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The reckless behaviour of German elites in pursuing increased dependence on Russian oil and gas and ignoring American warnings is shown in this report in The Guardian. The first links to Russian oil and gas were started under chancellor Brandt in 1970. At that time the dependency on oil and gas supplies was much less than 10%. Dependence increased during the Schroeder and Merkel years to the extremes that exist today. Not much more even in the year of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. It was the misconception of chancellor Schmidt of the SPD in his differences of opinion with presidents Carter and Reagan on the risks of increasing dependence on Russian energy that marked this period. Schmidt believed Germany was right in its conviction that increased trade would bring peaceful cooperation without realizing that economic dependency is never a good thing. Poland had a skeptical view- German elites including business elites were being corrupted. Cheap Russian energy was being used in the Schroeder and Merkel years as a competitive business advantage without considering the risks involved and the admonitions of American presidents of the dangers. With Steinmeier of the SPD there was the immense guilt of the millions of war dead from the German invasion of Russia in 1941 that acted as a brake on evaluating the increasing dependency for energy that reached over 35% by the time he was foreign minister. The fall of the Berlin Wall was seen not as a result of multiple factors including the positions taken by Carter and Reagan, the losses to the Russian economy from the war in Afghanistan, and the general decline of the Russian economy. German leaders saw this as coming from the new relationship being built with Russia. German business and Schroeder- Merkel even allowed not just new Nordstream pipelines under the Baltic Sea but also transferred ownership of reserves, the gas and oil storage inside Germany to Russia's Gazprom. German Economy minister Habeck says the storage tanks were emptied so that there would be added surge for oil and gas prices after the attacks on Ukraine. This Guardian report ends by saying that Mr. Steinmeier still needs to show why he pursued policy of cooperation with Russia with increasing dependency to the point that a cut off of Russian oil and gas supplies would lead to gas rationing in Germany in the event of a sudden cutoff. Was it a form of sensible cooperation taking dependency to such extremes. Similar questions remain for chancellor Merkel. With the added question for Merkel about the increase in trading ties with China even after the Trump administration had warned of the serious risks to US and European competitive advantage in technology and manufacturing, and the increased dependence on a supply chain that was fundamentally weak as shown clearly by the pandemic.     ...

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France's Foreign Minister Ayrault says of Boris Johnson: "He lied a lot to the British. Now, he is the one with his back against the wall." He sees missing in Johnson the "clear, credible and reliable" person with whom he can negotiate. Ray Stegner, deputy chairman of Germay's Social Democrat Party says "May looks weaker after such a choice of personnel. Now he is negotiating Brexit. Enjoy the trip." In China he is seen as a celebrity not a serious person. Bildt, ZDF, see in this a part of British humor. Jurgen Hardt, foreign policy spokesman for Christian Democrats Party in Germany had a different take on Johnson- seeing this as an astute move because if the government one day comes to conclude that Brexit should not be completed then having Johnson on board to explain it to the people would guarantee support in her party and with the people of England. In her first speech May emphasized that she was a "Unionist." Her first important meeting was with Nicola Sturgeon of Scotland and made Scotland's agreement necessary before invoking Article 50. Her talk of "burning injustices" for the poor and the underprivileged also goes to address the root of the problems behind the Leave vote. By having Johnson on board she can focus on the issues that really matter and which were on the minds of people in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland- to ensure that the economic system works for all.   ...

