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The RNC speech of the former president is described by the WSJ Editorial Board as long and rambling for 90 minutes after a good start becoming a typical speech that did not broaden the appeal, and with its random comments lacking clarity. The former president's claims on crime up when it is actually down by 15% according to FBI. On inflation and cost of living the inflation peaked at 9% is now down to 3% in 2023 with cost of living actions by Biden and Powell. The former president's solution to "Drill, baby drill," would only affect gas prices a bit, and do nothing for the principal causes of inflation in housing, in rental of apartments, in prices of automobiles and auto repairs, and in cost of drugs, student loans. Only a concerted action on all fronts as Biden and Powell have done would work, along with large investments in American manufacturing and jobs, which can only be done if no tax cuts are made for the wealthy not in the Republican platform. This means the hundreds of thousands of job creation each month happening now will stall and inflation from supply chains in China will be harder to control especially with a 60% Trump proposed tariff on Chinese imports. ...

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Goggle's Eric Schmidt speaks at the annual meeting of the Newspaper Association of America on the issues raised by Google News use of newspaper content. He says it is unlikely that Google would buy the content behind a pay wall for a subscription and make it available to users for free. Under the current arrangement only AP is paid for content. Newspapers can choose not to be part of the Google Search but choose to get traffic from Google Search to their websites, and from Google News to their websites, which they monetize through advertising. Schmidt provided as one solution publishers creating more personalized news products that could be effectively delivered on the Web, on mobile phones and on the iPad.

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San Salvador experienced control by gangs in different parts of the country with the highest homicide rate of any country. The country's government has taken the country back from gangs and introduced normalcy to the country where people can walk freely and live freely without fear of gangs. This NYT reports looks at the experience of San Salvador after problems in Mexico and Central American countries.

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Employee acceptance of pay cuts is a way to avoid large layoffs. Here Southwest Airlines tries this approach and says it can prevent furloughs and layoffs by doing this till the end of next year 2021. Culture makes a difference. United and American Airlines announced 32000 job cuts. Southwest has never furloughed or laid off employees and has pledged to avoid this from happening in 2020.

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That two thirds of American fourth graders failed to show proficiency in reading comprehension in NAEP is a very serious problem in the US. This report is found in NYT buried somewhere where it could go unnoticed. The title is also accepting and passive and makes no mention about the 4th grader's English proficiency skills on NAEP released some months back.

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What is the difference between a K95 mask and a N95 mask. A K95 mask is based on a Chinese standard. A N95 mask is based on the American standard. The N95 masks was first made by 3M a company making masks for industrial and healthcare use based in Minneapolis, U.S. Tests on K95 masks have shown that many fail to meet basic filtration quality test standards.

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Van Dam says its not that great being a worker in the U.S. because it is hard for the unemployed resulting from competing with workers in other countries with lower wages, and for those who are unemployed harder because worker collective bargaining is weakened over 3 decades. He cites a 296 page OECD report showing very little government support for unemployed and at risk American workers. It says this has contributed to higher income inequality and larger share of lower income people than almost any other advanced a nation. Only Spain and Greece are shown as having more households earning less than half the median income- showing large numbers of people are poor or close to being poor. In the U.S. an average of 1 in 5 lose their jobs each year, and 23% of workers 15 to 64 are in their job less than a year in 2016. The job churn hurts workers because of firing and layoffs being frequent, more than is healthy for a economy. The U.S. and Mexico are the only two countries not requiring advance notice before firings. And fewer than half of workers find a job within a year in the U.S. Two in three families with a displaced worker fall in poverty for some time. Unemployed workers with typically 26 weeks support get less support than any other country in the study. Only 12% of workers in U.S. are covered by collective bargaining. ...

