LyrArc Article Gist
Ban on sale of smoking products for 17 year olds (those born before 2009) in a new law for Britain. Smoking cost -64,000 deaths a year, 500,000 people living in poverty, $29 billion ocst to Britain and higher costs for the National Health Service. 5.3 million or 10% of UK adults are smokers most want to quit and wish thay never took up smoking.

LyrArc Article Gist
3.8 million people in Britain in 2023 fall into the category of "destitute" says The Guardian. Poverty in Britain is only getting worse under the Tories, one in 20 households are destitute, and without hope, missing meals or lacking housing.

LyrArc Article Gist
David Card and Alan Krueger with a study on New Jersey and Philadelphia restaurant workers in 1994 and their subsequent studies on minimum wage increases show no negative effects on unemployment of increasing the minimum wage- More discussion on this topic as Minimum wage increases to $22 an hour in 2026 in NY and California. Indrajit Dube of U Massachusetts says it all depends on how far one goes in increasing the minimum wage. At some point maybe $30 a week it could lead to restaurants deciding not to hire more workers. At 45 hours a week for 48 weeks an employe in the fast food industry at $22 an hour would make $47,520, and at $30 would make $64,800. The poverty level is set at $33,000. The problem with these figures is that the cost of housing is so high and automobile costs have risen very fast in the last 5 years. Housing in New York and Los Angeles is very costly compared to states in the midwest, in the south, and other states. Card's and Krueger's, Dube's studies show that retention is higher employees are more motivated leading to higher restaurant and fast food sales, happier customers, that could lead to more employment not less. Some of this is intuitive and one does not need an economist to tell one that. When compared to Britain's economic and social philosopher Adam Smith much of the accepted wisdom of what Smith said is selective taking what one wants and leaving out the rest, as Lahart shows here about minimum wage. As Adam Smith was  a keen observer of the social sentiments of society which he considered very important for British society, and for British civilization to flourish. For this reason he supported higher wages and the betterment of the lower classes, as Britain's example to the world. Card received a Nobel prize in 2021 for his experiments including his paper on minimum wage in New Jersey and Philadelphia. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
One in ten teenagers in Britain miss meals because of poverty, says OECD. By contrast many wealthier countries in Europe did not even want to respond to questions about food insecurity. Netherlands, Finland, and Portugal had the best scores.

LyrArc Article Gist
For the first time we hear of "period poverty" in advanced European countries. Scotland charities say there is "period poverty" in Britain as the pandemic hurts incomes across Scotland. Women and girls not having money to buy sanitary products needed during menstruation. The Scottish parliament passes a Period Products Bill to ensure all women have free sanitary products, the legislation costing about 10 million pounds.

LyrArc Article Gist
The need for food banks is most severe in the post industrial north of Britain. Five years of austerity measures 2009-2013 have left their mark, as have rising prices and stagnant wages. Average hourly earnings are up 7% in that period while the cost of living is up 20%. About 500,000 people are dependent on food aid, triple the number in 2012, according to the Trussell Trust, a Christian charity. A conservative MP says 1 in 5 children go to bed hungry in his constituency of Wycombe. In Hull, one in three children live under the poverty line. Food charities doing most of their work in Africa, now concentrate efforts in the north of Britain.

LyrArc Article Gist
French reporters visit a Salvation Army food bank in London's East Ham neighborhood. This is part of a series of reports on the cost of living crisis in Britain and institutions that are on the front line on the fight against poverty. Charities reliant on small donors are feeling the pinch as demand for services is soaring, says this report.

