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The British pound was trading at $1.50 just before voting to leave the EU in June 2016. Since then years of wrangling on Brexit led to uncertainty and the pound dropping to $1.22. The decisive win of Boris Johnson and the Conservatives in 2019 led to removing much of the uncertainty, and the British pound recovered to $1.34 on prediction of Johnson's win. The big win makes it certain that Britain can leave the EU by Jan 31st 2020.

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Boris Johnson says outside 10 Downing Street that it is time now to focus on the task ahead- to bring opportunity to every corner of the country, to do this by investing in the National Health Service, in schools, infrastructure and in public services. He calls for the healing to begin after five weeks of wrangling in the election campaign so that the whole country can come together. 

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Boris Johnson wins an 80 seat majority for the Conservatives in parliament in the 2019 election. He gets a mandate for a quick exit from the European Union by the end of January 2020, and billions of dollars in public spending on infrastructure, the NHS, and public services. He gets an unexpected 364 seats in parliament after winning the support of working class voters hurt by the financial crisis and by industrial decline. Working class voters in the north of England and the Midlands decided to trust Mr. Johnson. The Labour party won 203 seats, its lowest total since 1935.  The British pound surged to its highest level since May 2018, and domestic stocks surged with their best day since 2010. Part of the optimism stems from the size of the win that gives Johnson more flexibility at home and more leverage with the European Union to negotiate Brexit that works best for Britain. Working class areas that suffered for decades with loss of heavy industry, decaying infrastructure and poorer public services put their trust in Johnson's pledge to spend more to revive these areas. Johnson called his government "The People's Government" in his victory speech and promised to spend $131 billion on infrastructure, the National Health Service, schools, and public services. Johnson said in the speech that working class families may- "only have lent us your vote. I am humbled that you have put your trust in me, and that you have put your trust in us. And I and we will never take your support for granted." The other big event in this election is the election win in Scotland of the Scottish National party winning 80% of the seats and seeking a referendum on independence. Mr. Johnson has stated that he clearly opposes this. In Northern Ireland a majority of legislators were elected who favor unity with Ireland. This sets up a constitutional struggle that Mr. Johnson faces in his first elected term in office.   ...

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A writer for the NYT describes his fascination with King's Cross London train station and the neighborhood of the same name. Here you find an area which has gone through decay of typical industrial neighborhoods and revival in recent years. St Pancras International station is here with the Eurostar trains and one of the most modern railway terminals in Europe. 

You will find places such as St Pancras Old Church, a place of Christian worship since the 4th century. And Old Drops Yard which is a space once used for transporting coal during the Industrial Revolution now converted into shops and modernized. 

Booklovers will find the British Library, with ancient documents such as the third century Diamond Sutra in Chinese and millions of books. And one of the popular things to do in the area is to walk along the Regents Canal which was built during the period when Britain led the Industrial Revolution.

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A Spanish engineer tries keeping a log of all activities during the day to discover where time is going and slow the passing of time. This enable a better redirection of time such as walking to work, and improvements that add up over time.

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Being caught up in busyness can lead to reducing the mental bandwidth and being unable to produce good work or tackle bigger projects. A good idea is to try smoothing out your work over a longer period and getting focus on important tasks first. Busyness can also lead to poor decision making, and tunnelling which means doing low importance tasks and feeling stressed.

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Selections of the best photos from the BBC on Africa ranging from fireman using tables to tackle a fire at the tax agency in Ghana, floods in Kenya, Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe with little water, and an electronics factory in Uganda making mobile phones. 

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The Trump administration is set to impose 15% tariffs on $156 billion of Chinese goods including laptops, mobile phones, and apparel, on December 15, 2019. This is in addition to the tariffs already in place on $361 billion of Chinese goods. The new list of goods for the tariffs on December 15 are goods that are made mostly in China. About 87% of the goods on this list are made only in China. If talks fail with China by this week the tariffs will go into effect. WIth this tariff all goods imported from China will have tariffs on the goods imported into the U.S. adding to the difficulties facing the Chinese economy. A recent article in the WSJ shows China is shifting to higher skilled manufacturing and the service sector to maintain jobs growth.

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One way to tackle procrastination that works is to clear all distractions, focus on the positive effects of getting tasks perceived as difficult done first, and enabling this by breaking up a difficult perceived task into a couple of smaller tasks. 

Other things to do to get work done is to set specific times such as 9 to 11 am for perceived difficult work, simple rewards are set such as having a cup of coffee afterwards or taking a walk after two hours of work, time cleared by distractions pushed out of the way. People usually find out that it wasn't that bad anyway to tackle that perceived difficult work, and it helps to have tackled it and the couple of other tasks that are sitting on your desk remaining to be done. Pretty soon your list clears up, increasing satisfaction, rewarding yourself along the way,  and you have a new burst of motivation to tackle more.

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Two articles of impeachment are passed on U.S. president Trump in the House of Representatives by Democrats, with all Republicans opposed. The party votes make this a political affair, with all Democrats favoring impeachment and all Republicans favoring stopping this process. Its harder in the Senate as all Republicans in the Senate are almost certain to vote against impeachment and the Senate Republican majority making impeachment a political exercize of one party.

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Rehovat, a suburb of Tel Aviv shows how divided Israel has become on the issue of Netanyahu continuing as prime minister. Israel now faces the prospect of a third election and no clear idea of what happens next with no party having a majority in the second election. In the second election Benny Gantz, a retired army chief, had a slight edge in Rehovat, 31% to 27%.

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Huawei gets support from Telefonica SA, one of 3 mobile operators in Germany, for use of its 5G equipment along with equipment from Nokia Corporation. This still depends on certification from reluctant lawmakers that Huawei equipment can be used. Huawei is seen as a threat for espionage in Germany by lawmakers. Lawmakers in the ruling coalition now say they will amend the telecom laws in ways that would exclude Chinese vendor Huawei. The Christian Democrats have already adopted a motion to exclude 5G network providers that can be influenced by their governments. 

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If the Federal Aviation Administration's own reviews were followed diligently by regulators the Boeing 737 Max would have become subject to new design changes much earlier. It was seen as an accident prone design in a November 2018 FAA analysis.

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The USMCA agreement negotiated by president Trump between the U.S. Canada and Mexico that replaces NAFTA, win support from Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Congress. Democrats pushing for Trump's impeachment have decided to still support passage of the USMCA, handing president Trump a victory, as they see it giving a positive benefit to U.S. workers.

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After a decade of austerity and the financial crisis of overextended banks, the deep recession starting in 2009, and worsening inequality with lack of infrastructure development, Britain finally shifts to larger government spending. The spending planned by Labour and Conservative parties in Britain charts a different future for health, education and infrastructure development from that of the last decade. The public supports this. Conservatives plan $128 billion of new spending, Labour party plans to spend even more. This comes after centre right parties such as the Republicans under Mr. Trump in the U.S. shifted to heavy spending on infrastructure. The Democrats under Obama failed to push for higher spending in traditional working class areas leaving open a gap that Mr. Trump has since used to attract working class Democrats to his side. In Britain Labour under Corbyn has pushed for larger spending on infrastructure, health and education. This is setting a new trend. This report in the WSJ shows that in this situation it is new politicians who replaced earlier politicians in their parties- Mr. Trump displacing Bush, Johnson displacing Cameron and May, Corbyn and McDonnell displacing Blair and Brown, that are initiating thsi trend. The experts at the IMF and the central banks are only now beginning to say this is a good idea. For a decade the mantra of economic experts at these central banks was in favor of austerity, even in the face of massive misallocation in capital markets.   ...