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In this thoughtful essay Bob Davis of the WSJ asks whether the decision of the Clinton administration to admit China into the World Trade Organization was a bad one for the U.S.  Mr. Clinton in 2000 tried to persuade Congress citing words of president Woodrow Wilson that of a dream "of a world full of free markets, free elections, and free peoples working together."  Every year China would have its most favored nation status renewed with help from supporters in Congress. After WTO entry this was not necessary. Chinese leaders saw the entry into WTO as a way to knock down trade barriers, to act a wrecking ball for the planned economy, to give the economy a big boost.  In 1994 China was a relatively backward economy with 60% of the population living on less than $1.90 a day. Hard to imagine today.  Not everyone was convinced that it was good for the U.S. This included a trade attorney who had tackled a huge trade deficit with Japan in the Reagan period- Robert Lighthizer. Lighthizer was Deputy Trade Representative negotiating with the Japanese. His prediction was that no job in America would be safe once China entered the WTO, that China would become a dominant trading nation.  Robert Cassidy, 73, trade negotiator for president Clinton looks back on that time and says that he regrets what has happened, that all his work night and a day only benefited business and hurt workers. David Autor, MIT economist and his colleagues,  in a later study documented loss of 2.4 million jobs to Chinese competition between 1999 and 2011, in many manufacturing towns dotting the landscape of America, particularly in the midwestern states. And the expectation that the higher economic growth would lead to less political control did not turn out to be true.  In the process multinationals rushed to China after WTO entry and China became the world's manufacturing floor. By 2013 China's per capita income reached $7000, after years of fast GDP growth approaching 10% a year.  About 400 million Chinese were lifted out of poverty from living on less than $1.90 per day from 1999 to 2011, according to the World Bank. A big problem was that the U.S. did not plan for the change from WTO entry. No resources were allocated for the plan to let American workers adjust through worker retraining and special trade handicapped income support, to allow for a slow planned shift. Instead the pace of growth was faster than that which the U.S. faced with the Japanese export offensive in the eighties. China experienced double digit growth after 2000. The irony is that the Republican administrations that followed Clinton followed a policy of free trade to the advantage of China's state run economy when working class Americans voted mostly for the Democratic Party. Little was done and little said in the media from Democrats and Republicans in Congress and the establishment during this time even after Mr. David Autor documented the effects of trade in the U.S.  Till Mr. Trump recognizing the alienation in communities hit by job losses from trade upended American politics, shifted this part of the electorate to the Republican base. Mr. Lighthizer's view is that complaints about China should be left out of WTO because it is naive to tackle it that way. With a $375 billion China trade deficit for 2017 the challenge has to be met in a different way, and the U.S. has to rely on regaining its economic strength within a fair trading framework. Having negotiated with the Japanese Mr. Lighthizer sees the approach adopted then as the one right for today. During the long negotiations Lighthizer is said to have received many negotiating positions of the Japanese signifying no change in long sessions. He once simply made a paper plane and sent it right back, in one of these sessions. He meant that the U.S. was serious about reversing the imbalance in trade. ...

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Following the fifth North Korean nuclear test DW.com talks with Rudiger Frank about the test and what this means. Frank says the negotiations with North Korea and efforts to limit the program so far have been a colossal failure. Tests have continued and without a change in strategy more tests will be followed by the usual condemnations by world leaders and further sanctions. Frank says this change in strategy would include recognizing North Korea as a nuclear state, and getting North Korea to ensure the weapons are safe and secure in the country, getting a clear idea of what and where the weapons are. The International Atomic Agency would be asked to go in and make inspections. The next step would be to freeze the program at some level agreed to. This is a tough step to take but it only recognizes the reality of the situation, and continued development by North Korea of nuclear weapons if no steps for change are taken. 

