LyrArc Article Gist
WSJ's Chief Editor Emma Tucker comments on its choices in writing Style in its pages. It is appropriate we comment here on our own choices in Lyrarc.com. We respect the old forms such as Cornell English Professor William Strunk's Elements of Style for its basic emphasis on simplicity. We take from the new to always keep in mind how it sounds as is suggested by Ben Yagoda in Sound on the Page. In actual practice it goes back to our mix of reading influences and the style in each- from Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Conrad, Whitman, Lincoln. We strive for the simplicity and directness of a Walt Whitman or a Abraham Lincoln, while developing a directness of our own drawing from these influences. Inside this are all the other influences- Gandhi's amazing candour adding to directness. There is also in the background individually for this writer the energy of Prof. Kuruvila who helped transform some of the writings in English just described into living spoken words with ideas that held one's imagination.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
DJT announces actions on Liberation Day, April 2, 2025 freeing America on attacks on its manufacturing base and its workers for 50 years since the 1970's. He announces reciprocal tariffs on all nations with large trading imbalances with the US, a 34% tariff on China and a 20% tariff on all imports from the European Union. These nations he says have taken advantage of the US and looted and pillaged the US workers and communities for decades mainly because of the presidents who sat in the White House executive room and allowed this to happen. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent advised all trading nations-  "My advice to every country right now is, do not retaliate." His advice- "sit back, take it in.... Because if you retaliate, there will be escalation". The US is in no mood to be lectured or retaliated when these countries including China, Japan, South Korea and the EU, Taiwan, India a list of about 20 nations have taken unfair advantage of the US in trade for 3 decades. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Ukraine leader Zelensky is expected to be in Washington to meet president Biden and to address the US Congress on December 21, 2022. A bill in Congress includes $44 billion for aid to Ukraine.

LyrArc Article Gist
The India Pakistan conflict escalates as Pakistan retaliates for an Indian air attack on a terrorist camp deep inside Pakistan. Pakistan sends planes to attack Indian positions in Kashmir. One Indian plane is downed in Indian air strikes inside Pakistan. This follows a terrorist attack that killed 40 Indian soldiers in a convoy in Pulwama, Kashmir. In 2016 India attacked Pakistan targets across the border after a terrorist attack.

LyrArc Article Gist
Lee Zeldin at EPA and effort to cleanup PFAS Forever Chemicals 2025. Action taken the EPA under Zeldin to hold companies responsible to do the cleanup. Zeldin in his term at US Congress helped pass legislation to do this.

LyrArc Article Gist
The European central bank increases interest rates by quarter percentage point taking the deposit rate to 3.5%. The US Fed held off on increases. The US Fed started early with its increase in interest rates and maintained a steady posture with 8 interest rate increases over 2022-2023 in a period of just over 12 months. It has strengthened the dollar against the euro. The slow response of the ECB and price gouging in Europe has worsened the inflation picture there. The US Fed's policy combined with consumers resisting price gouging by halting purchases from stores, untangling of supply chains, the Biden administration's series of actions to tackle the cost of living increases, and overall investment in the economy that keeps employment resilient including government investment for the first time, is creating a better economy for America than most of the last two decades. 

LyrArc Article Gist
Tourists from China went up by 20% in 2015, going over 1 million. Foreign enrollment at Australian educational institutions was up significantly in 2015, going up to 645,000, up 25% over 2012 with the weaker Australian dollar. Australia's services sector including inbound education and tourism exceeded in value the minerals and metal ores exports in the last two months of 2015. This enabled the Australian economy to grow by 3% in the 4th quarter of 2015 over the prior year.

LyrArc Article Gist
Working America, an arm of the U.S. trade union the AFL-CIO, conducted conversations with 350,000 voters in 17 U.S. states. Here a representative of Working America, says the overwhelming response to the question "does it make a difference whether Democrats or Republicans are in power for my well being," is reflected in one of the responses- "does it even matter?"

The suggested approach here is for Democrats in particular who have represented working class voters in the past, to start with a fresh approach by creating new conversations with working class Americans.

LyrArc Article Gist
Huntsman's strategy in S. Carolina is to draw moderate voters south of Columbia and midwestern transplants along the coast. The plan is to draw voters who would otherwise vote for Romney and give a win to Perry or Santorum. This way he could try for a comeback in other states.

LyrArc Article Gist
This WSJ report looks at the complex legal liability issues companies face as they get employees to return to offices. Some of these legal liability issues existed previously in manufacturing plants. New safety laws and regulations to keep employees safe have been enacted at the state and local level that companies have to comply with. 17 states in the U.S. have laws that assume an employee who gets coronavirus was infected in the office and calls for workers compensation. 

