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Note this comment by the head of the U.S. National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration in the Bush Administration. NHTSA Administrator Jackie Glassman says the average mileage for the fleet today is 30 miles per gallon and raising the current standard of 27.5 mpg for an automakers passenger fleet by 2.5 mpg won't put much pressure on automakers. The Bush administration- and the prior Clinton administration- has not committed to making major improvements to the national mileage standards, with the current standards of 27.5 mpg not having changed since 1990! Glassman says the NHTSA starts with the manufacturers product plans and then sees whether it can get additional fuel savings with these plans. This suggests an NHTSA that is more follower to the auto industry rather than a leader in setting the standards that the auto industry then tries to achieve to reduce the U.S. dependence on foreign oil. Also note that it takes 2 years for things to change, as it will take months for rule changes, and 18 months have to be given to automakers to implement the new rules. By 2008 the fuel efficiency based on market competition and Toyota focussing on hybrids and higher fuel efficiency across the whole car lines, might well exceed any new standards that are watered down, especially if crude prices hold up. Lawsuits by attorney generals of different states and the Lugar-Obama bipartisan bill pushing the adminsitration to mandate higher standards are intended to put pressure on the Bush administration to come up with new higher standards. The failure of Democrats and Republicans in the Clinton and Bush years to raise standards and require the auto companies to use new technology to meet these standards with government assistance is one of the significant failures. This will affect the prospects for the U.S. economy in the years ahead....

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Amy Chozick of the NYT describes the puzzling idea of a Methodist do-gooder, with serious concern for injustices in the South, making an effort to accumulate money. Especially considering that Hillary Clinton must have known that speechmaking fees would come up in a presidential election campaign. Chozick describes in some detail the two years Hillary tried to shore up the family's finances after Bill Clinton's defeat in the 1980 election for Governor. Following the defeat Bill Clinton went back all over the state to voters to hear their complaints, sometimes for hours at a time. It was upto Hillary to shore up the family's finances. Hillary had to stretch to buy a $112,000 home in a better residential neighborhood. Family friends say Bill was never that interested in money, and never worried about the family's finances. Things were so bleak according to this account that Hillary worried about how they would pay for daughter Chelsea's college tution, as her own mother's experience has always remained with her of being denied a college education because of lack of money. During the Democratic Convention this comes up in the video introduction, something that most people are unaware of, which must have been difficult for an intensely private person like Hillary. Her mother is described in that video as having to go to the corner grocery store as a child with coupons for food. The income of the Clintons as professors in the years around 1975 was $18,000 each. As governor Mr. Clinton earned $33,519 in 1978 with combined income at $51,173 adding Hillary's work at the Rose law firm. A one time deal in the commodities market made 100,000, and an investment in land in the Ozarks led to losses- all at a time when other highly educated people in Arkansas were doing extremely well, including the Walton family. It wasn't until 1992 when Bill Clinton was running for president did the couple make higher income of $297,177 reported in 1992 tax returns. At this time entering the White House, of recent presidents only Harry Truman had lower net worth. Hillary donated her book proceeds for "It Takes a Village," to charity, and turned down an advance. By the time they left office the couple were faced with legal debts, owing $5 million in legal fees- Hillary Clinton saying they were "Dead broke." The former president now sought help to buy a Dutch Colonial in Chappaqua, New York, for $1.7 million. President Jimmy Carter was also facing large losses in his peanut business in Georgia when he left office, only to turn to writing books to salvage his finances. Hoover, FDR, Kennedy, George Bush, George W. Bush, were from families with great wealth or built their fortunes, including candidate Trump, sometimes using influence or connections or in the case of Kennedy's family gaining from the end of Prohibition. Eisenhower, Reagan, Carter were of more modest wealth. Only Harry Truman remains the awesome exception of dignity with extremely modest wealth, a small house in Independence, Missouri, no presidential pension, only an army pension of $112.56 a month in 1953. Truman's story also offers another aspect of public service of an exceptional kind and its value to the country for people to reflect on. A presidential pension of $25,000 was set up one year after Truman left office.  Experts say Truman's Senate Committee over 8 years 1941-1948, helped save billions of dollars in waste, fraud, and in faulty airplane as well as munitions development during the war effort, including saving thousands of lives.  In his farewell address in January 1953, Truman said he had spent 17 hours a day for eight years with no payment for overtime. In the address he correctly predicts that the Cold War would be won and he set the course. It also happened as predicted in that address with changes in the Kremlin and failure in the satellite states. Hillary Clinton put in these 17 hours and gained unmatched experience as Secretary of State, and is in a positon to set the course ahead in a manner that Truman once did in a complex world where careful policy, good judgement and in some situations strong action is needed. Such invaluable public service has never really been rewarded in the way business leaders are, not by a small fraction - too long simply taken for granted.  Considering her life story Hillary Clinton appears to have struggled with this all her life, to create a safety net that too often cracked, sometimes suddenly and unexpectedly. Has this concern sometimes gone too far, could better judgement be exercized. Perhaps or probably. Should it be seen in the context that Truman's situation reminds us. Probably.         ...

