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With 3.4% inflation and higher interest rates it is still attractive option to keep money in Cash savings at higher interest rates.

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A joint statement at the G-20 meetings in South Africa on November 20 signed by the leaders of Canada, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, the UK, Germany and Norway, and the European Union expresses concern about the 28 Point Plan put forward by US and Russian negotiators. It also says that it includes important elements that will be essential for aj ust and lasting peace. US president has set Nov 27 as a date for Ukraine to come to an agreement. 

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Divisions in the Republican party in Texas that lead to the impeachment of Ken Paxton, the Attorney General in an assembly with a Republican majority.

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Colorado is shifting attention from highways which have reached their limits to transit in 2024. It is the way infrastructure investment is evolving in 2024.

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Brazil's new president Jair Bolsonaro issued presidential decrees for a money saving cut in the number of ministries, moves to help the agricultural sector, and announced the government would not spend more than it takes in to cut the budget deficit after years of rampant state spending. Paulo Guedes, who takes charge of the combined planning, finance, and industry ministries, said that the biggest challenge remains in pension reform. Brazil has lax pension rules allowing for early retirement, generating a deficit projected at $57 billion in 2019.

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Cook and Olson look at how U.S. shale oil firms have handled the slump in oil prices. Their report in WSJ says the shale firms have weathered the oil slump well, with production declines in 2016 of only 535,000 barrels a day compared to 2015. The Saudi decision to not cut production and let oil prices drop has affected mostly higher cost less flexible production for mega projects such as deep water projects and oil sands in Canada. Oil shale firms are expected to snap back, according to experts, as demand increases. U.S. production is expected to increase by about 700,000 barrels a day by end of of 2017, say experts.

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The astonishing and strange case of wellness and productivity being linked to nicotine pouches for tech workers. It reflects on the condition of the so called "Tech" industry of today. Scientific and technological change was the basis of advanced economies since the 19th century, today's so called "Tech" has misappropriated the name for things like social media in the last 2 decades of American decline which have nothing to do with scientific advancement, and are piggybacking on existing technologies for products that actually harm education, mental health and building healthy societies.

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By failing to show a grasp of the problems of rural poverty and lack of upward mobility, of health and education, in the rural parts of the US, Paul Krugman ignores the spirit that for so long kept the lights on for rural America in the time of FDR and Truman. The NYT's Thomas Edsall has done a great service to America by showing where the Democratic party under Clinton and Obama lost the spirit of FDR and Truman of standing by the common man, of "The People, Yes" that Carl Sandburg wrote so eloquently about not so long ago.

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The Paris lockdown is unique and effective because people are required to carry a signed document showing where they are going and show it to police when going outside the home. About 100,000 police and gendarmes are enforcing the lockdown in France. The lockdowns in the U.S and some other countries lack this kind of enforcement. France implemented the lockdown March 16, after Italy acted late on March 10 with the virus already spreading there. Once this was done the lockdown was done with tight restrictions and enforcement by police unlike other places. In Asia India has imposed a strict lockdown.

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"Its a sign of the decline of the country, and this decline is unacceptable," says a key Macron ally, Francois Bayrou, who heads long term state planning. France lacks a vaccine developed by its scientists. France was a leader in vaccine technology and the world looked up to France for new medical breakthroughs. Something has gone wrong and this is causing soul searching in France and friendly countries. 

The Pasteur Institute was a leader in medical science. It has failed to develop a vaccine. Sanofi says it will be the end of the year 2021 when a vaccine is developed.

 

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By nullifying US patents in renewable techologies, pharmaceuticals, and rare earth minerals, other technologies, Chinese courts offer additional access to western technology, says this report in the WSJ.

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The importance of opening doors, windows, to let in fresh air is emphasized as a coronavirus protection effort. This is particularly important in reopening schools and colleges.

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Indian prime minister Modi attends the 125th anniversary of Founders Day at the Scindia School of Gwalior. India's Minister of Civil Aviation and Steel comes from the royal family of Gwalior which ran the princely state as part of the British Empire and founded the school. It is the most reputed boarding school for boys in India.

