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Australian anthropologist Genevieve Bell heads a group of 75 people at Intel Labs working to figure out all the ways technology affects people and society. Here she talks to NYT's Quentin Hardy. She says there are three areas in which technology is changing the way we live, and act, and our relationship to society. Like electrification the digital revolution is changing the concept of time, introducing new ideas about availability and response time. Here she points out the need to leave some parts of the day for disconnectedness, to preserve quiet time in our lives for recharging and getting a sense of who and where we are. Then there is the idea of space, of imaginary space when connecting to people in distant places, and physical space such as at airports and public places with wifi and internet to connect. After space and time come social relationships, about relating to one's fellow human beings. With this comes ideas of privacy, security and risk. With changes in how we view time, space and social relationships, comes anxiety. Social movements are likely to develop around ideas of government and governance, on issues such as what it means to be unequal and denied economic opportunity, when the digital revolution itself is opening up new visions of what is possible, just as electrification did at the turn of the twentieth century....

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Asians are highly overrepresented. Hispanic communities are underrepresented in the UC California system colleges but still make up more than whites at 36% of the UC colleges. Whites make up about 17% and are also underepresented. There are imbalances all around and large investment is needed badly at the public school levels to motivate white and minority students who have fallen behind. Strengthening reading comprehension skills by pouring in new resources is a first and fundamental step to give whites and minorities a better chance- it can be done. There are three times as many white families that make less than $50,000 a year as Black and Hispanic families showing huge income gaps in the white segment. Universities by taking into account socioeconomic factors can help bring a more diverse socio economic class than a racially diverse class. This helps the white community after the outsourcing of US manufacturing and shrinking of the white middle class from being highly underrepresented in universities. The black communities have about 2% of the UC colleges with about 5% of the California population. ...

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Women 16-24 years make 10% more than men in 2025 in both blue collar and white collar jobs, says a report titled Lost Boys from the Center for Social Justice in the UK. Young men face a social crisis in both the UK and the US. More men are dropping out after high school and not going to college as college becomes less and less affordable in the US and in the UK.

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Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, is coming under increasing criticism for supporting the Conservative-Liberal coalition government's austerity plan, and for lack of efforts to fight inflationary pressures. On a major issue on which King has taken a clear stand- that the largest British banks should increase capital levels exceeding the international standards- not much has happened. Consumer prices in Britain were up at a 3.7% annual rate in December, and the government's austerity policies will also cause pain. In a recent speech King said that the Bank of England had limited ability to fight the higher unemployment and increased inflation. It was an admission of the limits of central bankers in the current situation. King said "a squeeze in living standards is the inevitable price to pay for the financial crisis and the subsequent rebalancing of the UK and world economies.

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The British parliament's petitions website crashed because of the high volume of petitions calling for revoking Article 50 and remaining in the European Union. In December the European Court of Justice ruled that UK can unilaterally revoke Article 50 the basis of leaving the UK, and decide to remain in the European Union. 

The petition currently has 700,000 signatures. Off to a slow start in first week, once it picked up the dam burst as frustrated Britons added their support. In January the petition calling for EU to revoke Article 50 got 371,000 signatures.

Liberal Democrat and Labour MP's joined in support till parliament's site crashed with overload on the system.

 

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Harold Thibault of Le Monde France says, the rise of China in the past 50 years means the US is wondering whether engaging China turned out be something different than what Clinton anticipated when letting China join WTO without strict rules for a level playing field, and the Bush- Obama years when nothing was done to protect American manufacturing in small towns across America from the ravages of so called "free trade" that was not free, and the effort of American business to integrate its operations with China as single supplier without any guidance from government, behaviour that started with "American triumphalism" of the 1970's and 1990's, that left America with a destroyed industrial base. The Reagan wars that went on with Bush in the Middle East and South Asia and were continued through the Obama years allowed not just the waste of American resources and energy, it also provided a distraction from vital issues of the industrial base in manufacturing and technologies. Only DJT and Biden had the courage to end these wars and focus on the real issues facing the Nation and provide a continuity across three administrations from 2016-2029 to restore America to its past. ...

