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A study by ITEP, Institute for Taxes and Economic Policy shows the top 1% pay less in taxes on income than every other group in 42 American states. The poorest fifth pay taxes 60% higher than top 1%. The most regressive states are Florida, Washington, Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Nevada. The tax systems seen as reducing inequality are D.C. Minnesota, New York, Vermont, New Jersey. This happens at a time of growing inequality, high cost of living, and the aftereffects of the pandemic on health and mental health, with high cost of pharmaceuticals with entrenched lobbies, low enrollment of men in colleges with increasing dropouts, the huge burden of student debt on young people.

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As Obama faces the situation FDR faced, between political popularity after election in 1932, and loss of some political capital in the first year by 1933, and a lot depends on political will and courage. He has to execute and implement plans for efficient government spending that builds jobs to replace those lost, and to use the investments in really productive ways including projects that provide returns for years into the future. As David Axelrod points out in the Frank Rich column in the NYT, people sometimes live in a parallel universe, which may be completely at odds with what the rest of the country caught in the economic currents of layoffs and collapsing businesses is thinking.

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The other title of this article in the NYT was "California's fading Political Machines and volatile race for Governor." Gone are the days when Pat Brown was able to put his son Jerry Brown in the race for governor, there are 9 persons running for governor of California in 2026. The current governor Gavin Newsom is said to be promoting his book in Nashville, Tennessee, where many Californians are moving with the inflated cost of housing in the state. Gavin Newsom's grand father gave a $5000 check to Pat Brown in 1943 to run for District Attorney, this report says citing the book. From that time Pat Brown became Attorney General and then governor of California in 1958, defeating Richard Nixon in 1962. In 1962 Pat Brown seemed vulnerable as his signature accomplishment setting up the UC system of college campuses and the water reservoir, tax increases to pay for this, were in their beginning stages and their lasting value not recognized at the time. Nixon from Whittier, California, was a former Vice President and was seen as likely winner. This toughly fought election created the Pat Brown myth and so called machine that helped his son Jerry Brown to two terms as governor 1975 to 1983, and again after serving as Mayor of Oakland and Attorney General to come back to governors race again in 2011 (because term limits came after 2011) and be governor again 2011-2018. Another way of looking at it is that in his last two terms it was also Jerry Brown's careful balancing of the budget and finances of the state, his environmental support, that made him a reliable figure for the public interest not just the political machine backing him.  California to be sure has had popular governors on both sides Reagan won in 1966 as governor of California to succeed Pat Brown. The Kennedys and Pat Brown are matched by the Reagan supporters in the state. In today's situation where China's dominance in industry and manufacturing has affected all parts of deindustrialized America, California is no exception, where much of the middle class has seen their savings eroded, the issues are different and the challenges are different. ...

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Sri Lanka's state owned Ceylon Petroleum Corporation has $700 million in debt that it cannot repay resulting in fuel shortages as it cannot finance imports of oil. Depending on Indian financial help for fuel that after $4 billion in aid is not sustainable, says Wickremasinghe, who is finance minister and prime minister.

Deep rooted errors in management of the economy now need to be corrected and this will require increase in income taxes, cutting public expenditure and breaking down loss making state monopolies, are needed. Wickremasinghe says "if the government misses this opportunity this would be a crime."

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By 2024 Dholera Special Investment Region airport and the expressway linking Ahmedabad to Dholera will be operational, says India's Union Minister Piyush Goyal. Developed from scratch on vast stretches of land in the Gulf of Khambat 100 kilometres from Ahmedabad it is expected to be India's best manufacturing zone,  comparable or better than any manufacturing zone in China. It is part of the industrial effort to build world class manufacturing zones in India that fit in with the shift of manufacturing from China as part of the redesign of world supply chains to avoid overconcentration in any one part of the world.

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Taylor Swift Era's Tour gives a boost to local economies in the hospitality and entertainment sector. In Colorado 2 Taylor Swift shows added $140 million to the state's GDP. Occupancy records in cities in the US and Asia are broken with these Swift tours. The Swift concerts will play at many cities in Europe including Cardiff and Liverpool. Then why are concerts only in Singapore and Tokyo in Asian venues. Singapore provided additional funding for the concerts which could add with other concerts about $300 million to the local economy. Swift has a large following in Japan with people waiting camped overnight for these concerts.

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Stellantis reports a loss of $750 million on sales of 41 billion euros for third quarter 2023. As a company with operations distributed evenly all over the world Stellantis suffered smaller losses than GM and Ford. GM's losses of profit were $1.3 billion and Ford's $800 million. From the point of view of workers who want a settlement for fair wages in a cost of living crisis keeping losses sustained by the car company to a minimum so that the industry as a whole does better is important, because when the companies do better so do workers and management. 

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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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26,000 online votes of alumni of Oxford plus 5000 faculty and staff can vote and will determine who gets to be chancellor of a 1200 year old British university. Last election was in 2003 with 8000 voting. The last colonial governor of Hong Kong, and Conservative party chairman, Chris Patten was chancellor for 21 years. It is a post that lacks authority yet is influential. The principals of 2 colleges at Oxford are applying- Elish Angiolinia of St Hughs College and Jan Royall of Somerville College. Peter Mandelson, a Labour minister, and William Hague a former Conservative foreign secretary, are both running for the job.

