LyrArc Article Gist
Eric Cantor is the senior Republican leader in the House of Representatives. He is a key figure in the negotiations with the Obama White House over the budget, deficit reduction, and raising the debt ceiling. Cantor and House Speaker Boehner are leading the negotiations on the Republican side. Cantor rejects any compromise on tax increases. He told reporters: "I think behind this notion of 'We want shared sacrifice' that they continue to say means 'We want to raise taxes,' and we don't accept that we raise taxes in an economy like this." Cantor is a lawyer and a former state legislator from a district that covers the Richmond, Virginia, suburbs. He was elected in 2000. Through his "Young Guns" program Cantor recruited many of the 87 new Republicans who were elected in 2010. It is this support from rank and file Congressman that has propelled Cantor into a leadership position for the deficit talks. Responding to critics that say a compromise is needed from both sides in the talks, Cantor says- "I don't think the White House understands how difficult it is for fiscal conservatives to say they are going to vote for a debt-ceiling increase." On June 23, Cantor pulled out of talks with the White House. In the current round of negotiations Boehner pulled back from "a grand bargain" which included tax increases, after consulting with Cantor....

LyrArc Article Gist
Coca-Cola is introducing to the US an blended unsweetened tea called Sokenbicha. This tea was originally developed for health conscious young Japanese women. Sales of tea drinks are up 15.6%, while soft drinks are down 5.6%, for the first 10 months of 2010. Soft drinks still make up 47% of ready to drink beverages in the US, according to Beverage Digest, even with the increasing emphasis on the dangers of obesity in the US.

LyrArc Article Gist
Bundesbank President Axel Weber told German lawmakers that Greece may need as much as 80 billon euros to avoid default. He said Greece's situation is deteriorating and "the numbers are changing all the time." Weber is a member of the ECB's governing council and a leading candidate to succeed Trichet as ECB President. So far Greece has 30 billion euros approved by the eurozone countries and 15 billion euros expected from the IMF.

LyrArc Article Gist
Roosevelt say experts was a great crisis manager but not great when it comes to policies to create jobs. His achievements were stabilizing the banking system with deposit insurance, government investment in banks, and restrictions on banking practices, creation of the SEC, and fireside chats that steadied the national mood. Unemployment when he took office in 1933 was 25% from 3% in 1929, and industrial production had dropped 40% since 1929. So FDR took office when a lot of the damage had already been done, compared to that Obama takes office earlier in this downturn. And Roosevelt did not fully grasp John Maynard Keynes's advice when he visited the White House in 1934. Keynes complained to Labor Secretary Ms. Perkins that he had thought the President was more literate economically speaking, while the President felt Keynes had a rigmarole of figures he did not understand. Roosevelt said of Keynes: "He must be a mathematician rather than a political economist." It took some time for government spending to take hold. Throughout the 1930's government spending remained around 20% as a share of the economy. Today its 35%. And the average unemployment stayed at stubborn 17% on average for the decade of the 1930's. It was not till the 1940's that things changed. Total government spending as a share of the economy reached 52% in 1942 with the onset of the war, and peaked at 70% in 1944 when the unemployment rate dropped to 1%. One lesson experts say is that its easier to stem unemployment and job losses by action earlier in the downward spiral through vigorous action by government. In retrospect because industrial production fell by 40% during the 1930's experts say Roosevelt was actually timid in his response. U.S. Fed chairman Bernanke is a student of this period and draws a similiar lesson from that period for vigorous action early in the crisis....

