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DJT arrives in Beijing China May 13 2026. Topics that will be discussed are - the Iran War and how to resolve it, trade with China, tariffs, and US Taiwan policy. China continues to run trillion dollar surplus in trade with the world with lower trade surplus with the US after DJT tariffs. From $295 billion in 2024 under Biden the new DJT administration with DJT, Bessent and Jamieson has lowered this to $202 billion by 2026. In that same period the world trade surplus of China has increased from $992 to $1.19 billion. It is not clear whether some of the drop in the US figures is from China sending product through channels to Mexico and Vietnam that is then shipped to the US. DJT showed results in his policies by lowering the trade imbalance by 32%, while trade imbalance with the rest of the world has worsened (increase in trade surplus of China) by 20%. What does this show? We can safely assume that excessive trade imbalances are not in either China, EU, or America's interest. China increases trade and political friction by doing so, and it leaves its own policy weak by overdependence on exports, too little effort to increase domestic consumption and living standards.  FOr the US and EU trade imbalances with China of over $1 trillion reflect misguided policy at the top by US and EU decision makers and governments. By exposing their manufacturing base they are losing valuable jobs by the millions and creating a situation where the few with good jobs in select industries live in large cities and the rest of the country in smaller towns and rural areas suffering from lack of amanufacturing base. This weakens the investment base for public services and leads to lack of investment ininfrastructure. This is called deindustrialization which the DJT and Biden administrations both fight hard to reverse for the last 10 years since the disastrous years of the Obama and Bush administrations 2000-2016. For this reason we can say a good Republican is as good as a good Democrat, a bad Republican is as bad as a bad Democrat, political labels are just that labels. The media in US and EU are on a wrong footing and still fail to cover this the way it should be covered to shake off the lethargy in public sentiment in the US so that a rapid drive to reindustrialize and build new new infrastructure on top of the old that was built after World War 1 can take place. In today's world India is stepping up with major infrastructure building just as the US and EU ramp up their rebuilding.  ...

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Modi BJP Win in West Bengal 2026- full speech on the future of Bengal, India, Indian democracy, India's modernization - May 4, 2026. For the first time most of India is now being led by state and federal governments that are aligned for rapid modernization, rapid development of infrastructure, industry and the economy. Madras, Bombay, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Vizag, Kolkata, Bhubaneshwar, Delhi, Noida, Bhopal, Dehra Dun, Srinagar,most of India's cities and urban areas, and the rural heartland of India all aligned for accelerated development under a Master Plan for the economy for the next two decades. This will close the gap with China to make India the third largest economy in the world, and a key support for the United States and the European Union. Seen through this lens many of todays reports and concerns fade into significance. The US and the European Union are not alone- they have the support of 2 billion people of India, and Indonesia and adjoining regions.

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CLT Classical Learning Test has a bright future. Its message is summed up in CLT Test 8 on the website- where Gustav Mahler is cited with the text- "Tradition is not about the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire." 183,000 high school seniors have taken the CLT Classic Learning Test in the US in 2025 compared to 2 million for SAT and 1.4 million for ACT, yet the new test is considered to be more rigorous and includes the western intellectual tradition in ways that the ACT and SAT do not. A CLT Test 3 we looked at on the CLT site included for reading a poem by Amy Lovell 1916, Mark Twain writings, passages on Greek Zeno and Renaissance painter Raphael, EB White and others. CLT Test 4 has poetry of Robert Louis Stevenson 1885, and remarkably it has a passage on the Pack Horse Book Project of FDR's New Deal Initiative in 1935 on women librarians on horseback or with mules going into remote mountainous areas of the US including Kentucky, to teach rural people to read and write. This alone suggests it should appeal to Republican and Democratic states alike. It could include Charles Dickens and Shakespeare or Robert Frost's poetry. In that sense it is far more rigorous than short bland passages in SAT or ACT of little significance or educational value. It is designed to give students an exposure in classrooms to the western intellectual tradition that the elites in America have themselves grown up learning but who now have a haughty attitude to their own intellectual traditions. In CLT Test 6 we found a poem on Nature by Gerard Manley Hopkins 1877 and Dickens famous iconic passage that begins the Tale of Two Cities written about the French Revolutionary period which is clearly not what we find in SAT or ACT, and far better in conveying a feel of what America is about and where it came from. The founder of CLT Mr. Tate believes it will be the test most taken by high school seniors by 2040. Classic Learning Test now competes with SAT and ACT in North Carolina, Indiana and other American states. Arkansas passed legislation favoring CLT, and Ohio is doing it this year. Louisiana, Oklahoma and Wyoming are accepting CLT. This Test is gaining popularity among conservatives in red and purple states  and is getting the support of the US government in 2026. The Maryland Company behind this test is Maryland Learning Initiatives. Indiana passed legislation in March requiring its state universities to accept CLT scores. And North Carolina university system now accepts the CLT. Both CLT and SAT, ACT have Math and Reading Verbal tests, the CLT adds foundational texts from Western science, government, history and literature in ways not found in SAT, ACT. Students can take the CLT at home or at a testing site. More than 350 universities and colleges accept CLT says this report in Washington Post. The SAT and ACT use shorter passages and the reading material is bland and does not have the value that it could have from the western intellectual tradition. The passages in the CLT are more rigorous and include western religious tradition and thinkers but also poets, writers, scientists from the whole gamut of the experience of Europe and the United States of America. And also explore other countries and continents including China and India, from Aristotle to Gandhiji. ...