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S. Korea and the U.S. propose limiting trade imbalances to 4% of each country's GDP by 2015. S. Korea is the host of the current G-20 meeting. Germany and Japan oppose this move, arguing that their governments cannot engineer such outcomes, as it was determined by economic activity in the private sector. Japan's representative, Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda, said that while he was dubious about the idea of setting strict numerical goals, it would be acceptable to use them as reference numbers. Germany has traditionally opposed the idea. Germany wants to be counted as part of the European Union, rather than as a single nation, in any such reference goal. China has not commented on the target. S. Korea has presented the idea as a way to use more than currency exchange rates to achieve a global rebalancing. And People's Bank of China Deputy Gov. Yi Gang said Oct 10, that China is planning policies that could result in its surplus falling below 4% of GDP in 3 to 5 years, from about 5.8% in 2009....

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Peggy Noonan says that Trump's group has broken from the Republican Party. She also describes the Republican party as broken, that it cannot look to the past or 1980. She says two unwon wars, with one a catastrophe, and a great recession are enough to break any party. Worse the top of the party believes in things such as immigration, trade, entitlements, that the bottom doesn't, says Noonan. You have a situation where the base has left the party leadership. She describes Hillary Clinton as having a web of relationships and arrangements from the past, and with the idea that is popular among Republicans that she is only interested in acquiring power. Sanders is respected by Conservatives for his sincerity. Noonan sees God's role as chastising in this election, reminding people about what can go wrong and what needs to be done as the damage is surveyed for democracy and the country. The only reason for hope Noonan sees is in the way the 2016 U.S. presidential election is turning the decision over to the young people of America, who can decide who shapes the future. ...

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Mr. Alter's "His Very Best," shows Jimmy Carter much more than a one term president, a president who brought compassion, decency and transparency to the presidency. Here a critical care physician describes Jimmy Carter's decision for "hospice" care and what it means to spend the last months not just a few days in the company of family at home. Carter had foresight to put solar panels on the White House, and started initiatives in housing and health, and maintained an active healthy lifestyle that is a role model for all Americans.

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A second survey by the Indian Council of Medical Research shows an increase in the number of people estimated to be affected. The survey sampled people from 70 districts in 21 States in India. Overall prevalence using this method is high at about 21.5%. India has confirmed 10 million cases. Children and young are also affected.

Dr. Balaram Bhargava, Director General of ICMR, says "The message is that large proportion of the population remains vulnerable, Vaccines are necessary, and there can be no complacency with regards masks, social distancing and hand hygiene." India has so far not seen the kind of second wave happening in Europe and the US, yet the risks remain, showing the need for rapid implementation of the vaccine program for 300 million in the first part of the vaccination drive.