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Anton Harder in this Wilson Center publication of research uses correspondence between Jawaharlal Nehru and his sister Vijaylakshmi Pandit ambassador to the US in 1950, to show that the US made an offer for India to take a permanent seat at the UN Security Council. India had supported two resolutions on June 25, and June 27, first condemning the invasion by North Korea and second the organizing of a UN force of 29 countries to push back the North Korean invasion. Even though the US is not seen as actively engaging with India during that period and seeing through British eyes the colonial policies of encouraging  different powers in South Asia, that may not be true.  Who was India's foreign minister in 1950? Jawaharlal Nehru was both prime minister and foreign minister till 1964, which means there was less discussion of foreign policy than happens today during the Ukraine invasion with Jaishankar a career diplomat with 30 years experience, Rajnath Singh, and Mr. Modi, in talks with president Biden recently, and in further discussions Modi had with EU's Von der Leyen and UK's Boris Johnson, Kishida of Japan. Who was India's defense minister in 1950? Baldev Singh, a Sikh independence struggle leader was Minister of Defense for 1947-52 and tackled partition of Punjab and Kashmir issues. The rest of the years to 1957 when India faced the Chinese invasion of Tibet India's defense minister was also for most of the period Mr. Nehru, except Ayynagar in 1953, and Kailash Katju in 1955 and 1956. The controversial V.K. Krishna Menon was Defense Minister from 1957 to 1962, when Indian defenses were further neglected leading to the Chinese invasion of India in 1962, and his replacement by Yashwantrao Chavan. The purpose of this is to look back at what happened in earlier periods to understand where India stands today- and what choices it makes today. Clearly the US was looking for allies then and now. Nehru saw things from his own reading of history seeing China and India as both suffering from western invasion, not realizing that China's experience under Mao was different- that of Japanese invasion and bombing of China's major cities not just colonization of Hong Kong and other ports for trade under British trade based policies in 1850-1900. Thus a Communist Chinese version of China's defense involved taking over border regions such as Tibet putting China in direct and open opposition to India. Nehru never really grasped what was happening in Tibet and the war China fought against the Nationalists. American general Stilwell loved China deeply and had an understanding of its people as shown in Tuchman's account in her book Stilwell and the American Experience in China 1911-1945. Stilwell during that war had a better understanding of China, the strengths and weaknesses of Mao's China and of the Nationalists under Chiang, than Nehru. Some of these errors post 1950's and a concentration of foreign, defense and embassy positions in the person of Mr. Nehru and of Nehru family member such as Mrs. Pandit led to the Indian failure to act on Tibet and see it as see it for what it was -facing a Communist Mao led China that had fought the Japanese invasion as different from Bodhidharma's China of the history books. Bodhidharma's China will outlast Mao's China, yet it is Mao's China that India faces today. This also tells us that India has to think in new ways- as Lincoln said during a period when America was also making its own progress as an industrial nation in the 1860's. "The dogmas of the quiet past are not adequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise to the occasion. As our case is new, we must think anew, we must act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and we shall save our country." India's values are values of democracy heightened not just by Mohandas Gandhi's ideas with Hind Swaraj written in 1910 just as powerful in 2022, but also by the heights of Ladakh where elections are held in remote regions of the Himalayas. India's values are values that are also shared in the best that America has in its values and culture and in the defense of freedom.    ...

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Preserving forest areas is a key part of the climate change prevention plan. DW.com gives these video images of a vast forest area in South America- the Gran Chaco that is spread over Argentina and Brazil that faces destruction over time. Deforestation is taking place in the Argentine Chaco at an estimated 250,000 acres per year for 2001 to 2007 according to one estimate. The Gran Chaco that runs into the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso de Sul state is one of the last frontiers of forested areas in the world. If the Climate Change resolution passed at the recent conference on preserving forests is taken seriously this area needs to be preserved.

