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Bridget Phillipson and Keir Starmer are politicians who would like to get things done and take ideas from all sides in the effort to improve life for British parents and children. See the article alongside on the changes proposed by Phillipson and Starmer to bring better education to all schools, and keeping the best of the Academy system- just spreading the best to all parts of the country.  Zoe Wiliiams had this interview with Bridget Philipson in The Guardian, March 21, 2023, when she was UK Shadow Education Secretary with big plans to revive childcare and children's education in UK schools. Phillipson is now Education Secretary and is getting a bill passed in Parliament to improve some aspects of the British education system keeping the infrastructure and foundations that are delivering well. Phillipson grew up in a dilapidated northeast England neighborhood in Tyne and Wear. She describes this as a place with an air of decline with a railroad track and idled chemical plant in the area, high youth unemployment. He mother and her grandparents provided a caring home and signed her up for drama lessons on Saturdays. She attended Catholic school and went on to study at Oxford University in Modern Languages and Modern History, returning to work for Sunderland City Council for 2 years instead of going to London. She is seen as self-effacing but vigorous in putting forward ideas on better childcare and children's education for British children.   ...

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President Trump says he will reconsider his decision not to join the Trans Pacific Partnership. Trump says he will look for a "substantially better" deal that the one negotiated by president Obama. Trump added that the U.S. already has bilateral trade deals with six of the eleven nations in the TPP and negotiations are taking place with Japan a country with which the U.S. had difficulties in trade. This change of mind comes as Republicans in Congress and other groups including farm exporters are calling for using TPP as a way to pressure China. Wheat exporters in the U.S. say joining TPP would give them a level playing field with Australia and Canada for exports. This means reopening the negotiations with Japan conducted by the Obama administration and seeking more concessions from Japan. Japan's chief cabinet secretary says Japan has made all the concessions it could.  U.S. president Trump would have to come up with a better deal to justify joining TPP.

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Kristof of the NYT writes about DJT Action in Venezuela January 3, 2026.  Some of the least understood aspects of the US president's language on Venezuela- The president's reference to oil resources is not for the US to benefit from the oil reserves. It is about oil in the sense that the oil industry in Venezuela is in total disrepair and broken from years and decades of nationalization followed by lack of investment, lack of western technology.  Sanctions put a huge price on the Venezuelan economy with the brunt of it borne by ordinary people- the same people that a socialist like Hugo Chavez thought he could help with his erratic ideology. As China, and now India has learned the only way to get ahead in this world for nations is to invest, invest, invest with larger and larger pools of capital, technologies and labour. By alienating the US or EU there is a loss of technologies and of investment so that one is going to bat with only one strike and you are out, so that from Day 1, China under Mao, India under Nehru had lost the race, so did all the "socialist" regimes in the world. Conversely China under Deng and successors, and India under Modi are breaking development records. How does the US change this? First it removes the sanctions on the Venezuelan economy. Second it gives Chevron the green light for increased production. Oil facilities of the Venezuelan oil company will get foreign investment and US investment from American oil companies with returns for both and the state oil revenues invested under a government that is able to invest it free of corruption or it being funneled out of the country to support other regimes in Latin America. This will rebuild the country's health system, its broken infrastructure, restore its finances, and make it in a decade one of the advanced economies in Latin America. But only if- the gangs and other private militias, the other military elements from the two decades of utter mismanagement and drug trafficking are  removed. A new way will have to be devised that the US as to work out ad hoc meaning in the process of doing, invented that meets the conditions of getting this done and the process of reconstruction of Venezuela under the Monroe doctrine of keeping the entire western hemisphere free of such elements. The US achieved this with the help of Great Britain in 1823 when it was only 50 years since it's founding in 1776. The US has the resources in 2026 to make this happen in the interests of the people of the western hemisphere, in the quality of life of people in the western hemisphere. It does not seek any country's resources, it seeks the development of the countries in the western hemisphere in the great tradition of Jefferson, Monroe, Lincoln, FDR and JFK. ...

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Peggy Noonan, spokeswoman for president Reagan, writes in the WSJ during a period of increased tensions in Hong Kong, in world trade, and in Britain. She cautions that moderation is a not fully understood or appreciated virtue. Noonan reflects conservative opinion in the U.S.

She says first China pushed too far resulting in earlier Hong Kong umbrella protests followed by today's protests.

Now that Carrie Lam and Beijing have backed down and withdrawn the extradition bill, the protests having made the statement, would continuing unrest and pushing Beijing too far be in their interests. Would it be in worldwide interests if that would worsen tensions from trade frictions, reducing levels of trust. 

This also applies to Mr. Johnson and Mr. Cummings in Britain's minority government. Having lost their majority are they pushing too far asks Noonan. 