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At a glance see on a world map with colors which countries have accomplished the transition to renewable so as not to get caught in the quagmire of the Middle East for oil supplies- most of Europe has done very well, and the laggards- Asia from China and India that are making an effort to Japan which has a poor dismal record. Brazil Uruguay 90% Denmark 80% Canada 66% Germany Spain and Finland 50% UK 46% Italy 42%  France 27%- share of renewables in electricity production (2023). This means much of the world is not dependent on volatile energy supplies from the Middle East. It is only in China, India, Japan, South Korea that dependence is high on Middle East. And in China and India this is the time to focus again on renewables. Most baffling is Japan with only 23% and it is the country that has so much of its supplies flowing through the Persian Gulf volatile oil lane- when Europe has moved on and accomplished the task of avoiding volatile Gulf region.

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Collapse of the easten european economies says the Economist would raise questions about the idea of a united Europe, the idea of the EU itself, and destabilize the euro - as countries in the EU like Ireland and Greece are in just as bad a shape. And in talk of enlargement of the EU will be doomed, and this is true of the western Balkans, TUrkey, and some countries int he former Soviet Union. Politically letting these countries derift could mean they fall for populists and nationalists of the bad type. And there is the serious economic consideration for banks in Austria, Italy and Sweden, which are heavily involved in lending to Eastern Europe. They could see catastrophic losses and put the banking systems of these countries at risk. Sweden has already chosen to help the Baltic Countries, and sees it has its political responsibility, and the whole Baltic region as its home, see link. The Economist suggests a differentiated approach depending on which group of countries in Eastern and Central Europe something that Angela Merkel of Germany also supports. For Ukraine the Economist says its best to let the IMF provide assistance. For the Baltic countries, plus Bulgaria, the Economist advocates an accelerated path to the euro, on the grounds that they are tiny and shouln't affect confidence in the euro. The Baltic countries have a population of 7 million. This approach is not supported by the European Commission or the European Central Bank. For the 4 larger countries, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Romania, the Economist says the priority should be to prevent further currency collapse, and to rescue the banks responsible for the foreign currency loans that are going bad, with the pain being shared between debtors and the banks, governments of lending and borrowing countries. Financial institutions like the ECB, the IMF, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Developemnt, and the European Investment Bank should help support the rescue effort. ...

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The US under president DJT puts out a new National Security Strategy in a document which states it clearly. The days of the Middle East given importance are thankfully over it says. The focus is on the First Islands, from Taiwan, Philippines to Japan for strengthening defense in relation to China. The Monroe Doctrine is now part of US foreign policy with a DJT addition- "that the American people- not foreign nations or globalist institutions- will always control our own destiny in our hemisphere."  It also means the US has a new policy towards Russia and for NATO.  The DJT administration priority, it states, is “ending the perception, and preventing the reality, of NATO as a perpetually expanding alliance.” The new strategy is that Europe needs to “take primary responsibility for its own defense.” The Monroe Doctrine and the disassociation with NATO expansion are linked. How so? Russia's foreign policy is for winning recognition as a Northern European Power with its own version of the Monroe Doctrine, being able to control its destiny in its sphere of influence. The way the Monroe Doctrine was implemented in 1823 was by a tacit recognition gained from Britain that it would support the US in its idea of no European colonial powers (France, Spain other ) being allowed to interfere in Latin America, in the western hemisphere. In 2025 the way the Monroe Doctrine is implemented with the DJT Corollary is that the US is tacitly gaining support from Russia/China for implementing the Monroe Doctrine so that no foreign powers will interfere in US sphere influence in the western hemisphere.  Where does this leave Europe and Ukraine? European Union and NATO expansion has now gone too far and NATO which was primarily for Cold War struggle between Communism and US/UK style democracies is over, but NATO has not been disbanded, or a new alliance setup with new goals. Instead as it lingers on it has created new problems such as NATO expansion to the borders of Russia, creating security risks for Russia. This has led to the war in Ukraine and the Republican administration under DJT seeks to defuse tensions and the Ukraine war by excluding NATO expansion, removing the US from European security by delegating that back to Europe (Germany and France, Italy, UK) and by acting as a moderating influence between Russia and Germany, France, that see Russia as a threat after it's attack on Ukraine. US also upholds the policy and principle of no nation invading another country, as Russia did with Ukraine, and in anticipation of the China threat to Taiwan. This part gets nuanced but the overall policy is coherent and Russia accepts this, China is gradually coming to the idea that it has to accept this situation with Taiwan to preserve its economic advances and its exports to the US and EU.  In practice once the interference of China or Russia is removed and European powers in addition, the US has freedom of action in the Western hemisphere and Latin America to prevent crises such as with drug trafficking gangs in Mexico and Venezuela, and unstable regimes sending people north to the US across the Mexican border as from Central America and Venezuela.   ...