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India's foreign minister S. Jaishankar says a lot has been done at the G-20 meetings in India. He says 95% of the countries agree on the communique put out by the G-20. The idea that peace in Europe can be achieved at G-20 meetings in India is not realistic he says as the G-20 was not designed for this purpose of tackling troublespots like Ukraine. What the G-20 has done is bring countries in Europe and North America together with India to understand the problems stemming from the conflict in Ukraine on food security and from the debt crises in some parts of Asia. 

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President Biden has asked for $18 billion for child care stabilization, the children's infrastructure of today. Republican controlled Congress is not responding. Nationwide 16000 childcare providers closed their doors across 37 states in 15 months of 2020 through March 2021. Childcare givers in the US make less than parking attendants, says this story in The Washington Post. Federal grants provided help in Wisconsin and other states, but this money dried up and more childcare centers have closed. This is the soft infrastructure that America needs and is so crucial- for its children and for mothers and fathers. The losses reverberate through local economies. And it disrupts parents, especially mothers ability to work. 

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President Trump accepts the Republican nomination at a White House event resembling a rally.  His focus remained on the economy and putting America first.

Many of the 1500 people at the White House gardens did not wear masks. The WSJ report says not every attendee was tested for coronavirus.  The WSJ also says this was an unprecedented use of the White House as the lectern for the president was set right on the South lawn facing the White House. The speech was followed by a performance from an opera singer and a fireworks display over the Washington Monument. 

 

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See president Biden's address to the nation on July 14, 2024. Biden called on the nation to heal and avoid violence, to settle the future of the Nation not by violence- and he cited a train of events that led up to the shooting at the Pennsylvania rally yesterday- but at the ballot box. This is the way Americans have sought to tackle the wide difference in what the future of the nation should be. The vigorous and sincere words of president Biden on the way to set the nation's future and the need to unite, to lower the tone and step back, to reflect, come from the best in America.

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Census data show that 41% of all Mexican Americans in New York city schools have dropped out of school. Of Mexican American immigrants ages 19-23 only 6% are enrolled in college. This becomes significant considering that Mexican Americans are the fastest growing large immigrant group in the city, numbering 183,200, up from 33,600 in 1990, according to Census figures. These figures are worse than that of the Mexican American population as a whole, because of higher rates of illegal immigration, lack of stability in households, parents holding multiple jobs and lacking knowledge of English or contact with the school. Many are not aware that illegal immigrants who graduate from high school in New York State or earn a G.E.D. are allowed to attend the state public university system and pay in-state tution.

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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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Peter Goodman who covers the consequences in the lives of ordinary people of the industrial changes going on around us, gives this report from Michigan. He shows how today's Michigan, was home to Henry Ford's automobile plants that made it a major part of the industrial revolution in the US after 1910, when Ford's first assembly line manufacturing was set up in Highland Park, Detroit. Industrial growth till 1960 made the US the leading industrial nation in the world. Followed by Japanese imports and auto manufacturing shifting to Asia and Mexico, that led to deindustrialization and neglect in Michigan and the midwestern US.  Key aspects of resurgence today is coming from lessons learned in the period of deindustrialization. From labor and management not working together, from huge pension obligations and costs that had to be overcome, that made existing wage and cost structures uncompetitive with Asian manufacturing. Labor concessions in the last decade have made a rearrangement of cost structure possible, yet along with the financial crisis of 2008 further worsened worker incomes. The first steps of a return for Michigan to its role in the early industrialization of America, the new labor contract negotiated in 2023, the support of president Biden and the government, the investment in the new technology of electric car manufacturing by Ford, General Motors and Stellantis. Goodman shows how the state, federal government, community colleges and other educational institutions training workers and students, and car companies are working together to promote interests of workers and communities. There is uncertainty created about the fewer parts in the electric car manufacturing process, automation advances, and fewer jobs. Yet the process is a transition over many years and this is accepted by the Biden administration and by the industry as it responds to slower demand for electric cars in 2024. This provides the time to bring up new training programs for workers, enable the funding of new research into battery technologies that would bring down the cost and make electric car prices accessible to the wider population. Uncertainty and fears about the transition are counteracted by the effort the Biden administration is making to bring up all manufacturing and to make large investments in American manufacturing.   ...

