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Mr. Trump describes himself as a "wartime president" as he prepares to sign a Korean War era measure that allows the U.S. government to ramp up production of medical supplies.  Mr. Trump announced he was preparing to sign the 1950 Defense Production Act, which gives the president powers to direct civilian businesses to meet orders for products necessary for national security.

Mr. Trump is now holding daily news briefings on the emergency which can be seen on many television channels, including CSPAN.

In China factories producing mobil phones and other products were diverted to production of medical supplies and equipment as the coronavirus crisis escalated in February. The Chinese nation was on a war footing leading to the situation today when no new infection cases were reported. Only by doing this could 2 hospitals be built in 2 days in Wuhan to isolate patients. 

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In the first round of French elections June 2024 the RN National Rally and Alliance gets 33%. The National Front Populaire gets 28% and the Assemblement of Macron gets 20%, Les Republicains 10%, additional 2% of other Left parties, 2% of Centrist parties. To win in the first round one has to get over 50% of the vote and over 25% of the registered voters. Only about 60 seats were decided in the first round. In the second round on July 7 there will be tactical voting with the NFP dropping out of seats in which the Assemblement and Les Republicains have an edge. The same is likely to happen for the Assemblement and Les Republicains dropping out of races which the NFP could win. Most of urban France is with the Assemblement and the NFP, Les Republicains, rural France and small towns with the RN of Marine Le Pen.

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Southwest pioneered lower cost domestic travel under founder CEO Kelleher. It did not charge fees for checking in bags and seats were not assigned. This model is now being questioned as baggage fees are generating $1.3 billion at American, $1.2 billion at United and $1 billion at Delta Airlines. Even a smaller airline like Spirit generates $1 billion from baggage fees. Additional sources of income are passengers charged for seat selection. Southwest generates about $70 million from baggage fees and does not charge for seat selection. Southwest sees not charging for baggage as part of its culture and current management is not changing the status quo.

Other problems are that Boeing can deliver only a fourth of the plane Southwest ordered. As a result the airline is facing a crisis and Eliott Investment Management now owning 11% of the company is pushing for change including ouster of the CEO and the Board.

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In this month's Mann Ki Baat, Indian PM Modi's radio show, the young Indians participating in the 65th Math Olympiad are invited to take part in the Radio Show. India wins 4 gold one silver medals and is in the top 5 countries in the Math Olympiad. The contestants talk about their experience, the support of parents, the creativity that enables thinking outside the box, some problems take hours to solve even days at a time. Contestants are from Pune, Delhi, UP, and other parts of the country. "Love what you, and do what you love," says one contestant, who describes math as not a difficult subject when one understands why one does what they do. For example carry forward in addition, why do you carry forward, math is a problem solving skill, and when does it in this way then the fear of math will go away.

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Victoria Pendleton, British Olympic medalist in cycling, describes what it was like to be a girl cyclist in the last 2 decades in a male dominated macho culture that had little room for girls cyclists with a broader mind and interests. A lot changed since then and Pendleton had to put up with a lot of the bad in British male cycling culture that got questioned in the last 10 years. Pendleton had moments of deep depression as a result but recovered with help from her family. Here she recounts the events of these years. She feels finally liberated even in simple acts such as eating vegetarian and trying other sports, so stifling was male cycling culture of that time. She felt liberated talking to the coach and girls cyclists practicing for the Paris Olympics and expressed amazement and relief that a lot is different now from the bad days of old.

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Ski resorts in the northern French Alps in the Savoie region and the southern French Alps near Grenoble are easy to access with flights from the US and cost a fraction of what the ski resorts cost in the US in places like Colorado. About 4000 mountain ski resorts are owned by families or a municipality and have kept costs low. By contrast corporate consolidation has led to much higher prices in Colorado and other mountain ski locations in the US. 

During the summer and fall seasons these locations are attractive for hikers and cyclists and cost much less. 

