LyrArc Article Gist
People in Japan know the decluttering movement, to simplify one's life by getting rid of things one really doesn't need, as "danshari." The word "danshari" is taken from 3 Japanese characters meaning "refuse," "dispose" and "separate." Hideko Yamashita's book on danshari is a bestseller in Japan. She says it is a way to get rid of what is contaminating one's life, just like the way one does Buddhist meditation or practices Zen Buddhism to unclutter one's mind. Religion teaches one to keep the minimum that adds meaning and joy to one's life. This is the opposite of the tendency in the postwar years to collect and hoard things. To not be wasteful or "mottainai" was a good thing then, and before the war when there was scarcity of consumer goods during Japan's early development phase. Now with a consumer society things have changed, just as in the U.S. and Europe, decluttering makes sense in a consumer society where one is under constant pressure from advertising to buy things. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The Guardian gives this story of Khamanei's rule in Iran after 1989. He was made president in 1981 in a landslide win at that time just 2 years after the revolution in 1979 that toppled the Shah of Iran's monarchial regime. Khamanei comes from a the family of a modest cleric in the town of Mashaad who was immersed in the anticolonial writings coming out of Arab North Africa's liberation movements. His policy towards Israel and the US, difficult relations with Arab countries in the neighborhood, and pursuit of nuclear weapons technologies, led Iran to become isolated and face sanctions that hurt its economy and its oil industry for three decades. It created its own version of governing and in setting up proxy militias but this resulted in huge investments diverted from the economy of Iran, neglect of its oil industry and production under western sanctions, that led to economy collapsing and student protests every decade. This expanded in 2025 to broad sections of the population calling for a new direction. Protests were suppressed leading to a disconnect with the people by 2026. To truly understand Iran one has to step back to the 1900's ( as one must also do to understand China or India), as Iran was ruled by the Qajar dynasty at the time. The first Majlis parliament was set up in Iran in 1906 -with the help of "good" Britishers like the British agent in Rajkot who helped send Gandhi to London to study law- wished to see a constitutional setup similar to Britain and limit the powers of the monarchy so that reforms in agriculture and in the civil service could be made. It lasted until 1908. At the time other Britishers in the British Empire both in India and in London sought to maintain British influence and keep out Russian influence. It was not a coincidence that the Majlis lasted only till 1908. That year in 1908 the first discovery of oil in West Asia was made in Khozestan province by George Reynolds, with investor backing of William D'Arcy. The following year 1909 the Anglo-Persian Oil Company( later Anglo Iranian Oil Company and later British Petroleum) was formed. The oil concession was given by the Shah from Qajar dynasty. From that time on Iran became the scene of oil company interests, monarchial interests first under Qajar dynaasty and then under Pahlavis dynasty (which set itself up like Napoleon II in France from humble origins, after 1925 to replace the Qajar dynasty), and the emerging middle class lawyer and civil service, agricultural landowners class, all competing for power and influence in a Asian region with Shihite Islamic embedded in the fabric of the society. Power swung to different groups from 1925 onwards for 5 decades to the 1979 revolution that overthrew the Pahlavi temporary replacement monarchy that worked with British oil interests. West Asia became a meeting point for anticolonial writings emerging from Arab North Africa and other places that took the form of and led to a socialist style anticolonial Baathist influnce that overthrew a monarchy in Baghdad Iraq in the "Free Officers" coup of June 14, 1958 led by Karim Kassem. Out of that Pan Arabic Iraqi mood emerged S. Hussein who with weapons systems imported from the US and Europe initiated the war with Iran in 1980. The Iranian counterrevolutionary movement to Iraq began from that time