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Larry Schwartz, the American diplomat in Cairo who deplored the anti-Islamic video on the Prophet Muhammad in Sept. 2012

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Otis Elevator is moving a plant based in Nogales, Mexico, back to the U.S. This plant was moved to Mexico in 1998 for cost reasons. Now Otis CEO, Didier Michaud-Daniel, says producing at a new South Carolina plant will cost less than Mexico. Logistics and freight costs are 17.3% less in the U.S. than Mexico, and an additional 20% in savings come from "efficiencies" gained by having all its white collar workers associated with elevator design and production. Most companies that manufacture in China and Mexico keep their design and engineering jobs in the the U.S. It is not clear to what extent American companies have considered all the costs of separating design and engineering from manufacturing, including the opportunities for close cooperation possible in one location that are lost when everything is so spread out. At Otis toolmakers in Dallas and engineers and designers located in Indiana and Arizona traveled to the Nogales, Mexico plant. This can be especially important when as in Otis's case the new plant in Florence, South Carolina, plans the launch of a new generation of elevator designs. In this case there is an added benefit by making it easier for customers to visit the plant and look at the product. The new plant will have more automation and use fewer workers on the factory floor. The new factory will employ 360 workers including white collar workers, the same as the Nogales, Mexico, plant with a lower number of factory floor workers. ...

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Health officials around the world, companies, governments, and schools are creating health policy on the fly, and prefer to err on the side of caution in setting policy. The American government said that it would deny entry to foreign citizens who traveled to China in past 14 days, and American citizens returning from Hubei province, china, will be quarantined for 14 days. Major airlines have stopped flights to China. Nothing like this has happened before. A major public health experiment in setting policy is underway, mostly preferring lockdown or quarantine as preferred method. 

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Intel's new CEO was the CEO of Cadence Design Systems 2008-2021 which makes software for integrated circuits and systems on chips.   Coming from Malaysia and Singapore Tan got his Masters in Nuclear Engineering from MIT and founded Walden International in 1987. Making early investments in China's chip industry when China's chip industry was just starting in the 1990's, Tan's company participated in  40% of the chip industry investments in China made from the US between 2017-2021. Some of this is covered in a WSJ report from 2021 shown alongside. He served on the boards of China's Semiconductor Manufacturing and Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment.  A parallel to this is Morris Chang who after degrees at MIT started the semiconductor industry in Taiwan. A period back then in which the US chip industry dependent on market forces and without hidden government subsidies was eclipsed by new ventures in first Taiwan, then South Korea and China. During a period in which technologies were freely transferred with no long term grasp of the consequences to American technological leadership, and chip industry in the US. It was allowed to decline by administrations of Bush and Obama since 2000, ceding dominance through lack of investment in manufacturing technologies. In chips and science capitalism and market forces leave American companies to the mercy of markets when government support overseas is not matched by government support in the US to create an absolutely essential level playing field.  The US then feels the lack of synergyistic energies that go from chips to other advanced industries and technologies. Textbook economics from Dartmouth or Ivy Leagues is with totally theoretical stuff about comparitive advantage no help, and created the current situation for America in chips and science where a whole industry was ceded.  ...