Shown here are-

La Clusaz an hour's drive from Geneva, Switzerland with five sprawling mountains.

Obergurgl-Hochgurgl in Ausstrian Alps near Italy, the Tirolean region and culture.

Tignes, France about 2 and half hours drive from Lyon or Geneva.

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Investopedia's Hiranmayi Srinivasan gives the average year over year Consumer Price Index by president as prepared by the Bureau of Labor Statistics's Adrian Nesta, and offers discussion of each president and inflation rates from Eisenhower to Biden. The highest Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, both lost the election for second term. Nixon and Biden are next. Nixon survived the high inflation rates. During the Biden presidency something else happened the pandemic which made people feel worse and compare the preceding president's inflation rate at 1.9% compared to 5.7% average per year. 5.7% adds up to about 23% increase over 4 years. The worst part was that basic food items eggs, bread and other groceries may have been priced at much more than 23%, and with added burden of higher monthly rent as landlords increased rent by much more than 23%. This meant dipping into savings and money saved for a house, destroying the American dream.

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After hurricane Helene only about 10% of FEMA workers are available for Hurricane Milton headed towards the Tampa Bay Area at 175 miles per hour.

Christopher Flavelle of NYT  points out FEMA desperately needs more funding and staff as it is responding simultaneously to many disasters. The full effects of climate change in more and more natural disasters all across the US have not been taken into account for the added funding and staffing needed. In this situation FEMA is spread thin causing other problems such as attrition and burnout and unfilled positions.

The Government Accountability Office report found in 2023 that 35% of FEMA's positions were unfilled, because of “rising disaster activity during the year, which increased burnout and employee attrition.”

There are also lot of people who are out of work in disaster areas who can be pulled in for disaster work.  

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This is a report on unfair trade with China. China and unfair trade resulting in a $295 billion trade surplus with US. China and unfair trade resulting in a $1 trillion trade deficit with the world. This has devastated manufacturing communities, workers and families, for 1 billion people in the US and Europe, and deprived India of opportunities in manufacturing for 1.4 billion people. Alongside this article we have CPA article showing losses in manufacturing and the cost to the American people using estimates of three types of losses in jobs, other jobs, and taxes that provide public services and infrastructure. The massive blow to America over the last decade of unfair trade and overconcentration of manufacturing in  China was for 25 million in job losses and $250 billion in local infrastructure and public services lost for workers and families in communities and towns across vast parts of America.

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After recovering from the eurozone financial crisis Spain is recovering with low inflation of 1.8%, and growth of 2.4% in 2024, 2.1% in 2025, and unemployment at 11.2%. Even with high unemployment prime minister Pedro Sanchez of Spain sees new immigrant workers aiding higher growth and supporting pensions- Spain's tourism growth also supports this. “The contribution of migrant workers to our economy is fundamental, as is the sustainability of our social security system and pensions.” This makes Spain one of the only countries to continue supporting legal migration to the country- 250,000 are needed both in high skilled jobs in hospitality and construction, and "invisible" jobs in agriculture and other places. 1 million migrants will arrive each year till 2028. Spain will also give legal stats to 500,000 undocumented migrants mostly from Latin America including Venezuela's middle class. ...

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This article is from The Guardian, September 6, 2019. Kevin Rudd, former Australian Prime minister on Murdoch's News Corp. and antagonism towards Australia's Labour party and towards climate change action, and to Australian broadband speed. Some creators of content are also unwittingly adopting strategies that pose other dangers to society, to competition, to an educated public, including News Corp. News Corp. (owner Fox News) strategy is to create affinity, to create communities for content. When actively done and pursued in excess by powerful creators of content such as News Corp. this leads to the fragmentation of civic society into groups not generated by honest discussion among civic minded people, but by revenue generating artificially created groups where the affinity is exploited by the creator of content as an outsider. This is inimical to society, education, honest discussion of civic minded people, and of democracy itself. ...