LyrArc Article Gist
DJT calls for 10% cap on credit card interest for affordability crisis for US families. Most of the credit card companies in the US base these operations in places without usury laws such as Nevada, and charge exorbitant rates on credit cards, a practice that is going on for 6 decades since the 1960's. It makes it harder for families to get out of poverty and living from paycheck to paycheck. It is another aspect of the affordability crisis. Democrats have never raised this up for action. “Please be informed that we will no longer let the American Public be ‘ripped off’ by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%, and even more,” the president says he wants the cap to start Jan. 20, 2026 If this happens it will be a big win for the American people and end a decades long usury type business in credit cards that violates the idea on which the US was founded of opportunity for all and access to credit as critical in making this happen. Interest rates of 30% are a way to reduce social mobility in the way a feudal order once did in the years before the Modern World and the Scientific Revolution. A society without social mobility is one in decline can be seen in the way Spain went into decline after 1700 and Britain emerged to lead the Modern World and the Industrial Revolution. This is the crisis America faces today- change or cede leadership to China or some other nation. It is about this not the capitalist system or other system as many like to portray it, and Adam Smith was all about growth and social mobility that were part of his system which today is sadly forgotten, yet needs to be bravely put forward. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The Guardian looks at food poverty in the UK in 2022. About 800,000 children living in poverty in the UK do not qualify for free school meals. The rise in the price cap for electricity and gas this winter to 3549 pounds for the year from October means many homes will have to choose between heating and food. Energy price regulator Ofgem has allowed a 80% rise in the UK energy price cap. In Britain only children whose parents earn less than 7400 pounds are eligible after year 2 of school.

The energy price jump in UK of this type is unusual for the major countries of Europe. In France the price of energy is capped and Germany offers  financial support for energy bills for low income people. 

LyrArc Article Gist
David Brooks of the NYT describes the approach taken by British prime minister David Cameron and his Conservative Party government to help the working class poor in Britain, and tackle the social roots of poverty. He says an American adaptation similar to this is badly needed in the Republican Party, with the candidates in the election providing solutions from an old rulebook. Only after Trump's popularity with appeals to less educated older Americans has the Republican leadership responded, with Speaker Ryan helping organize a forum on poverty under the Jack Kemp Foundation- emphasis was placed on education, work, opportunity and accountability for anti-poverty programs in the discussion moderated by Ryan and Senator Tim Scott. Less attention was paid to the other social aspects mentioned here by Brooks, and cited by Cameron when he described the inadequacy of traditional solutions from the right and left of the political spectrum. Cameron outlined the principles of his anti-poverty plans called "Life Chances Strategy," in a speech on Jan. 11, 2016, in north London, with the entrie transcript on the gov.uk website. Cameron acknowledged in the speech that social issues including single parent families, and other social problems such as long term unemployment, can make it harder for some people to use self-reliance and personal responsibility in a growing economy as a way to grasp opportunities. Cameron proposes a combination of economic, social and job growth strategies. His second term plans include 30 hours a week of free childcare for 3 and 4 year olds so both parents can work, parental maternity leave, expansion of Troubled Families Program, in addition to the introduction of National Living Wage, tax cuts, universal credit. In tackling social aspects of the problem Cameron cited the need for development in the early years of childhood, the huge importance of family, social connections and experiences, informal mentors, cultural experiences, broadenend horizons, that enable young people to acquire language skills, character and resilience. Second term projects include expanding reach of high performing schools to deprived areas, emphasis on core English, math, science, history, geography Ebacc skills, a 1 billion pound investment in the National Citizens Service by 2021, a plan to transform housing estates including rebuilding from scratch, additional 1 billion pounds to provide mental health treatment including treatment within 2 weeks in homes and communities. Throughout Cameron's "Life Chances strategy" is aimed at tackling not just the material dimensions of poverty, but also what he describes is broken in Britain- "the paucity of opportunity."...

LyrArc Article Gist
Without government aid about 12 million more people would have fallen into poverty in the US during the pandemic in 2020-2021. This is evident from census figures analyzed in the WSJ and NYT. The Supplemental Poverty Measure -which takes into account a broader range of income and expenses including hundreds of billions of dollars of pandemic aid -shows that poverty actually declined, dropping by 2.9% to 9.1%, as a result of government taking action in the US under the Trump and Biden administrations. The $400 billion  dollars of stimulus checks and aid during the Trump and Biden administrations in 2021 have made a real difference in the lives of not just poor Americans but Americans in the middle class and all sections of society. Similar aid was delivered in the European Union and Britain. In India government aid was distributed by depositing money directly into hundreds of millions of bank accounts of poor and marginal income people. Aid included food aid in grains, lentils and vegetables directly provided at subsidized prices or free by the government. Right wing or left wing government designations were meaningless as governments of different persuasions acted decisively to provide direct and timely help in US, Europe, and India. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Caste discrimination laws passed in the California legislature with little opposition. Opponents lobbied the governor to veto the legislation as state law already prohibits discrimination in California. Bharat (India) perspective on caste is for integration of the country and looking back at the lessons of colonization by the British. Caste divided the country and made it easier to colonize for Europeans who extracted capital for the East India Company and later Britain and creating backwardness and poverty. Bharat (India) goal was to create opportunities for integration of tribal communities lower castes Dalits and tribal Santhals into education economic mainstream. A Santhal from Jharkhand/Orissa was made president of India by PM Modi.

