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This WSJ report looks at the efforts of sugarly cola companies such as Pepsico under a new CEO to push their cola products aggressively with advertising, and modern logistics. It cites Barry Popkin, nutrition professor at the University of North Carolin School of Public Health that they are making products that are killing us more slowly. With less sugar than before but still at a time of dangerously high obesity levels in the world just as dangerous or more dangerous to humans, because they are not as healthy as previous generations. The pandemic proved the danger of higher obesity levels. The numbers say it all-1% of children 5-19 years obese in 1975 going up by 8% to 9% in 2020, and doubling to 19% in 2035, says the WSJ. That is doubling by 2035 to 19%-  simply astounding. Popkin says the fact that Americans are living more years with disabilities, and fewer disability free years, is very much linked to the food intake. On The Guardian's pages was an article about a surgeon who has a startup in Austin, Dr. Attia of Early Medical, that promotes "healthspan." It focuses on getting healthy living habits  through better nutrition, exercize, to start at an early age as being critical for a healthy life span. It is not the same starting at an early age with good food and exercize habits vs starting later in life as this means fewer disability free years when starting later in life.  ...

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Sadanand Dhume points out the change in women's fertility rate that will add one more factor to improvement in the quality of life and access to resources in India. This comes as development projects, infrastructure, logistics, is being built in the north at a pace unprecedented in history. Women's fertility rate has dropped below the replacement rate of 2.1 in India. Because of the youthful population with median age of 28 in India population will peak at 1.6 billion in 2050 making India the largest country by population in the world- with one in 6 people on the planet in India. From a fertility rate of 6 in 1960 in India, with each woman having 6 babies, it is down to 3 by 2005 and 2 in 2021. This shows the effect of sustained development over time, which is also evident in agricultural production where India is now self sufficient in food. For many years the Hindi speaking heartland suffered from poor governance and mismanagement of the economy- the region that covers Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. Uttar Pradesh has a population of 250 million, Bihar 131 million and Madhya Pradesh 86 million, for a total of 467 million about the size of North America or the European Union. It is this region that is now pushing a development agenda today more than any other region in India with the joint effort of both the federal and state, local, governments in a way that is unprecedented in Indian history. Because of the Gati Shakti Master Plan, Atman Nirbhar Make in India Plan, and push for local is vocal, the infrastructure efforts in building roads, highways, airports and logistics, the advances in digitization and use of new technologies, there is an added boost with new synergies in this development effort. A new airport and logistics setup at Noida in Uttar Pradesh will be the largest in Asia, a new Ganga Expressway is planned, and many development projects are being launched in Varanasi, Prayagraj and other cities in UP, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh. Leaders at the federal level Mr. Modi, Mr. Piyush Goyal, and at the state level Mr. Adityanath, are pushing the development projects at a pace that will make these areas the fastest developing in India, and quite possibly the world, in a the next 3-5 years. ...

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This NYT analysis of fund raising by the Republican and Democratic parties for the 2020 election campaign shows Republicans hardly raising any money from people with incomes over 250,000 and very little from incomes over $200,000 with most funding coming from the base white working class and lower and upper middle class. For Democrats fund raising is significant at the levels of income over $200,000. Geographically the Democrats get most of their funding from the east and west coast areas.  This reflects the changes in the parties starting in the the 2008 elections when higher income groups in software, finance, and in professions of law and medicine and Silicon Valley tech shifted to Democrats. The Democrats also held onto minority votes. In 2016 this changed with a sharp turn with tech on the west coast and finance professionals on the east coast shifting to the Democrats. The PPP agreement under Obama favored tech over the auto industry, and renewal fossil fuels such as solar were favored over the oil industry and fracking. In 2016 this helped shift the votes in Michigan and Pennsylvania to Republicans. Older manufacturing industries, oil and fracking were supported by Republicans who pushed back against ceding global dominance in manufacturing to China. By 2020 these changes are now entrenched with white working class voters in industries decimated and communities destroyed by foreign imports mainly from China, supporting Republicans. Republicans under Trump have made regaining the manufacturing leadership of the U.S. that was the situation after World War II, a top priority for the U.S.  The minority vote shifted with Hispanics moving towards Republicans to a much larger degree than before. The urban rural divide is similar to Europe where the similar impact of foreign imports mainly from China have destroyed older industries and led to sharp decline in older towns and communities outside major cities. This is the situation facing the U.S. and Britain, France, Italy Spain, and Poland. Germany as a manufacturing country dependent on exports is also affected but to a lesser degree. The unwholesome aspect of this is that the larger urban areas are divorced from the rest of the country  and rural small towns, smaller cities. In some form reintegration has to take place. The vast majority of the working class classified in today's terminology as the less educated lacking a college degree and white are  paradoxically with Republicans, and the wealthy professionals and industries in software, finance with Democrats. Nothing makes this more evident than a quick look at the map of the U.S. with blue on the opposite coasts for Democrats and mostly red in between and in the south. This is unprecedented in American history. A rising tide that lifts all boats in the U.S. and the return of the U.S. to the position it held after World War II could change this in the next decade. ...