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The WSJ editorial on the Wisconsin teachers and other public worker protests over legislation to take away collective bargaining rights for public workers.

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Hispanics are moving inland from California and other states bordering Mexico in search of new opportunities in midwestern states. There is a large increase in Hispanic population of states in the midwest- in Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, Indiana and Illinois. Population of Hispanics has grown in the midwestern states of the U.S. by 49%, much higher than the 4% overall population growth between 2000 and 2010, according to the census. The population climbed sharply in Iowa, by 82% in the decade, making Hispanics 5% of the state population. Cities such as Ottumwa, southeast of Des Moines, have seen revival in the economy as Hispanics moved into the town and revived local businesses, creating new demand for retail stores like Wal-Mart and Menards. Hispanics often worked two shifts including work at the local Cargill meat packing plant. Small towns and cities across the midwest suffering from recession are being revived with the new influx of hardworking Hispanics.

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Economist Paul Krugman says Gordon Brown does good. Gordon Brown Britains Prime Minister has taken the lead and the initiative to give a proper direction to the rescue efforts of the USA, and the G7 countries. His plan to inject capital into financial institutions and a host of initiatives was done speedily, intoduced Wednesday, October 8, 2008 and to be executed starting today, Monday, October 13 with some of the first capital infusions and other steps. In giving direction to Paulson who has agreed to take the direction of Gordon Brown after some faltering and missteps and in properly guiding the whole of the G7 Gordon Brown has done a lot of good. Which goes to show that the British public may have underestimated and underappreciated the quality of leadership Gordon Brown can show in a crisis, (considering his low poll ratings), which is where it really matters and where its sorely needed, especially when its for the global financial system.

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California's governor Jerry Brown has put forward his budget plan for fiscal 2013 showing a budget surplus of $851 million. Brown was able to get Proposition 30 passed in the November 2008 elections. Higher income earners pay more in taxes for several years and the sales tax is increased. An improved economy with unemployment down from 11.3% in 2011 to 9.8% in Nov. 2012 is helping with higher tax revenues. General fund revenues are expected to increase 3.3% to $98.5 billion in the 2013 fiscal year from $95.4 billion the prior year. Brown has accomplished a remarkable feat of balancing the budget for 2013 and still continuing to invest in education and healthcare. Spending will increase 5% to $97.7 billion in fiscal 2013 from $93 billion in fiscal 2012 with higher spending on education and health care and lower spending in other areas. Brown's path to achieving this was eased after Democrats won control of both houses in the the state legislature. Says Brown: "Right now, for the next 4 years, we'll be talking about a balanced budget, we're talking about living within our means... This is new." Even Republicans praise this effort from a veteran of California politics- his father was governor in the Kennedy years, and he was governor in the 1980's....

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India's central bank chief, Raghuram Rajan, points to the risks for developing economies from changes in monetary policy of the U.S. Federal Reserve. The Indian rupee lost about a fourth of its value in 2013 as the U.S. Fed announced plans to withdraw from its quantitative easing policies. Large depreciations in other developing economies, Indonesia, Turkey and Brazil, happened at the same time. Rajan and India's Reserve Bank increased the interest rate by half a percentage point in 2013 to deal with the impact on inflation as a result of the large depreciation of the rupee. The volatility of capital flows and sudden reversal in inflows of capital to developing economies leaves these countries exposed to sharp declines in economic growth. India's growth has slowed to 5%, larger than expected from the slower growth in the global economy in 2013, largely as a result of decreases in direct foreign investment and capital outflows.

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Bank of Japan chief Kuroda tells foreign media, April 11, 2013, that it will not implement monetary policy to achieve the 2% inflation target in 2 years mechanically. Other economic factors will be considered. The BOJ will be watchful and vigilant for asset bubbles. If this happens the 2% inflation target will be achieved in the medium term so that it is done in a stable way.