LyrArc Article Gist
Sure Start is a child education program for the early years to provide community centres and services to children started in 1998 under Labor prime minister Gordon Brown and later reduced in funding by the Tories. Efforts to revive the program under Labor party with high degree of child poverty in Britain. Results of the program show children improved in later grades in their learning ability and educational level proficiency. Children from low income households and mothers could benefit from such programs in the US and UK. This is part of an overall effort under Starmer in the UK as Labor returns to government with an expected majority and as Biden continues efforts to raise levels of educational opportunity for children in the US.

LyrArc Article Gist
Svenja Schulze brings new hope and dynamism to Germany's Development Ministry. As head of the Development Ministry she brings international experience in fighting climate change as SPD minister in the last government heading the climate change related Environment ministry. There she launched the climate protection package measures aimed at making Germany climate neutral by 2045. She now heads a ministry with a budget of $13.5 billion (12 billion euros). She wants to cooperate better with the Global South with an effort to tackle poverty and help developing nations. After the shocks of the pandemic this is an essential and important task. Her predecessor as Development minister Heidemarie Wiezcorek-Zeul, SPD minister 1998-2009 says the ministry needs clout in decisionmaking and for this it is important that the Development ministry is separate and an independent entity not lumped in with the Foreign Office as in Britain. That would be quite disastrous she says.  Climate change issues are also seen as development issues and about poverty reduction. This is a useful point that Mr. Modi was trying to make as he addressed the COP26 Summit- that climate change has to be done in the overall context of mitigation, that climate change control is part of poverty reduction and brings in new opportunities when done this way. Examples are zero budget farming, and solar energy as low cost energy for rural areas in India. Here Schulze talks to employees at the Ministry and tell them "We must all strive to make a good life possible for everyone in the world, That may sound overly emotional, but it is our aspiration."  Martina Schaub, chairwoman for VENRO whivh represents 140 private and church development organizations in Germany sees Schulze as a sign of optimism. The need is great particularly in the weak health systems of many countries. It is a sign of hope, and of the new Germany under Schulz. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Violation of international law or tacit approval of drug states and suppression of the election results in Venezuela- position taken by Oxford's Dill and Germany's Steinmeier is itself controversial. Merz's is realistic. For those concerned about international law is it restricted to any particular period? Then the British policy in China supported by the other powers Japan, Russia, Germany and France to suppress the Boxer rebellion in 1901 and expand Treaty ports that forced opium on China in the period 1850 to the 1930's was not just a egregious violation, horrendous violation of basic human rights on a scale unimaginable in modern times. Much of the prosperity of the Netherlands and Britain, France was achieved through such policy in Asia. Yet Oxford's Dill and Steinmeier have chosen not to look at European history and the Empires of Europe in Asia and Africa for 300 years since 1700. By comparison Venezuelan action comes after the great patience of well meaning people, and the silence of elites in the US and Europe about massive migration encouraged by the regime in Venezuela of one third of its population about 9 million people to neighboring countries including the US, and suppression of free elections, complete mismanagement leading to 150% inflation destroying its economy.  It was not only these elites in the US and Europe that were responsible through their silence, but also the Bush and Obama wars in the Middle East which sapped the resources of the United States. Why is this happening when the Venezuelan people are the main benificiaries of the action taken by the US president to send in its military. All oil sales revenue will no longer go to a corrupt "drugs" state but be used to directly help the Venezuelan people achieve a better standard of living, bring down inflation  and invest in modernization, in these unusual circumstance a program run by Bessent at US Treasury. Those who dislike the unconventional but well meaning style of the US president and his occasional poor choice of words, find every opportunity for criticism even ignoring facts and common sense. Under Chavez and Maduro the Venezuelan economy was simply mismanaged to the point of being destroyed and an affluent country reduced to poverty and inflation so bad that one third or 9 milllion people left for neighboring countries. On this Dill at Oxford and Steinmeier have only this to say- it is somebody's else's problem. we will remain silent. Similarly on introducing nuclear weapons in the Middle East -where most nation states have intermittent wars and economic mismanagement for the last 50 years the artificial states from the Ottoman Empire of Syria and Iraq, Libya, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Sudan every state impoverished by war and economic mismanagement - Dill at Oxford and Steinmeier in Germany also have only this to say- it is somebody else's problem not ours, we will remain silent. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
