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EU Commission president Leyen announces Pfizer will supply EU with 1.8 billion doses of Pfizer vaccine to 2023. The increased supplies will include booster shorts to increase immunity. Another change is the new date for 70% of European Union population to be vaccinated, which is now advanced to end of July instead of end of September. With new waves of the coronavirus affecting Europe, and criticism of the EU's earlier effort in securing vaccine supplies, more urgency has gone into the new effort in 2021. Leyen told Pfizer CEO Albert Bouria- "If I may say so, engineer the mRNA in a way that it can adapt to potential escape vaccines," at a joint press conference. Leyen thanked Pfizer for its enormous effort in boosting vaccine manufacture and delivery. This will help accelerate the vaccination effort in Europe after the slow start in March and April of 2021. Bringing much needed optimism and new hope of a lasting recovery both in economic activity, health and in the mood in Europe, which can then spread from the US and Europe to the rest of the world. ...

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Redistricting in Texas that may flip 5 Democratic seats in US Congress to Republicans. With population shifts to the south Texas has grown in population in 5 years to 2025 by roughly 2 million from 29 million to 31 million. In 2025 about 40% are Hispanic and 40% White evenly divided, with 11% black and 6% Asian, and 3% other. It remains a conservative state in the South with a focus on faith and on traditional values. Along with Florida and the two Carolinas it remains a major part of the Conservative South.

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Next five year plan for China calls for more concentration on industry, dominance in key sectors identified by China such as rare earths, and more exports- not less in each of these areas. Chinese Communist Party is very conservative and once this has worked for China it is not going to change its reliance on exports even at the risk of leaving goods unsold in China or oversupply. The result is that the US effort to reduce the trade deficit, trying every tool in the book does not work, leading to an effort to resort to tariffs as a last resort to cut the unhealthy and risky $1 trillion trade deficit China has with the world. Has it worked? WSJ and other reports show that large companies are diversifying their supply channels, only smaller companies without the resources are sticking with China dependence for supplies. The tariffs themselves make headlines yet the US has made careful calculations not to upset relationships with key partners Britain, European Union, and Japan, keeping tariffs low at 10% with EU, and 15% with Japan which exports automobiles to the US to recover some of the years US made concessions to Japan. There are also loopholes on certain products where it is in the US interest to do so. As a result the effective tariff is 10-12.5% not 17-20% shown in reports. Of this 10% what is passed on to consumers is small- as in autos 80% of tariffs are not passed on by auto importers such as Toyota and Subaru because of the higher margins postpandemic. In retail only 30% is passed on again because of the post pandemic higher margins. The administration of DJT has also carefully worked with world oil suppliers to keep oil prices low, lower than in 2023-2024. The result is that inflation is at about 3% in September 2025. The idea that a capricious DJT is doing the tariffs is a myth as careful economic planners including Bessent, Jamieson, Lighthizer, and Luttnick, economic advisors in the Republican party, are carefully articulating the policy with room for DJT's political talk and appeal to public sentiment. ...

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Life in Sumy, Ukraine July 2025. A drone war over Ukraine.

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Supreme Court of US decision Nov 10, 2025 not to review gay marriage ruling called the Obergefell ruling. 

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Yale Insights on AI capital allocation failures in 2025 and economic risks from the Yale School of Management, Yale University.

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WSJ look at Lloyd's of London culture that is unique to Britain and the insurance market in 2025.

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Much of the talk of risk posed by crypto digital assets when central banks around the world cautioned about crypto digital risk is less heard in 2026 with crypto companies financing of the DJT campaign. Banks remain wary of crypto digital assets and of new legislation supported by Coinbase to legitimize crypto assets. Most banks pay very low interest rates of 0.1% on small deposits and this also presents a problem, though there are options where some banks offer rates of 2-3 percent.

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WSJ reports in Feb 25, 2026 that most of the Mexican states and the Cancun, Tulum, Puerta Vallarta and other coastal tourist areas are controlled by different drug cartels. It is a collapse of good governance in a neighboring state for the US along a continent size border with huge ramifications for the US ignored by administrations ion the US for three decades (Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama), along with collapse in governance across Latin America. Only now are the dangers and effects on the US being fully grasped.

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Austrian Innsbruck mountaineering court case 2026 involving death of less experienced climber when left alone. The disparity between the experience of the man compared to the woman was so large that the court considered it to be his responsibility to care for the safety of the woman after venturing out in the Austrian Alps taking extraordinary risks. The judge ruled that Mr. P had "galaxies wide" experience, and was therefore acting as "a mountain guide" even without a financial payment for this service.

