high unemployment of 20% for young people. A certain amount of disillusionment is there among graduates in 2023 because they have fewer job prospects.

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EV makers in US offer about $5000 in discounts to replace $7500 lost in government EV tax credits. The hurdle for electric vehicles is the lack of charging infrastructure and the cost of home chargers, in addition to the limited range in miles. The big jump in inflation centered not just on groceries in 2019-2024, there was a 34% increase in the cost of new cars and 50% increase for used cars, and a jump in maintenance costs. Reducing affordability for young people and making car ownership costlier. This turned into a cost of living crisis with groceries up 31%, that affected people's enthusiasm for climate change action when China was building one coal plant a week (adding 95 GW in 2024)- underlying the need to provide immediate relief to American working families and elderly through tax cuts, benefits and shifting tax dollars from climate change action to working families in the next 4 years. This is the approach taken under the DJT One Big Beautiful Act of 2025. Basically what the DJT side of the story is on emissions- US has only 12% of global greenhouse gas emissions, cut this by half to 6% and assuming the EU which has 6% of gas emissions also cuts by half to 3%, the saving just 9%  while the 82% of emitters China, India, Russia and Brazil etc not making the cuts needed the impact on climate change is not significant. If China and India want relief US working families also need relief.  ...

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DW. com looks at the controversial effort of privage equity firms Blackstone and Carlyle to buy stakes in Bundesliga soccer clubs. Approval of 24 of 36 clubs sets out a plan to attract 1 billion euros of funding for digitalization, internationalization, in return for an 8% share of TV rights revenues for a period of 20 years. Experts say any effort to take international preference for the Premier League will be difficult. There is also the 50+1 rule in Germany where the ownership stays with the clubs not investors, so that the ticket prices are affordable for the club fans and the clubs belong to the fan base. For the fans and locals the situation is better without private equity.