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Orlik cites a 2011 survey from China's South Western University of Finance and Economics, which surveyed 8000 households and found that 55% of Chinese households had little or no savings for that year. 10% of households control 86% of wealth and 56% of household income. Surveys in 1995 and 2002 showed 10% of households controlled 31% and 41% of wealth. In the U.S. top 10% of households control 74% of the wealth, according to the Federal Reserve figures. What this means, says Orlik, is that before China can shift to consumption based growth the low incomes of the majority of households have to go up, requiring a major policy shift. Under current policies and even with movement in the direction of the DRC/World Bank policy report for China for a gradual shift away from state owned enterprises, there is little prospect for rebalancing the world economy.

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According to a 2011 study from the University of Michigan, less than one third of 16 year old teenagers in the U.S. had a drivers license in 2008. This is a sharp decline from about half in 1983. For 18 year old teenagers about 80% had a drivers license in 1983, only about 66% have a license today. Many of today's teenagers live at home and are moving to large cities where they prefer to use mass transit. Economic difficulties are also larger in today's environment.

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Arvind Panagriya, Prof. of Economics at Columbia University, points out the key initiatives of the Modi government in its first four years which will show results in future years for development of the country.  He mentions the Swachh Bharat Mission and cites results that show rural households with toilets are now 84% up from 38%.  By 2019 the whole country will be defecation zone free on the 100th anniversary of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi. The Dhan Jan Yojana DJY accounts opened for rural households are up to 316 million. Aadhar cards for identification are up from 650 million to 1.2 billion. The Aadhar and DJY work together to enable direct transfer of benefits to poor households, eliminating the leaks in benefits transfer and ghost accounts of the period since independence in 1947. Not mentioned by Panagriya is the Health Insurance scheme for lower income households that enable families to survive a sudden medical expense that could put them in dire straits.  These efforts work in a way to change India from the ground up from its villages and rural areas as envisioned by Mahatma Gandhi in the struggle for independence. The land acquisition law amendments were put on hold till farmers concerns could be better accomodated, an area of concern for industrial development cited in an editorial in the Hindu newspaper. Fiscal consolidation and inflation targeting have resulted in an average inflation rate of 4.3% for the 4 years of the Modi government. Inflation was over 9% in the last 2 years of the previous Congress UPA government with GDP growth dropping to 5.9% for the last two years. Average GDP growth for four years for the Modi government is 7.3%, even after the changes to implement GST taxation for one national tax eliminating state barriers in interstate commerce and demonetization to fight corruption and black money. Rate of GDP growth should be higher after the gains from the initiatives and the new GST integration of the country are felt, with increase in investment and FDI, after infrastructure improvements and land acquisition arrangements are made. Transportation infrastructure modernization initiative pushes ahead with the first bullet train in the pilot project for Ahmedabad- Mumbai set to start in 2022. This is a $17 billion project financed for $13 billion by the Japanese government at 0.1% loan for 50 years, moratorium on repayments for 20 years, using E5 Shinkansen series technology. Implementation of this project on a sound financial basis should lead to transformation of the Indian rail network, raising the level of technology implementation across the entire Indian rail system. Such an achievement would rival the first introduction of railways into India in the nineteenth century under the British. A new bankruptcy law is intended to free up capital for investment by putting behind the large number of non performing loans in the Indian banking system. Changes made by the central bank RBI are designed to speed up this process so that loss making enterprises are absorbed, consolidated or shut down, a legacy from the earlier period.     ...