with the leadership of Khomeni and Khameni from 1981. This is what one has seen swing back and forth in the West Asian region for about 5 decades to 2026, the regional Arab states mostly Sunni monarchies ranged against Iran with its Shiite and also modernizing population. US oil interests in Arab monarchies of the West Asian region from the time of FDR's meeting with Saudi's Faisal in the WWII period clashed with Iranian public interests competing with oil interests (US and British) allied to monarchial interests, and the emergence of Shiite Islamic authority in Iran in these clashes. Iranian public interests that started out with the Majlis and parliaments set up by the "good Britishers" never got a chance in Iran just as the modernizing effort of Sun Yat Sen in China in the 1900's never got a chance in the middle of the surviving monarchy in China by 1910, and the Japanese colonial interests in China from that time competing with the Nationalists Koumintang and the Communist Chinese workers movements emerging in the 1930's, all competing for influence during the Chinese civil war and in its aftermath the emergence of Mao and the CCP of China. This is the situation we in the world face today. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Julia Paternain of Uruguay wins Bronze at Tokyo World Athletics Championships coming out of nowhere, she was clueless where she was as she entered the stadium.  "I was in shock. This is my second marathon and I was just trying to get from A to B and get to the finish line without my legs giving way," said Paternain. Her whole family is from Uruguay, her father is a professor at Cambridge University. "At halfway I realised I was in the top 12, maybe, and from then I was kind of picking people off. Usually in races you have people yelling at you that you are in this position, but everything was in Japanese so I had no idea where I was." "When I came into the track I couldn't see a soul, so I was like, 'I have no clue where I am'. I knew I was somewhere in the top - I was assuming six or five. I didn't know exactly where. I didn't really want to think there was a medal, just in case there wasn't. I was terrified that that wasn't the finish and that someone was going to be behind me, and I was going to stop and I had another lap to go." ...

LyrArc Article Gist
In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, the commander in Afghanistan, General McChrystal, responds to a question about Vice President Biden, and says, "who is that?" An aide jumps in saying, is that "Bite Me?" These and other words of disdain for the Vice President and other policy advisors, are seen as the kind of frustration facing commanders from the slow progress in the enlarged effort in Afghanistan. It also brings to the fore the serious questions that have always remained, some raised by Biden, Reidel and others, of how any kind of success could be achieved without a reliable partner in the Afghan government, with the complicated situation in Pakistan where the Intelligence Services pursued a different agenda from that of the government, and with little interest from the people in the rural areas in a vast rural mountainous country, Kabul a little urban dot in a huge landscape of deserts and mountains. See the groups and links for Afghanistan and Pakistan for background.

LyrArc Article Gist
Ruchir Sharma, head of emerging markets at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, provides insights into the economc problems facing Brazil in 2016. He points out that 41% of Brazil's GDP goes into public spending by local, regional and national government, crowding out private investment. The tax burden is high at 35% of GDP. And under the Rousseff administration budget discipline has been lacking. Compared to the Lula government running consistent surplus Ms. Rousseff ran a deficit of 10% of GDP. With a large welfare state, the budget has rigidities, says Sharma, with public pensions increasing since 2000 from 3% to 7% of GDP, and heavy state spending tending to push interest rates up and increase borrowing costs. Retirement age is 54 and 52 for men and women respectively, and pensioners get 90% of salary, compared to 60% in advanced countries. The decline in commodity prices has hit Brazil hard because 67% of exports are from commodities such as soyabeans in 2016 compared to 46% in 