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The transformation of towns in Iowa like Newton, once the place where Maytag and washing machine plants were located, and now with many of these plants closed the shift to making parts like blades for wind energy. The transformation of Toledo, a location for the auto industry factories, and now with the closing down of these plants the shift to manufacturing solar panels for solar energy. In all a transformation that is expected to generate 3 or 4 million jobs in the midwest in energy related products, to replace the jobs lost in the auto industry and in industries like appliances, like the Maytag plant in Newton that closed. Along the way there is hope and optimism and awe at the new product being built for wind and solar energy, which is cutting edge and not easily outsourced because of the size of the blades and the structures in wind energy generation. The struggles are chronicled of the people in Newton, Iowa and a whole generation of workers who even without a college education were able to live middle class lives because of Maytag plants in the area. And the distress caused as these plants cut employees and let the plants get antiquated, and finally the distress with the shutting down of the plants....

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Marking the sixth straight month of declines the US consumer price index rose by 6.5% over a year earlier in Dec. 2023. This is down from 7.1% in November and 9.1% in June. The US central bank chairman Jay Powell is resolutely pursuing anti inflation policy. Retail sales, manufacturing output and home sales declined in November. Exports and imports also declined. Prices fell for products such as autos and computers. Job and wage growth slowed. Tackling service inflation is the next challenge for the US Fed and Jay Powell says the WSJ.

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The coronavirus variant surge has led to burnout for frontline medical workers in the US. It has been calamitous for the mental health of public health workers in the US. These are the data analysts, policy advisors and other workers in public health departments. Many have quit their job as reported here in The Guardian. A CDC survey of 26,000 public health workers in the US shows about half have problems of mental health. Public health workers have to face problems with elected officials as well as public resentment on issues such as vaccination.

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South Korea face population decline for the first time in its recent history. The lack of job opportunities for young people, the burden of providing an elite education that parents aspire to for children limiting families to one or two children, and women marrying later at age of 33 years instead of 29, are some reasons for the decline. The pandemic has worsened the situation creating more insecurity. 

With this trend comes an aging society as in Germany and Japan. Statistics Korea predicts average age of population will rise from median 43 in coming decades.

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Solyndra Inc. and what went wrong. Solyndra filed for bankruptcy in Sept. 2011, after investments of private and government capital of over a billion dollars. Of this $535 million was a loan backed by the U.S. Department of Energy, leaving taxpayers with large losses. When emails were being exchanged between Vice President Biden's advisor and OMB staffers on August 31, 2009, according to the Washington Post, Solyndra was already in trouble. OMB pleaded for more time to do due diligence and analysis of the company. A $535 million loan was approved just when the economics behind Solyndra's cylinder coated solar materials were being made obsolete by the existing technology of polysilicon cells laid out on a flat panel. At Solyndra's inception in 2005 the cylinder based technology held promise, as the polysilicon cells technology relied on polysilicon material which was costly to make. In 2009 China was investing heavily in the polysilicon technology and bringing prices down to where the material cost was coming down quickly-down as much as 80%. By the end of 2009, it cost $4.00 per watt to produce Solyndra's product, while the competing Chinese polysilicon product cost $1.00 per watt- today this is down to 75 cents for the polysilicon product. The Solyndra product was harder to manufacture and had more defective material that had to be discarded. It is in the midst of these sea changes in technology, costs, and the economics of the project, that the government pushed for and OMB approved the Solyndra loan of $535 million to build a new factory that could produce 500 megawatts. In 2010 the economics worked as it would be expected, leading to Solyndra sales of 65 megawatts. The original factory had a capacity with improvements of 100 megawatts. Solyndra lost $172 million in 2009 on revenue of $100 million. Private investors attitude to their investment changed in 2009. The Wall Street Journal quotes one investor who saw the government loan followed by an IPO as a way to exit and cash out. A press release by Solyndra in July 2009, stated the company had a contractual backlog of $2 billion, even as the economics of the Solyndra product were collapsing. Yet these orders were not firm orders but framework agreements. In Dec. 2009 the lead underwriters, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, made an initial filing for an IPO, which was cancelled by the board 6 months later when the new factory had to be closed. The private investors interests and the governments interests had already diverged by the time of the email pushing for the $535 U.S. government loan from McSweeney, Biden's domestic policy advisor, to the senior OMB staffer, cited in the Washington Post, Stephens and Leonnig, 9/14/2011. OMB and the White House staffers failed to see this and the bankruptcy outcome that seemed highly probable in August 2009, based on the economics and competitive technology and pricing. This does prove the often cited comment that the government is not good at choosing winners and losers when handing out money. It goes beond this to show the whole process of due diligence failing at agencies such as the Energy Department and the Office of Management and the Budget, where one would think technically qualified staffers could catch the problems and risks of a project that were so apparent. ...