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Jaishankar was asked at the 2021 GLOBSEC conference in Bratislava in 2021 why he thinks anyone will help India in case of a problem with China after it did not help others for Ukraine. Chancellor Scholz of Germany cites Indian Foreign Minister Jasihankar's remarks in Bratislava, Slovakia, in 2021. Jaishankar said- "Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe's problems are the world's problems, but the world's problems are not Europe's problems. That is if it is you it's yours, if it is me it is ours. I see reflections of that. There is a linkage today which is being made. A linkage betwen China and India and what's happening in Ukraine. Chia and India happened way before anything happened in Ukraine. The Chinese do not need a precedent somewhere else on how to engage us or not to engage us or be difficult with us or not to be difficult with us." These are Scholz's remarks at the Munich Security Conference. Scholz says Jaishankar has "a point."  "This quote from the Indian Foreign Minister is included in this year's Munich Security Report and he has a point it would't be Europe's problem alone if the law of the strong were to assert itself in international relations." To be credible European or North American in New Delhi or Jakarta, it is not enough to emphasize shared values. "We generally have to address the interests and concerns of these countries as a basic prerequisite for joint action. And that's why it was so important to me to not merely have representatives of Asia, Africa and Latin America at the negotiating table during the G-7 Summit last June. I really wanted to work with these regions to find solutions to the main challenges they face growing poverty and hunger, partly as a consequence of Rusia's war, as well as the impact of climate change or COVID-19. There is another side to this -Scholz and Germany's president Frank Walter-Steinmeier are from the social Democrats party which has sought closer cooperation with Russia, and also carry a great deal of ambivalence for the war. America is not fighting this indirect war in its neighborhood, Germany is. And some of the roots of this conflict go back to the Napoleonic invasion of Russia in the 1800's period and the German invasion in the 1940's. Macron is even more ambivalent in his position and he has remained this way from the beginning- not committed to humiliating Russia. In a way it is the position of the Social Democrats from the historical context of Germany's invasion of Russia, and Christian Democrats eagerness to create a German recovery with low cost Russian energy that created the dependence that Russia sought to use. In what it sees as the unfairness of NATO being allowed to expand right next to its borders. Because of a sense of righteousness on both sides- Russia of the Soviet period failing to see the feelings of a Budapest in 1956, East Berlin in 1953, and Prague in 1968, sees little wrong in an invasion of Kviv. And with it all the biography of Brezhnev the last leader of the Soviet Union, describes that very struggle in the Great Patriotic War the soviets fought against Nazi Germany which was fought by Ukrainians including Leonid Brezhnev with great will and purpose against all odds.  Cambridge historian has written the history of Europe that Scholz is cited to be reading in 2021- Europe The Struggle for Supremacy 1453 to the Present.  It shows Europe since 1453 engaging in balance of power of European powers, Sweden Denmark, Russia, Austria, Germany, France, Britain, Turkey, continually for 500 years. Europe simply forgot its own history. Asia including Japan, China, Indonesia and India, simply emerging from the situation of falling behind in science, technology, and the industrial revolution and building their economies with the help of the US since the Meiji Restoration in Japan in 1868. The Balance of Power Simms says was maintained for 500 years is simply based on no country allowed to act with impunity, no country allowed to do whatever it wanted because of its position of strength at that moment or period of time. In that situation all other powers regrouped to keep the balance from being upset. The war in Ukraine is also likely to end in a way that is consistent with that which Brendan Simms writes about because this has not changed now for over 500 years. Biden knows this and it has fallen on America to shoulder the burden for this in the last 150 years, Scholz is aware of this, Modi in India sees this, and Jinping in China realizes this even with its concerns about Taiwan.   ...