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Progressive caucus in the US House of Representatives led by Pramila Jaypal, a first time Indian American Congresswoman defeats an attempt by Josh Gottheimer of the Problem Solvers caucus to separate much of the president Biden's agenda in health, education and social policy and risk it being defeated by Senators Manchin and Sinema in the US Senate. Without the efforts on child care, education and health, climate change and social services part of the Biden Workers and Families Plan much of the Biden agenda would remain unfinished and Democratic party promises not kept. This also means that Manchin a Senator from West Virginia with a population of 1.8 million and Arizona with a population of 7.2 million, both conservative leaning Democrats could sink the entire agenda of president Biden to support American families and workers for a population of 331 million people. That two states with a population of less than 3% of the American population could sink the entire agenda of president Biden shows how fragile a situation has been created within the Democratic party to support workers and families even during the pandemic following the leadership of Carter, Clinton, and Obama Ms. Jaypal, a three term Congresswoman from Seattle, Washington state, was first elected in 2016 with an endorsement from Bernie Sanders who was the Democratic Party's leading candidate for president till the late stages of the 2020 US presidential primaries. Bernie Sanders says of Jaypal- "I think she is doing an extraordinary job. And I think the Progressive Caucus is doing an extraordinary job." Sanders founded the Progressive caucus after getting elected to the Senate from Vermont 30 years ago. Even though it is hard to imagine the Democratic party being the Democratic party without bold policies in climate change, affordable housing, reducing income disparities,  investing big in childcare, education and healthcare, attempts were being made to sink the entire Democratic party and national agenda going back to Franklin Roosevelt. Jaypal is described in the WSJ as diplomatic and firm, saying "I am so proud of our caucus; I have never seen our caucus so strong. And I am a very good vote counter also." Fifty members of the 100 member Progressive Caucus held firm in support of president Biden's original agenda without which the president would have little to show in keeping promises he made to the American people in the election and little to differentiate him from Mr. Trump who also supported infrastructure spending. Separating the infrastructure bill would have risked sinking Mr. Biden's plan for recovery of America from the pandemic and the devastating policies pursued by American presidents in the last two decades. Policies by previous presidents that have impoverished the country, created huge income disparities, weakened America in the world in trade and technological leadership, and wasted resources in foreign wars. There are no centrists or far left- these are just labels. When Ms Japal said "Let's just remember the Speaker (Nancy Pelosi) is a great champion of this agenda. I think she was trying to do as much as she could to get this done," she could have said it is Mr. Biden's own agenda pushed forward with conviction to help workers and families during the pandemic, and build a solid American recovery, restore American leadership in the world. Pramila Japypal is the first Indian American woman in the US Congress, and one of only two dozen naturalized American citizens in the US Congress. That she could play such a critical role for good in the US Congress shows that with the right convictions, determination, experience, much can be done for the common good in America and the world.   ...

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Mike Pence, former Vice President, says he can't defend what is alleged in the indictment of Mr. Trump for keeping highly sensitive documents as the allegations are serious involving national security, nuclear program and vulnerabilities. Yet he would like to know from Attorney General Merrick Garland what role his judgement played in moving forward with an unprecedented indictment of a former president of the US.

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The term "populist" is used with negative connotations about the uneducated masses and people making decisions without careful thought. Kimball says the word was used in this way to suggest demagoguery during the Brexit vote, the U.S. election with Trump and the French election. He says he found Brexit yes voters to be rational in the way they favored British sovereignty, even though they were seen as populist.

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The complex relations of Jordan and Saudis with US and Israel, in June 2025.  There is also the perception and actions of the two American parties Republicans and Democrats that have exacerbated the situation. This see saw of relations under the two parties in the US has only served to exacerbate the relations and draw the US into Middle East conflicts that have their origins in British colonial rule and interests of western oil companies from 1900.  During the Reagan period American involvement under Defense Secretary Rumsfeld to support the Iraqi invasion of Iran in a balancing act. And just a year earlier the Democrat Carter's efforts to look at the Islamic revolution as a response to the CIA's intervention in Iran's internal affairs under Eisenhower's Foreign minister Dulles to secure oil supplies, and efforts to find a way to good relations with Iran. This was followed by the Democrat Obama negotiating with Iran, normalizing relations and Democrat Biden handing over Iranian assets  of hundreds of billions of dollars that were used DJT says to build its military that had suffered badly under the earlier western sanctions under Republican Trump.  It has led to some of the migration from Syria after Russian involvement that flooded Germany with millions of migrants and destabilized European countries democratic processes. These earlier interactions between US and Iran have turned into an Iranian effort to develop its nuclear capabilities bringing the situation faced today, and showing the failure to find solutions of everything tried before and not helping the people of the Arab World and the Gulf regions.   ...

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With Obama's popularity rating in 2016 similar to Reagan's in his last year in office at 51%, he announced his endorsement of Hillary Clinton for president. Obama is likely to campaign in 2016 for Hillary to reunite the Democratic Party, bring Bernie Sanders and Sander's supporters behind the Democratic nominee, including younger women.