LyrArc Article Gist
The European Union's Advocate General says he wants to open a third way so that MP's who support Britain remaining in the EU in the face of unsatisfactory Brexit can do so. This is legal advice usually followed by the European Court of Justice so that litigants who are MP's favoring Remain to unilaterally revoke the notification of the intention to withdraw. Prime Minister May is expected to put her EU agreement for vote in parliament in a week.

LyrArc Article Gist
About 86% of the total value of cash in circulation was affected by the withdrawal of 1000 and 500 rupee notes by the Modi government on Nov. 8, 2016. This is about 22 billion bills. The effect on the economy will take about a year to work its way through. The government has removed restrictions effect a March date for withdrawals from ATM machines previously limited to Rs 2500, as it says it has enough new bills printed in Rs 2000 denomination.

LyrArc Article Gist
Paul Mozur of NYT visits the Big Tech conference in Wuzhen, China, attended by large American companies such as Apple, Google. What he finds is very disconcerting, much of the technology can be used to track citizens of any country. Facial recognition technology, artificial intelligence, and other technologies are openly displayed and vendors including Unicom, show how this can be applied to track citizens. He sees the open discussion of how this data can be employed in this way as a sign of how much things have changed- showing how big tech surveillance is now an accepted way of doing things in China.

LyrArc Article Gist
Marina Corina Machado shown with her son and daughter in Caracas on Sunday. The Venezuelan leader wins a primary that was held throughout the country with the help of civilians groups. About 2.3 million Venezuelans turned out to vote in a country of 28 million people where many have emigrated overseas or are refugees in neighboring countries with increasing scarcities, high inflation and difficult economic conditions which could have been prevented. The UN reports 7 million refugees or migrated or about 25% of the population.

LyrArc Article Gist
At 79 years, Wilbur Ross will be one of the oldest people serving in any administration, as he serves as Commerce Secretary in the Trump administration. Wilbur Ross is best known for the turnaround efforts in the steel industry. In 2002 he acquired LTV Corp, a third largest steel producer in the U.S. facing tough times and legacy costs, for $125 million in cash and $200 million in environmental liabilities. In 2005 he sold his International Steel Group to Arcelor Mittal for $4.5 billion, and is still an independent director on the Arcelor board. Ross's earlier experience was as a bankruptcy specialist at Rothschild Inc. in the 1970's working on restructurings at Texaco, TWA and Continental Airlines. Analyst Charles Bradford is cited in this report by WSJ's John Miller, who competed with Ross in restructuring proposals for failing assets, and describes Ross as working harder and being tougher to make the deals. Some of these restructurings involved cutting pensions and large layoffs. The entire U.S. steel industry faced problems from foreign competition and legacy costs at the time. This included representing bondholders for Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City. At the time Ross told creditors considering seizing the asset for a possible missed payment that it would be better to keep Trump in charge for Trump properties as they would be worth more with Trump inside. This led to Ross later providing critical backing for the Trump campaign and raising money from the business community. Mitt Romney had similiar work at Bain Capital in turnaround of failing companies, later turning to politics as Governor of Massachusetts, and 2012 Republican nominee for president. Both Romney and Ross have come under criticism for their role in cost cuts at companies involving layoffs and cutting worker benefits. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Laura Marshall-Andrews is a GP, a General Practitioner doctor, in Brighton, England, with a different approach to patients and health care. She takes into account the whole patient, the patient's mental condition, putting back some of the things that reduce isolation, increasing feelings of self-worth, bringing more community and nature interactions of a positive nature that can affect the patient's health. In some situations having a doctor who listens and is willing to take the time to talk to and know the patient, and being aware of the patient's whole condition as opposed to fragmented areas based on fields of medicine can make a huge difference. Don't look for a diagnosis, treat the whole person,  says Laura Marshall Andrews in her new book- What Seems To Be The Problem? She believes social prescribing takes a whole load off the National Health Service in Britain. This includes art, photography classes, dance classes, singing classes. A study by the University of Westminster shows the GP visits go down by 30% and emergency A&E visits by 25% with social activity prescribing. Yoga, meditation, gardening, nature walks, are also part of the same activities that can help people improve how they feel and think and bring the sense of peace in their lives that brings better health with it. In the loneliness and isolation, community dislocations and pressures of life in today's cities, all these activities are immensely important to the idea of whole health of the whole person. Dr Andrews says that if you keep a community happy and creative, then you are not going to need a lot of expensive hospital treatments." "Cum Scientia Caritas" the motto of the Royal College of General Practitioners means Science with Caring. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
For the country with the largest population in the world of over 1.2 billion people who had just gone through a once in a century pandemic would it have been right to import oil at prices that made it harder to invest what was needed in infrastructure and rapid growth? This is why president Biden and NSA adviser Jake Sullivan believe India has taken the right step to import at the lowest price possible to not divert funds that are so desperately needed for infrastructure to build the metros, fast railways, roads, bridges and airports the people of the country need. India's stand on invasions with millions of women and children turned into refugees is for an end to this war - Gandhi's position on a war such as this or Vivekananda's is not hard to read.