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Administrative costs are one of the key reasons tution costs have increased to excessive proportions in the U.S., putting a heavy burden on the middle class, reducing social mobility that is an important aspect of postwar progress in Europe and the U.S. by putting college out of reach for millions of young people. This also creates a heavy debt burden for young people- U.S. student loan debt passed $1 trillion in 2012- who are less likely to buy a first home because of years needed to repay student loans. The market pressures to control costs do not exist in the same way as industries such as automobiles, because of the demand for college education in a modern globalized economy. Douglas Belkin and Scott Thurm have provided an indepth look at the University of Minnesota to show the spending surge and internal tendencies for faculty and bureaucracy to increase spending on hiring, building expansion to compete with other schools, and salaries to support their own within the college and university system, with a passive student community, and passive parent community, and lack of other outside pressures. Tution and fees for state residents doubled in the last decade at the University of Minnesota to $13,524. The figures tell the story- total debt with borrowing for building construction at U.S. 4 year public colleges tripled to $88 billion between 2002 and 2011, according to the Department of Education. Debt servicing costs doubled at the University of Minnesota to $106 million in that period. Minnesota's government provided $570 million for university operations in 2011, same as 2003-2004 school year even with inflation and 10% higher student enrollment. Yet analysis by the Department of Education and the Wall Street Journal shows in that period the spending increased disproportionately compared to inflation, student enrollment and teaching activity, with little restraint. WSJ analysis showed the University of Minnesota system added 1000 administrators between 2001-2011, with administration hires increasing 37%, double the increase in the students and double that of teachers. During that period the number of employees to manage people, programs and regulations went up 50% faster than the number of instructors, according to the Department of Education. Bureau of Labor Statistics cites this as the reason tution costs went up faster than health care costs. The 19,000 employee payroll at the University of Minnesota means one employee for three and half students. The new university president in 2011, Eric Kaler, interviewed by WSJ's Belkin and Thurm, says no one knew what it cost to run the school when he started....

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Hancock County, Iowa, is one of those rural counties in the American heartland that did not support Mr. Trump in 2016. This county now supports Trump by a large margin because they see his policies benefitting rural America, and see him as a way for the Republican party to be back in power to pursue a conservative agenda. WSJ reports from Hancock County in Iowa. The American voting system gives more importance to states with smaller populations in the Electoral College relative to larger states. States with large farming communities such as Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa play a larger role in elections in the US than population alone would suggest. John McCormick of the WSJ talks to farmers in this rural county in Iowa with a higher proportion of less educated voters than the rest of the counties in Iowa. One of five voters have a bachelors degree in Hancock County compared to one in three in Iowa as a whole and 38% nationally. The median age is 44 years compared to 39 years nationally and in Iowa. This part of rural Iowa is also in farmland that is many miles away from large cities and urban areas and more isolated and homogenous as 9 out of ten people are non-Hispanic and white. About a fourth of these voters are supporting his candidacy over Nikki Haley because they see it as more likely to win because of polls, even though Haley is according to the WSJ editorial opinion the stronger candidate for Republicans across the suburbs critical for 2024, which are slightly younger, more educated, and less isolated from the rest of the country. Biden and Obama are a sharp contrast when it comes to rural America. Where his own Agriculture secretary felt rural America was neglected by president Obama, Biden truly cares for rural America and has huge investments in rural America as part of the rural infrastructure effort. ...

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The situation in small towns in East Germany such as Loecknitz on the Polish border. The economy is depressed with unemployment twice the level in West Germany, and young people moving away. The economy on the Polish side is much healthier and Poles are moving to the German side from the Polish city of Szczecin, a 30 minute drive. Poles are also buying depressed German real estate and starting businesses. This is adding to the local economy as young Germans have moved to the larger cities but there is the sense of being left behind among some Germans. It comes from the period of reunification when after investing $2 trillion to integrate the two economies the best that could be done was making cities like Leipzig and Dresden in the east prosper but leaving the coutnryside in East Germany in an abandoned state as young people sought opportunities elsewhere. This may be why Angela Merkel who grew up and studied in the former East Germany told the German parliament in June 2012, "Germany's strength is not infinite. Germany's powers, too, are not unlimited."...