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After all the media talk about tariffs inflation- inflation is at 2.4% in May 2025. Tariffs was part of the toolbox of strategies under Lighthizer and Jamieson on getting fair world trade, and not like Congressman Hawley in the 1920's who understood little about the workings of the US economy. This fact the official media such as the WSJ and NYT, Wash Post, BBC need to get it right about the Hawley Tariffs. Hawley was born in rural Oregon in 1864 went to country schools, and was president of Willamette University in Salem, when it's population was 4258. As House Ways and Means Committee chairman he wrote the failed tariffs bill Hoover signed in 1930. DJT's US Trade Representative Lighthizer in 2016 led the successful negotiations with Japan under Reagan, Scott Bessent who leads negotiations on tariffs with China with USTR Jamieson, has a deep understanding and grasp of today's financial markets. Tariffs is one of the tools in the US toolbox to get Japan, China, South Korea to even the playing field for US companies and bring back manufacturing to the US. Without it China would not budge from its unfair advantage and would not negotiate in fairness. This is proven in the way Japan in the 1980s and China today are responding to the US position preparing their economies for not relying on sudden surges in exports putting whole industries and workers in America and Europe out of work and out of jobs. DJT says- "No we are not going to accept that," the EU is catching on and adopting a similar position, China knows that.  The media is irresponsible in presenting tariffs in a negative way, irresponsible to American workers the 10 million put out of work since 2000, and to American families and the Nation.   ...

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The corporate income tax rate for American companies is 35%. But many American corporations do not pay 35%. G.E. is likely to pay no federal income tax in 2010. G.E. Capital lost billions during the financial crisis and it is using a tax loss carry forward. It is also using a tax break called the active financing exception which allows U.S. companies to avoid taxes on overseas profits if those profits are made by actively financing some activity or deal, a tax loophole created in 1997 that G.E. lobbies hard to keep. For G.E. the worldwide tax burden was 7.4%. Google also pays a low tax rate. Robert Willens, a corporate tax expert, says the typical multinational corporation pays about half the stated tax rate.

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The simple fact that other countries are subsidizing heavily the early period for building a new industry, as Taiwan has done in semiconductors, China in solar panels, and European governments in other industries, had serious industrial implications that were ignored for too long. US president Biden is following the same approach to bring back American leadership in manufacturing of semiconductors - supporting and nurturing American manufacturing. The unavoidable fact is that tens of billions of dollars are needed in risky bets on semiconductor manufacturing that is feasible only with the help and cooperation of governments. The choice is do this or lose leadership in one sector after another autos, semiconductors, renewable energy, and so on. What many fail to understand is that loss of this leadership leads inevitably to dependence, and loss of national sovereignty or economic security in some form or other. The path to leadership comes through gaining a storehouse of knowledge and technologies which makes it harder for new entrants including ones such as the US who have ceded this position of leadership completely as in semiconductors manufacturing. ...

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What was it like to be an American in those days? Sense of duty and a fighting spirit. Col. Dave Severance was commander of the Marines that landed on Iwo Jima, the 7 mile long volcanic island 660 miles south of Japan, on Feb. 19, 1945. The picture of marines raising the flag on the top of Suribachi mountain was taken as Marines battled entrenched Japanese troops. James Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy, was on the beach below, says this report in NYT, as Severance passes away at age 102 in La Jolla, California.   This picture has become a classic of American resolve and spirit since then. It is also about humility with what Queen Elizabeth calls "self-discipline and quiet good humored resolve" of the British and by extension Americans.  When asked about the photo and his role in Iwo Jima immortalized in John Wayne's role in The Sands of Iwo Jima, Severance said- "I never thought about it. Just that I was a Marine for 30 years and I never ended up in jail." ...

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"We will never abandon the American worker and her community wherever it is located," says president Biden's head of the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA). He tells the Economic Policy Institute that many economists had questioned the policies that hurt American workers even as early as 1996. He joined EPI in 1992 and says he has followed the trade debate since then and heard the warnings as China entered the WTO in 2001 after years of negotiations in the last year of the Clinton administration.  Common sense questions were asked- Why asked Thea Lee now at the Labor Department is it good to have protection of intellectual property rights but not labor rights under NAFTA. On TPP and FTA's or free trade agreements in general he who writes the rules gets to benefit from them. Free trade having far less to do with free trade as generalized is the first thing he noticed when coming to Washington. Certain business groups captured the task of writing the rules in TPP  to benefit them.   ...