There is a major shift in world opinion among major countries in Asia and Europe and North America moving negative by double digits in Pew research surveys. The shift is gradual and negative in Germany, France, Spain and Italy, and steeply negative in Sweden, Denmark, Britain and the U.S., Japan and South Korea. The people with negative views of China in world affairs are also the people who believe China did a bad job in handling the coronavirus.  In Australia in one year alone there is a 24% increase to 81% of people who see China unfavorably, in Britain this is a 19% increase in one year to 74%. In the U.S. the shift is over 4 years by 20% to negative views for 73% viewing China unfavorably or negatively. The shift in Canada is similar to the U.S. The biggest shift is in Japan where 86% view China unfavorably and Sweden where this is 85% after China handled Swedish relations poorly. See the color graphs in the original article in DW.com by clicking on original article here in Lyrarc.com. It is rare to see the such a dramatic shift in public perception of one country. The handling of the coronavirus by China in a way that hurt all countries with lack of transparency and total cooperation normally seen in pandemics and the cost in poverty and job losses, economic losses has resulted in a massive loss of confidence in China, and in the leadership of Xi Jinping. Most public opinion in these countries now believes that Jinping cannot be trusted to do the right thing in world affairs. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
This article in The Guardian looks at the role of British authorites in the Empire in the 19th and 20th century that led to famines. Under Lord Lytton in the 1870's and in 1943-44 in Bengal there were famines that were worsened by British policy. Throughout the 19th and the first half of the 20th century India's energies were sapped and its poverty deepened by the British effort to extract wealth from India through commercial policy and taxation. During the Napoleonic Wars Britain used its Empire in India to finance the war in a way Napoleon lacked.  .As can be seen in the British Residency park in Lucknow  British authorites focused their efforts on the Treasury of the collapsing Empires in India whom they replaced. The people seeing tax territories shifted from one foreign authority to another stretching over four hundred years with little difference in development needs being met. After a period of self-rule which struggled with development after Independence in 1947, India's largest state Uttar Pradesh with a population of about 300 million, is finally bringing sanitation, water, roads, housing and medicine to all parts of the state. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Oxfam agency does a study to show the extent of damage done by colonialism in Asia-taking one of three examples India, China and Indonesia with population today of about 3 billion people. British colonial rule in India-from the 1750's to 1950,  estimate is about $34 trillion. It is important because Gandhi's Hind Swaraj (1910) is the result of work done by Dadabhai Naoroji in Poverty and Un-British Rule in India (1901) in coming up with an estimate in the $trillions that showed Gandhi "the extent of the poverty of India." Gandhi's famous letter to the Viceroy in 1923 comes from looking at the British budget for India where little is invested in Indian development much of it going to policing India. An average of $650- $750 per capita income in1600 for both Britain, Netherlands and India, China and Indonesia diverges to $100 in India, China and Indonesia and $10,000 in Britain in 1947. The Dutch and Britain had financed their industrial Revolution that generated most of this prosperity using funds squeezed from taxation, seizure of provincial treasuries,  and unfair trade in India by the British and Dutch East India Companies from 1750 to 1940.  What made this possible is the advance of science and technology that gives the British Navy and the smaller Dutch Navy the edge beginning in the 1600's and maintained for two hundred years to 1800's to defeat the French Navy. And with a leap forward in the Industrial Revolution propelled by science and technology to maintain this edge against all newcomers till 1920's when the US and Japanese Navies contended for superiority. In 1588 the British Navy under Queen Elizabeth had more 400 ton ships and bigger ship guns than the Spanish Empire's Navy under Phillip the Second that dominated Spain, Italy and Germany, and Latin America. This was the turning point the year 1588, when the Spanish Armada was destroyed by the English Navy and by storms in the English Channel. A new book "Armada" by English historians Martin and Parker (2023) shows this as a turning point from which the British and the Dutch started after defeating Spain. There are questions about what led to attitudes towards science and technology moving forward in Northern Europe and stagnating in not just India and China but also in Spain in 1600-1900. One could arguably say and ask how is it that Spain became as poor as India and China by 1900-1950?  Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations) says it is the insulated agricultural valleys of the Ganges and the Yangste river civilizations of India and China that are at fault. Yet one could say this for the Rhine, Danube or the other river based civilizations of Europe. It is primarily the advance of the Renaissance philosophy that opened up thinking in Europe and not in Asia, to ask questions about the world around us, to venture out, to test and experiment then invest capital where Asia and Europe moved apart.      ...

