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After segregation in housing and schools since the 1867 Lincoln Emancipation, particularly in the US Southern states, protests happened in the South led by Martin Luther King Jr. to change this. situation. Voting Rights Act 1965 signed by LBJ ensures right to vote for Black people in the South- it follows protests in Selma Alabama and LBJ's 1965 "We Shall Overcome" speech that followed Selma. The first Blacks elected to US Congress were from seats redrawn to give Andrew Young a seat in Atlanta, and Barbara Jordan one in Houston. In 1993 2 more seats were added. James Clyburn was given a seat in South Carolina- he was a key supporter for president Joe Biden. Others followed. Today in 2026 there are 62 Black Members of the US Congress. This is about 11.6% of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 100 seats in the Senate total of 535. As a percentage of the population Black people are 16.4%- or 56 million out of US population of 342 million. The Supreme Court is essentially saying it is time to pause this as enormous progress has been made 12% out of 16% already achieved in representation for black people in the US considering the other inequities in American society, the changes in culture and in technology, inequities in world trade and for rural America. In a 2013 5-4 decision Shelby vs Holder US Supreme Court  swing to this conclusion with Alito, Scalia and Thomas joined by Kennedy and Roberts. This already struck down the core of the Voting Rights Act as unconstituional. Roberts wirties in that decision- Our country has changed,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority. “While any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions.” Times have changed - in 2026 the Court reaffirms this. In Louisiana vs. Calais the Court voted 6-3, striking down the last aspects of the Voting Rights Act, because white voters in Louisiana objected to use of race to redraw districts. The equal protection clause of the 14th and 15th Amendment to the US Constitution prohibit using race to redraw political representation maps. ...

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Apple CEO Cook and manufacturing base in China deference to China security laws to keep a foothold in China. Under Cook Apple held off on diversifying its manufacturing base in China, leaving a legacy sure to be questioned as concentration of supply chain in China has serious repercussions on the manufacturing base of US, EU and India. No participation from Apple in reversing the dangerous deindustrialization of the US, not even an open discussion at Apple and its partner companies, a legacy that will come more and more in the spotlight long after he is gone.

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America had forgotten it's workers built America in a Clinton-Trump world. The Federal Poverty Level is $35000 - $40000 when entry younger UAW workers at lower tiers make $34000 a year during wage negotiations and a UAW strike in 2023. The contrast from 2016 could not be greater- no president in history except Biden on a worker strike picket line yesterday, Mrs Clinton oblivious about unions in the midwest in 2016. Mr. Trump saying wage negotiations not important as he visits Drake Enterprises, automobile parts supplier, in Clinton Township, Macomb County, Michigan. The Guardian reports most were small business owners, with  few autoworkers. Enthusiasm of small business owners high for Trump in this swing county in Michigan. In stark contrast to the 2016 campaign president Biden was seen the previous day with a bull horn at a UAW auto workers strike picket line, becoming the first US president in history to do this. Biden said "workers built the middle class." Trump said China was the enemy not low wages or incompetent bosses, saying "the current wage negotiations are not as important as you think," when workers had tiered wages from previous concessions on wages, with entry level wages starting at about $17 an hour. That is only slightly above the $16 minimum wage in California. America in the Clinton-Trump world had truly forgotten that workers in its factories built America, and workers families made America what it was for most of the century since Lincoln and the Industrial Revolution. ...