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Le Monde asks what is the role of religion in the founding of the US from the time of Mayflower Compact 1620 by Calvinist preachers? Two books published after the failure of the Spanish Armada naval invasion of Britain under Queen Elizabeth in 1588 set the stage for an alternative colonization of America and Britain's effort to contest the Americas against the Catholic monarchs of Spain. Agnes Delahaye, Prof of American Civilization at Lumiere University Lyon 2, in France, describes this in an interview in Le Monde. Her book is Adventurers, Puritans, Pilgrims, Amerca's Founding Myths. The first book in 1583 that set the stage for English exploration in the Americas is- A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies by a Dominican missionary, Bartolome de las Casas, and says the Spanish solders tarnished and ruined their Christian duty. The second in 1584 was Discourse of Western Planting by Richard Hakluyt showed Queen Elizabeth with the true religious conviction and practice against the Spanish "black legend," of conquest, and unChristian treatment of native Americans. The Pilgrim Fathers and the migration on the Mayflower and other British ships came through this movement. The settlers around 1600 came from small Calvinist congregations under Brewster and Robinson. Mayflower Compact was the constitutional document in 1620 setting forth their aims. ...

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The constructive influence of John McDonnell in the Labor Party. McDonnell played a part in running the Greater London Council and understands what it takes to run an administration. He sees the dissension in the Labor Party as a distraction from the very real task of offering an alternative to the fracturing in the Conservative Party over soft or hard Brexit. 

Labor Party still has about 40% support edging out the Conservatives and can be seen as ready to form the next government, says the Economist magazine.  What is important is Corbyn's continued ability to compromise to bring together different elements in the party and focus on big initiatives.

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Melissa Eddy gives an exceptionally vivid account of how life in a smaller city is changed by the arrival of immigrants. She describes the emotions of Christa Menden, owner of a flower shop in Bonn, who had to face stone throwing demonstrators on the street, and how this is changing the tranquil nature of Bonn, Solingen and other smaller cities in Germany. Muslims who have integrated into German life and the city authorites see years of integration efforts being setback by the activities of a few extremists. Hans Peter Weisz is one resident of Bonn who sees the unhealthy nature of the resulting wariness to foreigners in an open, outward looking Germany

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Relations between Germany and the U.S. improve in the last year of the Obama administration. The low point is the NSA spying scandal. By 2015 with the Ukraine crisis and the refugee crisis, the U.S. and Germany develop closer relations. In April 2016 U.S. president Obama visits the Hannover trade fair and meets German chancellor Merkel, following a trip to Britian where he expresses support for Britain's membership in the EUropean Union. The U.S. general election campaign with less engagement of the U.S. in the world preferred by candidates Trump and Sanders, the Brexit vote in Britain, also creates a new environment and makes clear the need to support closer ties in an interconnected world.

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Geely's plans for Volvo are to build a presence for Volvo in China. This includes plans for additional local manufacturing facilities. One near Shanghai, another in Chengdu, and another being considered for Daqing. Each plant would produce 100,000 cars, with the Chengdu plant nearly complete and the others still to be built. Geely has received $444 million and $148 million respectively from the municipal governments of Daqing and Shanghai. Geely executives pointed to the need to upgrade Volvo's S80 sedan to compete with the likes of Mercedes Benz S-Class and BMW 7 series. Volvo hopes to sell additional cars to the Chinese government and state run companies. Risks associated with expanding car manufacturing were cited by Chen Bin, senior official of the China National Developmet and Reform Commission, at an auto industry conference recently. He said the combined capacity to build cars in China for all companies willl reach 31.24 million vehicles by 2015, up from the 13.95 million vehicles at end of 2009. ...