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It is not clear what this bazooka is. China's leaders are studying the economy carefully. Recent actions for stimulus were designed to offset weak performance of stock markets which have rebounded with Shanghai index up 11% into positive territory. Consumption spending is weak with worries about the safety net and propensity to save so that lower mortgage rates will mean households will pay of their mortgage first before increasing spending. Real estate construction is weak after bankruptcies in this sector. Some suggestions are for China to improve its safety net as in the US for working class people, low income families- to give them better medical insurance. And increase pensions of farmers, migrant workers, and low income families. They may still be inclined to save yet it is a move in the right direction as is happening in the US, and the trend worldwide is to reduce stark social divisions. China just lacks the resources for the kind of revival in the US that Harris has planned. As long as the US was frittering away its resources in foreign wars it had one hand tied behind it's back, as long as it did not invest these dollars going to wars overseas in the domestic economy it would languish and fall behind. It was in this sense Joe Biden who did the hard work that Trump after raising the alarm signals failed to do for lack of focus, and now it is Harris who is building the game plan for the kind of US that led the US into the twentieth century once before- optimism, imagination and hard work. ...

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China showed its sensitivity to U.S. or British criticism by seeing this in terms of the colonial days when Hong Kong was a British colony. Media outlets in Beijing show U.S. diplomats have met with senior government officials. There is a sense that the U.S. and Britain could be supporting the protests. Reports in WSJ show president Trump keen on not letting Hong Kong situation affect the trade talks with China.

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President Biden addressed the Nation from the Rose garden today November 7, 2024. His remarks were conciliatory. "You can't love your neighbor only when you agree."  "Something I hope we can do, no matter who you voted for, is see each other not as adversaries, but as fellow Americans. Bring down the temperature." It is a remarkable end to a remarkable presidency which history will judge as perhaps a single term in which more was done than in any other 4 year term of a presidency, except for FDR in 1932 and Lincoln in 1861, tackling a once in a century pandemic, and rebuilding the economy, manufacturing, and infrastructure. And even correcting missteps on immigration by getting the legislation to fix it. It is a tall order for anyone who succeeds Biden though in the current post election situation there will be the typical euphoria on one side and losing on the other.  During the Republican sweep by Herbert Hoover in 1928 Franklin Roosevelt was elected governor of New York and he used the intervening years to 1932 to prepare for the monumental task ahead by testing his plan for economic recovery using New York and a couple of states from Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire, setting up the first unemployment insurance, shorter week, annual employment and other ideas to stabilize employment for one third of the US economy. Biden says he has asked his administration to work with Trump's team for the peaceful transition to a newly elected president. None of the fears about the transition came true with the new president getting a clear mandate to tackle the cost of living crisis for Americans. ...

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After a 90 minute meeting with Putin in Hangzhou, China, president Obama wonders aloud whether Putin " is willing to live with constant, low-grade conflict." Richard Haas of the Council of Foreign Relations, says its affirmative, that low grade conflict is Putin's thing. Other experts say Putin's intention is largely to build up his image at home at a time when the Russian economy is facing problems, and to create confusion through cyberattacks. In the case of cyber intrusions into voter rolls of Arizona and Illinois, FBI Director Comey says it  may be intended to just sow seeds of doubt on the whole election process."

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The 1985 hit "Small Town" by John Mellencamp is about Seymour, Indiana. Republican State Representative Jim Lucas says the city of Seymour welcomes immigrants legally here who are properly vetted. The concern is about migrants not vetted and not legally here. At a recent city council meeting Lucas attended it was decided not to go ahead with an economic development agenda. Says Lucas- “However, Seymour has changed drastically in just the past few years, and many of us are obviously concerned about the direction we are headed,” he added. New immigrant cases or migrant arrivals for Jackson county, Indiana, where Seymour is located went up to 435 in 2024 from 66 in 2021. It is at that point that the welcome center idea ran into opposition in this small town in Indiana, an hour from Indianapolis population 21,000 in Jackson County. As the town's population mix changes - it was 1% Hispanic in 1990, then 5% Hispanic in 2000- jumping in two decades of Bush-Obama-Trump-Biden to 25% Hispanic, questions besides economic about the sense of uneasiness of resident came up. Also of cultural literacy of the state of Indiana, and of the history of the state within the Union forged by Washington and Lincoln, FDR and Eisenhower, and of Wendell Wilkie of Elwood, Indiana. Unemployment rate for Jackson County is 3.3%, median income $63,000, home ownership 57%. Issues were not about the economy alone, and about how many immigrants could be absorbed and the cultural and language literacy of arriving migrants. There were issues about the perceived crime rate (metrics show traffic related offenses were up), and about drawing too much of the school's resources as English learning went up slowing learning in the schools. Republican State Representative Jim Lucas says it is crowding the health care clinic downtown with immigrants. ...