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After the failure of 3 prime ministers selected by president Macron to form a functioning government and pass the Budget in 2025, it looks increasingly apparent that Macron has failed as president in 2025. He has hung on to power through one protest after another, yet has failed to bring together people with a plan to improve the living standards of the French people from all sectors and parts of society, including the lower income groups and rural parts of the country. France has become more fractured politically than ever under Macron, with the result that no one or two parties can form a viable government with enough support in parliament. Macron started out as Minister for the Economy under Socialist president Hollande, but never really supported the Socialist party, preferring to branch out on his own seizing a political opportunity to call all other parties part of the old system with a hastily put together Movement of his own. It has managed to win and hold power for nearly a decade for lack of better alternatives, yet today it is clear that this Movement did not have the power that comes from a genuine effort for the improvement of the lives of the people of France from all parts of society and all income groups, and both urban and rural parts of France. It is a missed opportunity for France and a failure of a president who failed to grasp the needs of France and of the French people. It has pitted different sectors and ideas, rural and urban, parts from neglected industrial development and thriving regions, against each other instead of pulling together the country into a coherent whole for improving the lives of the people. Tactical moves replaced a larger sense of strategy and purpose, and personal power replacing the interest of the nation as a whole for all parts of the country. ...

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Germany's modernization plan for bureaucracy and red tape  a major priority for  Merz with savings of $175 billion. Efforts to have a policy aross all state govenments and federal governments that cuts bureaucratic reporting and documentation requirements at least by one third. Other actions-

emails replace paper documents

one time data collection and faster approvals if the authorites have not cleared it in 3 months it is automatically approved

The population wants reforms; they want to overcome the stagnation," says Kretschemmer, premier of the state of Saxony.

 

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Bill Clinton, a former president, is no longer a popular figure in the Democratic Party in 2025. A new generation of leaders in the Democrats seek to put Clinton in the past. Clinton's main achievement are the peace accords in Ireland and in the Balkans with Serbia and Croatia, Bosnia. In domestic policy Clinton did little to anticipate the problems of getting health insurance for all, outshoring, and increasing jobs and wages for factory workers. He was involved in the scandal with an intern that led to efforts to impeach him and resulted in much of the second term being wasted in the process. It was under his successor Bush that the egregious provision that removed the power of Medicare to negotiate prices of drugs with manufacturers was passed. Bush was pushed into the war in the Middle East after 9/11 attacks by Middle East terrorists and havens in Afghanistan, that led to a two decades war in Afghanistan. Withdrawal happened under DJT and Biden consuming resources and time leading to the affordability crisis, outshoring of jobs and lower wages for factory workers. No one talks now about Clinton, Bush, Obama, because of these wars and the loss of America's leadership in manufacturing, squandered resources of attention, time and money that would have created new infrastructure and health insurance for all, inshoring. ...

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Living Planet on DW.com takes us on a trip through the Amazon to see how the region has changed with climate change. The related changes from settlers and cattle farms, new dams and dikes, are changing the course of rivers as large as the Rhine in the Amazon region of Brazil. Some of these rivers are disappearing or changing course in these changes with the impact of hundreds of thousands of buffalo, and the impact of dams diverting the waters.

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Boris Johnson 5 million pounds of speeches over 2 years 2022-2024 after leaving office, some with risks of moral hazard.

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Young people in Turkey are troubled by many things says this DW video report. DW.com talks with young people on the streets of Istanbul. Young people are troubled by the cost of living with inflation out of control, with not being able to speak their mind, with the waning prospects with many unemployed. Kilicdaroglu, a civil servant who leads the Republican party founded by Ataturk in 1923, offers Turkey a new path with the western alliance and the nations of Europe and the US.

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The Dow Jones Average stock index drops by 800 points on August 14, 2019 with the ratcheting up of tensions in Hong Kong over autonomy protests, and the ongoing trade U.S. China trade dispute with more tariffs in September. Weak economic data from Europe exacerbated the situation. 