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New York Governor Cuomo gives unions and the state's Education Department 30 days to settle a lawsuit brought by teachers. The lawsuit delays job performance evaluations for teachers which include student test results. Cuomo said the alternative was for him to pass new legislation requiring this. He gives school districts 1 year to implement the new system using the framework setup by the state or loss of $805 million in state aid. Cuomo said: "No evaluation, no money. Period." This money comes from the Obama administrations Race to the Top education program which provides additional funding to states that make such improvements.

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The Trump Accounts for children born 2025-2028 and the Dell $6.5 billion expansion to include earlier born children may be one of the single biggest actions to rebuild the bank accounts of the next generation. It looks at the shrivelled bank accounts of today's older generation with lack of enough savings for a medical crisis and says it has got to be different from now on. The median bank account of Americans over 65 and over is $13400 which means there is little for medical health emergencies and little for needs of older Americans. Median means half have less and half have more than $13400. This is astounding for the wealthiest nation at a time when the total wealth is the highest ever in history. This report by WSJ unfortunately does not mention this at all and dwells on how this is an opportunity for banks and investment companies to get in the door to get your business. DJT as US president with a mandate from lower income Americans has designed this so that it shows the value of careful investments of small seed money. With $1000 to begin with from the government, added amounts from parents and grandparents and invested in a mutual fund that tracks the S&P 500 it will grow with the economy for 18 years, doubling two to three times on the way. It would provide funds for education increasing enrollment in higher education, increase financial literacy by showing how money grows in broad S&P 500 type index funds such as Vanguard type funds. Much of the shriveling of bank accounts for the shocking figure of $13400 median for American 65+ year olds is a result of job losses, high health care costs, wage decline  with factories outshored, hits from 2009 financial crisis caused by bank irresponsible behaviour, drug epidemics and fentanyl allowed to pour into the country, covid pandemic and stock bubbles, decline in higher education enrollment, other. The US president DJT is seeing his mandate as one that reverses these adverse situations one by one to take America back to post war prosperity and rising incomes, rising bank acocunt savings and rising hopes and aspirations for the next generation. ...

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Pravin ordhan who won confidence as head of the tax authority takes over Trevor Manuel's post of Finance Ministera, and Trevor is kept in an important position in strategic planning. THe communist party and unions get the Education and Economic Development ministries, but otherwise Zuma indicates a preference for continuity in South African financial and economic affairs. With one third of potential workers are without jobs according to the government so there is considerable pressure for improving these measures of development.