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Scientists worry that microplastics are linked to growing rates of cancer, heart disease, and other diseases. One study says people inhale or ingest 74,000 to 124,000 microplastic particles per year through breathing, eating and drinking. The plastic particles are everywhere around us. Of 10,000 chemicals used in making plastic a fourth of these are toxic. Consider in 1950 2 million metric tons of plastic were made, now 400 million metric tons. Of 8 billion tons produced only 10% recycled so the rest are in oceans, landfills, and around us. Ingested or inhaled they cause inflammation in our bodies that lead to cancer or other diseases.

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The 24 hour migration of moose over the Angerman river to summer pastures from a region 300 miles north of Stockholm is the subject of a 24 hour continuous show on Swedish television SVT. It is watched by 9 million viewers whose rhythms slow down as they watch the moose cross the river. There is a calming effect of slow TV and many people including the filming crew feel relaxed. 26 remote cameras, 9 night cameras, and a drone are used with 12 miles of cable. There are 300,000 moose roaming in the woods and forests of northern Sweden.

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Mayo Clinics 18 month long effort with 400 health policy experts working on the panel has a set of recommendations for the Presidential candidates. It suggests a private system with private insurance companies offering many options and nobody can be turned down. Those least able to afford it would get government help, individuals would pay for the insurance with some help from employers. Since once insured its not dependent on employer its permanent, changing a job would make no difference at all. Interestingly most of the panel experts cited here from Verizon, the Heritage Foundation and others all agree that the present system is coming to a close and a new one has to replace it with coverage for all Americans and a privately based system with contributions made by society and government, by all individuals, and also by employers. Mayo's study, the breadth of the number of experts participating (400 experts), the length of time to understand and come up recommendations (18 months), the respect the institution has among all sectors and groups, should give the consensus view of experts in the US, so that any future health plans do not simply get derailed by partisan opinion, controversy and lobbying....

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The SEC requirement that companies disclose the ratio between median worker pay and the pay of senior executives. The SEC says it is putting out the rule as part of implementing Dodd-Frank legislation to control excessive executive pay. Companies will be allowed to survey a fraction of their workforce as appropriate for companies with global operations. Executive pay will include pension benefits and stock options under the new rule. A WSJ chart using information from the University of Southern California and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, shows the ratio between what CEO's on average make and rank and file workers make remained at about 30 times in the post war period till about 1970, a period of rapid growth in the U.S. economy. By 1980 this climbed to about 60 times and exceeded 100 times by 1990. The period of stratospheric growth for CEO pay and extreme widening of the gap then occurs between 1990 and 2000. By 2000 the dot com boom- telecom boom and the internet- creates a surge in executive pay reaching over 500 times. This drops to about 280 times in 2008 and picks up again to reach about 320 times in 2011. Many of the poor business practices, the excessive leveraging and risktaking in the financial industry, take place against this background of excessive pay for senior executives. Some of that risk was passed on to others through such methods as securitization in the period leading to the 2008 financial crisis, so that executives were compensated with higher pay for taking excessive risk that they personally or their companies did not assume. Dodd-Frank legislation following the 2008 financial crisis sought to correct this imbalance by having pay information disclosed. The excessive pay has also coincided with an increase in the frequency of boom-bust cycles in the economy. The busts prompted the needs for intervention by the U.S. central bank, the Federal Reserve, to drop interest rates more than would otherwise have happened during this decade, culminating in the huge bond purchases and monetary easing by the Bernanke Fed. The SEC under Mary Jo White is mindful of these distortions in the economy as a result of misallocation of resources based on excessive executive pay, and the need to take action before the next crisis. ...

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Krauthammer says President Obama has failed to come out openly in support of the Bowles-Simpson commission's recommendations on deficit reduction. The recommendations were made in December 2011. The President's February 2011 budget did not take up these recommendations. He gets a sense that there is too much electioneering in the Obama posture on deficit reduction- being in the best position for the 2012 presidential election rather than a sincere effort. He suggests the Republicans pursue a short term debt ceiling hike of $500 billion containing $500 billion in budget cuts by passing this in the House. And couple this with a call to follow the Simpson-Bowles recommendations which, in one option, cut $1.1 trillion of deductions, credits and loopholes while lowering tax rates across the board to a top rate of 23%. This would give enough time to come up with a thoughtful and open effort with public scrutiny, and is preferable to the current closed door negotiations without the deliberations necessary for decisions of such far reaching consequences. Failing this there is the McConnell Plan B. Boles- Simpson focussed on tax expenditures as a key part of their plan. Martin Feldstein and other experts also point to limiting or eliminating "tax expenditures" (the deductions and loopholes that reduce revenues) as a key part of the solution to the U.S. deficit problem....