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Cohn and Monkovic of the NYT show how the shift of blacks, hispanics, and white collar professionals is doing to the demographics in the eastern, coastal and southern states, and how this will impact 2016 and future presidential elections in the U.S. This includes North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Virginia, and Florida. It means the electoral map may have changed by 2016 and 2020, as the less educated voters in rural areas are balanced by a growing minority and white collar vote in the suburbs and major cities of the South.

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There are serious differences in what Ukraine says it received $67 billion military aid and $31 for budget needs compared to the $350 billion figure cited by DJT. DJT calls Zelensky as not legitimately representing Ukraine as no elections can be called in Ukraine in wartime and Zelensky's term expired in 2024, saying should'nt the people of Ukraine be at the table. He also says Ukraine was at the table for 3 years and even a half baked negotiator could have settled this war. What DJT means is that Ukraine could have settled it by promising to stay out of NATO, and remain neutral not joining the EU. It would have given up control over formerly Russia supporting parts of Ukraine in the east that Russia now controls. Ukraine would have returned to being a buffer zone between Western Europe and Russia of today. Even today this has not changed as any peace would not reverse the status quo of control of these eastern regions by Russia. On NATO Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov says- "Trump (DJT) is the first, and so far only Western leader to publicly and loudly say that one of the root causes of the Ukraine situation is the impudent line of the previous administration to draw Ukraine into NATO.” Zelensky's popularity has fallen in Ukraine as the war drags on. DJT says US has put $350 billion in Ukraine and asked for an agreement committing half of Ukraine's rare earth resources to the US. Zelensky says he cannot sell the state out. Zelensky's estimate of US assistance is $67 billion military aid and $31 billion in aid for the budget. ...

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Christine Lagarde tells an audience at Goethe University in Frankfurt- "the answer to the reality of this interconnected world is not fragmentation, it is cooperation." She said about inequality in socieites- "Overcoming the voices of despair and exclusion requires an alternative path, one that leads to prospects for more employment, higher incomes and more secure lives."

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Kevin Maurer looks back at 15 years of covering Afghanistan since 2004, and asks was it worth it.  The conflict has cost 145,000 lives for the U.S. period of the war alone. Not counting the war in which the Russians were involved in the decade before the U.S. involvement. In fact the Russian involvement in Afghanistan was costly enough to hasten the collapse of the Soviet Union and bring Gorbachev to power to unwind the war and make the changes that led to the collapse of the Berlin Wall.  2400 U.S. servicemen dead and 20,000 Americans wounded. The cost to the U.S. is $737 billion for this war, according to a report in 2018 from Brown University's Costs of War Project. Just as the Soviet Union showed the damage from this war the U.S. has seen the cost of this war and foreign entanglement in another war that started accidentally with international interventions in the Iran-Iraq region as a cost that was borne with consequences. This includes the neglect of infrastructure and the damage to the middle class prosperity built up in the 1950's and 1960's after the Second World War. The U.S. got into this war with 9/11 attacks on New York City. By 2010 what began as a war fought by a few Special Operations teams turned into a war with troop levels reaching 100,000. Presidents Bush and Obama both failed to end the war by winning it. In 2014 finally combat operations stopped and American troops mainly conducted anti-terrorism operations and trained Afghan forces. In recent years the war has gradually disappeared from the national discussion in the U.S. and is barely talked about. President Trump wants to end the war even if it means talking to the Taliban and negotiations directly with the Taliban are ongoing.  One result of this war is the aversion to costly international entanglements and the highly unpopular nature of the conflicts. There are serious costs of the conflict in terms of neglected domestic priorities including infrastructure, loss of U.S. technological edge in key industries, and the competition from China, an the investments in health, education, services that were not made, the increase in inequalities and the diminishing of the middle class. The global financial crisis of 2008, the result of faulty banking, added an economic dimension through the loss of middle class savings in the U.S., worsening the financial situation of the middle class in the U.S.    ...