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As the trade problems with the U.S. escalate in tit for tat tariffs, China looks back at its history for parallels. The period of the "unequal treaties" imposed by the Western powers on China in the period 1850-1900, the Korean War of the 1950's, and other analogies that come up to people. Yet China's planners and leaders are looking at another situation the Plaza Accord of 1985 in which the western nations pressured Japan into accepting a significantly higher exchange rate to reduce its trade surplus and the Japanese yen appreciated by 50%. Japan cut interest rates from 5% to 2.5%, and introduced huge fiscal stimulus, banks opened up to lend vigorously. The result was a boom by 1990's followed by a bust that led to another decade of lending to loss making firms called "zombie" businesses, that led to a stagnant economy. This has persisted for three decades. This China sees as an unacceptable situation when China has still not achieved developed economy status in terms of per capita incomes. It fears getting into a middle income trap as the economic growth slows and the aging population makes a recovery more difficult.  The difference with Japan in the 1985-1990 period is that Mr. Trump lacks the kind of five nation economic coordination that put pressure on Japan. Today there are differing views on China in Europe and the U.S. and different policies. Mr. Trump is known for his style of deal making and could settle early, as feared by some Republican leaders in Congress who see in China a challenge to America's technological dominance. There are no calls to appreciate China's currency. Only calls for China to change its state subsidies model and put in writing and through laws that change the way of doing business that does not require American companies to hand over advanced technology. This is also a concern for Japan and the European Union countries such as Germany, and is something all nations try to protect in global competition. Japan is still facing the consequences in creating a new competitor in high speed train technology after building the first high speed trains in China and transfer of the high speed train technology by Kawasaki. The Household Survey by the Federal Reserve showing the financial fragility of 40% of American families shown on this page today shows how this situation is likely to evolve as working class families in the U.S. support a trade stance that protects American jobs and technology. Job losses over three decades and a $891 billion trade deficit in 2018 are seen as unacceptable to the U.S. in 2019. A stronger U.S. dollar helped increase the U.S. trade deficit by 10% in 2018, nullifying some benefits of Mr. Trump's trade actions. Mr. Robert Lighthizer was a negotiator in the trade dispute with Japan in 1985, and runs the negotiations with China with support from president Trump. This alone has kept the Japanese situation in 1985 uppermost in the minds of China's leaders as they try to come up with a way to settle the trade dispute with Mr. Trump.     ...

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China and India pass Mexico as immigration to the U.S. from Mexico declines rapidly, as a result of an improving Mexican economy, the 2008-2011 recession in the U.S. with sharp drop in jobs for construction, lower birthrates, and stricter U.S. law enforcement at the U.S. border with Mexico. Researchers using the American Community Survey of the U.S. Census Bureau found immigration from China increased to 147,000 from China, 129,000 from India, as it declined to 125,000 from Mexico, for 2013. This Survey counts a person as an immigrant for a particular year who says he was living abroad previously. Mexico shows a decline from 400,000 in 2000, with steady decline for every year after 2005. In 2000 India and China were at about 75,000, and did not cross the 100,000 mark till 2007. Other Asian countries are also at the top including S. Korea, Philippines and Japan. William Frey documents this surge in diversity in the U.S., -which is supplemented by now common intermarraige between young people from different countries of origin- in his book "Diversity Explosion."...

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Tim Kaine's reason for joining Senate vote- to reduce hardship across the US, knowing the key actors and the chances of Republicans approving ACA subsidies were zero. Tim Kaine in his own words says why he joined in meeting with 2 New Hampshire Senators Shaheen and Hassan, and Angus King of Maine, to end the shutdown. He says he got Republicans to agree on support funding for food assistance and for veterans families and for workers in the federal government. Other reports show that over 300,000 workers in the federal government are from Tim Kaine's voter base in Virginia- he is a former governor of Virginia- all affected by job cuts and needing back pay, and he was doing what he though was right for them and for the Nation. 

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The trade deficit with China has led to loss of 3.8 million jobs, 75% of them or 2.9 million in manufacturing. Go back to 1990 and Beijing was a city of bicycles not cars. If Beijing shifted to a open economy and simply imported products from the US and Europe as it had done since 1700 it would have remained a backward agricultural economy. It took 20 years of focused effort after 2000 for China with US technological assistance to excel in manufacturing, as the US had done after 1920. Can or cannot the US excel in Manufacturing with its own focused effort and restore jobs and decent wages to the American people, that is the question. That a $1 trillion deficit that has already destroyed the US manufacturing and its capacity to defend itself by rapidly building up the US Navy, is that not an emergency, then what is, is also the question, and the role, the duty, of the president of the US in such a situation. The federal appeals court has allowed the DJT Tariffs to remain in place till it goes to the US Supreme Court. Today May 30 the WSJ in a front page article shown here says the one California shipyard could assemble a supply ship in 5 days in 1942. China's independence in the fight against Imperial Japan and the Kwantung Army's adventures, and the independence of Europe in the 1940's depended on this vital US capacity. Is this forgotten? FDR acted step by step by 1938 to restore the US lost capacity at that time, what is the role of the president today? ...