2000. Manufacturing accounts for only 11% of the economy. As long as high commodity prices supported the lavish welfare and public spending Rousseff's popularity remained high at 60% as recently as 2013. The collapse of commodity prices has hurt the economy leading to growth of negative 3.5% in GDP. Rousseff's popularity hit a low of 11% as public protests over poor public services, were followed by a series of corruption scandals. Even if impeachment led to new leadership the problems are deep rooted, with neglect of education, healthcare, public services, and manufacturing industries, and heavy public spending no longer supported by high commodity prices. Some of the problems existed in the boom years of the Lula administration, only covered up by the commodities boom cycle, and becoming evident in the down cycle of the Rousseff years. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Lee Cheuk-yan, chairman of the pro-democracy Labor Party, describes the 17 year old Wong and young people in high schools to a crowd in Hong Kong in this way- these are very young faces, the old men in Hong Kong including many in the elite who dared not to speak up for Hong Kong's cherished traditions and rights out of caution will die, but these young people will carry on. Wong started the group Scholarism as an internet based movement to fight the 2012 "patriotic classes" plan of the Communist Party and Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying. That movement took hold in Hong Kong and the government had to shelve the plan. This time he is fighting for universal suffrage in Hong Kong in 2017 with the right to elect its own leaders without prescreening by the Communist Party. This is in the spirit of the Basic Law, former Hong Kong Governor Chris Patten tells the BBC. Patten helped negotiate the transfer agreement for Hong Kong and handled the transfer in 1997. In August 2014 China changed this intent leading to protest demonstrations. Wong is of Protestant parents who helped stir in him a sense of opposing social injustice. Beyond Hong Kong there is something else at work- a sense that the new leaders in Beijing are choosing the Putin Way that sees these demonstrations as inspired by foreign forces and treating all NGO's as foreign agents. In a larger sense the old leaders are living in a past world of territorial gains and keeping tight grip on power, when the world is now interdependent economically and politically, with change requiring new approaches to problems. The presence of 15 year old high school students and very young generation suggests no such foreign interference, as most of these students are very young....

LyrArc Article Gist
The two men, the couple one a Professor and the other a hard charging investment banker who kind of fit in together, their background, personalities, and preparation for this crisis. Throughout this crisis both had little sleep paulson some 4 hour and Bernanke leaving at midnight to catch some sleep and how the crisis kept going on and on, with one fire put out another remaining to be put out and finally after day after day on Diet coke or diet Dr. Pepper and little sleep Paulson agreed with Bernanke's opinion that "we've got to go to Congress." In fact based on his studies and research on the Great Depression and of the crisis in Japan in the nineties in the banking system there, Bernanke had given his conclusion early on about a year earlier that if there were significant decline in housing prices the government would have to step in with a large intervention. But in the end it happened all so suddenly with Paulson agreeing and both Paulson and Bernanke going upto the President and the President saying lets do it. So the meeting with Congressmen was arranged a few hours later after the inital meeting in Speaker Pelosi's office. Any reluctance to meet Congressmen who had considered any steps in this session unlikely having disappeared, and the stark nature of the crisis in the words of Senator Dodd, Chairman of the Banking Committee, became clear in the opening remarks of Paulson and Bernanke. Dodd told a news reporter that for a long time there was complete silence in the room and he does not recall a moment like this in 25 years in Congress and it being a scary story. By now it had become overwhelmingly obvious that something needed to be done in hours and days....