 

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DW. com looks at the controversial effort of privage equity firms Blackstone and Carlyle to buy stakes in Bundesliga soccer clubs. Approval of 24 of 36 clubs sets out a plan to attract 1 billion euros of funding for digitalization, internationalization, in return for an 8% share of TV rights revenues for a period of 20 years. Experts say any effort to take international preference for the Premier League will be difficult. There is also the 50+1 rule in Germany where the ownership stays with the clubs not investors, so that the ticket prices are affordable for the club fans and the clubs belong to the fan base. For the fans and locals the situation is better without private equity.

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A wind farm out at sea to start in 3 years, small renovation projects across France and Germany, a couple of billion dollars from the French government for home renovations- this kind of approach is considered completely unrealistic say EU legislators. One Danish legislator asks what is more unrealistic? Setting serious targets for conversion to renewable energy or depending on Putin's gas and oil?  These EU legislators are calling for aggressive action now. The European Commission set a 9% goal for energy savings by 2030, this has now been moved up to 13%. EU legislators are calling for 23% in savings by 2030. And even this may not be enough to meet the goals for climate change to prevent the disaster from climate change with fires and floods and heat waves that hurt agriculture and food supplies. A savings target of 19% is about the gas that runs 40% of the cars and trucks on American roads in 2021 or 214 million metric tons of oil. The French government has set aside 3 billion euros for comprehensive renovations of homes to save energy with a target of 300,000 homes in 2022. This is completely inadequate as it will cost 23 billion euros say experts on the Paris city council. Renovations are only running at 60,000 a year. A big part of the conversion in Europe is converting from gas heating to electric heating. France is boosting subsidies for new electric heat pump installations.   ...

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Google antitrust decision in Mehta's Court for over 5 years since lawsuit by DJT in first term. During these 5 years much of the behaviours of monopolies and oligopolies in tech is further entrenched and new technology has created new ripples. The result is an ineffectual ruling that does little to address the original concerns of the Justice Department. Lost in all this commotion is the fact that there are real and present dangers in the situation presented by Google as a gatekeeper for knowledge and information which are a real and present danger to democratic forms of government as Google or social media tech companies can act as arbiters of information, a role that is not given to them under the US Constitution or any of the principles laid down by our founding fathers. Instead of being well informed under such tech monopolies and oligopolies the vast majority of the people will not get the information they need to make decisions to the detriment of the Nation. ...

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

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Mr. Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the select committee on foreign affairs, a Tory MP, says UK companies are vulnerable to takeover by foreign state backed entities and calls for new laws to protect British companies. Prime minister Boris Johnson is preparing to announce new laws that will make it mandatory for British companies to report to the government when any foreign company attempts to take over 25% of the shares in a British company, or which could pose a security threat, with strong sanctions. Failing to do so would have directors jailed, disqualified, or face large fines.

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Disney world faces tough time operating in Florida and other countries as the pandemic throws up many hurdles. The coronavirus surge in Florida takes place just as Disney operations restart in Florida July 11 complicating life for the company. The entire Disney business model is up for huge uncertainty and will never be the same. Disney reopening is being questioned by the public, and the sight of people entering the theme parks are jarring when one sees the huge surge in cases in Florida and numbers of cases per day of 10,000 to 15,000.

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The 140 billion in stock market losses in GE stock in just the last 12 months (2017-2018) ranks as the worst in history in the corporate world. In this report a retired GE worker at 61 years is shown looking for a second job after the losses wiped out a substantial part of his retirement savings in the form of company stock. This is the worst in history and is about twice that in market losses for Enron, and more than the losses in bankruptcies of GM and Lehman Bros. As a result GE is one of the worst funded pension programs in the corporate world. About $100 billion in pension obligations for 600,000 people who get GE pensions is underfunded by $30 billion. GE will need to borrow $6 billion in 2018 to contribute to the pension plan.