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This interview of Anderson Cooper is about his two books on grief and loss of family members and growing up in a family where his mother Gloria Vanderbilt who lived to 95 years was a well known name. Cooper prefers the privacy and doing stories from remote places such as the one on sexual violence in the Congo. Yet this is not what his work as CNN anchor is about. He says he keeps his head down and tries to improve his writing, interviewing and reporting and staying out of controversy or thinking about the business side of CNN's declining vieweership and management turnover till his time is up.

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US and Chinese trade negotators vice premier Lifeng for China and Scott Bessent, Treasury Secretary, Jamieson Greer USTR, meet in Switzerland, for talks on tariffs of 145% and 125% on each others goods. An agreement for a 90 day pause is reached. During that pause period tariffs will be 30% by the US, and 10% by China on imported goods. The 30% tariff of the US includes the original 10% tairff on all nations and the 20% tariff for China not doing enough to stop flow of fentanyl  into the US. China says it now recognizes the seriousness of the damage to communities in the US from fentanyl.

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This article in the NYT after German chancellor Merkel's visit to the U.S. reminds readers that Merkel's relationship with Obama took some time to develop and that following Merkel's turning down of Obama's request to speak at the Brandenburg Gate in 2008 relations during a Merkel visit in 2009 were not as friendly. It says the relationships evolve over time. Even then the relationship between Merkel and Obama had ups and downs including the period when it was revealed that the Obama administration had tapped Merkel's phone and Obama failed to offer an apology, ending with a positive note in 2016 when the two met in Krun, Germany, with Obama as lameduck president. Experts from the German Council of Foreign Relations say that Trump adopted his usual double speak saying the right things about NATO and relations with Germany in the joint appearance, and later at a question and answer session saying Germany owed a lot of money to the U.S. for defense. Germany pays 1.2% of GDP for defense and promised to take this up to 2% by 2024. By now viewers may have adjusted to Trump's style to keep certain issues alive for negotiation stance, as a distraction, to keep his base's enthusiasm, or in some situations to vent out grievances such as with media coverage he receives. ...

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US students in China in educational exchange were 11,000 before the pandemic. Today this has dropped to 1000 which is not good for the cultural and educational interaction that promotes understanding between the two large countries.

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A close vote in Brazil with Lula at 48% and Bolsonaro at 43% means Brazil will go to a second round runoff as no candidate got 50% of the vote in the first round of the election.

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Following the Gaza conflict in mid 2014, the situation in Nov. 2014 is one of continued unrest among young people in the West Bank. Here Rudoren and Kershner give a exceptional account of the feelings of Palestinians at the Askar refugee camp in the West Bank. With no prospect for a way out or the way ahead, and lack of confidence in the leadership, no peace talks, Palestinian young people engage in random acts of protest or violence. A decade of protest has put Palestine further behind in development, jobs, and economic progress. A decade of conflict has not reduced Israel's sense of insecurity, even as it has evolved into an advanced technological society. The situation of Jerusalem divides the two peoples, just as it did a decade ago under Palestinian leader Arafat. No novel or out of the ordinary solutions for Jerusalem that would preserve Jerusalem as a city open to Muslims, Christians and Jews, without a preeminent status for any one community, have been tried.

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Natural gas prices are down by about half in the last month after warmer weather and higher inventories in Europe and the US. On January 6 2023 wholesale natural gas prices in Europe eased to 74 euros ($78) a megawatt hour, down from a high of 350 euros in late August. This is a significant development as it means blackouts, industrial closures, recession is less likely in Europe. It also helps bring inflation under control. Prices are back down to where they were before the Ukraine invasion. This is still seven times higher than prices in 2020 reports the WSJ. The lower the price the lower the bill for the German government. Across Europe 706 billion euros were allocated for support on natural gas price by governments since September 2021.

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Value for money is dominating China's shopping in 2023, says this WSJ report. Pinduoduo sales have increased 66% to $7.2 billion for second quarter 2023. It sells groceries, apparel, electronics at prices lower than other retailers.