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New home sales in the USA rise 4.7% in February 2009 from the previous month, reversing the steady decline in new home sales from August of last year. This puts them at a 337,000 annual rate and this is sharply down from this time last year when sales were in the 500,000-600,000 range. A lot of the activity in housing sales is in foreclosure sales especially in California. Foreclosure sales in California in February 2009 were 58% of total existing home sales compared to 33% in February 2008 according to MDA DataQuick of San Diego, cited in Bloomberg News. The drop in the median home price for a existing single family detached home was sharp from $418,000 in February 2008 to $247,000 in February 2009, a drop of 41%. As aresult sales of existing family homes in California went up by 83% in February from the previous year as reported by the California Association of Realtors, shrinking inventories to about a 6 month supply if the current sales pace holds from the 15 month supply existing in 2008. The government's $8000 tax credit for purchases of homes, the falling prices and lower mortgage rates, are helping to lower inventories of new homes. The number for the US has fallen to 330,000 new homes, as inventories are dropping and new construction is slowing. The housing picture depends also on the number of jobs that are lost during the rest of 2009 and into 2010. And this will play abig part in determining whether housing recovers. The current job losses of 600,000 a month are grounds for caution....

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Ford is offering packages with additional incentives, college tution for entire family, packages of upto $140,000 to sign up workers to take buyouts. Its goal is to get 8000 more workers to take buyouts. This is in addition to the 32,000 workers already given buyouts or early retirement.It is putting up job fairs in its plants and mailing each of its 54,000 hourly workers full length DVD " Connecting With Your Future" that shows the advantages of looking beyond the assembly line jobs in auto plants. This suggests that Ford has done its anlaysis and sees things getting tougher in the US auto market over the next few years. The US auto industry will definitely see a smaller market and shrinking sales from now on. Just look at the shrinking sales in the Japanese and German auto industry. Something like this is likely to happen in the US and the attention to sales is going to shift overseas where most of the new sales are going to occur. Companies like GM and Ford will do what IBM and GE are doing shifting their focus to overseas sales in an expanding global economy with more than 50% of their sales from overseas and the US markets playing a smaller role. All this means fewer workers needed in the USA and new workers and plants to be put up overseas in new international locations over the next 10-15 years. Its not just a down cycle for the auto industry, its a big shift and the kind of change that happens every 50 or 100 years as huge macro changes are underway in the world....

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The Blinken Wang Yi meeting at the G-2- in Indonesia is the first high level meeting between US and China since March when the Ukraine war started. In the press briefing after the meeting Blinken said "more than four months into this brutal invasion the PRC stands by Russia." He pointed to Beijing support of Russia at the United Nations, dissemination of Russian talking points through Chinese state media and joint military exercizes with Moscow. One aspect of the relations that is beyond the control or good intentions of the two countries top diplomats is the tit for tat response that began with the presidency of Donald Trump. Trump may have seen this as a way to talk to the voter base fed up with two decades of one sided trade with China with manufacturing shipped out to China and local communities of families and workers in regions across the US losing jobs and in decline. Much of this shift was done by US companies during the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations over two decades. The strident tone adopted by Trump was met by tit for tat responses in Chinese media till the pandemic when it assumed a new aspect of Chinese origins of the coronavirus. The result is that Sinophobia in the US is met by a response in Chinese media and in the thinking of the Chinese leadership under Jinping that now sees the relationship as having already shifted during the pandemic. The paradox in this is that the US in its effort to get other countries on its side is only beginning to make an effort of get America's own companies and large business investors on its side. Most American companies are still continuing trade and business with China as before.  The same situation exists with the shift of manufacturing from Japan and the European Union to China, with the loss of jobs and decline of local communities that depended on manufacturing. Japanese and European companies are acting in ways that are similar to American companies. Having managed the shift of manufacturing from European Union and Japan to China these companies have done little to change this business situation in 2022 carrying on as before. This is the paradox of the current situation that business both in the US and EU, and Japan is not on the side of their governments, even as their governments attitude to China, particularly now after the pandemic and the Ukraine war has shifted drastically. Alongside this is the popular opinion that has shifted gradually over the last 10 years in the US and EU, first in these very local communities that lost manufacturing to China, and then across broader sections of the public, and now across whole regions of America, Britain, the EU and Japan. This shift in popular opinion has little interest in the way business conducts business overseas or governments conduct diplomacy in nuanced statements. As a result neither the governments of the US, EU and Japan or the business of the US, EU and Japan are in control of this shifting situation that has its momentum and pace operating quite independently of governments and business. And public opinion across America, Europe, Japan, and also in India is moving in an entirely new direction.     ...