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Local government elections in the Mumbai region show a strong win for the BJP party running the Federal Government  under PM Modi in City of Mumbai and cities of Nagpur, Pune and Pimpri, with about half of the seats contested won by the BJP Party. Key to winning the election is the voter trust in the Vikshit Bharat goal for a Modernized India by 2036 and 2047 in two phases. This is likely to influence the elections in West Bengal State that are coming up in April 2026 with the city of Kolkata. PM Modi opened several Rail projects for West Bengal and conducted rallies in the state which is governed by a party that has not worked to industrialize the state for two decades using a local linguistic and regional identity to win elections. Vikshit Bharat is likely to come to West Bengal as it has to the Mumbai region, giving the Federal Government run by the BJP Party an opportunity to form local governments and state governments that cooperate with the Federal Government of PM Modi. These 2 regions the Mumbai and Kolkata regions are the last regions that have fought central modernization efforts and promoted politics that are conducive to mismanagement and corruption, clanish arrangements for the 2 states Maharashtra and West Bengal. For India to compete with China, to catch up with China, and fulfill the hopes and aspirations of 1.4 billion people this is one more of the missing pieces that is being put in place for Vikshit Bharat. Seen from Europe and the US it shows how big the visit of Merz and the Modi Merz Kite Flying effort in Ahmedabad recently means for India as well as US and Europe. Merz has chose India as its leading partner, Germany has chosen this road, with lasting confidence in Modi's Vikshit Bharat effort for 2036 and 2047. ...

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EIA says half of the benefit of higher fuel efficiency standards for Automobiles 2010-2020 in US was lost because of SUV's and the incentivizing of SUV's in the 2006 CAFE standards have made things worse. The first SUV's came in the 1980's. By 2004 SUV's made up half of car sales and by 2025 outsold cars 2 to 1. What if we took all SUV's and large cars off the roads, or even some of these SUV's by deincentivizing of SUV's in the US CAFE corporate fuel efficiency standards? What would be the savings in crude oil and in carbon footprint? Would it be about the same as releasing an additional 400 million barrels of oil into the markets in addition to the 400 million barrels that are now released through EIA and member countries? This New Yorker essay touches on this idea. During the Iran war the volatile Middle East as a source of oil supplies is a major problem for countries. Some are rationing supplies and in one country 40 million children are not going to school for 2 weeks starting this week because of the sources of oil are so precarious, government offices will only have half of the employees, the rest working from home (almost like Covid pandemic). Many other countries face that situation. The International Energy Agency recently reported that, if “SUVs were an individual country, they would rank sixth in the world for absolute emissions in 2021, emitting over 900 million tonnes of CO2.” The agency says governments must redesign their CAFE standards and their policies so that it would reduce S.U.V. sales, tax gas guzzling vehicles. EIA cites governments in the EU doing this- “Some governments have already started introducing relevant measures, such as France and Germany, which have put a tax on large and high-emissions cars.” Within SUV's also there is an opportunity to reduce the size and make more efficient space utilization designs. Small savings also add up. One has to realize that the current freedom to use energy freely in places like the US with self sufficiency in oil comes with a sense of responsibility for using it wisely so that it can be exported to cut the trade deficit, precisely what the president is doing with India, to cut a trade deficit of $58 billion before it gets to $100 billion. Section 301 is already in place for investigations by the US of 18 countries for a new basis to use tariffs after the Supreme Court decision. A similar approach is taken with EU for hundreds of billions of reductions in trade deficit that will only strengthen the US dollar and the US economy in the long run , and be good for stock markets and jobs as it reduces oil prices and increases the manufacturing capacity/cost for the Nation. Europe, India and China can do the same. Remember that in 2010 SUV's made up 17% of total world sales, and by 2025 SUV's made up 46% of world vehicle sales. This would create another 400 million barrels for the oil markets, which would triple what was released through EIA  this week to 1.2 billion barrels and this would create 120 days of supply replacement for the 10 million b/d lost from Straits of Hormuz, and effectively end the Iran War as it would be clear that prices can be kept low even in the $50's. Essentially buying time till the SU can get more production in Venezuela and other parts of the world to replace much of the Middle Eastern oil that is ending up in a quagmire. This is the best way for the US and Europe, India, China to ensure jobs growth, economic growth with low cost crude oil in the $50 range and ensure much of the poorer countries like Egypt and Indonesia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, have access to oil at prices they can afford and eliminate poverty. ...