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Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's "Worthy Fights" provides a better perspective on the Syria-Iraq conflict- about a conflict in Syria that was the result of president Obama not acting when a "red line" of the use of chemical weapons was crossed. A similiar point is made by U.S. Secretary of State Clinton. Both advisors to Obama were ignored in favor of Mr. Donilon and other White House adviosrs who lacked the experience of Panetta and Clinton. On the Iraq conflict Maliki's misguided sectarian policies were not sufficiently constrained by U.S. effort to preserve earlier hard won gains under the Bush administration. At the end of the Bush administration Iraq was returning to a peaceful period and the war had largely been won against old Saddam loyalists in Anbar province. Ultimately Obama's lack of experience in foreign policy and his failure to heed the advice of people with that experience such as Panetta and Clinton, was the basis of the crisis inadvertently created in Syria by a tendency of inaction. The Syrian situation was not fully grasped as leaving Sunnis to suffer Assad regime air attacks creating 2 million refugees, something that should have prompted action by the international community. With Sarkozy gone in France and Cameron unable to convince the U.S. alone, or move forward with the French unilaterally, the inaction phenomenon of the Obama White House left the entire Sunni communty throughout the Middle East without any support as they watched the destruction in Syria. ...

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Browning points out the record Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) average was not in 2007 but in 2000 when adjusted for inflation- on Jan 14, 2000. Since 1994 consumer prices measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics have risen by 55%. Using 1994 dollars the March 5, 2013 closing DJIA average is at 9256, the 2007 high at 10194, and the record on Jan 14, 2000 at 10424, according to calculations made by Bespoke Investment Group. In inflation adjusted terms these calculations show the Dow barely making any progress in relation to the 2000 figure. When dividends and taxes are included, Browning says the inflation adjusted Dow is still not back up to the 2000 level. For retirees and sensible investors the real value of this money has to be taken account. Yale University professor, who founded the CAPE cyclically adjusted P/E, confirms what Browning says in an article in the WSJ March 10, 2013. There Shiller says that the inflation adjusted S&P 500 index has not made it to the 2000 level, so that investors have not made up for money lost in inflation in 13 years....

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With a general election approaching in Britain the question about a progressive alliance is brought up in the Guardian. A big block is the Labour party with its obsession for vote share, and not seeking alliances of any kind. The Liberal Democrats are creating their own barriers with hostility towards Labour party. This report cites Best for Britain data and says 457 seats are immune to alliances. Of 150 marginals 111 seats the numbers show if SNP, Lib Democrats, Greens swung behind Labour party  it would make a big difference. as in 30 seats even a 5% swing from Labour to the Lib Democrats would give the seat to the Conservatives. The other approach is to have informal alliances at the grassroots level so that progressive candidates can do well.

 

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Kate Conger NYT looks at working for Google in 2007 vs 2025 how tech or software jobs are not exciting anymore. Many of the so called Tech companies -as technology and science is the very basis of life since the year 1700 in UK, Europe and the US and today's "Tech" is a misnomer in that context- have become huge bureaucratic, and unresponsive. Computer coding is not the profession it once was, not even in India as Indian reports show it has also lost it's glamour there. This kind of "Tech" of Google, Apple, and social media was always a cultural fad that made things look cool so that the highest profit margins could be made and justified, ignoring the essential facts about science and technology over 300 years 1700-2000 in the UK, Europe and the US. Since the early scientific observation in the 18th century in UK and Europe science has underpinned our lives, and with the industrial revolution and machines it has covered every aspect of our lives with new inventions and scientists into the 19th, 20th and 21st century. As a cultural fad of the Google /Apple kind it came on the back of the largest deindustrializing of US and Europe in the late 20th and 21st century, and ignored the fact that science and technological application is part of everyday life, the very meaning of the word modern that Japan, China and India has aspired to, to copy the Europeans and Americans, not the prerogative of any corporation.   ...