LyrArc Article Gist
Lessons from the Mexican financial crisis of 1994-95 with the collapse of the Mexican peso, and a massive government bank bailout and Mexico's biggest slump since the Great Depression. Guillermo Ortiz, now central bank governor, was finance minister at the time. He discussed things with Fed Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, about the Mexican experience which could be seen as the first financial crisis of the global economy. What lessons can be learned? Ortiz says there comes a moment when something happens that leads to a general loss of confidence. Once this happens things can deteriorate fast. This happened when Mexico could not successfully manage the devaluing of the peso. For the USA this might have happened with the collapse of Lehman, which may have triggered a sequence of events leading to a general loss of confidence and banks fear of lending to each other and credit markets getting frozen. At that point Ortiz says its better to do too much than to do too little, as it takes a lot to restore confidence. "And don't be ruled by ideology, stay flexible and act decisively. Help those with mortgages they can't pay. Take stakes in troubled banks. Don't expect to turn a profit on government investment." How do you tackle mortgage workouts or modification. Vicente Corta who led Mexico's bank bailout program says "we tried fancy scemes that did not work. We ended up saying 'OK you pay half your mortgage, and we'll pick up the other half." Sounds similiar to what FDIC's Sheila Barr is doing on a small scale at IndyMac bank, basically " making mortgages affordable." And take stake of ownership in banks in exchange for injection of capital. Paul Krugman says the Bush administration earlier was reluctant to do this, thinking oh that is socialism, because they let themselves get into an ideological bind. Until Gordon Brown did just this in the UK with RBS and HBOS banks on Monday October 13, 2008. In that case because no on else came forward Britain took a majority stake. British finance Minister, Alistair Darling, stated that the British government was not in the business of running banks and that this was taking a necessary step to restore lending. The Mexican experince in this context is very instructive. It cost Mexico dearly in terms of political warfare about this, because once Banamex for example- to which the Mexican governmet gave money without any ownership stake- became healthy it was sold to Citigroup for $12 billion and the government got nothing. In Mexico Lopez Obrador and other politicians have created a running debate about this as totally unfair and it has been divisive for Mexican politics, making passing even basic legislation difficult. Ortiz now says take ownership stakes and if you don't forget about socialism you will have political fallout of a different kind when banks once healthy and profitable are on their own owing little to the government; just when the government falls short of financing the basic programs for the elderly, for children, for schools, for health care,and for collapsing bridges and roads that are falling apart, not to speak of funding shortfalls for Medicare and Social Security. So Guillermo Ortiz has some very useful advice for Ben Bernanke and the Fed and for Treasury and for the next President. Edmund Phelps of Columbia University was interviewed on Bloomberg today, October 13. He is a recent winner of the Nobel prize in Economics. He also believes capital injection into the banks- like other economist have suggested -is the key to getting the banks to lend. He thinks the auction process and buying up toxic assets is way too complicated and would take way too much time. He thinks keeping homeowners in their homes and reducing foreclosures is critical and thinks Martin Feldstein has some good ideas on this. See the links to Martin Feldstein. What if things still deteriorate? The government may have to nationalize or takeover some of the banks, he says. Gordon Brown has already taken over RBS and HBOS. What are some of the ways to improve things. One is that credit ratings firms he says have become almost oracular. Do they know what can happen in the future he asks. We have to rethink what it means to give a rating he says. And the U.S. financial institutions have to go back to doing what they should be doing in the first place, which is to finance investments in companies and business, and not homes and residential construction. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Greg Ip tells India's story, piped water for hundreds of millions of Indians, massive increases in road and rail, rapid development of infrastructure, aviation, ports logistics. WSJ graph shows country growth of economies for Japan, China, India, Germany in 2000 and 2020. By 2000 Japan had grown its economy to become about half the size of the US economy with two decades of rapid growth since 1980. China repeated this process with two decades of hyper growth since 2000 to become about 75% of the US economy by 2020. The graphs also show Japanese growth tailing off so rapidly after 2000 in relation to the US economy that it is now only about 25% of the US economy. China is likely to follow the same path as growth slows and with an aging population to become about 35-40% of the US economy by 2040 from 75%. India following the process that happened in Japan and in China is likely to become close to 35-40% of the US economy by 2040 from about 18% today, with the fastest growth over the next two decades for the most populous country in the world. Greg Ip points out what has been achieved since 2014 with the Modi government. Good governance without leakages of public funds dedicated to infrastructure, ease of living, GST one India one tax so that growing pool of funds from taxes fund rapid development with no leakages to corrupt officials,  Swacch Bharat or Clean India, clean water from taps, electricity and cooking gas for the whole population of India with dates for completion. All this Ip calls removal of the shackles that existed for far too long even past 2000 and 2010 when China had vastly surpassed India from its low point in 1980 after Mao and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. India today is in as much a pace of development as China in the 1990's and Japan in the 1960's, except that it now has the benefit of grasping how development can be done in a way that does not affect climate and health in adverse ways as happened with China's hyper growth -which also led to the tragic