LyrArc Article Gist
The Biden administration's har ghar jal effort, clean drinking water in every home. The Modi administration has made its mark by har ghar jal, drinking water from taps for every home in a country of 1.3 billion people. The US Biden administration will be ensuring the same for clean drinking water free of harmful disease causing chemicals including PFAS contamination. PFAS chemicals are forever chemicals that take a long period to break down. Even lower levels of toxic chemicals can be seriously harmful, says the Biden administration.The head of the Environmental Protection Agency leads this effort by putting 1 billion dollars from last years approved spending into the plan for clean drinking water. 2021 approved spending for Workers and Families plan of Biden has $10 billion for preventing PFAS contamination. Of this the first $1 billion will be made available to affected and most hard hit communities for clean drinking water. Money would go to water quality testing, contractor training and new water treatment systems. In addition Food and Drug Administration agency will tackle testing for food and packaging, Agriculture Department for livestock contamination. Defense Department for checking contamination in military installations. It is a sort of Gati Shakti Master plan that brings in all agencies of government, an approach the Modi administration has adopted for India. One does not have to look far to understand the priorities of the world's two greatest democracies. This is the common struggle in the world's two great democracies to bring a better life for all the people.  "People on the frontline have suffered far too long. That is why Biden is taking aggressive action," says Biden/s man at the EPA Michael Regan.  Mr.Modi says the same thing for har ghar jal campaign for drinking water for 1.3 billion people. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The Vice Chief of the Indian Army explains in detail how the scheme that is rolled out for Agnipath is a pilot project and how the lessons learned will be incorporated over the next 5 years. He says the recruits leave with something like 24 lakhs rupees for a second innings at age 22, with the opportunity to get 13 lakhs in preferential basis loans in government assistance to start an enterprise. Others could choose to enhance their education and go on to get degrees under preferential educational setup. The idea is not to set them up for life but get them off to a good start as they are only about 22 years and with special technical skills acquired during their 4 years in the armed services. Technical skills acquired in the airforce could be even more advanced. Private industry in an India almost twice the size of the economy that exists today and the fastest growing economy in the world would easily absorb 30,000 of such highly trained disciplined people in the scheme who leave. The US GI Bill and other similar programs for the military have shown that this works and private industry is eager to take in these people on a preferential basis. These in fact have proven to be even more attractive opportunities using the example of the US experience than a government job. Lt. Gen. Raju says about the All India regiments replacing the homogenous units of the past. The Rastriya Rifles  and similar units in the Army have shown that the bonding happens for people from different parts of the country. He could have said that it is seen in the cricket teams where the bonding is between people from different regions and places. These units have performed very well says Raju in the LAC, in Kashmir, in border areas and in other situations. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
There may be psychological hurdles in China's growth with the effects on mental health from lockdowns in major cities, the revolt in the property sector with home buyers losing confidence in developers, the loss of confidence of foreign investors from US and EU. The dependence on the property sector to carry so large a burden of growth for the last 2 decades in China may now look like an error. The dependence on foreign investment may also be an error as the loss of confidence could mean some withdrawal and a lack of sustained investment.  It could even be said that restraints on both sectors property and foreign investors could have created alternative paths to growth, and reduced the shift of factories from the US and Europe to China that have now caused trade friction and and a reverse shift of investment back to home countries of US and EU. Trade friction has it appears backfired in a way that extends to the overall relationship which could have been prevented by preventing the hyper growth that happened. Greg Ip of the WSJ has argued that compared to Japan's growth in the sixties and seventies from a country of 100 million the hyper growth for a country of 1 billion for 2 decades created a massive impact on communities in US and EU that were dependent on factories that were lost to China. This has alienated large sectors of the public in the US and EU which could have been prevented by restraints on hyper growth in China. Ip says the growth was too large and too fast for the US to cope. It may have permanently damaged the relations between the two countries showing that trade and globalization had unintended effects when left to business and governments staying away from keeping an eye on how it was happening. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The perception comes from seeing decisions made but not the process of decisions which is lengthy and even seen by participants as long, in which Mr. Modi act as a patient listener to all voices. Could'nt it be shorter is felt by some participants, yet Mr. Modi would have 2-3 meetings listening to all participants with humility before arriving at a decision. Tough decisions were made on vaccines to get to 1 billion vaccinations goal, on demonetisation and GST, and on digital India, housing schemes, bank accounts, and Jal Jeevan.  Mr. Shah points out that where earlier governments had brought bank accounts, electricity water, and cooking gas to some people, the approach of Mr. Modi was to get electricity, water, cooking gas to all homes for 1.4 billion people in India. He says Mr Modi is hard for even his colleagues to understand in terms of his passion and endless capacity for hard work for bringing essential services to every Indian, and the last Indian is a concept that not the BJP or any party had, it was entirely Mr. Modi's idea for New India. Mr. Modi he says is not the BJP or himself even, he is always thinking how could the lives of ordinary Indian be better in every way, and every rupee going to that last man in line in a nation of 1.4 billion. It can best be understood through Vivekananda's writings some 125 years ago. The passion for India and the Indian people of Vivekananda in his writings is a huge reservoir of energy for someone like Modi, that Modi has tapped into from his beginnings in Gujarat government and more so when he left Gujarat for Delhi. Vivekananda's foresight, energy, and passion for the Indian people is reflected in the efforts for New India. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Is the jobless rate in Liverpool, in the one time industrial heartland of Britain about 6% or counting the hidden jobless close to 13%. Is the unemployment rate much higher than the 3% in official statistics for Britain because official statistics do not include the hidden jobless. Learn more about this astonishing quirk in the statistics that distorts reality about social conditions. None less than the OECD, the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development and the Center for cities thinkt tank is of the view that 3 million people are missing from the official jobless figures. The OECD report says that when these 3 million people are counted the UK's unemployment or jobless rate is about 13.2% or abut 4.3 million people. This report shows that the austerity policies of the last ten years in Britain have bit by bit hurt people's chances of finding work.  The OECD/Centre for Cities study shows something else that is striking- it says Liverpool has the highest rate of hidden jobless in its study, with about 20% of working age adults out of work compared to an official rate of 5.8%. The mayor of the Liverpool region, Steve Rotheram, sitting in his office overlooking the Albert Dock on the banks of the Mersey river, where Britain's mighty shipbuilding industry once dominated and now in decay, says sanctioning people does not work,  a decade of cuts have done damage, and that his authority runs Households into Work, in an attempt to treat people as human beings first to get a better response. The government job centres tend to focus on people 25-35, says food bank and job support charity at the Anglican Cathedral on a ridge overlooking the Mersey. That means a lot of people in their forties and fifties are left out. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The low number of confirmed cases and small number of deaths in India and Pakistan is being analyzed for what to expect in the coming months from June to August. Some experts see this as just the beginning that the peak will come later on. India has about 75,000 cases and Pakistan 35,000. Testing has lagged behind with only 1.5 tests per thousand people compared to 26 per thousand in the U.S.  one reason the confirmed case count is lower. Some confidence is being drawn from the deaths- 2415 in India and 737 in Pakistan. This is because only 2.2% of cases in India and 3.3% in Pakistan led to deaths, compared to 14.3% in UK and 5.5% in China, 6% in U.S., using John Hopkins database. One reason given is that only 6.4% of India's population and 4.3% of Pakistan's is over 65 years age. Compare mean age in Italy 46 years to 27 in India and 23 in Pakistan. And there is plenty of sunlight which appear to destroy the virus. Other factors that may influence the virus- taking of the tuberculosis vaccine and routine exposure to more pathogens in both countries. Prime minister Modi in India is taking no chances considering the size of India's population. He has put forward a $280 billion economic package and is moving in deliberate carefully prepared steps to lift lockdowns with the current phase No. 4 allowing more reopening. The shift now is to a more self reliant economy in industrial production making "local more vocal."  During the lockdown the large rail network and postal networks with their millions of employees, IT technology driven banking with Aadhar identification for direct deposit to hundreds of millions of the most needy citizens, and farmers, proved to be the most reliable and supportive. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