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Is time slipping away for Russia to restore what it sees as its special relationship with Ukraine, as Ukraine finds its own identity through its language and independent Orthodox Christian Church since 2019. This WSJ podcast report is by James Marson who lived in Kiev from 2007 to 2012, and Ryan Knutson, with the Archbishop of St Michael's cathedral in Kiev, and the editor of Elle magazine edition in Ukraine joining in.  To understand Ukraine one has to know that Russian is the language of the cities, which means people in Kiev speak Russian. People in the countryside Ukrainian. This is very unusual for a nation and it shows the condition of the country for centuries where intellectuals in cities dominated cultural and political life distant from the people in the countryside. For centuries Ukraine was dominated alternately by either Poland and Lithuania or Russia other than a period of 200 years around 1250-1400 when the Mongols were dominant. The peasants and countryside suffered greatly as in India and other parts of central Europe in the long history till the modern period in 1900.  Russians see their origins in the Kyivan Rus, a state bringing together the different ethnicities Ukrainian and Russian in the period 1000-1240 under the Byzantine Church in Constantinople. Kyiv, the modern capital of Ukraine called Kiev today being the capital of this state. This is the cultural connection that president Putin and Russians see as one they do not want to see drift away. After the Russian state drove out the Mongols in 1240 the northern provinces and Kiev became part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the rest became part of a new Russian state. After 1650 Ukraine became part of the Russian Empire and by 1800 with the partition of Poland was fully made part of the Russian Empire. Russian is now after 1800 the language of the intellectual class in Kiev and the cities, and Ukrainian language persists in the countryside. In 1804 Ukrainian is banned as a language and subject of instruction in schools. The end of the Russian Empire under the Tsars in 1917 ended the ban on the Ukrainian language and a period of respect of the cultures of the different soviet republics including Ukraine ensued. Putin has strong feelings on Kyiv, or modern Kiev, as the place where Russia as a country began. He wrote a 7000 word essay says this report in WSJ in 2010 on this relationship as he sees it.  Yet the period of protests in Kiev since 2010 has resulted in Ukraine building  its own identity as a nation. Magazines in the country are required to use Ukrainian for 50% of their circulation. People in Kiev now use Ukrainian instead of Russian as the sense of national identity is being revived. During 1917-1921 Ukraine fought a war with the Bolsheviks after the Russian Empire collapsed. This history is why Russia is acting now to push for Ukraine not drift completely away. It is also what makes Ukraine different from Poland which has cultural ties to Western Europe. It is why the US or Germany is not willing to go to war with Russia over Ukraine, as it would over Poland. It is also why Russia may not see war as the best option as about one third of Ukrainians say they will fight to defend their country, according to this report. The situation is complex and this is why both sides want to negotiate some way out in which Russia wants the US and NATO respecting its sense of connection with Ukraine in its history with Kyiv as the place Russian state started, and Russia not going further. Russia's tangible proposal is for no to Ukraine joining NATO or the European Union. The US and Germany want something else- the right of Eastern European nations that suffered from Tsarist or Soviet domination or German Hapsburg domination to finally be able to assert their own right of self-determination as democratic countries. This would include Finland. And also Sweden. Ukraine is not another small Eastern European country. Population is 44 million and it is the second largest by area in Europe after Russia.  Russia may also see the move to bring this up at this time as a way to unify the country against what it sees as threat from NATO. As Brendan Simms of Cambridge notes in his recent book -Europe, France went through a period after 1600 when it needed external danger as a way to unify the country, as much as unity of the country to fight external danger. The economic costs after building Nordstream II pipeline are to0 great for both Russia and Germany, and for the US and Russia during the pandemic, which means there is a real need to find a way out for all sides.     ...

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Krugman questions the Paul Ryan U.S. budget proposal on several grounds. He says the Ryan proposal depends on projections by the Heritage Foundation for its assumption that the tax cuts would generate higher revenues by creating a booming economy. The Heritage Foundation projection is for revenue increasing by $600 billon over the next 10 years as a result of tax cuts. Krugman cites a different view from the Congressional Budget Office estimate for the Ryan proposal, which shows assumed savings from spending cuts will go not to reduce the deficit but to pay for tax cuts, with bigger deficits in the next decade. He says the spending cuts excluding Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid- but including defense- go down from 12% of GDP in 2011 to 6% of GDP in 2022- meaning that cuts in public services will need to cut to the bone. The Medicare part of Ryan's proposal does not say how spending on medical care will be reduced. The voucher or premium support Ryan envisages is estimated by the Congressional Budget Office to cover only one third of the cost of insurance premiums for Medicare equivalent care by 2030. Krugman cites the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which says the Ryan proposal achieves two thirds of its $4 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade by cutting programs that primarily serve low-income Americans. ...

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The Journal cites figures from the U.S. Department of Agriculture showing 44.7 million participated in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance program in fiscal 2011. This is a big jump from the 28.2 million people in 2008. Texas has 4 million on food stamps, California 3.7 millon, Florida 3.1 million.

