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Universal Health care, Education, and Energy are going to be tackled in 2009. Obama is not going to shy away from tackling all these issues in his first 6 months and he sees this as part of the solution, the simultaneous attack on all these problems which are interrelated as far as the economy is concerned and how it impacts the people. Health care for instance is a serious problem as the economy deteriorates and job losses increase and the highly indebted people find health care unaffordable, which the President emphasized with statistics to this effect. He also called for patience and support with restoring the banking system even though bankers have lost the trust of the American people. More money will be needed and his administration is working on all the details.And he reaffirmed his view that there is no waste inthe nearly $800 billion Stimulus plan, and his promise to keep a sharp eye out for wasteful spending by state and citiy officials..

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The British public is very conservative when it comes to reopening. 73% support prioritizing the health of citizens only 17% say prioritize the economy. This is the highest of industrialized nations, Japan being the next highest with 60% supporting prioritizing health only 16% in Japan saying the economy.  For Boris Johnson as he makes the speech on Sunday May 10 on reopening the political margin for error in decision is nonexistent. Britain's tabloid press and other media simply took the idea that to heck with it lets reopen reflecting a lack of caution in the headlines after Mr. Johnson expressed his intention to reopen. After seeing this Johnson and his closest advisers met without his hawkish ministers to reflect on what was happening in the country. The British government's scientific advisers say whether there are 100,000 deaths by the end of the year depends on many factors including testing, contact tracing, the way the lockdown is eased, the situation at nursing homes, and other government action  to prevent a resurgence in infections. At the meeting with Gove, Sunak Raab and Hancock, Mr Johnson stepped back and reversed any plans except for mild reopening- giving people more time outside for exercize, opening limited locations such as garden centres and advising strongly to wear masks on public transport. Both Johnson and Dominic Cummings his adviser had coronavirus, and Johnson spent some time in ICU. They know the impact of the coronavirus from their own personal experience.  For Johnson there is only one chance, Tory senior advisers say the public will forgive mistakes going into coronavirus, but will never forgive mistakes getting out of cotronavirus. He told Keir Starmer of Labour in parliament that he bitterly regrets what has happened in nursing homes. The scientists have warned him that the staff at nursing homes could seed communities once again. And that the coronavurus R ratio (1 being the level it starts growing again) could go up back to 1. This is the situation on May 10 as Johnson prepares to speak to the nation on Sunday at 7 pm, as he shifts to "maximum caution." ...

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 Americans in the southern states forget that president Kennedy made the famous statement about "a rising tide lifts all boats" in Arkansas, a poor southern state, saying that America must invest in all regions in people in all parts not just in well off northeastern states. In a handful of southern states expanding Medicaid to about $43,000 or 138% of the federal poverty level for a family of four is now being taken up by Republican leaders who show new openness- in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi. Noah Weiland -of NYT looks at one particular battle -between Democrat Governor Laura Kelly in Kansas and Republican Speaker Hawkins- in Topeka, Kansas, where the fight goes on. Hawkins calling it the greatest Ponzi scheme devised and Kelly telling this reporter that she has included a work requirement so there is no excuse for not doing this. Republicans are coming around and so are states in other places. Missouri, Nebraska, and Oklahoma, states that lie next to Kansas have approved this through ballot initiatives. The point here is that in the years as America comes out of the pandemic there is and should rightly be a realization that this is different, that the children of low income families deserve as equal a chance as their higher income fellow Americans, that depriving them of good medical care makes America a weaker country. As Jerome Powell of the US Fed said in Stanford today about Kennedy's expression of "lifting all boats," it is just this that is needed today. It will be the No.1 election issue in Kansas in 2024, says Governor Kelly. The Republicans are also having second thoughts and are now just face saving. Consider that the Kansas Health Institute a research group, says 70% of the people becoming eligible for Medicaid expansion are working. Many are restaurant business workers who cannot provide proper medical care to children who form the next generation of America. And hiring in rural hospitals would expand for health workers instead of layoffs in southern states lifting financial strain on rural healthcare with additional Medicaid funds. This helps rural America when it needs it most. ...