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The effort to shift China's economc growth away from the rampant overbuilding in housing and industrial capacity of the past to domestic consumption, and focus on meeting the demand for better medical care, quality of food, education and other quality of life products. China's leaders met at the Central Economic Work Conference in Beijing in Dec. 2015 to work out ways to make this shift so that growth rate of 6.5% and other goals can be met. Plans include reducing industrial overcapacity, dealing with overinvestment and unused inventory in housing, reducing financial risks from high corporate debt to GDP ratio approaching 160% estimated by Standard and Poors Ratings Services. By comparison the U.S. debt to GDP ratio is 70%. A steep rise resulted from the huge China stimulus program of 2008-2009, when the ratio was 98% for China. Experts such as Derek Scissors of the American Enterprise Institute are pessimistic about the prospects of successfully implementing reforms, saying reducing industrial overcapacity was a goal of the new Jinping Li-Keqiang leadership in 2013, but not much progress has been made in 2 years....

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Pakistan has always suffered from tax collection that is some of the poorest in the world. This leaves little money for badly needed infrastructure and roads. At a time when countries such as Indonesia and India are rapidly building roads and infrastructure, Pakistan depends on projects and financing almost entirely from China.  This means dependence on foreign debt financing such as that of the $2 billion Orange Line, Pakistan's first Metro line in Lahore. This is one of the first projects one of $16 billion in projects started from a planned $62 billion under China's Belt and Road Initiative. The problem is that taking on so much debt leaves Pakistan dependent on Chinese financing, with increased debt payments leading to a debt crisis. External debt will double to over $100 billion from a little over $50 billion in 2013, according to the IMF, reaching 30% of GDP. External financing needs have doubled from 4% of GDP or about $10 billion in 2013-2015 period doubling to over $20 billion and 8% of GDP. A steep increase in debt in a space of only 3 years. Pakistan faces problems similar to that faced by other countries including Ceylon, Burma. Pakistan has fallen behind on debt payments for electricity projects, because of problems getting Pakistanis to pay electric bills. Other problems are that the projects use Chinese workers and Chinese contractors so that they do not generate jobs the way projects would normally generate domestic jobs and growth including pushing domestic firms up the experience and knowledge curve in construction and technology. The opaqueness of the deals lead to a lack of required transparency. The projects also lack the almost zero interest financing from Japan of projects such as the first bullet train in India on Mumbai-Ahmedabad corridor because of the lack of negotiating leverage and other problems.  By early fall 2018 Pakistan is expected to seek IMF financing, which would lead to conditions set by the IMF on how much it can borrow and spend under the Belt and Road Initiative, known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor or CPEC. This means effectively that the Wst will bail out a country after investments under the Belt and Road Initiative. ...

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The Waldorf was built in 1931 by Hilton Hotels founder Conrad Hilton. After a century of use it was outdated and needed major repairs. In 2014 Hilton decided to sell it and hired Blackstone advisors who said it would get about $1 billion. China had just allowed Chinese to buy foreign assets in 2014, and a Chinese founder of a regional insurance company Anbang Group offered $1.9 billion when Hilton knowing that China was keen in acquiring foreign assets priced it at $2 billion. In 2017 only three years later China decided to pull back from allowing private investments of this kind, Anbang's Wu was arrested for business practices. 2017 was the time when Xi at the 19th  Communist CCP Party Congress put forward his ideas for "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics" and made it part of China's Constitution, and launched anti-corruption drive against corrupt business practices. The Waldorf was taken over in this drive by Chinese government. For 10 years China held onto the property and built 375 900 square feet condos in the Waldorf for $6 billion and 375 hotel rooms by the time it reopened in 2025. Was it worth it? Even if China could get $3.2 million for each of 375  900 square foot condos this would generate $1.1 billion. It would take 8 years to generate the remaining $900 million of the $2 billion paid for the Waldorf by Anbang's founder Wu if the Waldorf's 375 rooms were rented out for $1000 a night for 300 days. China would still be at a loss for $6 billion. This type of extravagant business investments characterized Japan in the 1980's and 1990's leading to the gradual stagnation in Japan's economy as other countries caught up in quality control and other production efficiency practices using new IT technologies. China looks to be following the Japanese example with infrastructure overbuilding. The US and EU will catch up in the next wave of investment in America and Europe by 2030 and other Asian economies such as India will also catch up with China. Investment productivity will play a part, new technologies will play a part, and a return of manufacturing to the US and EU, a build of India's manufacturing and logistics will play a part. ...

