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Canada's pitch to the US before tough negotiations with Jamieson Greer to preserve Canada's automobile industry, its aluminium industry, dairy industry with benefits gained in the past. US had also put forward its pitch for 82% North American content and 50% of it from the US for all automobiles sold in the US. Carney takes a positive approach presenting Canada as a strong partner that would Make America Great Again by offering its vast mineral resources, and its resources of oil and LNG. It says LNG will double from 2030 to 2040 from 50 million to 100 million tonnes of LNG annually. 56 critical minerals agreements with $18 billion in investment, doubling the electricity grid for lowest cost power and second lowest emission in OECD countries. Canada is an anomaly in trade says Sir Ivor Jennings in his book on the British Commonwealth. Its trade east to west is an anomaly when if it was truly apart of the North American economic region it would trade north to south. This is the result of Montgomery's failure to take Quebec during the War of Independence as Washington planned the war with Britain. For instance Ontario would trade with Vermont and New Hampshire and New York near its borders. Instead the dairy industry in Canada operates in competition with the US and sends product east to west. Washington and Oregon are not trading normally with neighbors British Columbia instead shipping product back to eastern Canada. For years the US allowed Canada and Mexico benefits in trade that hurt is own auto industry. Jamieson Greer is expected to change this so that US manufacturing can compete with China and European Union on a level playing field. ...

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Pictures and moment by moment account of the final penalty shootout in The Guardian of the big game of the soccer season between PSG and Arsenal, Champions League Final in Budapest, Hungary.  A French soccer team prevails over a British soccer team with fans going in large numbers to Budapest for the game. PSG under Luis Enrique quiet style team play prevails in shootout at Champions League Final over Arsenal. The game 1-1 after a goal in the 7th minute by Germany's Havertz, and and an equalizer in the 65th minute by Dembele on a penalty kick. Hakimi, Mendes, Neve, Dembele, Ruiz, Barcola, Marquinhos and Doue, goalkeeper Marin were pulled together by Spanish coach Luis Enrique into a tightly knit team that played consistently to keep Arsenal to 1-1, with 92% accuracy in passes. Luis Enrique has given PSG a new mentality compared to star centric days when Mbappe, Neymar, Messi played at PSG when team play was secondary.  Luis Enrique says about the game that he"decided a long time ago to stay calm and try to enjoy it because you need luck to win on penalties. I think we were great in terms of the quality of our kicks and also the goalkeeper. It’s amazing [to retain the Champions League]. Maybe today both teams deserved to win, but the way we played the whole season, I think we deserve it. We’ll try to do it again next year. Why not? The match started in the best way for them, scoring after a lucky action. We are used to attacking [against a low block] but they are strong physically, they know how to defend and it was very tough." ...

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Mann Ki Baat June 2026 Visions of Milkha Singh- India in the 100 Meters, 200 Meters, 500 Meters, Modi talks to Indian Athletes, Gurindervir Singh and Animesh Kujur. Gurindervir Singh is from a family with father and grandfather in sports from the 1950's. He is India's fastest athlete in the 100 meters. Here he talks to Modi about his experiences competing in Indian athletics. He is part of the Indian Navy. One of the things he had to overcome is the sentiment that Indians could not compete with world class athletes like Roger Bannister in the sprint and fast running. He hope to dispel this sentiment. He is also a reminder of the achievements of Milkha Singh from his community in the Rome Olympics in 1960 where he came in 4th. Milkha Singh(known in India as the Flying Sikh) won the gold medal in 1958 and in 1962 at the Asian Games in the 200 meters and 400 meters races and the 4x400 Meters relay. He was part of the Indian Army. Kishane Thompson is one of the fastest sprinters under 10 seconds for 100 meters with most of the sprinters in top ten worldwide from the US or Jamaica. A whole new world is opening up in athletics in India with building of world class facilities, gyms, government support for athletes, and social recognition of the importance of athletics and sports. This extends to women's sports and the pesonal support to women's sports is well known throughout India from the prime minister. One of the aspects of running in Kenya, and Jamaica, is the hard scrabble conditions, which Indian athletes including Milkha Singh experienced, people from all parts of the country, without the necessary resources are also competing in sports in India in 2026. ...

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Good advice for parents from a children's books author, Mo Willems. Its ok to be fumbling, its ok not to know, we are human. Its all about being a better human oneself, everything follows from that.  Its ok to tell your children you don't know how to discuss the pandemic.

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A threefold increase in immigration to meet staff and labour shortages makes using immigration as an issue in the next election risky for Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives in Britain. In a strange twist it is the Conservatives under Boris Johnson who campaigned on immigration  to take Britain out of the EU now having a record on immigration of this kind. In 2019 Sunak battlecry " get Brexit done" was for lower immigration from a level of 245,000 that year. In 2022 it was a net migration of 720,000 for Britain. Most of this has come from student, work and family visa routes, and legal asylum channels from Ukraine Hong Kong and Afghanistan. Now economists believe it is a result of shortages of labour and staff, and high domestic wages.