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Yellen tells the governor of Guangdong that China's huge subsidies for solar, EV and other industries disrupts "the level playing field" America needs. In all previous administrations  of both parties American economic ministry heads stayed silent or said it in a way that they were ignored. A culture of government staying out spread like wild fire under Reagan and "free to choose" advocates such as Friedman who did not realize the grave dangers to American manufacturing and its workers inside America, and to the world's other manufacturing capable nations such as India with overconcentration in one location. It was America's misfortune that economists and business leaders in the US were not listening enabling China to ignore this. By offering huge government subisidized incentives China and Taiwan shifted manufacturing away from the US in semiconductors, solar, EV's. It started with Apple and is still going on with Tesla. Today economists such as Yellen say economic resilience and supply chains are at risk before they said it lowered cost for consumers and failed to wake up when advanced technologies were at stake, as economists never trained in manufacturing had no knowledge of how it works with learning curves and knowhow that is built over decades, once lost hard to regain. The message fellow Americans is that trust your instincts and common sense, and trust observation which is what the Renaissance in the 15th century was all about and which put Europe ahead of Asia, to the great misfortune of Asia. Japan, China, have learned these lessons well, America as an immigrant nation is different from Europe, and must use its good sense to keep open the opportunities for its people and workers, and the people and workers of all nations that are manufacturing capable. Yellen said- "Direct and indirect government support is currently leading to production capacity that significantly exceeds China's domestic demand, as well as what the global market can bear...Overcapacity can lead to large volumes of exports at depressed prices, and it can lead to overconcentration of supply chains, posing a risk to global economic resilience,"    ...

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While much of the focus is on the brief air war in the Punjab region in the media. In China, India and the US the real and major challenges are economic. As US tariffs is really about getting back its industrial base from the EU and China, China faces the challenge of adapting to this situation and loss of access to EU and US technologies for the next generation, and India with a smaller industrial base faces challenge of building a large enough industrial base for modernization with full access to US and EU technologies. This is then the study of change starting right here in Uttar Pradesh and in the city of Kanpur. New Metro in Kanpur, new power plants, and new manufacturing plants and infrastructure. PM Modi says- "There are two most essential conditions for the industrial progress of a state: first, self-reliance in the energy sector — that is, uninterrupted electricity supply; and second, infrastructure and connectivity. Today we have inaugurated several power plants: the 660 MW Panki Power Plant, 660 MW Neyveli Power Plant, 1320 MW Jawaharpur Power Plant, 660 MW Obra C Power Plant, and 660 MW Khurja Power Plant. This is a major step toward fulfilling Uttar Pradesh’s energy needs. With these power plants, electricity availability in UP will increase significantly, giving a boost to industries here. Today, development projects worth over $6.7 billion (Rs 47,000 crore) have also been inaugurated or had their foundation stones laid.” ...

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OECD forecasts show an acceleration of US economic growth in 2021 with the $1.9 trillion aid package of the Biden administration. OECD forecasts show pre-pandemic levels of output reached by mid 2021, 6 months earlier than expected. Global output is expected to grow by 5.6% in 2021, after declining 3.4% in 2020. Main reason- US economy is seen expanding at 6.5%, twice as fast as previously forecast and fastest since 1984. OECD sees the importance of stimulus coinciding with vaccination of the population. The pace in the US with 18 million vaccinated in March and the goal of vaccinating the whole population by May is part of the reason given for the vigorous growth. Astonishingly the OECD sees the US economy larger in end of year 2022 now than it had forecast before the pandemic. For other countries such as India with slower vaccination progress and large population, OECD forecast is for 8% shortfall in growth from what was expected before the pandemic at end of 2022.  This is an amazing bit of good news amid all the dismay and confusion surrounding the coronavirus lockdowns. ...

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Bangladesh elections after student protests and departure of PM Hasina- 900,000 unemployed and 700,000 university graduates entering labor pool annually. Not much has changed for the economy since Hasina's ouster in student protests which were also about job opportunities in addition to other grievances. Bangladesh now finds itself alone in the region as it struggles to address unemployment and lack of capital investment. Imports of capital machinery dropped by 25% in 2025 slowing industrial growth. 

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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.