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Sadanand Dhume in WSJ reflects opinion in the US that is wary of handout politics that has been carried to an extreme in India's election. In Venezuela the bad turn for the oil rich economy was when Chavez's successor Maduro ignorant of the problems it would create decided to give oil at almost no cost to all Venezuelans. In India the leading opposition party offered $1 lakh rupees to every woman in the state of Uttar Pradesh. India's federal government under Modi has given free food to about 800 million people and renewed the pledge this year because of the pandemic's devastating the rural economy- about 60% of India is still rural. This is essential for India to advance to build a broad based growth model for India similar to China 1990-2010 and Japan 1890-1915 and 1950-1970 during the transformation of their economies, similar also to the US under FDR/Truman/Eisenhower/Kennedy 1940-1965.  Clean environments Swacch Bharat was essential for basic sanitation and toilets to reduce health risks, cooking gas to shift rural women from firewood and health risks, direct deposit bank accounts for 300 million rural households essential to eliminate leakages, solar energy is planned to cut energy cost  This has brought and will bring the level of income and consumption power of the lower and middle classes to create a 500 million strong consumer base for industry. It is a carefully planned effort based on the success in states such as Gujarat, and looking at the way this was done in China and the US for learning lessons. It is not a reckless effort to win votes such as the offer of 1 lakh rupees to every woman in Uttar Pradesh state with no plan for industrialization and modernization of the Indian economy to make it the third largest ahead of the EU by 2035. Dhume is right to point this out and it is apparent to any outsider who looks at Sab Ka Vikas Sab Ke Saath- prosperity for all, including all parts of society irrespective of caste and religion.  ...

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First disrupt the young people's attention and create effects on mental health of long hours spent on social media such as Tik Tok. This results in a loss of literacy on basic knowledge of civics and American history to lower and lower levels. Then let these young people decide who should run the country and its government for the next 4-8 years. The founders never intended this and never anticipated this threat. Congressmen Republican Gallagher of Wisconsin and Democrat Krisnamoorthi of Illinois introduced a bipartisan bill to ban TikTok in the US considering that it was foreign adversary application when its literacy effects are even more a concern. Byte Dance has appealed the law that goes into effect Jan 19, 2025. The appeal is now before a 3 person panel of the Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals of Sri Srinivasan, Neomi Rao, and Douglas Ginsburg. Does Byte Dance have recourse to the First Amendment rights in the US Constitution when the US sees Byte Dance as a foreign adversary controlled internet social media service, is the question before the Appeals Court and next before the US Supreme Court. The US government has shown the judges confidential classified data that shows why it thinks there is foreign adversary influence of some sort.  It is interesting to note that national literacy standards and the ability of average American young people to know enough about American history and civics that is in a dire state today and a key vulnerability for US democracy. This is gravely harmed by social media influence. Only negative effects on mental health of children and young girls has been put forward. Too many hours spent on social media is a negative influence which is why China and now Australia and UK have put restrictions on is use. US has none. India has banned Tik Tok for security reasons. In all situations there are negatives here yet it is an appalling thing that literacy is not the biggest one put forward when it should be for this Nation. ...

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Hillary Clinton returns on September 15, 2016, to the campaign trail after 3 days of rest to recover from pneumonia. She chose to speak at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro, with N. Carolina  now considered a state that is winnable, and with a new focus on young people on campuses where she wants to regain her once large lead in the summer. She said that the break had given her time to reflect on what it is she represents. "The campaign trail doesn't really encourage reflection and its important to sit with your thoughts every now and then. It helped me reconnect with what this campaign is all about." Adding that it was about quality health care, financial security, clean water and other critical needs of people.

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Spark some joy in your life and other tips for Mental Health. Tips include make new friends, get adequate rest, cope with anxiety and depressing moods, be able to quit some goals if not sustainable, let go of grudges, quit in a smarter way, and be kind to yourself.

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A major example of how the Ukraine war has pushed the financial situation to the brink in other parts of the world is Egypt. Egypt has borrowed $20 billion from the IMF and is turning to the IMF again. Egypt imports two thirds of its wheat from Ukraine and Russia and the war has sent prices of wheat soaring with shortages. This wheat is subsidized by the Egyptian government for decades as part of the social contract. In recent years foreign money entered the short term debt market, with the crisis some of these inflows have reversed. The Egyptian currency was devalued recently in response to financial crisis with significant part of earnings going to finance interest on loans. On June 24 the IMF approved a standby arrangement for Egypt. Because Egypt has borrowed $20 billion in 3 loans since 2016, and has now reached the limit allowed by its drawing rights Egypt has sought a cosponsor for additional borrowing. This comes through Saudi Arabia which deposited $5 billion in the Egyptian central bank recently. Saudis, Qatar and UAE have offered to invest in Egypt in a show of solidarity. Of this $10 billion were offered by Saudi public wealth fund and $5 billion by Qatar public wealth fund. In addition UAE plans to invest $2 billion by taking stakes in companies listed on the Egyptian stock exchange. ...