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For passengers air travel nowadays is travelling on planes that are often totally booked. This is because airlines are cutting flights. And with fewer passengers after the economic crisis hit, airlines are having a difficult time cutting flights enough to meet the continuing drop in the number of passengers. Before the crisis business and international travel was a good source of revenue, now this is fading as there is more competition on transatlantic routes with about 50 airlines offering flights between US cities and European cities. The liberalization of air travel between the two continents with the 2007 "open skies" agreement is keeping downward pressure on prices. The International Air Transport Association says the number of passengers travelling on business and first class tickets between N. America and Europe was down 18.4% in April 2009, compared with same month in 2008. Traffic between N. America and Asia was down 26%, for the same period. This is hitting Lufthansa ansd KLM-Air France hard, but is helping Easyjet, Ryanair, and Air Berlin. As demand drops airlines will continue to cut capacity, and this will be done by cutting the number of flights on a route and using smaller planes. After all this capacity cutting takes place by September, OAG Aviation estimates that the seats on domestic flights will drop to 66.5 million from a peak of 84 million in 2001, a drop of 21%. Some airlines which rely less on corporate travellers will not see as steep a drop. These airlines are Southwest, JetBlue and AirTran. Airlines that may not survive the effects of the economic crisis, with tight credit and drop in air travel, and volatile oil prices, are United Airlines and US Airways. United relied heavily on corporate and trans-Pacific fliers before the economic crisis. Fitrch Ratings cites this in reducing the credit rating for United to junk status, as well as the heavy debt maturities in 2009 and 2010. In June 2009 United raised $175 million by issuing new debt, but at an interest rate of 17%. At US Airways the combined airline with America West after a$1.5 billion merger is struggling. It has the thinnest cash position of any airline according to a Morningstar research analyst, and may need further borrowing to meet debt payments. With all assets already mortgaged US Airways may have little borrowing capability left....

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U.S. president Trump's executive order reversing parts of the Clean Power Plan of president Obama may extend the life of older coal powered plants, but overall it is unlikely to change the shift away from coal for the U.S. utility industry. It will do little to reverse the market forces that are leading to a shift to natural gas for the utility industry with the increasing availability of natural gas. In this WSJ report Cassandra Sweet cites Duke Energy Corp. CEO Lynn Good, who says natural gas for Duke will be the leading fuel followed by coal by 2026, and natural gas now makes up 28% of its mix with coal at 34%. He says a $11 billion ten year investment in natural gas and renewable energy will go through regardless of what the Trump administration does because of the economics- the declining price of renewables, the competitive price of natural gas. Companies are loath to base their long term plans on changes in administration as they see the economics dictated by advances in technology, and the general sense that cleaner energy is here to stay for the long run. Already in the U.S. 34% of total power supplies are from natural gas and 30% from coal for 2016, according to the U.S. Energy Department. This may change slightly as coal is used where it is economical and makes sense without the carbon rules, yet the long term trend is clearly towards natural gas. ...

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The Economist cites estimates from the Bank of England showing Britain's national output peaking at 1.5 trillion pounds in 2007 and not likely to return to that level till 2015. It points to fears of a lost decade. Meanwhile debt is rising from 600 billion pounds in 2008 to 1.1 trillion in 2012, making reducing the debt to GDP ratio by 2017 even more difficult. Lower growth affects tax revenues even as social benefit costs increase. Part of the problem is that from 2009-2010 to 2011-2012 public sector net investment declined from 48.5 billion pounds to 28 billion pounds. The Economist suggests Chancellor Osborne take up an additional investment in infrastructure of 28 billion pounds, even borrowing 14 billion pounds in the bond markets if needed, as a prudent step to revive growth. Small improvements in rail, roads and bridges could make up for a lack of large projects. Other suggestions include expanding the "funding for lending" scheme with banks to get capital to small business, finding more savings in the National Health Service, and changing the way Britain taxes development land that remains undeveloped. Britain, now joins, Portugal, Spain, France and Italy, in the failure of austerity measures alone creating a return to economic growth and lower deficits. In 2013 improving competitiveness and boosting economic growth become critical following years of austerity measures....