loss of manufacturing for workers and communities in the US and Europe due to the economic theories of laissez faire of the Reagan era. Reagan theory for governments not working with industry that were applied indiscriminately during the Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump presidencies for three decades led to shipping manufacturing overseas with no regard for the risks and dangers. What Greg Ip fails to mention is the uniqueness of India that is united by Vedanta, Hinduism and Buddhism for thousands of years, and which keeps the fabric of society together when it is divided by 13 language groups. These 13 language groups are: Hindi 43% of the population, Bengali 8%, Marathi 7%, Telugu 7%, Tamil 6%, Gujarati 5%, Urdu 4%, Kannada 4%, Odia 3%, Malayalam 3%, Punjabi 3%, Assamese 1%, English 1%. It was the vision of the early leaders Vivekananda, Gokhale, Mohandas Gandhi, Nehru, Sardar Patel, that united a diverse country with many languages and cultural variation. And it is this vision of Vivekananda that is creating the Good Governance under Sab ka Vikas, Sab ka Viswas, Sab ke Saath, Sab ka Prayas of today- development for all, with the confidence of all, with the support of all, the efforts of all. Without a disciplined direction based on hard work India could not make it this far or fulfill the aspirations of its youthful population by 2040. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
President Macron moved to invoke an article in the French constitution that allows the government to pass a law bypassing the legislature. He used this to pass his pension overhaul. The law allows the president to bypass the National Assembly. A motion can then be introduced in the National Assembly to censure the president. This cannot pass because Macron's party has a majority in the National Assembly. Opposition lawmakers had hoped to introduce thousands of amendments to stall legislation on pensions.  Under the overhaul the entire salary history of employees are taken into account in calculating a pension amount. Previously the highest earning 25 years were used. For civil servants the last 6 months of service were used. The pension system was also fragmented providing different terms to different groups with some more favored than others. To maintain the old system a 40 day transport strike was organized in December 2019, but failed to change public opinion on the issue which favors a single pension system instead of the many different and disparate pension schemes with different rules. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
In Germany's consensus based politics the term flip flop does not have the negative meaning it does in other countries. Chancellor Merkel is adept at presenting changes in policy as coming from careful thought and analysis. She has remained Chancellor for the longest period since Chancellor Kohl, doing this by co-opting the positions of other parties including the SPD. On refugees, atomic energy, same sex marraige, and other issues Merkel has adopted positions that reflect the majority of people.  As the magazine editors of Der Spiegel told Merkel in an interview she is the best chancellor the socialist SPD party ever had. Merkel has the unique ability of doing this and still sounding genuine in a way few leaders could. This may be the result of her background and life as the daughter of a pastor in East Germany who professed socialist ideals and yet was part of the opposition to the GDR regime and reflected changes in Germany as the Berlin Wall came down in 1990. Merkel joined the Democratic Awakening just as the German people in the east gave up on the communist regime. Merkel first major change was on the nuclear energy policy after the Fukushima disaster in Japan. Yet looking at it one can see that Merkel could present her change in belief as sincere. Under Merkel Germany has shifted away from nuclear energy and coal in a way no other nation has. It is now considered one of her most positive achievements in Germany. On the refugee crisis she also shifted her views on the need for enhanced security and on putting in place controls in an agreement with Turkey, addressing the causes of migration in home countries. As a result Merkel now has over 60% support in polls before this weeks election in Germany in September 2017. Contrast this with the sharp decline in support for Sarkozy and Hollande in France, Cameron and now Theresa May in Britain, and for other leaders in the U.S., and one can see how Merkel is different. It has much to do with sincerity and authenticity as a politician. Her favorite soup is potato soup, she drives a VW Golf small car, and lives modestly, shopping in the local grocery store. When it comes to protecting ordinary German people in what Germany owes in bailouts to indebted countries she could be tough with bankers and politicians. All this makes people of different political views see something valuable and to be respected in Angela Merkel, particularly at times like this. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan, one of two safety regulators in Japan, met in October 2010. At that meeting a presentation by Takanori Tanaka, head of the government supported Nuclear Power Engineering Center, advocated new technologies that would reduce risk in the event of earthquakes and tsunamis. The presentation focussed on new plants and did not go into retrofitting old plants with new backup solutions for cooling in the event of electrical failure. A recent article by Hitachi researchers brought up the idea of isolation condensers which could provide temporary power supplies in the event of electrical failure. One such device was on No. 1 reactor at Fukushima (built in 1971), and worked after the quake but later failed. The views of nuclear engineers at Hitachi discussed here show that cost remains a constraint in the design of nuclear reactor cooling systems, and redundancy with several layers of diverse backup systems for cooling are not being pushed by companies building the reactors. See the group articles for G.E.'s Mark 1 system which show cost and easier to build were factors behind the smaller containment systems favored for that design. Fukushima plant uses the Mark 1 reactors. Without independent safety regulation that does not rely on the companies for analysis and solutions, regulation risks becoming too dependent on companies for coming up with the strong safety precautions that are absolutely essential. These safety precautions can succumb to cost pressures....