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JP Morgan agrees to a legal settlement of $4.5 billion for losses to investors from toxic mortgage securities sold by Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns. JP Morgan acquired the two financial institutions following the 2008 financial crisis. The investor group includes Black Rock Inc, Allianz's PIMCO, MetLife, and Goldman Sachs. The same group of institutional investors settled with Bank of America for $8.5 billion. JP Morgan has set aside $23 billion at the end of the third quarter for legal losses. The settlements now are at about $20 billion. A private suit by Deutsche Bank National Trust Company representing 100 trusts for poorly perfoming bonds sold by Washington Mutual, and seeking $10 billion is still pending. The FDIC is arguing that JP Morgan is liable because it inherited the liabilities when it acquired Washington Mutual. JP Morgan says the acquisition was made as part of a government arranged acquisition at the height of the 2008 financial crisis. It says the FDIC receivership that took Washington Mutual's assets when it failed in September 2008 should pay for any claims related to misrepresentation and false promises for the bonds. ...

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The origins of the crude anti-Islamic video, a 14 minute trailer, produced in S. California by Steve Klein, a Vietnam war veteran whose son was severely wounded in Iraq. He is an insurance salesman from Hemet, near Los Angeles. It was translated into Arabic and reposted twice on YouTube to Muslim viewers. Klein is known for anti-Muslim actions. It shows Egptian security forces watching as homes of Coptic Christians were burned, and then goes to cartoonish scenes showing the Prophet Muhammad as a child of uncertain parentage, a womanizer, child molester and so on. It raises many questions about how stuff that is incendiary or induces hate and violence or other material is kept off sites such as YouTube which use new technology for which there is no proper oversight representing the public interest.

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The first spread event for Omicron outside of South Africa is now known to be in Norwegian capital of Oslo. Some workers of renewable energy company Scatec SA returning from South Africa where the company has a solar panel project attended an annual holiday party. The party was at Louise an upscale Oslo restaurant, with 120 people all vaccinated, and tested the day before. More than half have tested positive for covid 19, with at least 13 having the new variant Omicron. Oslo municipal health department says it expects more Omicron cases among the 64 coronavirus cases as remaining workers get tested. The results so far are anecdotal and thin to be sure, yet they show none of the infected employees were seriously ill, says this report in WSJ, citing a company spokesman. The spokesman says people had different sysmptoms but none were severe. Tine Ravlo, assistant superintendent of the Oslo municipal government says- all of them are under isolation at home. And  for now they have what they describe as mild symptoms such as headache, cough, sore throat, and flulike symptoms.  Norway has 80% of population of 5.4 million people fully vaccinated. Mask mandates are in place again in Norway, private indoor gatherings limited to fewer than 100 people. ...

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Another clear warning from Britain under Boris Johnson the failures from that time could still affect the US if it copies Johnson. Krugman looks at Project 2025 that has received the backing of the former president. He points to one aspect of this blueprint for a Trump second term, how civil service would be overhauled to remove civil servants not meeting the requirements put forth by the new administration. He says this takes America backwards. Till 1883 when president James Garfield set up an independent civil service in the US people employed by the government were routinely chosen from the winning party leading to flaws and much instability, weak administration. In Britain this type of effort of Project 2025 was tried under Boris Johnson by using an adviser who wanted to blow up parts of the British civil service for not cooperating. That experiment failed badly and the adviser was fired with much recrimination, Johnson being discredited, and administrative failures. Project 2025 would shut down the Education Ministry and the Homeland Security Ministry, for even more upheaval of the civil service. Not to mention the proposal to reverse the founding of the central bank the Federal Reserve in 1909 under Woodrow Wilson that stabilized the economy after banking panics. These are clear dangers. ...