LyrArc Article Gist
A look at the Palestine conflict from 1947 to 2023. The British Mandate for Palestine gave Britain a role in administering this part of the Middle East after it took control of the region from the defeated Ottoman Empire in the First World War 1914-1918. The League of Nations set up the Mandate with intention to take the people in this territory to independence. The UN in 1947 gave about 56% of Palestine to the Jewish people and 44% to the Arab people. When the Arab people rejected this UN settlement and Arab neighbors Jordan, Egypt and Syria invaded in 1947 about 70% of the territory went to the new state of Israel. There have been repeated conflicts almost every 7 years since and there are factions within Israel and inside Palestine Arabs who have protracted the dispute, including over holy sites in Jerusalem, without seeking the kind of settlement that won peace for Ireland after hundreds of years of British rule and discrimination. The world with its billions of people in China and India who seek development and billions of people in Africa and Latin America who seek a way out of poverty, has no interest in prolonging small conflicts that distract from the importance of tackling climate change, infrastructure development and education, healthcare, ...

LyrArc Article Gist
UK about a third of children living in poverty in 2025. This means Labour's Starmer government has to advance from a weak base and the benefit cuts are a step backwards. The reason given is worsening finances. It is also true that Reform UK is not giving the issue priority and it is increasing in popularity in the Conservative voter base, giving Labour second thoughts about its programs. After the migrant issue is tackled and Britain like the US faces up to its long term future and its responsibilities, investments in childcare and education become a major priority as it is in Asia.