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Which may not be a bad thing as it would keep inflation in check and shift to a new way of handling the economy with higher employment and wages and moderate to low inflation. The US may be facing inflation on a bumpy path to 2% or more likely stay near 3%. The 2% target of the Fed was from an earlier era when wages were stuck for most factory workers. The increase in wages was needed so that workers could improve their standard of living that was being eroded and after years of stagnant wages. Inflation at around 3% may be where inflation would be in the current environment. This also means higher interest rates on savings which form the most important source of income next to social security for retirees and older workers with larger savings. This also provides an incentive to younger workers to save that did not exist when interest rates were brought to zero to tackle recurring financial crises caused by banks and external events.

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Greg Ip says all the data show the economy is much stronger with low unemployment and inflation coming down, yet for the nation people are not so upbeat, and for their own state really upbeat. He attributes it to the general mood of uncertainty of people, and the negativity with which the media presents news. Some clues to what they actually believe can be seen below the superficial look at the data. For instance as people surveyed say they feel the economy is much worse today by a significant margin for the whole nation they say just the opposite for their own state by an equally significant margin. Listen to this- the WSJ poll Greg Ip cites shows US economy is getting worse or better in the graph. For the US it shows 31% think it is getting worse. The opposite for Arizona 30% and Pennsylvania 25% think it is getting better. In other states people say it is about 18% better- the states are Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina and Nevada. This suggests that the surveys have to be looked at from the perspective of their own state which reflect the data which clearly shows a big improvement. Greg Ip says the WSJ has seen this in another place, when people are about Congress they say its looking worse, when asked about their own state Congressman they say just the opposite and quite favorable. It is something that is important to bear in mind in 2024 and for the future, the American people are still rational and science based in their thinking, as they have been throughout the nation's history pioneering in the Industrial Revolution. ...

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This report in the WSJ says the increase in Saudi production announced on June 2 will do more for Saudi Arabia diplomatically as it improves relations with the Bdien administration, and much less for oil markets. The increase of 648,000 barrels a day for both July and August is seen as a drop in the bucket. Only Saudis and UAE have spare capacity- estimated to be at 3 million barrels a day of spare capacity. The Russian oil production has already dropped by 1 million barrels a day since the start of the war in Ukraine and will drop further after the European Union oil embargo on 90% of oil supplied by Russia to the EU. Russia may even withhold supplies from the market to keep oil prices high as it is selling oil at a large discount. Russia evades western oil sanctions by selling oil using transfers out at sea and in other ways that do not reveal the source of the oil. Saudis and UAE are seeking better relations with the US to gain security guarantees after drone and other attacks by Yemeni rebels and Iran. Earlier president Biden had distanced himself from Saudi Arabia following human rights situations that led to deteriorating relations. The EU oil embargo, high oil prices that are hurting poorer countries all over the world, and the commitments by the US and other European partners to reduce fossil oil fuels production and increase renewable energy production are now added factors that the US is including in its relations with the Middle East as it seeks to balance different factors. Saudis see an opening for improved relations.   ...

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China's consumer spending with its reopening won't match the pandemic end period US spending surge, says this report in WSJ.

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Connection between inflation and spending (fiscal stuff) by the government is misunderstood or misstated, say Wharton Prof. Smetters. Doug Holtz-Eakin former CBO budget director agrees.  Does higher growth mean higher inflation? It depends. The climate change action renewable energy subsidies are expected to increase growth by 0.2%, yet this should reduce fossil fuel costs, mitigating effect on inflation of government spending. Will higher deficits increase inflation? Again it depends. In 2021 direct financial help for households during the pandemic led to a third of the higher inflation in 2021, 2022 and first half of 2023. Inflation peaked at 9.1%. In 2023 the deficit is up significantly but it is mostly of the accounting kind with lower tax revenues by $278 billion from capital gains taxes due to a stock market slump in 2022, and higher interest costs of $136 billion.

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In a new trend that looks good for America is seen at companies such as American Fleet, which makes diesel engines for trucks. During the pandemic it was making 40 engines when it could make 30 normally, by adding overtime. It looked for mechanics. Now as demand is slowing workers work fewer hours. And the company which has a hard time finding mechanics is avoiding layoffs. It wants to avoid the expense and trauma of hiring and retaining workers. With fewer engines to build workers are prepping engine blocks and upgrading equipment so that when demand picks up again they will be ready. Workers are being hired to fill unfilled positions allowing overworked employees to return to normal hours.This is a national trend reflected in declining overtime hours and working hours are shifting also with workers opting to work less because of work-life priorities. This should be seen as part of the renewal of America, because when workers do well, the middle class does well, and when the middle class does well America does well. America does well when companies and workers mean the same thing. ...