LyrArc Article Gist
Brazil is turning to Canada to supply the potash it needs for fertilizer production after the disruption of supplies from Ukraine and Russia. The world is turning to Argentina for wheat, Canada for potash, South Africa for platinum, as the focus shifts to getting alternative sources of supplies.

LyrArc Article Gist
Failure by EU leaders to take early and decisive action to reduce Greece's debt to sustainable levels in 2009. This was when the IMF report by Dutchman Bob Traa blew the cover off the Greek coverup of deteriorated finances. Policy missteps included ECB president Trichet and other EU leaders pushing austerity measures and not taking needed tough action on reducing the debt. By November 2011 a 50% reduction in debt with bondholders taking the losses is not enough to correct the situation. Greece's debt is discounted by 70% by Nov 2011. Analysts estimate an 85% reduction in Greek debt being necessary for Greece to pull through without a default.

LyrArc Article Gist
Coronavirus will add $2.5 billion to the cost of the Tokyo Olympics mostly for rebooking facilities, and paying additional wages for staff, as well as virus testing and cost for preventing spread of the virus. As is typical of these games going back to the disaster in spending at the Montreal Olympics that took the city years to recover, costs can double or more than double earlier estimates. Someone has to bear the extra costs and the national government will take on $1 billion of these extra costs.  The official budget estimate was $12.6 billion. An estimate from Japan Board of Audit in 2019 came up with figure of $20 billion. The pandemic would bring this closer to $22.5 billion or close to double. This cost to the Japanese taxpayer is leading one third of people to sour on the games saying they should be canceled in mid-Nov. TV Ashai poll, with one third saying delay it, only one third for it to go ahead. Except for $5.6 billion from a privately organized committee its all coming from the City of Tokyo with some help from the Japanese government. When it comes to financing it the IOC is not taking part. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
For years Apple concentrated all its iPhone production in a few factories in China. The Zhenzhou factory with 300,000 employees is one of the largest of the Apple suppliers. These suppliers including Foxconn and Luxshare work witn Apples NPI process in which manufacturing is designed around Apple designs and prototypes. For the first time WSJ reports on protests at the Zhengzhou factory over Covid controls and wages, conditions. Young people in China are no longer keen on working in these conditions and protested. Apple finally recognizes the need to reduce concentration in one country and plans to bring 40 to 45% of the production of iPhones to India. Initially it plans to bring NPI trained suppliers such as Luxshare that have facilities in Vietnam to assemble outside China. Over time suppliers in India will have to develop the needed skills, planning and engineering concentration of people to Make in India what is now Made in China.

LyrArc Article Gist
Mr. Trump describes himself as a "wartime president" as he prepares to sign a Korean War era measure that allows the U.S. government to ramp up production of medical supplies.  Mr. Trump announced he was preparing to sign the 1950 Defense Production Act, which gives the president powers to direct civilian businesses to meet orders for products necessary for national security.

Mr. Trump is now holding daily news briefings on the emergency which can be seen on many television channels, including CSPAN.

In China factories producing mobil phones and other products were diverted to production of medical supplies and equipment as the coronavirus crisis escalated in February. The Chinese nation was on a war footing leading to the situation today when no new infection cases were reported. Only by doing this could 2 hospitals be built in 2 days in Wuhan to isolate patients. 

LyrArc Article Gist
By preventing serious illness in patients two pills for coronavirus from Pfizer and Merck can change the course of this pandemic. Pfizer will give a royalty free license to Medicines Patent Pool, an organization backed by the United Nations for its coronavirus pill. Merck has also given a royalty free license to Medicines Patent Pool for it pill. This organization will then grant a license for the manufacture of the coronavirus pills to poor developing countries. India is included in the list of countries yet China, Russia and Brazil are excluded for the Pfizer license.  Merck has given Indian generics manufacturers approval to make the pill. This will provide supplies of the pill to 105 developing countries, South Africa will also make the pill to provide it at $10 a course in Africa. Pfizer will begin manufacturing of large quantities in 2022 with 50 million planned for 2022 and 21 million in the first half of 2022. Pfizer pill will be made available in 95 countries. The Merck pill is called Molnupiravir. Pfizer pill is called Paxlovid with 30 pills taken over the course of 5 days. Pfizer pill is effective in studies when given to people who had not been vaccinated. It has to be given within 3-4 days of getting coronavirus confirmed through a test which makes testing critical for its use. ...