LyrArc Article Gist
After years of austerity policies from the Conservative Party, Britain is looking at new ideas to reorganize the economy and society. The 40% of the British vote taken by the Labour Party has given new impetus to think tanks looking at ways to reshape the British economy and society in coming decades. At issue are the effects of austerity in increasing poverty, rising inequality, and fewer protections for working class people.  The new think tanks include Common Wealth which aims at making changes to British business to provide more representation for labour and provide share of ownership to workers in an enterprise. Common Wealth came up with the ideas and policy for the Labour Party's plan to give 10% of ownership equity in large companies to worker owned funds. Mr McDonnell, chief economic policy maker of the Labour Party, has suggested a trial of a universal basic income, which has led to policy ideas and economic framework development from think tanks. A key idea is to frame how these new ideas can be implemented under a future Labour government, now that there is public disillusionment with the Tories under Theresa May.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
India's Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar said at an Atlantic Council event in Washington D.C. that estimates have been made of what the British took out of India over two centuries and this has come to $45 trillion in today's value. India suffered humiliation for two centuries from 1756 to 1947 with British rule. The country was "bled" and this was first documented by a member of parliament Dadabhai Naoroji in 1901 in London in his book explaining the causes of India's deep poverty in his book with the title- Poverty and Un-British Rule in India. For the first time detailed financial figures were put together on what Britain took out of India and India's Mohandas Gandhi says this was how he learned about how much India suffered economically under British rule with the neglect of agriculture, the peasants and landless laborers making up the vast population of India. Taxation was burdensome on a poor population during most of the period. Railways and mass communication only helped keep the vast region together under British rule and most of the budget went into security and policing for the Empire. Investment in industry or agriculture was neglected for most of the nineteenth century and half of the twentieth. Strangely the first Indian edition of Naoroji's book was only in 1962 with most Indians unaware of what had happened and where this was first documented. Even Cambridge educated Nehru looked at the railways and mass communication as British contributions to india when in actual fact this was of a strategic security aspect for the British in a vast region, and little was done to improve the standard of living of the people in the villages who worked in subsistence agriculture. Gandhi's task was to increase awareness at the grassroots level of the condition of the country. Something he never hesitated to do even writing to the Viceroy who was in charge directly showing how the budget in the 1920's was entirely lacking in any funds for India's development. This letter can be seen today in the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, the museum for Gandhi in his home state of Gujarat. One of the lesser known facts about the independence struggle is that Gandhi wrote a little book in 1910 with title "Hind Swaraj" on a steamship making its way back to South Africa from Britain where Gandhi led a deputation for rights of Indian coolie laborers in South Africa. I picked up this book at the original home of Gandhi and his parents in Porbandar, India, recently. In this book "Hind Swaraj" written in 1910 we find astonishingly all the details of the planned struggle for independence that were to happen over the next 20 years. In 1930 with a new edition Gandhi wrote that he had followed this unchanged for 20 years and would change nothing except one line in the book. The book in 1910 was promptly banned by the government of Bombay, yet Indian editions appeared soon afterward. It is written in question and answer format with Gandhi himself posing the questions which he answers, some challenging his view of India, Britain, Indians and the British. He did not blame the British, and called for Indians to take responsibility for letting the British rule in India happen and what was the best way out.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Chancellor Scholz made increasing the minimum wage a key plank in his election platform. The German parliament passed a bill increasing the minimum wage to 12 euros ($12.90) per hour as of October 1- an increase of 2.18 euros per hour. The increase will mean 400 euros extra per month for people with a monthly income of 1700 euros.  Chancellor Scholz wrote on Twitter "Many citizens in our country work a lot but earn little- that must change." "For me, one of the most important laws and a question of respect." The bill passed by a wide margin with 400 in favor, 41 against, and 200 abstentions from the CDU/CSU. CDU says Scholz bypassed a commission that sets the wage increase. Unions and other parties rejected that saying the bill will reduce poverty in Germany. The Merkel years will be remembered for the lack of attention to essential infrastructure, to digitalization, and to workers and families. Mr. Scholz and the Greens under Habeck and Baerbock are working to reverse years of wanton neglect of essential needs. In fact much of the increase will go to pay for additional cost of food and energy that is a result of Russia's invasion. Merkel and her predecessor Schroeder pursued policy that led to Germany's extreme dependence on Russia for energy resulting in the jump in energy prices today. France and Britain are also taking action to provide additional income to workers to offset the higher cost of energy and food. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