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The best US cities for jobs is changing rapidly in 2021 after the spread of coronavirus. Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston lost jobs. Jobs shifted to hubs in the interior of the country as remote work changed the workplace. Salt Lake City in Utah, Austin in Texas, and Denver became new hubs with environments that included mountains, healthier living, quieter lifestyle, lower costs and efforts to attract employers. Tourist spots suffered with Orlando in Florida moving to 47th place in terms of jobs. The US lost 9 million jobs in 2020 changing how the jobs market in cities looks. The WSJ looks at the changes in this report. Tech hubs such as Raleigh in North Carolina, and San Francisco suffered decline as remote work created new opportunities for cities in the interior of the country. By contrast Salt Lake City was growing twice as fast from 2000 to 2017, and has increased in popularity with surrounding areas of Provo and Ogden in Utah. It is now known as Silicon Slopes as it becomes a new tech hub city. The WSJ looks at Salt Lake City in some detail.  ...

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New York City faces a $2 billion deficit in current fiscal year in 2026 and $10 billion the following year. This means there is less funding for new Mayor Mamdani's programs for groceries/transport for New Yorkers. Mamdani was elected by people in the hope that he could find ways for struggling New Yorkers to handle the cost of living crisis in 2026. New programs Mamdani promised were free bus service with costs annually (cost 0.8 billion), new rent stabilized units (annual cost $7 billion),  universal child care (annual cost $ 6 billion). A state corporate tax hike could generate $5 billion and a millionaires tax $4 billion, not enough for $13.8 billion cost for these services. The other problem is the way the city has handled its finances- this report shows declining projections for expenditures under former mayor Adams for public assistance, rental assistance, and MTA subsidies items which one would expect to go up in a large city the size of New York with new immigrants.The report says the shortfalls were met by using funds meant for the next year. Already Mamdani is not able to expand the state voucher program for residents facing eviction because of these budget constraints. This is the pattern in New York of making new promises not funded on the revenue side. Mamdani promised smaller class sizes but did not show where the funding for extra teachers would come from. For New Yorkers this adds a bit of realism to the idea that a new Mayor and new promises is the answer to its problems. Only about two thirds of its budget comes from its revenues the rest from federal and state funding which means an overall solution firing on all fronts, with federal and local cooperation, private investment, good governance, foreign investment, is needed to tackle the problems of major cities like New York. ...

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This report in WSJ shows that remote work is a lasting trend because companies can now hire talented individuals from anywhere in the country or the world, and pay less for the same talent. In the past talented individuals were attracted with high pay packages to cities such as San Francisco, Seattle, New York, Boston and Los Angeles. Companies can now choose to avoid paying these high pay packages and have a broader talent pool to choose from. This is because these cities became costlier and less attractive with cramped apartments relative to the choices for remote work. In the example cited here a machine learning expert shifted from a small cramped apartment in San Francisco to work for Twitter from a small town named Katy in Texas where she has a 5 bedroom large apartment and a nicer community of 20,000 people to live in west of Houston. One in 8 jobs posted on Linked In as of August 2021 are for remote work, many times the percentage of remote work job postings in 2020, showing this trend is here to stay. There is a large shift of millions of workers in tech related fields exiting the cities of San Francisco, New York, Seattle, and Boston for smaller cities in other parts of the country such as Utah, Texas and other states in the US. A similar trend is observed in Europe. America's professional classes are moving to hybrid or remote work in large numbers says this report in WSJ. At one point in 2020 about 35% of workers in the US or 50 million workers were doing remote work during the lockdowns. In August 2021 this figure is closer to about half of these workers even as workers return to work offices. It is believed that the BLS statistics understate the number of remote workers at 20 million and 14% of workers in August 2021. Large crowded and hugely expensive cities are no longer attractive for employers or for tech employees or professional workers. ...