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Germany's $ 3 billion aid to Ukraine can only go through if it is clear where the money comes from. Scholz and Habeck oppose taking it from pensions, local government spending, or needed transportaton infrastructure spending. Greens see this kind of funding with cuts from domestic needs as a cop out. Scholz opposes cuts in pensions. CDU suggests cuts in unemployment benefits. Scholz opposes this. Germany as a debt clause in its Constitution put in by former CDU chancellor Merkel. It doesn't make sense now with the needs in infrastructure and the extra revenue that could be generated in the economy from an expanding economy that has rebuilt and updated its infrastructure. Yet it is still in place and leaves Germany less able to cope with demands for security, defense, and for infrastructure, modernizing its economy. By contrast the US under Biden and Trump is committed to domestic spending on infrastructure and modernization, leading to faster economic growth than in the European Union in 2025-26. ...

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WSJ tells the story about Biden being slow to act in 2021 and 2022 to close the Southern Border, without telling the complete story and all the facts. Biden did close the Border in 2024 by executive order- when Trump blocked passage of Republican Lankford's legislation in Feb 2024 supported by Biden to close the southern Border. No mention is made that Biden was faced with a once in a century pandemic, winning the fight for vaccines over skepticism, and on Feb. 22 2022 Putin launching an attack on Kiev, Ukraine, and negotiating to get the crumbling infrastructure of the US rebuilt, funds for CHIPS and Science. On top of this the Venezuelan economy completely collapsed leading to an unanticipated migrant surge. Only FDR and Lincoln faced so many huge challenges and tackled them one by one. Without these facts the result can be to stall the biggest boom in manufacturing under president Biden/Harris that America has experienced since the space race in the 1960's. ...

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The effects of the pandemic on education are seen in the drop in scores for 4th and 8th graders in the US for math and reading. In math at 8th grade cores fell from 34% being proficient in 2019 to 26% in 2022. For 4th graders from 41% being proficient to in 2019 to 36% in 2022. Reading scores declined in more than half the states in a downward trend and only about a third of students were proficient.

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The British Energy Institute shows how countries are doing in fighting climate change by reducing fossil fuel use. 

Poland is poor at 88% fossil fuels in energy mix. Algeria, Singapore, Bangladesh, Oman at 98%.

In Europe Norway leads at 72% for renewqble energy in the mix. Brazil at 50% keads SOuth America, Nw Zealand 43% and Vietnam at 23% in Asia Pacific. 

Of 6525 coal fired power plants China has 3168, India 845 plants and US 408. Older plants are being retired.

Planned construction of new coal power plants 707 in China, 165 in India, 2 in the US, 23 in eastern Europe, 0 in Northern Europe and 4 in Southern Europe, 0 in Western Europe, Latin America is 6.

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Inflation is about too much money chasing too few goods or services. Paul Krugman, economic expert, says in the NYT that this inflation episode in 2021 is still he thinks transitory, as does the Fed's Jerome Powell. It is Krugman says a demand pull situation in which higher demand is  a result of the lockdowns easing and pent up consumer demand being released, just when the productive capacity of the country is affected by about 4 million fewer workers in factories and other places. The supply is crimped also by supply chain bottlenecks with covid affecting supply from countries in Asia also with fewer factories operating. Added to this is the whole logistics chain near Long Beach California moving ever so slowly because of fewer workers, and ships lined up all the way out to sea. The Fed chairman Powell thinks this is what is happening. Krugman says this reminds him of the 1946-48 episode of inflation after the war, when the disaster of war was followed by peace time 1946 and the release of pent up demand like today. At the same time in 1946 factories were still not fully operational for consumer goods after bombing in Europe and war time conversion in the US. The result too much money chasing too few goods available. In this situation Krugman says a calibrated effort that is based on new information is needed with moderate action, very small rate increases in 2022 so that inflation signals are sent out by Fed but not in a way that would disturb the long term trajectory of the economy for growth. After the pandemic has hit so many Americans so hard. Action that would preserve the long term strength and productive capacity, and technological competitiveness of America during this period of renewal. ...