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The concerns over far right parties expelling immigrants in states such as Thuringia has caused a wave of protests across Germany including Berlin and other cities in January 2024. It is also impacting the East where anti immigrant sentiment is based. Germany has a shortage of workers in parts of Germany that formed the Federal Republic before reunification- immigrants fill these gaps. The East has not been the success story it was supposed to be because reunification of the Federal Republic and the GDR (Communist East Germany around Leipzig and East Berlin) led to a flight of young people to the western parts for jobs and opportunities. Leading to a mostly older and retired population in the east -leaving it struggling and feeling unwanted. This is the background of the anti immigrant sentiment in the east where there are far fewer immigrants than in the western and central regions. Resentment about being ignored as settled around the immigrant issue in the east even as Germany has benefitted through some of the middle class educated immigrants from Turkey and from Ukraine, and Syria. Similar resentment has taken place in parts of England in the north which led to fear of immigrants being used by Tories party leading to Brexit. In a similar way in France in the north, and in the US with neglect of rural areas and factory communities in the east and midwest. The communities that were left out that have made choices with far right as in Britain have ended up with leaders from immigrant families that have accomplished little or much in the reverse direction for the English people in the north. The leaders of Germany, Britain, the US, the Nordic countries such as Denmark, and gradually in France have learned that it is right to go back to their roots, that they had forgotten where they came from and are now fighting for the dignity of workers (Schulz), standing in picket lines for the autoworkers (Biden), and following the Biden example in the UK (Starmer). With it comes the realization that this started with the Thatcher and Reagan era that created the conditions and culture that were repeatedly embraced by Democrats in the US, Labor in Britain and Social Democrats in Germany alike leading to financial crises and levels of inequality and lack of educational opportunity not seen since the Great Depression. With it by 2024 comes the unwinding of the economics and culture of the Reagan era. Even in China and India the shift is away from that culture as the economies of these countries with half of humanity are shifted to serve a broad base and to include rural, agricultural and other parts of the population. It shows that the educated parts of the population in these countries have the ability to create the conditions that in Lincoln's words are for the people, by the people, of the people, for a brighter future, if only they will try hard enough for their children's and grand children's sake.  ...

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The growth in U.S. GDP was 1.7 % in 2011, yet unemployment dropped by 0.7% in the last 12 months to 8.3% by Feb. 2012. A pickup in hiring is seen in job figures. Christina Romer gives as an explanation to the rise in unemployment in 2009 to 10%, more than expected, and the drop since then, to the overreaction of companies to the financial crisis by laying off workers and freezing hiring- with hiring picking up as conditions return to normal levels. The unemployment rate as defined is also not an accurate measure of the jobs situation, as it reflects only workers who are looking for work, and many workers drop out of the jobs market when they are discouraged especially the long term unemployed. Taking into account people who have dropped out of the labor markets the unemployment rate was 11% in Nov. 2009, according to Luce in the Financial Times- in Ezra Klein, Washington Post 12/12/2011, Wonkbook: Real unemployment rate 11%. Lawrence Katz, Harvard Labor economist also cites this as one of three jobs crises in unemployment today that need to be addressed, the other two being: foreclosures and debt, and the low number of jobs added because of automated manufacturing- in Friedman, NYT, 12/10/11, The Next First 100 Days. Explanations for the low GDP growth as unemployment declines is a likely productivity slowdown. Prof. Robert Gordon of Northwestern University, sees a slowdown in productivity. Worker output for every hour worked, how productivity is measured, increased only 0.4% in 2011 and 0.9% in the last 7 quarters, and is trending downward in the longer term. A more likely explanation is that unemployment is still at higher levels but is understated in unemployment figures....

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Taiwanese contract manufacturer Hon Hai is moving quickly to address higher costs for workers at its manufacturing sites in coastal regions of China. After extensive media coverage of conditions at Foxconn factories, a number of suicides, and Chinese government policy that encouraged higher wages for workers in foriegn owned plants, Foxconn has moved to sharply increase wages at its plants. By the end of 2011 production in cities in the interior of China- Chengdu, Chongqing, and Wuhan, where costs are one third less- will be 25% of production, up from 10% in 2010. By 2012, this will be up to 50% of Foxconn's production, according to Yuanta Securities of Taipei. Hon Hai is lowering dividends to finance the shift. Fourth quarter 2010 earnings of Hon Hai were $742 million, down 26% over the prior year, even though revenues went up by 56% to $33.1 billon- reflecting the higher costs. Hon Hai's stock is down 20% in the past year on the Taipei stock exchange. Other locations being considered by Hon Hai are Brazil, Turkey and Slovakia. Brazil's President Dilma Roussef, said that Foxconn is considering a $12 billion plan for Brazil. Hon Hai is the only manufacturer of Apple iPads and one of two manufacturers of the iPhone....

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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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The problems that arise when grocery stores merge and consolidate by closing stores can be seen in Portland, Oregon. As the Albertson's and Safeway's are replaced by Kroger's cities can see the effects in supply, price and quality. During a time of cost of living issues for most families and workers, cost of living action by the government is needed to maintain access to grocery store food and supplies.