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Washington Post Analysis and details of Census Bureau trade information in September 2025 -showing the country by country and product tariffs by US and which tariffs are waiting for final trade agreements. China, India and Switzerland, Mexico face high tariffs. UK, EU, South Korea, Japan have made trade agreements with the US, China, India Swiss are still to finalize trade agreements leading to the uncertainty. The North American Trade Agreement is being renegotiated leading to uncertainty for Mexico and Canada which have both benefitted from trade with the US to detriment of US manufacturers.  China has huge surpluses that keep growing over time to $1 trillion ($992 billion) a year in 2024.  DJT Tariffs are designed as a bold step to remake the international trading system so that it does not work to the benefit of other nations gaming the system over decades as US administrations Clinton, Bush, Obama, paid no attention. Trade Deficits and the National Debt are a problem not just the National Debt. On the National Debt Republicans have pushed through cuts in parts of the budget where costs had escalated tremendously. ...

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Swiss dairy farmers cutting cheese production by 5-10% to tackle temporary US tariff rate of 39%.  Gruyere and Emmentaler cheese to US make up 13% of Swiss cheese exports. Swiss dairy farmers are looking for markets in Asia and waiting for trade negotiations to bring tariffs down so that they can bounce back. The cow is sacred in Swiss Alpine country because of its role in cheese and mil chocolate production for overseas markets. Switzerland's cheese exports are $830 million in 2024 compared to about $7 billion for Germany, $6 billion for Netherlands, $5 billion for Italy and $4 billion for France, and $2.5 billion for the US. Overall Switzerland is a small exporter for a country the size of Virginia. Much of the extra milk production from a bumper harvest in 2025 can be converted into baby milk powder  and exported to China and India. In trade negotiations the Swiss became complacent even condescending and took the US market for granted. This will now change as the Swiss now have time for some soul searching on how best to negotiate a deal that respects the interests of both nations. ...

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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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The Trump administration has pulled together $18 billion of the funding for the border wall, the fencing that will replace inadequate exiting barriers along 885 mile stretch on the U.S.- Mexico border. This includes the current budget proposal for $2 billion in funding request. The remainder was collected by shifting funds from the military. During the initial request to Congress it was given only $1.325 billion. President Trump made up the difference by declaring a state of emergency in February 2019, allowing funds for military construction projects to be shifted to the border wall funding- $6.7 billion in 2019 and $7.2 billion in 2020. A lot of the construction will happen in 2021, assuming Mr. Trump wins a second term. The Trump administration hopes to have built or under construction 450 miles in 2020. Much of it is concentrated on federally owned land, across vast regions of Texas, because of no legal obstacles from private landowners unwilling to give up land. ...

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The new White House Press Secretary is a decent choice. She is 27 years and yet brings plenty of experience with youthful enthusiasm- graduating from Catholic college St Anselm in New Hampshire, she joined the 2016 White House as an intern. She then worked as a speechwriter and assistant press secretary, preparing high profile briefings for Mary McEnany the last DJT press secretary. In 2022 she ran for Congress from New Hampshire, losing to Chris Pappas. In January 2024  she came back as press secretary for the DJT campaign. 

She has a degree in communications and political science. Before running for Congress in 2022 she served as communications director for Elise Stefanik, another youthful enthusaistic senior Republican Congressmwoman 40 years, who chaired the Repubican Conference and is the new UN ambassador. This gives her insight into international affairs as she draws on working with Elise Stefanik.

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Narrowest loss in runs at Lord's -India lose by 22 runs in Third Test vs England July 2025. 

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Even though immigration makes the headlines for the average German and daily German life polls and surveys show says the NYT that the main concerns center around a failing economy. For 5 years Germany has experienced little growth. According to Eurostat, Germany's GDP growth rate is 2023 -0.2% 2022: 1.37% 2021: 3.67% 2020 -4.1% Tankersley and Eddy report from Lutherstadt Wittenberg Eastern Germany. As Germany's economy slows companies may move jobs and manufacturing to Austria and France says one CEO of a company that makes fertilizer and additives for diesel motors. This could lead to loss of 10,000 jobs in an already depressed region. The problems faced buy German industry are increasing with higher costs of energy- even after prices have come down energy is 20% costlier than the European average according to Eurostat. Industry leaders say this is the result partly of efforts to reduce fossil fuel emissions. Increasing competition from China means Germany cannot compete as before. Investment in public infrastructure has not kept up with crumbling roads and bridges and a rail system with underinvestment and plagued with delays. Investment in digital technology has lagged behind China, India and France.   ...