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Boosting vaccine production for the Indo-Pacific region that includes Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam with production done through Biological E in Hyderabad will be discussed at the meeting with Biden. Japan will fund the project, and Australia will handle the distribution. This will be part of a followup to a March 12 virtual meeting of Quad leaders. This effort to meet the vaccine supplies challenge for the Asian region covering south east Asia and its population of 600 million will be one of the major outcomes of Quad countries collaboration, making it a peacetime collaboration that supports development in the region without burdening the financial position of any country.  The other part of US- Indian collaboration and Quad collaboration centers on two related themes after healthcare and pandemic. The immediate challenge is to tackle the breakdown in the supply chain for semiconductors. The US and Europe can no longer depend entirely on a supply chain based in Taiwan. The narrowest part of the Taiwan Straits which separates Taiwan from the Chinese mainland is only 81 miles wide, which makes continued dependence on chip production on Taiwan an unreliable option and the need to build a new supply chain for Japan, EU and US. Plans will be made to address this in the talks. The Biden administration has already taken action with Intel Corp making a U turn and bringing chip manufacturing back home to the US with $50 billion investment planned. India and other Asian countries may form additional options for semiconductor manufacturing. The third part of the Quad effort will center on US and Japan ramping up infrastructure building capabilities with India to build infrastructure across Asian countries and in Africa that will be financed in a way that will not have some of the liabilities of the Chinese initiative called Belt and Road. Loans given by Chinese state banks and contracts including manpower from Chinese contractors are now seen as not meeting the needs of Asian and African countries. These loans most of the time cannot be repaid as in Zambia, and other parts of Africa, and in Pakistan, leading to interest accumulating on debt and making future infrastructure development extremely difficult. The use of manpower from China also means no learning curve for infrastructure is formed for local companies and infrastructure comes without new jobs jobs being created.  For most of the period 1900 -1950 the British built Asian and African infrastructure. During the period 1950 onwards the US assumed a major role, as did the Soviets. This changed after belligerent Reagan administration policies and wars in the Middle East sapped the funds that could have gone to infrastructure building that would improved living standards in Asia and Africa. Mr Biden wants to see this change and this is what he meant when he said at the UN General Assembly today- " we want relentless diplomacy to take the place of relentless wars." He means every word of this and the diplomacy is between allies and also adversaries, but mostly with allies such as Japan, the EU and India to build a better world. That he has to do this quickly Biden is aware of that, which is why he said "the next 10 years will determine our future."   ...

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Questions about the every 5 years 20th Party Congress of the CCP or Chinese Communist Party, and the 2300 representatives attending from all parts of China are answered in this report in The Guardian.  Xi Jinping is expected to get a third term. To outsiders in US and Europe it is all about power in China, to insiders in China it is about China making it through the 100 years since the 1901 revolution and the tumult, the chaos of the first 100 years, and now a period of modernization and growing incomes,  the need to create jobs, tackle climate change, ensure a good future for the Chinese people. 2300 party members representing millions of party members in China attend the gathering. New appointments and retirements take place at this Congress. Of this there are 200 elite members of the Central Committee with voting rights. This central committee is responsible for electing a 25 member Politburo, of which the seven most senior persons are appointed to the Politburo Standing Committee. Xi Jinping is the General Secretary, the most senior position in this hierarchy. Age related retirements are at 68 years and a new Politburo standing committee is announced at each Congress. After the Bo Xilai effort to take power and take China in a new and unknown direction, and the gradual loss of the party's respect from corruption and abuses of power by local officials, Xi Jinping sensed problems in the future and conducted a anti-corruption campaign. Most of the system of government set up during the Deng and Jiang Zemin years after 1980 remains in place with Jinping calling for a revival of China, the next stage of modernization, under the banner of the CCP. The result of the anti-corruption campaign and a third term assumed by Xi including lifting of a term limit for heading the CCP, gives Xi Jinping an opportunity to shape the future for China as Deng did after 1980. Jinping in the manner of Deng sees the CCP as the organization that can continue the modernization and growth of China. The model set by Deng and Zemin of local autonomy for economy and centralized overall direction continues under Jinping who is General Secretary since 2012. China has made rapid growth during the period 2000-2022, but faces challenges of reorienting its economy away from dependence on a tight economic export oriented relationship with the US and EU, as supply chains are being shifted after the pandemic. This means more unemployment and need for careful economic planning and investment to create jobs in other sectors, and to meet the challenges of unequal distribution of wealth in China after hypergrowth that hurt China in some ways, and in the climate change effects of use of coal other fossil fuels. As focus of interest is on Jinping externally, within China it is these three challenges that must be uppermost in the minds of the 20th Congress members. Much of this stems from the tumult of the century that began with the 1901 revolution through Japanese invasion and upheavals in the 60's and 70's, leading to the rare period of stability and growth in the last 20 years. Jinping like Deng and Zemin has personal memories of the anguish of this period and the tumult, the chaos of the 20th century for China, and the yearning for stability with modernization.   ...