13% of the US people live in a food desert, low income areas where there is limited access to grocery stores. Many of these people are Latinos in low income occupations. When companies in grocery stores business merge stores close hurting the local population. This is one piece of the cost of living stress faced by ordinary workers and families in 2024 where the government needs to take preventive action to ensure access to food supplies for communities.

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India's demographics show one startling fact. By 2020, the average age of Indians will be 29. This is happening just as the rest of the world is aging very fast. In the next 15 years India will have 130 million more people in the 20 to 49 age group. This compares with a shrinking in population of 100 million in that age group in developed countries and China, according to the U.N. Population Division. The problem facing India is malnutrition that runs as high as 43% for children with half the mothers anemic, weak educational system at the primary and secondary school levels especially in the government run schools, lack of good governance in the most populated states such as Uttar Pradesh in the Ganges plains which has 200 million people, the consequent overburdening of cities which have no plans to manage the migration of the rural poor to the cities. India has to find ways to fill the huge gaps in getting better nutrition, education, dignity and sense of opportunity, and work for the growing numbers....

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There are about 2.4 million workers on American farms. 44% of them are undocumented workers says the Department of Labor.  They do jobs such as picking the fruits and vegetables that are part of the food supply. Deporting them all will increase prices of farm products as harvesting fruits and vegetables will be difficult. During the Eisenhower administration in 1953 deportation plan large growers in California and New Mexico used seasonal agricultural labor from Mexico, and the nation's food supply of vegetables and fruits depended on these workers. These companies lobbied hard for ways to keep these workers. On the other side were smaller farm owners who used fewer migrant workers. The complication this time 2024 is that unlike in 1953 under Eisenhower mass deportation when the border was otherwise peaceful, in 2024 the US has faced a decade unprecedented in its history of flows of fentanyl and drugs across the southern border. The deportation is about migrants who are not easily integrated culturally into the US, about the dangers of illegal entry in such large numbers that it disturbs the quiet life of the small towns and cities in the US. The US needs immigrants but in a planned way with legal entry, and no flows of drugs across the Border, that protects the American people and serves America's interests.    ...

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Andhra Pradesh on India's southeast coastline with 25 parliament seats and Bihar in India's north and east with 40 parliament seats and long history of being part of the BJP led National Democratic Alliance are now key to a five year term for prime minister Modi in India. Modi's BJP party won 240 seats out of 543 in parliament.  Chandrababu Naidu of Telegu Desam Party won 135 seats in the state Assembly election in Andhra Pradesh (NDA), all but 18 seats. It wins 22 of 25 seats in India's parliament (NDA). It also shows the wide swings in Indian elections that no party is safe. Telgu Desam Party (NDA)  won on the platform of a double engine government at state and federal levels to create jobs and modernize its rural agricultural economy. In the last 2019 election the Opposition YSRCP party won almost all the seats in the state assembly and in 2024 lost almost all the seats. In 1995 Telegu Desam Party joined Atal Bihari Vajpayee's BJP to form a government and during elections that followed for Vajpayee's 5 year term (1999-2004) he was part of the NDA. He has served three terms as chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, two terms before Telengana was formed and one term after Telengana split off from Andhra Pradesh. Andhra Pradesh is centered around the Vizag region on India's south eastern coastline and the cities of Vijayawada and Guntur with a 1000 kilometer coastline on Bay of Bengal. ...

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About 105,000 airings of ads on immigration making up 42% of all Republican ads in battleground states are on the Immigration issue since Harris became candidate July 22, according to WSJ analysis. WSJ polling shows 59% of respondents favored the bipartisan Senate deal negotiated by Republican Senator Lankford with Biden which Trump rejected in February. This deal would have effectively closed the Border, added Border Patrol resources, and would have passed says Lankford in NYT if it came only 3 months earlier in December 2024 before Mr. Trump won the primaries. Mr. Trump rejected the deal preferring to run on it, leading to action by Biden to do this with executive orders and cut illegal entry. This means less advertising for discussing the Economy and less for Inflation, which is the top issue says WSJ polling, immigration coming in second.   WSJ cites the Congressional Budget Office on the number of legal migration in the Biden term as 4.5 million, and illegal entry at 4.5 million. Instead the Trump-Vance Republican campaign is using the figure over 4 times that for illegal migration of 20 million without saying why and makes less distinction between legal and illegal entry, says WSJ. And makes statements that economists say is not the case that this will solve the housing supply and cost crisis, and other cost of living pressures. ...