In a great success story for Africa and medical research in Africa, Congolese medical scientist Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe's research helps find a solution for tackling the Ebola virus.  The Ebola virus has killed 9 out of ten patients in outbreaks in Africa, particularly in the Congo.  A international coalition of doctors and scientists have proven in clinical trials that new Ebola drugs, a result of Dr. Muyembe's research, work effectively to save lives. Dr. Muyembe was one of the first scientists to identify the Ebola virus. The disease began in 1976 from a remote village near the Ebola river in the Congo. The clinical trials were done in the middle of a war torn country, in the northeast of the COngo, in tent-sided field hospitals that served as Ebola treatment centers. Two treatment centers were set on fire. Ebola patients recovered often after a single intravenous dose.  Dr. Muyembe's scientific research that showed that antibodies or proteins that the immune system produces to fight infections can build up a patient's defenses against Ebola, was initially received with skepticism and doubts by the medical research community. In trials patients given a single anti-body drug  had a 35% mortality rate compared a common 90% mortality rate without treatment. The NAID-led drug , mAb114, was made from an antibody of n Ebola survivor found by Dr. Muyembe who has dedicated his life to fighting Ebola, and is the head of the  Congo National Institute of Biomedical Research. The WHo and NAID, organized the clinical trials. Regeneron Pharmaceuticals has developed a drug based on this research REGN-EB3 which shows 34% mortality rate and better results when patients received the treatment soon after the illness.  About 240,000 people in the northeastern Congo have received vaccination for Ebola to contain the virus and prevent it from spreading. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
By drawing a comparison of China's aggressive flights close to Taiwan to the invasion of Ukraine, president Biden brings clarity to the US position on Taiwan. He says in Tokyo during his Asian trip that China "was flirting with danger" through its aggressive posture on Taiwan. President Biden made his remarks during a press conference with prime minister Fumio Kishida of Japan in Tokyo. This is what the BBC says about his remarks-  The US president began the press conference by directly linking the China-Taiwan situation to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, saying that the Russian president was "attempting to eliminate the identity of Ukraine." If there was rapprochement eventually between Ukraine and Russia and sanctions were not sustained, "then what does this signal to China about the costs of attempting to take Taiwan by force?" "They are flirting with danger already by flying so close and all the manoeuvres they are undertaking," Biden said, referring to increasing reports of Chinese warplane incursions into Taiwanese airspace. This suggests that the Asian trip of president Biden is bringing with it America's new Asia policy of building strong economic and defense partnerships in Asia. The US president also looks beyond today's conflict in Ukraine to an eventual rapprochement and end of sanctions as a possible scenario in Europe, and sees Asia as the region for America to build new supply chains that strengthen America and its partners, with a new partnership being formed with India, Indonesia and Vietnam, and with other ASEAN nations. In a way Biden and Republicans see the challenge from emerging powers in Asia as similar to the one from Japan in the thirties and the eighties, to be met with the combined economic strength of the US and Europe.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Hancock County, Iowa, is one of those rural counties in the American heartland that did not support Mr. Trump in 2016. This county now supports Trump by a large margin because they see his policies benefitting rural America, and see him as a way for the Republican party to be back in power to pursue a conservative agenda. WSJ reports from Hancock County in Iowa. The American voting system gives more importance to states with smaller populations in the Electoral College relative to larger states. States with large farming communities such as Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa play a larger role in elections in the US than population alone would suggest. John McCormick of the WSJ talks to farmers in this rural county in Iowa with a higher proportion of less educated voters than the rest of the counties in Iowa. One of five voters have a bachelors degree in Hancock County compared to one in three in Iowa as a whole and 38% nationally. The median age is 44 years compared to 39 years nationally and in Iowa. This part of rural Iowa is also in farmland that is many miles away from large cities and urban areas and more isolated and homogenous as 9 out of ten people are non-Hispanic and white. About a fourth of these voters are supporting his candidacy over Nikki Haley because they see it as more likely to win because of polls, even though Haley is according to the WSJ editorial opinion the stronger candidate for Republicans across the suburbs critical for 2024, which are slightly younger, more educated, and less isolated from the rest of the country. Biden and Obama are a sharp contrast when it comes to rural America. Where his own Agriculture secretary felt rural America was neglected by president Obama, Biden truly cares for rural America and has huge investments in rural America as part of the rural infrastructure effort. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