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Finance Minister Sitharaman says India's economic image and its macroeconomic fundamentals are not affected by the withdrawal of the Adani FPO. In the last 2 days alone she said, foreign exchange reserves had increased by $8 billion. She said Securities and Exchange Board of India has the authority and ability to see to it that "markets are regulated in prime condition."

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As the US central bank, the Fed, considers cutting high interest rates that affect housing costs and mortgages this WSJ report looks at the consumer debt in September 2024. It says consumer debt is at $17 trillion in 2024. This is high except that when inflation adjusted it is only 3% above the consumer debt in 2019, the peak happened in 2008 before the banking induced financial crisis. Then there is the question of what the debt composition is. Here overall debt has grown by 4% yet credit card debt is up 11%, not a good sign when the interest rates charged by banks is 12%, by cards 22%. Households are paying off credit card debt by borrowing from sources with lower interest costs.

This is more evidence why many households are hurting as debt servicing remains as and additional cost of living issue for Americans.

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Karishma Vaswani of the BBC points out that the Trump administration tariffs and the response from China with tariffs of its own, are not the beginning of a trade war but negotiating tactics of both sides. Behind the scenes and behind the declarations and position statements both sides are talking to each other and considering the options open to each. The U.S. position is that China has emerged with a bigger share of the global economy by dumping products, subsidizing its industries from solar panels to high tech ventures, and stealing American technology by forcing U.S. firms into joint ventures that increase pass through of advanced technology. U.S. firms seeking access to the Chinese market or using China as a manufacturing base such as Boeing, Apple, GE and other high tech companies are in ventures or manufacturing arrangements where China has access to advanced American technology. Nathaniel Taplin in his article in the WSJ also sees this as a negotiating position set out in the U.S. for talks with China. Taplin says the U.S. is in a stronger position in this negotiation because of the huge surplus of about $300 billion that China now has with the U.S., and which is increasing in 2018 with the strength of the dollar. The Trump administration is looking to correct the trade imbalance in the future by focussing on China's access to advanced U.S. technologies in the next phase of competition between the U.S., Europe and China. This limited objective is more likely to lead to concessions by China Taplin argues, because of two reasons. China needs the dynamism of U.S. firms and technology advances because these firms and Chinese firms that are getting foreign investment are the most productive part of the Chinese economy with jobs generated, rate of return about twice that of inefficient state run firms. China also needs access to advanced U.S. and European technologies even in a limited form as it pursues further modernization.   ...

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What US companies did not get early on is that as China's economy advanced local companies could make the same products for less and innovate to take a big share of the market. Ford exited China and GM took  $5 billion charge on its China business. Chinese makers of cars, EV's, laptops and cell phones have the major share of the market. In 2024 US companies chastened by their experience and failing to compete in China are reticent about tariffs impacting their market share in China. Other reasons China was growing at over 10% in the last year of Obama's second term. In 2024 China is struggling to reach 5%.  Following Covid, housing industry collapse, as US and Europe block China's exports, China's public is growing wary of spending. There are only 800 Americans studying in China in 2024 compared to 11,000 in 2019. There are 290,000 Chinese students in US. ...

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Israel informed the US 6 hours before military target strikes on Iran. This followed 180 ballistic missiles launched by Iran against Israel. This report says Israel has followed president Biden's advice not to strike oil targets. Biden said if I were the Israelis I would not strike oil targets. 

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Joe Nocera of the NYT, says prosecution of individuals responsible in the 2008 mortgage financial crisis is mostly a joke. Not one official of Countrywide Financial, says Nocera, that was at the heart of the financial wrongdoing in the crisis has been prosecuted. This may be one of the strangest aspects of this crisis and the behaviour of the Obama administration, the Justice Department and the regulatory agencies including the SEC remains dubious at best, when it comes to how little can be seen in this area that Nocera points out. By contrast says Nocera, about 1100 prosecutions were done in the S&L crisis and Charles Keating, a key figure in the crisis was prosecuted. When he inquired why the government was so intent on prosecuting figures involved in the S&L crisis, Nocera was told it was because the country insisted that this happen. This is because without this the deterrent effect no longer has an effect in preventing future behaviour of this type. Now he points out this is what the country is insisting happen. Regulatory actions alone may not create enough of a deterrent to protect the ordinary people who were worst hit in the crisis from another crisis. The exacerbated social tensions emerging from the crisis have created a large fragile part of the population with minimal savings that can hardly afford future hits of this type....