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Mike Bird in the WSJ points out that there is very little foundation for the idea that there is a tradeoff between the economy returning to normal and lockdown measures. Singapore and Japan without strict lockdown measures have also shown very sharp economic decline. The U.S. Federal Reserve and MIT economists published a paper at the end of March that shows during the 1918 flu epidemic cities with stricter lockdowns actually had better economic outcomes. In the 1918 pandemic Philadelphia did not impose a strict lockdown till later, St Louis acted immediately with a lockdown. St Louis emerged out of the 1918 pandemic returning to economic normalcy much earlier than Philadelphia. It is critical say the authors to understand that pandemic economics is not normal economics. There are both a supply side and demand side effects. China today is still suffering from significant loss of world demand as it struggles even though its manufacturing and its retail stores are gradually returning to normal. It will continue to struggle as long as demand remains very low in the rest of the world. And even though the services sector is larger today in U.S. and Europe than in 1918, with a smaller manufacturing sector, the pandemic effects and economics provide a useful comparison.  Japan provides an example of how the services sector less exposed to overseas demand and with Japan operating without lockdown sees its service sector absolutely hammered.  This WSJ report says it recorded a sharper slowdown than even the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. The authors of the study including from the MIT Sloan School of Management say they found no evidence that the cities that acted more aggressively in public health terms did worse in economic terms. If anything says MIT Sloan Asst, Prof. Vermer the cities that acted aggressively did better. The authors are specific, the cities that performed 50 days more of social distancing performed better in manufacturing employment by 6.5% after the pandemic ended through 1923. Earlier social distancing by 10 days translated into a 5% increase in manufacturing employment. ...

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TSMC will build a third plant in Arizona with the $6.6 billion in grants it gets from Biden's CHIPS Act. It will increase its investment in the US from $40 billion to $65 billion, essential to make the US a manufacturing hub for semiconductors. Intel, Samsung and other companies are making similar investments in the US in semiconductor plants. After years of post Reagan/Friedman period orthodox economics that led to the US chip industry and other advanced manufacturing following textiles to Asia, the US is making its policies follow actual practice and experience. This experience shows that in semiconductors with long lead times of a decade to build plants the country which supports its semiconductor industry gets ahead while others following orthodox Reagan/Friedman period economics fall behind. This has revealed the danger of a theoretical economic textbook approach that doesn't work and endangers American manufacturing and technological leadership. A culture wrapped around the textbook approach has led to the US and the EU, India, losing their competitive advantages and losing manufacturing in industry after industry, with loss of millions of jobs and deindustrializing. It has also led to decline and increasing lack of economic opportunity in towns and communities dependent on this manufacturing across the US and the European Union. ...

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China is moving closer to the day when its population shrinks. This would be a sign of a seriously aging population with fewer young people as workers to support the older people and retired workers. The number of births fell for a fifth year in a row. In 2021 births were at 10.6 million dropping from 12 million in 2020, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.  The year 1961 the last year of the Great Leap Forward under Mao was the first time in its recent history that China actually had population decline with famine and other problems. This situation of population decline is fast approaching or already happened. In 2021 there were 10.1 million deaths. Women in China are not interested in having children. Typical is this woman in Beijing quoted in this WSJ report- she is 28 and teaches Korean language. She says she doesn't want to spend her savings on kids.  In China education is the pathway to a better life and income. And it is not cheap. Most of the savings of mothers will go into educating their children. Tutoring costs had become so high and the competition so intense that the government to tackle this problem announced that this will from now on be a non profit industry. ...

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California has gone to put residential solar panels big time. Consider 47 gigawatts of production of solar energy installed , can supply 13.9 million homes and cover 25% of California's energy use. From desert landscapes in the Central Valley to rooftops in southern California it has spread so fast that the power grid does not know what to do with it during the day when demand is not high and supply is plentiful, a duck curve. About 5% of it goes to waste unused, and solar energy during the midday period is now not worth much to the grid. Officials want to switch from the 0.20 or 0.40 cents incentive per kilowatt hour  California pays for solar supplies to net metering that means pay only what is of value to the grid. In the Spring months this can be a net zero value to the grid and zero payments. In summer demand picks up because of air conditioning use middday. This has raised alarm that it will lead to a 40% drop in solar installations in the next year. It shows the challenges that more states will face. Nevada with 23% solar energy power is facing this situation. So is Hawaii. The Biden administration has $7 billion in grants to support rooftop solar in other states, to power 900,000 low income households. ...

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China generates 53% of its emissions from coal in May 2024. All the remaining from non fossil sources. Two factors are evident, yet both do not indicate a big fall off in fossil emissions from this point just a plateauing effect with it flattening out. The first is that China is putting in solar and wind at 8 times the level of the US, taking up two thirds of world solar and wind installations. The second is that the one third of emissions from construction and real estate is falling off because that industrial sector has collapsed. Overall the future points to slowing of emissions as China comes only gradually down from that 53%. What happens in China makes a huge impact on climate change. India has also committed to climate change action and meeting targets early under PM Modi so that India as it industrializes will not follow the path of jumping fossil emissions China had. This is useful to know as the US and EU, UK, expand solar and wind. It is important that the US stay committed to climate change action something missing from the Republican platform for 2024. Delaying climate change action will impose huge costs on the US that could be about 1 trillion dollars if it is stalled now and is taken up in 2028. ...