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It is not a story that most people grasp or understand- the long term effects of the US immigration surge of 2023 and its source mostly from Venezuela. The  US Congressional Budget Office says labor force in 2033 ten years from now will be larger by 5.2 million people and younger as a result of the immigration surge in 2023 from about 1 million immigrants each year in the 2010's to 3.3 million. About 2.5 million crossed the southwestern border in 2023. Much of it the result of the collapse of the Venezuelan economy and its middle and upper classes leaving the country. This was worsened by the US sanctions on the Maduro government including under president Trump, say experts in an adjoining NYT article on the 7 million people who left Venezuela to go to Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Chile since 2012, then making their way up the Darien Gap to the US. Something that could have happened under a Republican president if the US Congress could not reach bipartisan agreement on correcting asylum and parole policy. As a result of this surge US Gross Domestic Product  in 2033 will be 3% larger. When the large Asian economies are seeing a aging workforce, Japan for the last decade and China now following Japan, the US labor force will be younger than it would be without this unusual surge in immigration of the last 2 years. The federal deficit will be smaller at 6.4% instead of 7.3% in 2033 as immigrants will pay taxes on income. Another aspect of this larger infusion of immigrants is that after the pandemic shut down immigration entirely there were severe shortages in the hospitality and restaurant, construction, healthcare industries. And with the trillions of dollars in investment that the Biden administration is making with more factories - this will absorb most of the immigrant surge by 2033. With some positive effects in the competition with rising Asian economies China and India. Particularly consider with the younger demographic India of 1.4 billion people. It will mean more factories can be built in the US and there will be workers for these factories in the US at wages that keep the US economy competitive years from now in 2033. This is a sobering aspect of the current situation viewed from what will be seen by America's younger generation. And under the bipartisan compromise in Congress correcting asylum and parole policy that was shut down by the former president, Republican senators understood very well that the immigration surge of 2023 would have some constructive effects for the long term, while its effects on the short term would be mitigated by Biden's commitment to close the border in 2024. This did not happen, yet the future for America's younger generation is bright under the Biden plan for massive investment in manufacturing and jobs in the US, and with the millions of immigrants needed to fill the jobs that investment will create by 2033. It will make America with a younger work force than Europe or China, only India having a younger workforce in 2033. ...