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Experts discuss how to draw on your interests and passions for using time in the 20 some retirement years with good health.

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Dr Spivack, associate professor, Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki, says too many entrepreneurs cross the line from workaholic to addict. After interviewing hundreds of entrepreneurs with a colleague she says they found about 15% have 3 traits of addictive behaviour for work, and about 40% had one trait which can be damaging. It is important to not let this become a revered part of our culture. Tesla's CEO Musk is not a model for the younger generation trying to get a good work life balance.

Some of these traits are obsessive thinking about the business, manic cycles of being elated or feeling down, self-worth tied to the business, becoming one dimensional, keep raising the stakes, doing things alone and in secret. The consequences of addiction are traumatic for health conditions, some are sick all the time, and some have poor marraiges and fail in relationships with children.

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French youth are an important part of the protests in France in extending the retirement age from 62 to 64 years. A neuropsychologist at a Paris hospital says "are there any social benefits they haven't rolled back," in this report in FR24. Youth feel that the reform asking workers to work longer in the current situation in France is basically unfair at a time when workers are facing a cost of living crisis and are just coming out of a once in a century pandemic. And with the stress on schools, hospitals and older people, the shrinking savings of workers and families as pandemic period benefits are being phased out. In the US and Germany there is support for working families during the cost of living crisis, much less so in France, and even less in Britain. France is facing protests and possible strikes, Britain has strikes across health, transport and education. 

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Arthritis drug Humira from Abbvie is shown in this NYT report as having made $114 billion from Humira using the US patent system to delay the introduction of competing products that would have lowered prices for Americans suffering from arthritis. NYT says the114 billion was made just since 2016 when competing products were coming to market. In 2022 this is ending as nine competitors including Pfizer come up with their competing products. In many ways the system of market competition does not operate in the way textbooks or free market advocates say. It is considered ok to engineer advantage within what is a supposedly a market competition system and to turn a blind eye to it. Is it acceptable when it comes to health products and when prices increase from the exorbitant to the outrageous. The Inflation Reduction Act of president Biden included efforts to prevent just such abuses of a market competition system to restore fairness after years of egregious behaviours.

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Homelessness has become a major problem in American cities. The situation has worsened during the pandemic. This mounting problem is a major issue in the mayoral election for Denver. WSJ shows pictures of the city's homeless areas. After 12 years Mayor Michael Hancock is termed out and there are 16 candidates vying to replace him. All are being pressed to find solutions to the problem. Rising housing costs and Denver's growth have increased homelessness. WSJ reports Denver's homeless population has grown 44% from 3376 in 2017 to 4794 in 2022.

In 2012 the city imposed a camping ban. Business owners say it has not been enforced. Homeless protection groups say sweeps have only moved the homeless elsewhere. The mayor's office says 15,000 people have found homes. With the pandemic there were health issues and economic issues that made it harder to tackle the problem.

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Grant is remembered for his humility in talking to a black union soldier who as a member of the police force stopped him for speeding. What is less known is the story about the sudden reversal in his health and finances after he left office, his effort to finish his memoirs in the last year of his life stricken with cancer. Noonan has left it to readers to draw meaning, wisdom and virtue, from Grant's experience. Grant, who led the Union forces in the last years of the American Civil War in the 1860's was next only to Lincoln in the country's estimation as the war ended. Humility is the main part of virtue and Grant was all the better for having it. This applies to all past and future presidents. Divine providence and the power of Nature has its own ways and there are no exceptions.  

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For the regions hardest hit by the coronavirus and its variants- the US, Brazil, India, Europe, Russia, China and Africa, the researchers and the frontline workers in South Africa are doing an incredible job. This report by Stephanie Nolan in the NYT shows the work of researchers at KRISPS advanced medical research center and the frontline workers in South Africa, who are making a difference. Shown are researchers and scientists at KwaZulu Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform in Durban, South Africa on whom the world depends for stepping up the fight against the coronavirus- Dr Tulio de Oliveira, principal investigator of the national genetic monitoring network, and Saleem Abdul Karim, epidemiologist. On the frontline workers who visit patients homes to make sure immune compromised patients have access to their medications is Sizakele Mathe, community health worker. Stephanie Nolan has provided a much needed account of what work is being done on the frontlines to keep us all safe. ...

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Costs of climate change include food insecurity and drought, floods and fires. FR24 pictures show 10 figures from the 2021 Report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: code red for humanity.