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Silicon Valley R&D at Google X, Microsoft Research and other creative labs. How this is different from R&D at Bell Labs, Xerox PARC, which gave an impetus to work at Apple and Fairchild Semiconductor during the the era of the sixties and seventies. Claire Miller poses the question what happens to basic research done at government research labs and places like Bell Labs, PARC, in today's world where moonshot research efforts could mean Google Glass, and where many of the new products or apps are acquired such as Google's Maps. These acquired companies lack the resources for basic research and are for the most part smaller efforts. Is what is done now adequate? Apple has many efforts in-house and invested in developing the iPad and iPhone, including coming up with the new concept and taking it to commercialization on a global scale. The Google X draws media coverage, yet basic and applied research is going on all the time in labs from Boeing's airplane research to Apple's new product from scratch efforts building on prior research and developments in each field....

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Colombia's 2018 presidential election has  a young right wing candidate Duque, 41 years who worked as economist at Inter American Development Bank and supports Alvaro Uribe, a strong critic of the 2016 peace agreement with guerillas that ended the drug and guerilla violence. On the other side is a former guerilla Mr. Petro, who was mayor of Bogota from 2012 to 2015. Petro says he supports rules of democracy. About 5000 refugees leave Venezuela each day, most of them coming to Columbia, according to the United Nations. This poses a major problem for the next government.

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Surat in India's state of Gujarat is the 14th of 15 cities in Guardian's Megacities series. Other cities from India are Kolkata, Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad. This city is at the point where the Tapi river meets the Arabian sea and is prone to flooding. The city is spending about $400 million on projects including live tracking of buses, new water treatment plants, solar and biogas generation, automated LED street lights. Some of the funding comes from India's Smart City Initiative launched in 2015 for 100 cities.

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United with subsidiaries United Airlines and Continental Airlines had $6.8 billion in liquidity as of June 30, 2014. American Airlines after the merger with US Airways has $9.4 billion unrestricted cash by July 2014. Mr. Parker, the CEO of American, plans to prepay $2.8 billion in debt and aircraft lease payments, place $600 million more than required into pension contributions, and start a dividend and share buyback. Airline consolidation into 4 major carriers, cutting unpofitable hubs and routes, filling planes to capacity, and charging for better seating, snacks and other amenities, are leading to record profits for the U.S. airline industry.

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According to a report from the Southern Education Foundation about 51% of the students from pre-Kindergarden to 12th grade in the U.S. were eligible for the federal program of free and reduced price lunches, using an analysis of 2013 federal data. With the highest proportion of students in poverty concentrated in states in the southern and western U.S.. States all across the south, including Texas, show high concentrations approaching 60-70%, and states in the west such as California show about 50-60%. Midwestern states such as Illinois and Michigan show rates over 50%. The implications of this data are that these children from poor and sometimes chaotic backgrounds trail other children in educational development, are less likely to have educationally enriching activity, and more susceptible to dropping out or never attending college. Kent McGuire, president of the Southern Education Foundation says the map showing this is striking. He points to the disinclination to invest in young people today, compared to the focus on leadership in areas of creating opportunity and upward mobility in the decades of the 50's through the 80's. Michael Rebell of Teachers College at Columbia University, says reaching this point where a majority of public school children are from poor backgrounds has happened sooner, and the trend has accelerated over time. ...