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Minnesota has the lowest unemployment in the country at 2.9%. It also has the highest corporate tax rate in the ocuntry of 9.8%. A prominent businessman says about a state's attractiveness for business that it is about more than tax rates. He is cited here in this WSJ report- Minnesota takes care of kids, parks, water, a state that works and Walz having contributed to the low unemployment and quality of ife in the state. It is not a high growth state yet on the indices of quality of life it does quite well. When nurse staffing levels became an issue in state legislation, Governor Walz had the proposal backed by a large union dropped by working through this. It led to Mayo Clinic moving ahead with $5 billion investment in the state at its Rochester location. Bill George, former CEO of Medtronic, which is located in Minnesota, says people like working in the state and this helps businesses grow. The high tax base, says George, has contributed to strong educational systems, the arts, the environment and the quality of life. The Governor Tim Walz is very easy to get to for help when there is an issue to be worked out for business.   ...

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How to deal with Bush era tax cuts is a big issue dividing Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. If no deal is reached by Jan 1. taxes on the average middle income family would increase by $2000 in 2013. Median inflation adjusted income declined 8.9% to $50,054 in 2011 from $54,999 in 1999, and economic mobility has fallen. The Democrat's position is for Bush tax cuts to apply to incomes below $250,000. Peter Orszag of the Congressional Budget Office and Jared Bernstein point out that while this makes the tax code move in a progressive direction it also creates handicaps in providing a sufficient revenue base to support middle class spending programs down the road. According to the Tax Polcy Center, if Congress is unable to reach agreement and all tax increases go into effect Jan 1, taxpayers in the bottom 20% of income distribution would see a $412 increase in taxes compared to an increase of $633,000 for the top 0.1%. New York Mayor Bloomberg has supported eliminating the Bush tax cuts for all groups, saying there is no free lunch. Alan Krueger, head of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, says the trends caused by globalization and skill-biased technological change which have increased inequality are likely to continue or accelerate. ...

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The Goethe Institut is for Germany what the British Council was for Britain and the USIS for the US in the countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America as well as Europe. A way to interface the world with ideas that contribute to world culture from Germany, and both influence and grow from the interaction. This is how Carola Lentz its new head in 2020 sees the Geothe-Institut on its 70th anniversary. There are 158 Goethe Instituts in 98 countries. The picture that goes with this article in DW.com shows language students from Ghana on the streets of Burnau, Bavaria, with their host family. It started in 1951 in Munich to spread German language and cultural studies in the world. Pope Francis studied German in his early years at the Goethe Institut while staying with a host family in Boppard, Rhineland-Palatinate, when he came to Germany from Argentina. Carola Letz brings an interesting background to this work as a researcher on societies in Africa, and her study of sociology, politics and languages. She believes the true work is to build conversations with other countries and to engage people inside Germany into this conversation for the first time, a task never undertaken before by the USIS or the British Council. As has happened accidentally and also with the sense of "'arrogance" in the US and Europe towards other less industrially developed countries, people inside European and North American countries were far less equipped with knowledge and understanding of world societies than their representatives overseas in post war period.  Lentz, born 1954. who lives in Mainz near Cologne, the home of Goethe, is an ethnologist and African Studies expert. Lentz sees a new approach of conversations with people in other societies, about an approach that is considerate, not arrogant, for developing joint answers to global questions.  A new exhibit opens on the 70th anniversary at the Berlin museum Hamburger Barnhof- "Take Me to the River," on global environmental changes on November 29, alongside another exhibit "Nation, Narration, Narcosis," on the role of museums in the culture of remembrance. This brings Germans inside the country into this conversation for the first time along with  the thousands of visitors from other countries.     ...

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Venezuelans flee hyperinflation and shortages of basic needs going over the Colombian mountains at 12,000 feet in an unprecedented migration. About 3 million refugees fled Venezuela in recent years.

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Innovative solutions from Indian Railways. The AC railway coach converted into an isolation ward that can hold 10 patients, complete with patient beds, bathrooms, and office for doctors.

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The failure to reach an agreement between the U.S. Justice Department and BP over liability in the Gulf Oil Spill. The Justice Department says BP was grossly negligent in the spill. BP's position is that responsibility was shared with Transocean, Halliburton and other companies, so that BP by itself was not grossly negligent. The case now goes to trial.