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Robert Mueller, the special counsel, says the Mueller Report and his investigation into the 2016 presidential election does not exonerate president Trump. If we had exonerated the president we would have said so, said Mueller in a public statement. "If we had confidence the president did not commit a crime we would have said that," Mueller said. He said the constitution of the U.S. does not allow a sitting president to be charged by the special counsel. Because the special counsel office is under the Justice Department and the department policy set the manner of the report, charging the president was not an option he had. The Republican party controls the Senate and the Democrats control the House of Representatives. Any effort by Democrats in the House to impeach the president would fail in the Senate. Democrats and Speaker Pelosi are wary of impeachment proceedings. Mr. Mueller's statement suggests there is also growing discomfort in Congress about taking no action at all that would be construed as exonerating the president for what happened during the presidential election, because it might set improper precedent for the future. This increases the pressure for impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives from some Democrats for more information to let Congress decide. ...

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Outdated equipment in nation's aviation system dire need for more air traffic controllers neglected as $400 billion is invested in AI data centers. Congress is looking at $12.5 billion in upgrades to the nation's aviation system. More will be needed.

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China's efforts to rescue the housing industry and construction industry will be limited as the government is now concerned not to set off another bubble like that in the past. Assistance will be limited to unsold apartments which local governments can now buy to use for affordable housing, and $42 billion is provided for a central government fund to buy apartments that are unsold. This will reduce excessive inventory and the government will stop at that point no wanting to create new bubbles. Attention is now focused on increasing manufacturing of electric vehicles for export and other manufacturing in solar, renewable energy.

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Friedman calls for the President to make the tough decisions whether it is the nationalizing of banks or enlarging the stimulus. He calls for the President not to be afraid of risking his Presidency and his credibility on some tough issues, as this is what may be required by the tough issues of the banks, the toxic assets, decisions on nationalization or the stimulus expansion, and also by the task of winniing the trust of ordinary people suffering from this crisis. Even if this means howls of protest from some quarters as long as the people are basically behind the actions and the strategy.

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The German government has taken notice of hate speech on social media and social bots. The Justice Ministry convened a task force on hate speech on internet. Justice Minister Heiko Maas promised legal action against social media like facebook and twitter if it violated laws of libel and inciting to violence. Chancellor Merkel is bringing in a data science expert Professor Simon Hegelich of the Technical University of Berlin for consultations in Dec. 2016. Only AfD of the main parties, with its anti-immigration stance, has not come out in favor of not using social bots or paid trolls in the 2017 elections. Hegelich in talk with DW.com says it is hard to legislate on this because the whole phenomenon has not been fully understood. Article 5 of the Constitution provides for free speech. Hegelich also says the state of technology moves faster than legislation, and being international sites like facebook, twitter and others pose additional issues. He does not say laws cannot be helpful but that its not clear how best to do this. Thomas Jarzombek is a CDU member of parliament and digital media expert. He says social bots are more likely controlled by foreign countries, and fake news sites are more of a domestic problem. Making this worse is the incentive for unemployed journalists to do blogging of the crude and aggressive type to make more money. Jarzombek sees the need for the press to do more in its role for the democratic process to function properly, by functioning in the role of "enlightenment" and "awareness."  Jenna Behrends, a law student and CDU local politician for Berlin-Mitte, says it is necessary for good bots to be used to fight bad bots, in an article in Der Spiegel. Major mainstream media would then have to launch social bots themselves to fulfill their role of providing the public with correct and fair information free of excessive bias and distortion of the bad bots. One example of this is shown explicitly here of German chancellor Merkel's picture with the words " Guilty of betraying the people," with links to "Drain the swamp," and "Brexit." A more complex question is one of how to let people vent out frustration about the mainstream media itself being biased in favor of the established views and not doing enough or giving enough space to reflect alternative views, so that these can be debated without inflammatory language and deliberate distortion. A whole range of tools and modifications of behaviour may be necessary ahead of next years elections in France and Germany, now that the phenomenon is better understood following a vote in the Anglo-Saxon countries.   ...

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Starmer says he would not bring in lower environmental or food standards than the EU or reduce worker's rights. He was speaking at a meeting in Canada bringing together liberal and centre left politicians. He said "most of the conflict" after Brexit has arisen because the UK wants to "do things different from our EU partners." And he added "We don't want to diverge, we don't want to lower standards, we don't want to rip up environmental standards, standards that work, food standards and all the rest of it" He was responding at a Q&A in Montreal.

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Gavaskar says of India in the First Test at Leeds Headingley, India's fielding was ordinary, not Test class. Catches were dropped, fielding was poor so that after five centuries India came up short. With India batting well in the second innings Gavaskar says England showed confidence that let Tongue and Woakes wind up the lower order. With Duckett's 149 with 21 fours and Crawley's 65 set up a two hundred run partnership, that Root and Smith were able to make it look easy to win by 5 wickets.