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The cash for clunkers program in turning in excellent results bothy in terms of promoting sales and in terms of the mileage improvement for the new cars put on the road. For Motor saw sales up 2.4% over same month 2008 and Hyundai 11% increase. In the light of this and the speed with wihich the initial $1 billion was used up and the $2 billion that was aded by Congress, and the success of the program in Europe, its hard to understand so little money has been allocated to this program as a part of stimulus spending. Senators Feinstein, Collins and Schumer are encouraged by the customer reaction to choose higher mileage vehicles. According to the Transportation Department, the average fuel efficiency of trade ins was 15.8 mpg, and the average fuel efficiency of vehicles traded in 25.4 mpg. Equally significant was that 83% of the trade-ins were trucks and 60% of new purchases were cars. The Ford Focus was the top selling vehicle. Dealers estimate they sold 250,000 cars with the rebate money....

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi sends message to the BIMSTEC summit as it meets in in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar is visiting Sri Lanka for the summit of Bay of Bengal Initiative countries. Modi calls for greater cooperation and free trade agreements to bring these countries together- Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, India.

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The 1.5 million people in the six boroughs of New York city where they do not always know when their next meal comes from. This was before th pandemic hit. Today after the coronavirus this has grown to 2 million says the president of Food Banks for New York city. This FR24 report looks at the deep problems in the social fabric of America that have developed over decades of misallocation of capital away from health, education, infrastructure, and manufacturing.

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The Oxford vaccine is showing promising results and is expected to be authorized for use by December 2020. The vaccine being developed in partnership with Astra Zeneca PLC for marketing and Serum Institute of India for mass manufacturing is shown to be proven 90% effective in preventing infections in clinical trials. The partners say there were no serous safety events and the vaccine has proven 62% to 90% effective with an average of 70%.  This vaccine is significant because it is being developed with this partnership not seeking profits from this venture, providing it at cost and keeping the price to about $4 a dose compared to competitors Moderna and Pfizer whose vaccine is expected to be at $24 a dose. The Oxford vaccine also uses existing technology for vaccines and manufacturing is being done in India with the world's top manufacturer of vaccines. By using existing technology unlike the Pfizer and Moderna technology Oxford has taken an approach that could prove to be unique by minimizing side effects for vaccines that are being developed with such speed. By not requiring refrigeration at very low temperatures the vaccine makes itself ready for immediate and widespread uses all over the world. By use in its home country India with its large population Oxford vaccine can gain even wider acceptance because of India's long experience in pharmaceutical technology and manufacturing. Of particular interest is the study of 23,000 participants showing that the 90% effective dosage is one that only requires half a dose for the first shot. This say scientists is because the vaccine first dose prepares the body for a more powerful second dose and creates the maximum effect. This means the vaccine can be used for more doses than 2 full doses. It can be stored in a fridge making it easy to use in many countries. The full study will have 60,000 participants spread across U.S. Britain, Brazil South Africa and India. ...

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About one third of people in America are living in areas where there is a critical shortage of ICU beds. Deaths in America are averaging 2200 a day on December 8, 2020.

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French pharmaceutical company Sanofi will produce 100 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine to meet vaccine shortages in Europe. Sanofi's own vaccine will take longer, possibly till the end of 2021.