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16.3 million acres wildfires in Canadian West burn in August 2025- the smoke reaches midwest and northeastern US. Wildfires in San Luis Obispo County in California 2025 bring smoke to Los Angeles.

The Air Quality Index in Detroit, Montreal and Toronto reaches levels of 147, 144, and 158, it reaches. On August 4, Cairo was 122, Dubai 107, Kolkata 112. It shows how these fires are affecting air quality in the US and Canadian cities. Northeast New York Boston will be affected by Aug 8 Fri as it eases up with winds in Detroit, Toronto by Aug  6 Wed.

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Jeff Flake, U.S. Senator from Arizona tells Republican candidates, "Distance yourself from Trump," and Flake is thinking not just of 2016, but of elections to come.  In the West generally it is not just about minorities, but also the educated white collar professionals in cities such as Salt Lake City, Denver and Phoenix. The percentage of registered Republicans in Colorado dropped by 4 percentage points since 2012, and now Democrats have the same share of registered voters. In Arizona Hillary Clinton has invested resources to register more Hispanics and minorities. The distancing from Trump by Romney and the shift of the Mormon vote is making Utah also a place where Clinton is catching up in polls. As a result most of the West now looks very different. The remaining western states of Wyoming, Idaho, Montana and Alaska, say experts have a total of 13 of the 538 Electoral College votes. With Utah this is 19. 

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A sign of how high rise office building prices fell in 2024 in big cities in the US is the price of 135 West 50th Street 23 floor office building in New York City that sold for $332 million in 2006 and now sells for $8.2 million in an unusual online auction.

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The State of the Union Address in 2026 cited the enormous impact on the world we know today over 2 centuries by this Nation. Jefferson breathed his last in 1826, between that and two persons in the chamber- including Air Force pilot who is 100 years old- between 1826 and 1926 when this pilot was born is a span of 100 years, and in this pilot's lifespan another 100 years. In this period, a couple of generations in our lifetimes, so much was achieved, said the president. So much of the address was about the potential ahead following the heroic efforts of the past. We are part of something larger than us, says the president, and this larger than us is the collective consciousness of the American Nation. "Two-hundred fifty years is a long time in the life of a nation. But in another sense, it's really a mere moment in the eye of history. Two of the gentlemen we met in the gallery this evening took their first breaths one century ago. One hundred years before that, on July 4th, 1826, the author of the Declaration of Independence, brilliant Thomas Jefferson, drew his last breath. Just a single long human life span separates the giants who declared and won our independence from the heroes who stand among us tonight. Everything our nation has done, everything we have achieved, has been the work of those few great lifetimes. In those brief chapters, Americans built this nation from 13 humble colonies into the pinnacle of human civilization and human freedom. The strongest, wealthiest, most powerful, most successful nation in all of history. Americans ventured out across the daunting and dangerous continent. We carved pass through an unforgiving wilderness, settled a boundless frontier, and tamed the beautiful but very, very dangerous wild west. From empty marshes and wide-open plains, we raised up the world's greatest cities. Together we mastered the world's mightiest industries, shattered history's monstrous tyrannies. And we liberated millions from the chains of fascism, communism, oppression and terror." Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR and JFK, through their efforts and the efforts of scientists and industrial pioneers, and of the People of the United States, of educators and scientific endeavors, so much was achieved, and so much lies ahead. ...

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Reflecting with gratitude for things that have gone right on Thanksgiving Day in the US in 2025. Peggy Noonan asks us to follow Charles Dickens advice- Charles Dickens in “Sketches by Boz”: “Reflect upon your present blessings—of which every man has many—not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.” Thinking of old friends, of science that heals things, of the world outside and the joy of work. Knowing readers across different towns and cities around the world, and being able through Lyrarc.com "to provide a product that helps millions build educated mindsets that affects and shapes their lives that gives me inspiration for the effort." And the joys of Nature for me that include hiking in the French Alps near Grenoble and in the Austrian Alps near Innsbruck, and visiting simple churches in the mountains and in Munich, watching children in exercise in the gardens of Innsbruck. Like Peggy Noonan thankful to watch the World Series baseball the LA Dodger's Ohtani, and the 2 day Ashes Cricket Test with Mitchell Starc. ...