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 Harris's role for the Border was limited to telling Central American migrants to stay home. Much of the migration was a result of wars started in the Reagan years in Central American states of Nicaragua and San Salvador. This destabilized the region and led to gangs taking over parts of the country in San Salvador and entrenching Castro style regime in Nicaragua, leading to outward migration of young people. As this report points out Harris was supposed to take on decades of such misguided policies in Central America in a few months. A drought hit agricultural coffee regions of Guatemala increasing migration. Her role instead was to ensure several wins. Win No.1 to generate stability setting up the peaceful transfer of power in Guatemala, singling out corrupt regimes. Win No. 2 to generate jobs. US AID and IFDC loans were increased, foreign investment attracted to generate 250,000 jobs. Win No. 3 the increased stability led to gradually declining migration from Central America. What replaced it was Venezuela. And that is a repeat story of Reagan style wars in Central America. Under the Trump Administration the US did not take up the Monroe Doctrine and act directly to support a stable fairly elected government in Venezuela, an obvious solution. Instead going half way- destabilizing the government but then left it on its own. The result about a third of the population leaving the country in these years to Colombia and other parts of Latin America in a immense humanitarian tragedy.  In 2023 Venezuelans not Guatemalans entered at the US Border in large numbers, most of them middle class families that left Venezuela after hyperinflation and mismanagement of the economy. Realizing the danger by January 2024 Biden negotiated with Senate Minority Leader McConnell and his Republican representative Senator Lankford to pass legislation in the Senate closing the Border. All that was needed was the House to act and 30 years of Border problem would be solved.This was blocked in the House by new Speaker Mike Johnson on advice from former president Trump who chose to use the issue in the 2024 election. Biden then used his executive powers to close the Border leading to lower numbers of migrants under Biden by July 2024 than under Trump. Migration Border Czar was never a term used by Democrats in the Obama and Biden years. Biden who also served in a role given migration as one of the issues to handle under Obama, had this as only one of his assignments. Biden played more important roles in foreign policy with his experience as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for decades. Border policy was made by president Obama and his advisers. The same is true of Harris, Border policy being done by president Biden and his advisers. Similar to Biden's role as VP Harris was given assignment to cover foreign policy and was the US representative at 3 Munich Security Conferences in 2021-2024 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Chancellor Scholz of Germany said of Harris last week that he had full confidence in Harris as both competent and experienced. ...

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  “And 5 million manufacturing jobs were lost while racking up trade deficits of $19 trillion." The Washington Post does not deny this as false, and this is the crux of the point DJT has made what everyone with eyes to see has seen for 40 years. DJT sometimes exaggerates to make his point. False should mean the meaning is false not that a particular number 70% vs 50% for India's tariff on Harley Davidson motorcycles. It should also consider PM Modi's stand for India- to support the US position when it comes to American factories closing by the thousands and destroying not just it's manufacturing but also it's middle class, just as Gandhi would have done. That close is India's sentiment for the American people and the Republic, and the defense of its recovery as a manufacturing nation for its workers and families. DJT did not say that it is a poor country as the Washington Post says is "Trump's telling." As Greg Ip of the WSJ pointed out in 2024, it is that the US simply cannot sustain the blows to its workers and its manufacturing base from a $1 trillion deficit year after year with China. Before bringing economist's into the picture one has facts of what the devastation to American workers has done to communities across America. DJT said and most workers will stand by his words- "For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped, and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike. American steelworkers, auto workers, farmers, and skilled craftsmen. They really suffered gravely. They watched in anguish as foreign leaders have stolen our jobs, foreign cheaters have ransacked our factories, and foreign scavengers have torn apart our once beautiful American dream." Not a single report in the US and foreign media reports of Liberation Day Rose Garden speech by DJT on April 2, 2025, says that DJT said he would trust what he sees with his own eyes and experience for 40 years, and not economists who have turned their backs on American workers, turned to a UAW worker from Detroit and asked him to tell what he saw for 40 years.  "Brian, I’d like to have you come up here for a second. Okay? I just see him sitting. He’s been a fan of ours, and he understands this business a lot better than the economists, a lot better than anybody. Brian, say a few words, please. Would you?" And this what Brian a retired autoworker from Macomb Conty, Michigan saw for 40 years that economists refused to see in their economic theories- "I have watched my entire life, I have watched plant after plant after plant in Detroit and in the Metro Detroit area close. There are now plants sitting idle. There are now plants that are underutilized, and Donald Trump’s policies are going to bring product back into those underutilized plants. There’s going to be new investment. There’s going to be new plants built."     ...

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Nelson Schwartz provides an exceptional indepth account on the changing leadership role of James Gorman at Morgan Stanley. Gorman is from Melbourne, Australia. He studied law before joining Columbia Business School. Consulting with McKinsey was followed with a job at Merrill Lynch. He joined Morgan Stanley in 2006 before the collapse of Merrill. Compared to his predecessor John Mack in the CEO role, James Gorman is a quiet type who prefers to stay out of the limelight.

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A WSJ/NBC poll in April 2017 shows about three quarters of Americans disapprove of Congress's job performance, up 12 percentage points since Feb, and one fifth approve- down nine percentage points. Congress has had a low rating in the 20% point range since 2011. Speaker Ryan is viewed negatively by 40%, compared to 22% having a positive view.