Shorter growing seasons lead to declines of 6% for corn and soy, and winter wheat 3%, rice 2% relative to 1980-2010.  2 billion people face food insecurity. Costs from extreme weather events in 2020 was $278 billion. 4 million deaths attributable to air pollution in 2019.

Drought leads to migration in Africa and Asia as crops and cattle wither in the heat from lack of rain. The estimated share of global surface area affected by extreme drought for any given month in 2020 is a shocking 19% according to this FR24 report. Also shocking is that until 2010 this figure was rarely above 5%.

 

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Prime minister Boris Johnson outlines his plans for 2021 in the Queens Speech in May 2021. Johnson pledges to seize the opportunity coming from the "extraordinary spirit" with which the British people had faced the corona virus pandemic. He called it "an historic opportunity to change things for the better, level up opportunities across the whole of the UK and address the whole of the problems that have constrained us far too often before." By this he said  he referred to the deep wells of kindness, ingenuity and resourcefulness that exist in each village, town and city in the UK. The government's task will be to unleash that potential.

Jeremy Hunt, a Tory MP and former Health Secretary said that the government needed to address the problem of social care and the catastrophically high care costs that are hitting one family in ten in the United Kingdom.

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The mysterious activities and losses of a South Korean/Japanese venture capital company Softbank which has been part of the massive misallocation of capital away from infrastructure and health care services during the decades before the pandemic. It has emerged recently as the mystery investor in options on tech shares that led to shares losses of 7 billion pounds for Softbank.

It lost half of its value in an earlier dotcom crash. A few investments in China during the early period of its development based on gut feel of the founder, including Alibaba an e-commerce company based on Amazon's success in the U.S. and other investments in China, is the basis of its business model. This model puts huge amounts of U.S. and foreign capital with estimated pool of capital at $100 billion into ventures that set the wrong priorities for investment- leading to misallocation of capital at this time of the pandemic. 

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US president Biden announces a plan that makes it mandatory for all employers with more than 100 employees to require their workers to be vaccinated. The Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration will issue an emergency temporary standard for implementing the new rule. This will cover 80 million private sector employees. Businesses that fail to meet the standard will face fines of up to $14,000 per violation. Employers must also give workers paid time off to get vaccinated or recover from any side effects.

Federal government workers and contractors also must meet the new requirement or face regular testing. In all 100 million workers or two thirds of American workers will be covered. 

To meet testing needs the Biden administration is procuring $2 billion in rapid point of care and over the counter at home Covid tests, using the Defense Production Act for accelerated production.

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Two parts per million of lead in cinnamon is the maxiumum that is considered normal. Five parts per million of lead in cinnamon is considered bad for health. Children are particularly affected by lead contaminated products. High lead contamination in applesauce product pouches lead to recalls by the US FDA recently. In the case of the cinnamon applesauce pouches this Washington Post report says federal investigators have called it "an act of economically motivsted adulteration." The European Union limits lead to 2 parts per million. McCormick & Company says it adheres to strict safety protocols and procures whole cinnamon bark rather than ground cinnamon to control adulteration and contaminant. Frontier Coop which sells brands Simply Organic and Aura Cacia says it tests for heavy metals and follows New York standard of one part per million of lead in spices. People are discouraged from buying in bulk for turmeric and cinnamon as this creates risks of contaminated or adulterated product. ...

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Absurd is a word that would apply to many aspects of New York City- the subway system, the transport infrastructure, the dilapidated sidewalks, the garbage shown here without any proper system of storage and pickup that other cities in Europe and Asia have. It all goes back to indifference from New Yorkers, as this report says New Yorkers go about their business inured by all this. The root cause is lack of investment and the capital markets of the US and of New York crowding out  investment in ,the very things that are essential for the quality and ease of living, sanitation transport infrastructure, public services, education and health. And instead a massive diversion of capital into other areas. The so called Reagan revolution's domestic side, the so called "freedom to choose" domestic side, where a few people choose to make the decisions for capital allocation away from what is in the public's interest.

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UK prime minister Sunak makes changes to policies of the UK post-Brexit that bring the UK closer to France and the European Union. This follows a deterioration of Britain's relations with the EU and France under Boris Johnson during the years Brexit happened. Sunak also comes up with a different policy for Northern Ireland closer to the EU's position. Mark Landler has covered Britain and the EU for NYT over three decades. He calls Boris Johnson's approach bombastic and one that made loud claims for "Global Britain" with little to show in results.

Sunak's challenges are in Britain with strikes across transportation, health sector and NHS, and the cost of living crisis. Labour party is seen as having better solutions and as more caring in its policies for both the environment, workers and families in 2023.