LyrArc Article Gist
Talk of Starmer as "tough as old boots" as he recharts Labour's response to Reform UK. Labour releases videos of people being deported - 16400 deportees in 2025. The Times says half of them left voluntarily and the media telling a different story of small boats and smuggling networks continuing to bring migrants.  Will it work asks The Times of London. Reform UK passes Labour in public support in polls in February 2025. Already it has taken a large part of Conservatives public support with Conservatives split further under Kemi Badenoch whose future is uncertain following repeated changes in Conservative leaders. Here is what Starmer is telling Labour ministers and he is listening to 67 MP's facing Reform UK as the top challenger-that if Labour was not going to be “disrupted”, it had to become the "disruptor." To Reform UK's “politics of grievance”, Labour needed to provide serious “politics of answers”. Instead of “defenders of the status quo”  seek out the spirit of “insurgency of opposition into government”. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Higher inflation in Germany could help rebalance the German economy by increasing imports. German inflation has averaged 1.6% since 1999, compared to 2.0 % for the eurozone. It was 2.3% in December. And after years of wage restraint German unions are increasing the wage demands. IG Metall is looking for a 6.5% wage increase. And interest rates at 1% are quite low for Germany where unemployment is down to 5.5%, according to Eurostat, and employers have to meet higher wage demands. The ECB is aiming at 2% inflation and Germany has a 26% weighting in the calculation of the rate. But as Italy, France and Spain see inflation decline there is room for addditional inflation in Germany before the eurozone goes well above the 2% inflation rate. By freezing wages and improving price competitiveness with German products, other countries could increase exports. Yet the prospects of this making a large difference is limited because German companies are likely to push for wage restraint. The Bundesbank predicts wage increases of 2.4% in 2012. Over time the wage restraint in other eurozone countries and even slightly higher wages in Germany would reverse the trend since 1999 of Germany having much lower inflation, and this could be one of the factors helping in rebalancing....

LyrArc Article Gist
The title says this but Biden has not blown it by conducting discussions on the debt ceiling with Kevin McCarthy, Republican leader in the House of Representatives. Krugman presents MAGA Republicans as controlling the House. The situation is a bit more complicated than that as the Republican margin is only 222-213 with moderates who could move in Biden's direction if a default is impending. Previous articles in the NYT and WSJ have shown how the president has his own set of options including  simply ignoring the ceiling or citing a part of the Constitution of the US that gives the president the authority to conduct the business of the country in such a situation. Mr. Biden is taking the situation as calmly as possible, as the midterms have also given the president a situation where he sees the country on his side with Democrats needing only a few moderates in the Republican party to support him. Mr. McCarthy has his own reasons to support Biden as he supports president Biden in the task of backing up NATO and Ukraine. Having discussions with McCarthy keeps the country together at a time when Ukraine has a planned counter offensive to defend the country. Biden was able to achieve legislative achievements that are comparable to FDR and Lyndon Johnson because of his calm and patient approach. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
German chancellor Merkel imposes a partial lockdown in Germany starting November 2. This is followed by an announcement of a lockdown across France by president Macron. On October 28 German daily cases went above 14,000. Only 25% of intensive care beds are now available, creating a very serious situation. Meetings in public will be restricted to just two households of up to 10 people total. No crowds at sports events. Restaurants and bars will close except for take away. Schools and kindergartens will remain open. Church services and protests will be allowed to continue. Shops will remain open with one customer for every 10 square meters or 108 square feet. Merkel called it a "very serious situation," and said "we must act now to avoid an acute national health emergency." She told Germans the number of people in intensive care units has doubled in last 10 days, and in many areas it was no longer possible to track and trace infection chains. In 75% of the cases the source of infection is unknown. People are encouraged to work from home and companies encouraged to make this happen. Companies with less than 50 employees and self-employed will get support from the government with  about 75%% of the income. Companies, institutions and clubs will also get federal aid. About $10 billion euros are set aside for this aid. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Food, medicine, cash, pensions, delivered on a massive scale by India Post's 400,000 workers in the world's largest lockdown of 1.4 billion people. Indian Railways 1 million employees are active in delivering essential supplies and transporting food, essential cargo. With over 150,000 branches and reaching out into every corner of the country, India Post is the largest postal network in the world. The post office has started a special service to deliver medicine. As a bank India Post has over 500 million accounts, many of these accounts having direct payments deposited by the government. Postal workers wearing masks and rubber gloves and with multiple hand sanitizers are shown on Indian television helping citizens in inspirational video of India Post. India has another advantage in being able to get money to the tens of millions in each state, and directing it to areas of the economy that have the largest need- 60% of the banking system is state owned. During the first term the government of prime minister Modi launched an effort to get every Indian a bank account in every part of the country, so that money could be directly deposited in each account. A national ID system was implemented that took the digital information of each Indian. The government is now able to get money directly into these accounts. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Dr. Nancy Krieger of the Harvard School of Public Health says data on health risk -including which counties have high rates of health conditions such as obesity and other diseases- should inform targeted interventions and public messaging. This is important for administrators and health authorites in each county and state as they deal with a surge in coronavirus in parts of the U.S. which have so far been only slightly affected such as rural southern and western states. More recently places such as North Dakoa which the virus missed in the early stages are now seeing a jump in cases. This report shows counties in states such as Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina, particularly susceptible because of high rates of obesity and other health conditions. In all almost half of the U.S. population has one of these health conditions- obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, lung disease and heart disease.  The high prevalence of obesity which worsens all other health conditions is a result of the lack of healthy food and nutrition, exercize and healthy living habits, that were neglected in the closing decades of the twentieth and early twenty first century. The shift to processed foods is only one of many bad practices that happened in these years. The lack of attention to healthy eating and nutrition, and outdoor exercize has marked this period and created conditions in which the virus could damage health. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The variant first identified in India called the Delta variant is 60% more infectious than the Kent variant found in the UK. The Delta variant is now the dominant variant in the UK. There is concern that this could lead to another wave just as the UK is reopening in the summer. There are over 6000 daily cases in the UK this week. The estimated R number is now 1.00 to 1.2 following the number being 1.00 to 1.1 in the earlier week. A R number over 1.0 suggests greater spread of the coronavirus. An R number of 1.1 suggests the number of cumulative cases is taking off meaning that the UK is at risk of a sudden surge in the coronavirus in June or July 2021. India faced a wave from the new variant's higher rate of infectious spread. leading to a sudden surge in May 2021 to 400,000 daily cases before it was brought down by June 1 to about 100,000 The number of hospitalizations in such a wave is estimated to be higher in UK than the previous waves, requiring the government to be more vigilant today. Restrictions on travel from Portugal are being put in place in UK as a precaution. After repeated waves as a consequence of complacency with the coronavirus the lesson now is to take steps early and take aggressive action in advance. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Italy is investing the $225 billion of EU funds to modernize its economy under Mario Draghi. Draghi has shown in his first year that he can spend the funds wisely and invest in areas of the economy that need investments most. In the past year he has tackled problems including the slowness of the judicial system, modernizing an inefficient bureaucracy, and liberalizing wide parts of of the services sector. Draghi plans to invest EU grants in digital and physical infrastructure, education, environmental protection, and other needs for the long term. Before being chosen to lead the government Draghi was head of the Italian Treasury and central bank. He then headed the European Central Bank helping southern European countries tackle the debt crisis at a difficult time when Germany under Merkel pursued strict austerity policies and insisted on these policies for all eurozone countries. This report in WSJ shows the prevailing opinion in Italy is strongly in favor of Draghi staying on as prime minister till 2023 because of the confidence people inside Italy and in the European Union have in his leadership and discipline for making the investments to modernize Italy. Draghi told school children in Rome that "the most important thing is what you are doing right now," showing he understands the importance of providing Italy with the leadership it needs today.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