“I would advise none of the countries to panic. I wouldn’t try to retaliate because as long as you don’t retaliate, this is the high end of the number.” This is the ceiling number Bessent told countries around the world about the Rose Garden Tariffs chart of April 2, 2025. Just don't retaliate and negotiations would work things out. Bessent said some countries say they would work with China. I have this to say to Spain about China, he said, it is like someone with brooms and a bucket of water, it keeps on going, production never stops, that is the Chinese model. What Bessent is saying is that the Chinese model is to keep doing what they have always done non stop with no intention to change- build capacity, overcapacity, and ship production overseas to saturate markets with production and destroy industrial base of other countries- from computers to solar panels to electric cars. China is also looking at it's very recent history just the last 15 years as proof of its superiority in cost and quality and efficiency in production as evidence that US and EU is in decline. Forgetting that this was possible with US assistance and desire to lift the Chinese people out of centuries of poverty. For the 19th and 20th century Britain, the US and Europe were leaders in cost, quality and efficiency. US , India and the EU are coming back using their ingenuity, creativity and talented workers and engineers. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Jose de Cordoba of the WSJ provides this excellent story on the nature of the migration crisis in the U.S. that is creating political divisions in the U.S. What is causing this surge in migration to the U.S.? Cordoba provides some useful insights to understand the nature of this problem. Nine out of ten migrants in Guatemala which sends most of the migrants from Central America are moving north from Guatemala through Mexico to the U.S. for financial reasons, it points out. Only 10% are because of violence in the region, the rest for financial reasons according to the United Nations International Organization for Migration The jump in apprehension of Guatemalans at the American border shows a surge from 15,000 in 2007 to 236,000 in 9 months of 2019, according to U.S. government data. The surge began in 2008 and jumped in 2014 after U.S. court rulings that first required migrant children to be allowed to join relatives in the U.S. followed by a ruling in 2015 that allowed a parent to join the children and allowed court proceedings to take place that takes years. The result was that smugglers advertised on radio and families sold small plots of land to join relatives in the U.S. who had gone before them. The migration is also specific to certain areas hit by damage to crops, including coffee crop from drought, or certain towns that simply sent more people simply for financial reasons advertised openly.  For 8 hours of work a migrant could make at $12 per hour amount of $96 per day, in Guatemala the daily wage would be about $5.  Overwhelmingly it is financial reasons or economic opportunity that sends migrants north. After it became known that kids could help migration the people in family groups apprehended at the border jumped from about 40,000 in 2015 to 390,000 in fiscal 2019. Smugglers charge $8600 per adult and half that for a child and an adult that can be dropped off at a checkpoint. The efforts of president Trump to close the border to this migration include having Mexico sign an agreement to police its southern border with Guatemala using its newly setup National Guard. As a result the migration has actually surged in 2019 with migrants seeing this as their one last opportunity to join relatives in the U.S. or to migrate to the U.S. The Trump administration tried separating families because of the loophole in the law that allows children to be not deported and parents to join their children. But this created a public outcry and the effort now is to close the loophole in the law. It is also strange that as many migrants are coming from one town Joyabaj  with population 100,000 as from Guatemala City the capital population 2.5 million. In fact the economy has grown by 3.4 % a year in Guatemala and efforts have been made to improve conditions with the help of donor countries in the West for several years, though the drought conditions exist. The situation is similar to that in Europe. If one looks at the violence by gangs in central American region after the end of the guerilla wars and compares it to the wars in Syria and Iraq, one can see how humanitarian concerns preceded what eventually turned out tobe a full blown migration for economic reasons. Initially chancellor Merkel adopted a humanitarian stance but failed to recognize that there was another side to his situation that would attract a wave of economic migrants from places as far apart as North Africa to Afghanistan. Poverty has existed in these regions for many many years before the current migration, with drought and lack of economic opportunity going far back in time. Merkel only recently recognized this problem and the new CDU leader Kambrauer has clearly recognized this. CDU policy shifted in 2018-2019 with curbs on economic migration that has reduced it to a trickle. This process is underway in the U.S. at its border with Mexico and for Mexico with its border with Guatemala. In the short run Europe and the U.S. are paying a price. Not just in the way it has divided each country with a far left and a far right eroding the centrist parties that existed before. In some cases centrist parties that were popular on the right and the left now hve leaders from a far right or a far left faction within the centrist ruling parties. Boris Johnson in Britain, Trump in the U.S., leaders in Italy, Austria and Hungary. Or as in Germany and Spain new far left or far right parties causing the centrist parties to dwindle in influence or as in Germany this combined with a shift to the Green Party in Germany and Liberals Party in Britain as a show of disapproval for how the migration issue has been tackled.  The Economist in a July 2019 issue also points out that the country's own citizens have fared worse with migration. It shows how the Conservative Party's austerity cuts for welfare budgets was popular in Britain as long as eastern European migration at high levels in Britain were allowed starting with the Labour party under Blair. This disproportionately hurt the middle class and the poor after the hit already taken from the faulty banking caused recession. With the drop in migration it is now felt by a majority in Britain that the austerity cuts have just gone too far and a mood is set in to restore many of the cuts and fund public services. Meantime some of the damage has been done and will take a decade to correct as the issues that mangled the centrist parties and led to fragmentation on views of what society should look like have taken place with Brexit and high levels of poverty, income inequality in Britain, lack of investment in infrastructure with overallocation to tech with declining productive benefit for every additional dollar spent. ...