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As president Jinping begins a second five year term his focus is on the small communities like Chashan, only a 6 hour drive from Beijing, that were neglected in the rush to industrialization. He has vowed to get rid of poverty in China by 2020. About 43 million people live in rural communities that have mostly older people and live on 95 cents a day. There is another challenge say experts which is the much larger popuation that lives in rural and urban areas- including urban migrants without property and residence rights- who live on less than $5.50 per day, $165 a month, according to the World Bank. This is about 1070 yuan per month, or in Indian rupees for a comparison with India- which was at a similar stage of development in 1990- of Rs 10,000 per month. About 40% of China's population or 560 million people are in this group. With a rapidly aging society as a result of the earlier one child policy, China faces the risk of not advancing from the level of a middle income country, in the way that South Korea and Japan have moved to levels similar to Western Europe and the U.S. As China's growth level slows and with an aging society this remains a major challenge. As this report shows there is great pressure on local officials to eliminate the poverty level of people living below $30 or about 200 yuan a month, as targets are set at local levels and corruption weakens the effort. There is concern at the lack of an effort to improve the living conditions of the 200 million rural migrants living in cities, who under China's "hukou" system are not considered residents and are not getting education and health benefits. ...

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Serbia ranks high in the countries with successful vaccination drives. About 29.5 people of every 100 have been vaccinated. About 2.2 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine were bought in August 2020 followed by separate deals for the Russian Sputnik vaccine and the Chinese vaccine. Serbian prime minister Ana Brnabic says the success is a result of their approach to vaccination- "A health issue, not a political issue, negotiating with all, whether East or West."

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The European Union has deals for 300 million doses of vaccine from BioNTech and Pfizer to be delivered soon. Germany is setting up hundreds of vaccination centers for first 3 months of 2021. Transport logistics are a concern. The Pfizer vaccine has to be kept at minus 70 degrees Celsius or minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit. Paul Ehrlich Institute is responsible for release of vaccine batches in Germany for rollout.  Good planning is essential for the huge task ahead.

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New Delhi home to 30 million people is seeing a spike in coronavirus cases in a second wave with 7000 cases daily and 100 deaths. The Diwali holiday could result in more cases. The drop in air quality comes with winter and thick smog over Delhi at tis time of the year. People with asthma are having a harder time. Doctors and scientists say the combination of poor air quality with the virus increases risk of respiratory illness. 

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Captain Sir Tom Moore a 100 year old veteran who served in the Wellington regiment in World War II was knighted for his walks in his garden in Bedfordshire raising $3 million for the NHS.

His positive spirit is reflected in his words that he doe not feel very old inside, maintaining a youthful spirit in older age. He cooks his own dinner and walked for miles in his garden to raise money for the National Health Service.

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This NYT editorial points out that the cuts to Medicaid amount to taking out a fourth of its budget and are sure to hurt low income Americans. The cuts are about $880 billion over 10 years for Medicaid. The $300 billion less in subsidies over ten years is likely to hurt the elderly. It also points out that removing the individual mandate will make it harder to reduce premiums as fewer healthy adults offset the costs of sick patients.

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This article in the Economist describes the hard fought election in New Hampshire where two women Mrs Ayotte, a Republican, and Mrs. Hassan, a Democrat, will have spent $100 million by the time the campaign is over. Both have distanced themselves from the presidential candidates, particularly Mrs. Ayotte. The race in the state is  critical because Democrats can retake the Senate majority with a win in New Hampshire, along with a win in Illinois and Wisconsin.

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The low pay for teachers in Sweden and Germany. A gross salary of 2500 euros per month is considered standard for teachers in the Stockholm area. Here a teacher points out that it is unfair that teachers are not paid better. With taxes cutting into the pay check even a senior teacher earning 42,000 euros a year or about 4000 euros a month is left with only about 36000 euros or 3000 euros per month to live on.

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France joins Britain in requiring masks in indoor space. The number of new cases in France are now dropped down to a few hundred each day compared to several thousand before. This month in July the reproduction rate passed 1 suggesting need for caution as social distancing rules, avoiding French custom of kiss in greeting, and mask wearing are now being less strictly observed. Anyone not wearing a mask after August 1 would be fined $125 or 100 euros.

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Tumblr is a microblogging site with about 100 million users but very small revenue of about $13 million. Yahoo is acquiring Tumblr in a $1.1 billion all cash deal. Tumblr was started by David Karp in 2007, has 175 employees, and is based in New York. Tumblr made it easy for users to create blogs and post comments, photos and videos, and Tumblr users can follow other user's updates in the manner of Facebook users following their friends in social media. It has 108 million blogs and 117 million users worldwide, according to comScore Inc.

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Vanguard Index funds attracted $233 billion in new investment in 2014, according to Morningstar. Of this $40 billion went into the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund, $27.5 billion into the Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund, and $9 billion into the Vanguard Total International Bond Market Index Fund. The poorer returns from actively managed funds with high fees and the PIMCO Total Return Fund led to this shift into index funds. For every $100 in investment with Vanguard index funds the cost in fees is about 18 cents compared to $1.24 in the average actively managed mutual fund, according to Morningstar.