When Daniel Henninger of WSJ Editorial Board says in the adjoining article/video that to get anything done with something like the current split Congress a newly elected Republican president would have to operate by executive orders and could get little done, he is referring to the stalled Ukraine aid legislation in the US Congress after passage 70-20 by bipartisan vote in the US Senate. Legislation is stalled in the 2022 newly elected US House of Representatives with a group of Republican Congressmen called the Freedom Caucus seeking to block all legislation if it does not get its way. The now famous line "dead on arrival" line of Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana for legislation passed in the Senate for Ukraine aid. Pew Research looks at the change in the House and explains. It says about 49 members of Congress are part of or aligned to this group. About 71% or 35 of 49 members have less than six years of experience which includes 9 freshmen, compared to 58% or 100 of 173 Congressmen of all other Republican members of Congress. And two thirds of Freedom Caucus are from the South compared to 46% of all other Republicans in Congress. It is striking that only three are from states such as Wisconsin, Illinois and Pennsylvania or a mere 6% for Northeast and Midwest.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The Genbaku Dome shown here was the only structure left standing after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.  It is shown here on the UNESCO Heritage site. We show this on the day of the Nolan movie "Oppenheimer" at Oscars that shows the life of the scientist who headed the Los Alamos laboratory that invented the first atomic bomb, yet does not show the effects on the people of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. As recently as May 2023 prime minister Kishida of Japan had the G7 meeting in Hiroshima Japan, where he is from. He wanted people to see the Peace Memorial in the city and its new exhibition. NHK television Japan showed a documentary of the exhibition of the people who survived the bombing on that day, their lives on that day of those who died and those who survived the bombing including children, what they were doing at that very moment. G7 leaders visited the exhibition. Having seen that NHK documentary of the black and white pictures of the exhibits only 8 months back, one could say the winning of awards by Nolan's "Oppenheimer" without showing the Genbaku Dome and some of the exhibits from the museum leaves the story incomplete in missing the consequences of the research in the desert in New Mexico in 1944. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
France's high speed train network SNCF and its new trains TGV m are the focus of French Connections series in FR24. It is a great success for France as it connects 230 cities across France and decentralizes the country making remote areas reachable in hours. 770 kms Paris Marseille is covered in 3 hours. It has transported about 3 billion passengers since its founding in 1981 under Francois Mitterand. 122 million people traveled on TGV trains in 2023, and this is increasing by 20% a year. The trains travel at 350 kilometers an hour and are capable of over 500 kms per hour. For countries like India this is very useful to know as the first bullet trains based on Japanese technology are being built for route Bombay- Ahmedabad- Jaipur- Delhi. It shows that if it worked so well in France it can work well in the US or India. In India it could transport many times the 122 million in France and connect remote regions exceeding 1000 kms. Madras Srinagar is 3000 kms or 1900 miles. Imagine this being done in 7 hours at 400 kms per hour. It would really decentralize India. Same for the US for Austin Texas to Boston Massachusetts 1600 miles in 7 hours. It would better integrate communities in the US that are far apart socially.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
German economy contracts in second quarter 2024 by 0.1%. Growth is forecast at 0.3% for 2024 and 1.1% for 2025, according to country statistics office Destatis. The contrast could not be greater in Biden's management of the economy as US economic growth was much higher at about 2.8% in 2024. It shows the positive effects of Biden's effort to revive American manufacturing, and to support chips and science and American industry, and the investment of a trillion dollars from the Inflation Reduction Act in American infrastructure. Without these investments American recovery strong at this time would have hobbled along with much worse effects on jobs and inflation, and looming recession, under a Trump administration. Unusual factors such as the concentration of the supply chain in China have influenced US inflation, which Biden is correcting, and also bringing jobs at home. The economic management is excellent it  is the effects of the pandemic and broken supply chains, high mortgage rates and 20% price increases in apartment rentals that are making cost of living a problem for average Americans. Biden has taken cost of living action including canceling student debt and calling for limiting rent increases for apartment rentals to 5%. Harris has a program to support renters when housing takes up more than 30% of their income. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Rosa Chang, immigrant from South Korea, is pursuing her dream of green park space in the middle of Brooklyn's densely packed and traffic filled areas. She is unrelenting giving it her all for over ten years, and keeps this vision alive even today, says John Leland in this NYT report. Rosa Chang sees Gotham Park on 9 acres in Brooklyn that is covered with parking space and six lanes of clattering bridge traffic. Chang is trying to attract $200 million needed for this to happen to add badly needed park space for kids and families in Brooklyn neighborhoods. She has the support of Meera Joshi, deputy mayor of operations, under Mayor Eric Adams, and Dan Doctoroff, deputy mayor under former mayor Michael Bloomberg. Doctoroff who helped create other parks in New York City sees this park could bring in $290 million for local merchants by bringing in Asians, Hispanics and Blacks, Whites all closer together in this space. It would provide green park space for park deprived neighboring communities. Bloomberg and Doctoroff created 7 parks in the city including the High Line and Brooklyn Bridge Park. It is  people like Chang, who was born in South Korea, grew up in Toronto and visited many cities in Europe and around the world, that understand what livable spaces look like and where green space is essential for kids and families to grow up. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The US should push forward with its plans to compete with China and Taiwan in the chip business. That was the intent of the Chips and Science Act that both parties supported in Congress. The naysayers simply don't want to take up the difficult challenges and are wilting even before the struggle to regain advantage in chip US manufacturing technologies has begun. Gelsinger at Intel says the scale is necessary for gaining technologies, and making chips for other companies is key to doing this. The products business and business manufacturing for other companies complement each other and enables Intel to co-develop technologies and introduce them faster. Amazon cloud computing has given Intel its business order for AI fabric chips, other companies will also decide to go with a US supplier. Gelsinger's goal at Intel is to make it the second largest manufacturer of chips by 2030. This is not just the goal of Intel, it is the goal of the US to recover its chipmaking capacity and technologies as a major priority for the Nation. It takes ten years to make such a change, after the neglect of the US to add funding for US manufacturers as China and Taiwan have done. Intel is doing this faster  and losses will peak in 2024. Leadership at Intel must persevere with "bold, persistent innovation."   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Britain's Home secretary, Yvette Cooper, is setting up a Young Future's unit to help teenagers exposed to social media, mental health issues, and other pressures who could get into trouble with the law. This was seen during the UK riots with persons ages 12-15 in court for throwing stones or rioting. Cooper says- “It’s always been tricky to go through the teenage years, but it feels like for generation Alpha it’s got much, much harder,”  “You’ve got the pressures from social media, county lines and child criminal exploitation, the rise in the antisocial behaviour that we’ve seen, and … pressures on child and adolescent mental health. So we’re responding to that.” Cooper,  announced her goal for a £100m “young futures” policy at last year’s Labour conference.   The home secretary will tell councils and police forces you have till Christmas to put proposals into effect to tackle crime among young people. New Home Office guidelines will be put out by the end of the year setting out how networks of police, mental health professionals, local schools, youth offending teams and charities can work together to help get teenagers avoid crime. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Jake Spring of the Washingotn Post shows how DJT, Kevin Hassett of the National Economic council and NY Governor Kathy Hochul are putting jobs first to work together to revive the northeastern communities that have hurt the most. This one is a waterfront that has seen better days in Brooklyn before 1945, when it was one of the busiest ports in the world- gone into disrepair and abandoned by the 1970's. Norwegian company Equinor invested $2.7 billion in a huge wind farm for Sunset Park in Brooklyn which would bring clean air to a chemically polluted Asian and Latino neighborhood. It would create thousands of jobs and provide clean energy for a million homes.  The DJT Interior Department under Doug Borghum stopped the project and it could have been cancelled, if not for NY Governor Kathy Hochul working with the DJT administration to support pipelines that will take Pennsylvania shale gas to New York hub for where it can reach all parts of the northeast. Interior Secretary Borghum wrote on X- “I am encouraged by Governor Hochul’s comments about her willingness to move forward on critical pipeline capacity.” Hochul supported the revival of the Constitution pipeline for shale gas.  It is this kind of cooperation to support jobs, workers and create a space for projects in the public interest that are needed today. ...