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Pew Research looks at Inequality as an issue. It also looks at whether people see that their children will be better off financially when they grow up. The Better off Financially is not the same as the inequality issue, on inequality issue progress can be inadequate but perceived differently among different income groups in industrialized nations to be inconclusive as in this recent Pew Research in 2024.  On whether children will be Better off financially there is a decisive result in Pew Research in 2024. With France and Canada at the top 81% and 78%,  Italy and UK at 79%, the US at 74%, Japan 77%, Australia 79%, Spain 75%. Almost across all the European Union countries and the US this is decisive, a clear unequivocal result. Both the Trump first term and the Biden first term felt effects of Covid pandemic.  Reviving Manufacturing in the US and  Europe is the only way, and with it infrastructure investment, to bring back a sense of optimism to the US and Europe. For this levelling the playing field and tariffs that do that selectively are the plan in the second term, getting industry to take up the challenge is the second goal in this decade to 2030.    ...

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Sri Lanka's state owned Ceylon Petroleum Corporation has $700 million in debt that it cannot repay resulting in fuel shortages as it cannot finance imports of oil. Depending on Indian financial help for fuel that after $4 billion in aid is not sustainable, says Wickremasinghe, who is finance minister and prime minister.

Deep rooted errors in management of the economy now need to be corrected and this will require increase in income taxes, cutting public expenditure and breaking down loss making state monopolies, are needed. Wickremasinghe says "if the government misses this opportunity this would be a crime."

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China's COSCO taking an ownership stake in Hamburg port was opposed by the Greens and Free Democrats parties in the three party coalition government with the SPD in Germany. Scholz of the SPD went ahead over their opposition saying this will preserve jobs in Hamburg port. In the compromise reached the ownership is capped at 24.99% so that no foreign country owns a majority stake. At one point Germany's cyber security agency BSI classified the Hamburg port as critical infrastructure.

China is Germany's largest trading partner  for 7 years with trade reaching a record $320 billion.

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Zelensky is going to Hiroshima to make his own case for support directly to all G7 leaders. The fact that G7 leaders are meeting in Japan also has significance as Japan unlike Europe with NATO faces Russian presence in its northern islands and China in the South China Sea and around Taiwan, North Korea, with only the American defense agreement in any conflict. Japan, Australia and India would want to see a clear end to the conflict in Eastern Europe that also sends a message that the status quo will be preserved on Taiwan and other issues in Asia. 

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One of the goals of the Northern Ireland deal is closer relations between the EU and Britain putting to rest the tensions from Brexit. The EU sees Sunak as a good faith negotiator and made concessions on the application of EU laws for Northern Ireland. In Britain 60% of people now say in opinion surveys that they see the 2016 vote to leave the European Union as a mistake. A genuine relationship with the EU will happen only after a change in power from the Conservatives to the Labour party in the January 2025 election, says Mark Landler in the NYT.

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Kings Way which remained right up to 2022 as Rajpath in Hindi as the British named the central part of Delhi for the Empire is now a thing of the past, says prime minister Modi. He opened the newly laid out Kartavya Marg with Netaji Subhas Bose replacing the symbol of the Empire in King George at the end of the Kartavya Marg. With the completion of the National War Memorial at the other end Delhi now has a new look and it will remind people of India that it is the work of the people not of kings and nobles in the new India that counts.

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US economic growth shrinks for a second quarter in a row in 2022. Growth declined by 0.2% in the first quarter after a decline of 0.4% in the first quarter. The Fed increased by 0.75 of a percentage point on July 27. Fed chairman Powell said at a conference that the Fed is watching the situation closely. At this point he said the information he sees suggests a strong labor market and consumers still have as strong balance sheet with higher wages. It is early to tell he said, yet it appears that the economy will pick up in the second half of 2022.

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What went wrong to get 100,000 deaths in the UK? A lot says this analysis in The Times. Don't need a big test and contact tracing effort was the early response, no quick decisions to build the infrastructure for this like South Korea or Taiwan. The Cheltenham Festival? Superspreader events a bad idea. Open Borders- another bad idea. After a break in the coronavirus weather by summer- relaxing vigilance and preventive steps, another bad idea. So on till a coronavirus variant stepped in through the open borders. You make your own luck, says this analysis in The Times of London.

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"Its a sign of the decline of the country, and this decline is unacceptable," says a key Macron ally, Francois Bayrou, who heads long term state planning. France lacks a vaccine developed by its scientists. France was a leader in vaccine technology and the world looked up to France for new medical breakthroughs. Something has gone wrong and this is causing soul searching in France and friendly countries. 

The Pasteur Institute was a leader in medical science. It has failed to develop a vaccine. Sanofi says it will be the end of the year 2021 when a vaccine is developed.