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Classic DJT letter to Japan. WSJ annotates the letter but its annotation does not say that Japan has used the relationship with the US to its advantage, putting the US companies and industries at a serious disadvantage since 1970's. US Trade Representative under DJT first term 2016-2020 was Robert Lighthizer. Lighthizer was Deputy Trade Representative under Reagan in the 1980's negotiating with a Japan that would concede little. 2024 USTR Jamieson Greer was Deputy Trade Representative under Lighthizer. The Letter starts setting the tone that we have borne Japan's unwillingness to negotiate fairly with patience, ends stating we are ready to act. "It is a Great Honor for me to send you this letter in that it demonstrates the strength and commitment of our Trading Relationship, and the fact that the United States of America has agreed to continue working with Japan, despite having a significant Trade Deficit with your great Country." "We have had years to discuss our Trading Relationship with Japan, and have concluded that we must move away ....Our relationship has been, unfortunately, far from Reciprocal...Goods transshipped to evade a higher Tariff....If for any reason you decide to raise your Tariffs..." ...

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Panama Canal ad US control of a passageway through the seas the US build in the 1900's. The New Monroe Doctrine under DJT takes America back to the days in 1900 when president Teddy Roosevelt pushed thorugh the actions neded to build the Canal connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific. TR had the US Army Corps of Engineers start work in 1904 and said the famous words "Let the Dirt Fly." When Colombia refused to make this happen he formed the new nation of Panama. TR realized the importance of connecting the oceans- foresight for the massive expansion of world trade in the 1960-2025 period raising standards of living for the 3 billion people in India/China/Asia and for the 1 billion people of the EU and the US. Never before in history has such ahuge change in living conditions  and hopes and aspirations happened. Today when American ingenuity, invention and sense of purpose is derided or ridiculed, it serves as a reminder of the great endeavors that happened under American leadership and continue to this day into the future. ...

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One can only take note now how far in a matter of weeks the Canadian government's attitudes have changed. Fentanyl deaths per day 205 US 21 Canada comparable for population in 2025 says Le Monde. US population 325 million, Canada's population is a tenth of that, both have fentanyl deaths that are at the same level.

Canada's Public Safety Minister Dsavid McGuinty says- "On per capita population, we're losing more Canadians than Americans are losing Americans. We are connected with this crisis."

Trudeau said "we agree wholeheartedly with our American neighbors that fentanyl must be wiped from the face of the earth."

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A wealth tax passed by voters in 2022 in Massachusetts of 4% on incomes exceeding $1 million, yields 3 billion dollars in 2024. Other states are looking at doing this on income over $500,000 for married couples. This includes Minnesota, Maryland, Washington and other states that are seeing a shortfall in taxes and need to offset the loss of federal funding by the DJT administration for Medicaid and other services. The results in Massachusetts shows the revenue forecasted is exceeded proving that millionaires do not always move because they do not want to uproot homes and education of children. There is also an offsetting factor as federal rules under DJT have favored the wealthy in the tax code.

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Mr. Lula Da Silva returns as president after 12 years after a closely contested win securing 51% of the vote.  It is a crucial time for saving the Amazon rain forest to tackle climate change, and for economic revival. About 33 million went hungry in Brazil in 2022 compared to 19 million in 2020 showing the difficulties Brazil faces. About 700,000 people died during the pandemic. The Worker's party pushed through a constitutional amendment last month to lift a spending cap so that about $28 billion in extra spending  can help alleviate these problems. 

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Democrats are feeling hopeful that they can keep control of the Senate after passing the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. This gives Democrats something to show Americans that tackles issues of inflation, climate change, fair taxation, healthcare access. In addition the Democrats have passed bills on building America's advanced technology industries with the semiconductor bill, earlier infrastructure bill in 2021, and a bill to help veterans. By not supporting the Inflation Reduction Act with all 50 Republican votes in the Senate voting against it Republicans are now less hopeful of winning the Senate.

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Plans for the Quad countries to launch a new effort in the last quarter of 2021 to produce 1 billion vaccines in 2022 for adding to supplies in the Indo-Pacific region that includes Indonesia, Malaysia Thailand and Vietnam. Japan would provide the financing for the manufacture of vaccines in India using American technology and raw material supplies. Australia would help with delivery in the Indo-Pacific region. The foreign ministers of the Quad countries, US, Japan, Australia and India, will meet on June 29 in Matera, during a G-20 foreign ministers meeting in Italy.