It is only 10 days from the Thursday July 4 election night and Keir Starmer went to work immediately Here is what he said today: "My new cabinet hit the ground running. We’ve lifted the ban on onshore wind. We’ve created a national wealth fund to invest in and grow our economy. We’ve met NHS bosses to get the 40,000 extra NHS appointments we need each week and 700,000 urgent dental appointments up and running as quickly as possible. The Department for Education is resuming and expanding its recruitment campaign to kickstart our promise to hire 6,500 new teachers. We’re taking emergency measures to pull the justice system back from the brink of collapse. And, on day one, we scrapped the Rwanda gimmick and began setting up a new Border Security Command to smash the people-smuggling gangs for good. Now is the time for politics as public service. A government committed not to its self-preservation but to uniting the country in the shared mission of national renewal. The start of the road back to restoring people’s hope and faith that politics can be a force for good. No more gimmicks, lies and self-serving self-obsession – this government knows we have a duty to the people we are elected to serve." ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Hannah Devlin writes about Jess Thom the Psychologist for Great Britain's Olympics teams. How Jess Thom gets British athletes to overcome self doubt, negativity and nerves as they compete in the most difficult of competitions. Here is what she tells athletes to do, which also applies in daily worklife in striving for excellence at work. “One of the most powerful things to understand is that it’s normal to have those unhelpful thoughts and feelings,” she said. “Even athletes have self-doubt at times. They get anxious or frustrated and still go on to win Olympic gold. Those thoughts and feelings don’t have to dictate how we behave.” Mindfulness is useful training of the mind. Yet accomplishing the required level of self-awareness still requires training, discipline and grit. “Notice your feelings, accept them, come back to the present moment. That’s the general strategy,” she said. “It sounds super easy on paper, but doing that in a high-pressure environment is impressive.” Thom tells athletes to think about their demeanor and how they think and act when they are at their best. If that means showing your style of athleticism at the start line, then doing that is fine. She encourages athletes to behave like you would when you have that real .strong confidence even if you’re not necessarily feeling that right there. What about negative thoughts. She gives them a name - Frank. And she says athletes can say- "Frank, not right now," to just set aside these thoughts. To control fears, athletes are told to write a “what if” list. It  serves as a backup plan for worst-case scenarios. This could mean getting a bad start in a race or going a set down in tennis.  Personal superstitions are included.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Tether is a cryptocurrency based out of the Virgin Islands that is pegged to the dollar 1:1. It has $120 billion in assets mostly safe US Treasury bills, and gold, bitcoin. It made $6.2 billion in profit for its owners more than Black Rock largest American asset manager fund. What does this mean? It offers an outlet for trade in oil for Russia and other countries such as Venezuela. At the same time it is useful to people in countries with high inflation such as Argentina and Turkey  where people use it to protect their assets from inflation erosion. When its use is widespread this also results in diversion of funds away from the Treasury as in Venezuela where an oil minister was toppled, says this WSJ report. And at the same time it gives protection to Venezuelans from extreme inflation. How it works- Tether Holdings issues virtual coins to a select number of direct customers, mostly trading firms, who wire real world dollars in exchange for Tether.  Tether buys US Treasury bills with these dollars to back Tether's value. Who runs Tether? Tether's cofounders included a plastic surgeon Giancarlo Devasini. All co-founders sold out to Devasini, who runs it from an enclave in southern coast of France. The company was founded in 2014. Interest was slim in a stable token backed by US Treasury bills. Then in 2020-21 bull run in the stock market traders started using it to buy and sell out of risky bets. It's market capitalization exploded from $4 billion to about $80 billion.  Tether says it avoids illicit transactions. WSJ report says 2713 wallets or about $1.2 billion were blacklisted, this out of $153 billion provided by Tether to its 2 popular blockchains. Rest of the funds already sent on, says WSJ. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Simon Jenkins of The Guardian says it is time to clear some of the myths around migrants, tariffs, and NATO and in this way action by the current Republican administration can be a positive step. Jenkins says DJT is moving quickly in the first 100 Days because most presidents get only 2 years to make changes before losing the House or the Senate making legislation difficult to pass. If it appears that things are happening on many fronts too quickly that is just the nature of things under a democratic process where checks and balances mean all three parts of government- executive powers of the president are balanced by powers of Congress and of the Supreme Court. Jenkins points out that action on migrants with the unease about millions of migrants coming in illegally, putting tariff barriers to bring manufacturing back and rebuilding America's forgotten middle class, cutting the bureaucracy and misuse of funds, sending education back to the states, and rethinking NATO bringing Russia back into the community of nations, will have long term positive effects long after the chaotic nature that they appear in the news cycle and the media presentation has passed. He cites China being invited back into the community of nations under Nixon. And today disarmament possible only by working with Russia, when China is moving in the direction of increasing nuclear missiles with trouble spots in Taiwan. He does not mention the sending back of about 1 million people back to Mexico under President Eisenhower in Operation Wetback in 1954, Harry Truman a senator from Missouri who led the effort to cut waste and fraud in government spending in the Second World War, the ED Hirsch graph showing reading comprehension scores of American K-12 headed one way - straight down since the 1960's showing education is failing in the US and needs parents and states to come up with new solutions.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Of the 45 million US student loan borrowers in 2025- only 11 million are on time with payments. The rest seeing sharp credit score declines that limit their access to home loans, other credit, or increase the costs of access to credit. This limits access to housing, and other needs for this group, it also affects demand in the economy. A recent WSJ report showed Moody Analytics research that 80% of US consumer spending is now done by 20% of the top income earners in the US. Decline in demand from this group will affect the economic growth in the US and how well the stock markets do. This will affect the job growth in the economy month to month.  This means with inaction from the DJT administration and the SCOTUS lack of comprehension of the economic aspects of this issue in ruling out action taken by the Biden administration- that this failure to take action on relief poses added risks to the US economy in 2025. It also means uneven and unbalanced growth where some groups upper income are favored by the virtue of the way the economy operates leaving many young people out of the benefits of growth. This adds to the general feeling of frustration and discontent after the pandemic and after cost of living surges in 2022-2024. It also means university education is no longer affordable or accessible to young people. Other issues play into this such as the surging cost of university education and action needs to be taken to bring this into line with earlier post 1945 patterns where university education was affordable and taken up. The increase in apprenticeship programs is a good thing, yet the gradual turning away of young men from college education is a serious danger to the cultural literacy in the US in 2020-2030. Leaving aside Ivy leagues making state college and universities affordable is one of the big problems needing to be solved as a priority in the US.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
This story in the WSJ on the Biden White House says it always operated with a tight inner circle. During the Covid pandemic it limited contacts for the president, yet after the pandemic eased this protective layer was not taken down says WSJ. As the president's age advanced the tight inner circe remained sheltering the president form the outside. The debate with DJT was one point that this became evident. Biden in his last year in office is 82 years- the oldest president. He had accomplished much in passing the series of bills that funded infrastructure, chips, science and protecting workers using his skills with Congress acquired over span of 50 years. Limiting Biden's one on one's and to certain parts of the day had an unexpected result. The head of Armed Services Democrat Rep. Adam Smith says this happened during the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan. He could not reach Biden so he could caution him about an overly optimistic view of the withdrawal. As the withdrawal led to loss of 13 armed forces men the disarray was a topic for Republicans. Only after the withdrawal issues Biden called Smith. In 4 years Smith says he had this one call with the president when he had spoken to Obama several times. Simtih's view is that Biden White House was "more insulated than most." Senator Manchin says he had less contact with Biden than his closest advisers.  This WSJ report also says the contacts of cabinet members with Biden were limited and tightly controlled. This report says Yellen at Treasury had few one one's with the president and dealt with adviers. Austin at Defense in the last 2 years during the Ukraine and Gaza crisis had only rare direct contact with Biden. During the campaign this story says close adviser Donilon kept access limited for polling experts to the president to the point where Senator Schumer and others felt Biden was falling behind but the president was not aware of this. ...