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Milan will host the World Cities Culture Summit in 2020, and the Winter Olympics in 2026 shared with the Alpine town of Cortina. The international book fair of Turin is moving to Milan. The left of centre Mayor Giuseppe Sala has promoted the city to increase tourism by 50%. And foreign investment is increasing for new construction projects with $21 billion to be taken up in the next 15 years. Experts are asking if this is coming at a price as the rest of Italy has stagnated for 20 years, and the rural large city gap is increasing throughout Europe. The flow of professionals to cities such as Milan, Paris, Munich, Berlin, from other towns and cities is creating a huge shift that experts at the Centre of European Reform see as a problem because of the political turmoil, and rising inequality with ever widening gaps between smaller cities and towns and rural areas with the big cities. This is compounded by ageing and demographics such as seen in the eastern part of Germany, and parts of France. Experts call it The Big European Sort, where a sifting or sorting process is increasingly transforming the demographics of European countries and driving polarisation. This process is also happening in the U.S. Experts say the big cities benefitted from the change with the European single market and the European Union. Places where working class people live are not seeing and increase in wealth which is disproportionately going to professionals clustered in big cities. Deindustrialisation has turned places like Mezio only 20 miles from Milan into industrial ruins. Towns that once voted socialist are now voting far right in these hollowed out industrial places. In the U.S. and in Europe the process was exacerbated by the flow of cheap imports from Asia hollowing out factories in regions around big cities, and by the growth of services industry in big cities with globalization in finance, legal, and other professional services. Fro 1980 to 1995 Paris region lost about $5.5 billion in industrial output and gained $20 billion in services output that also aligns with globalization in areas such as finance, according to CER, Eurostat. The process had accelerated in 1995-2020. By telling this story about Milan and the Lombard region around it like Mezio, The Guardian is saying it is time to look at how everything works together rather than breaking apart- citing the Finnish architect Saarinen about how a chair fits into a room, a room into a house, and a house into its environment, an environment in a city. So the question is how can we build the future by seeing that the city fits into a region, and a region fits into a country. As a young professional described this on BBC television interview recently this is a difficult period with the ability to design the future seemingly snatched away by the times, but also an opportunity to rethink and take the actions today for a better tomorrow for all. This is part of the coverage on Cities in The Guardian looking at how cities can work, and how cities can become part of healthy regions, for organic growth. ...

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Mayor Browser offers coordination with DJT and federal law enforcement in Washington DC September 2025. There is little doubt that Washington DC is now a safer, cleaner, better place for residents. DC as the Nation's capital is a safer, cleaner, better place, and can now fulfill it's aspirations to reach its full potential as the best of America's cities, what the National Capital deserves to be. This is no time for politics and self serving action as what matters is the people of this Nation feeling free to live and work in the Nation's Capital from the 51 states, and the people of the world engaging with the United States finding this an attractive and safe place to carry out work in the World's Capital. This benefits local residents in ways that no other American city is able to get.

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Michael Shear says president Biden is listening to his head about the US Border with Mexico- that he would close the US Border if the bipartisan bill is passed in the US Congress, the same day that he signs it to become law. The new bill agreed to in negotiations between Senator Graham and other Republican Senators and the White House ends current parole and asylum policy  that have led to chaos at the border. Shear who has covered presidents for 30 years shows that president Biden held the view that he was elected to provide a human face to the crisis at the border from international migration and close private prisons and poor treatment of children. He listened to both sides of his party during 2021 and 2022 after becoming increasingly aware that something was wrong and by Jan 2023 was convinced that tough action was needed at the border to deport Haitians and other people from central America smuggled northward with 13 flights a day to Haiti to deport illegal migrants.  He made his first major immigration speech at that time. The problem was that there was a major upheaval in Venezuela adding to the tide of illegal migrants as Venezuela sent millions to all countries in Latin America and north to the US, an international crisis playing out in Colombia and other neighbors for the last 10 years. When Lopez Obrador of Mexico closed his own migrant deportations Biden sent Blinken to Mexico with Homeland Security minister Mayorkas, and after discussions Obrador resumed the deportations. Trains going north in Mexico had conductors who were bribed to slow down to take on migrants. This was stopped and all trains going north were stopped at Eagle Pass in December 2023. Republican governors Abbott of Texas and DeSantis of Florida have sent busloads or flights of these migrants to New York and other cities in the US showing that the entire system of migrant handling was breaking down even as president Biden was convinced by his own advisers including Jake Sullivan that the border required tough action. The president increased planned legal migration to lower illegal migration from Nicaragua and rest of Latin America. By January 2024 Biden was convinced the only solution was closing the US Border immediately after the bipartisan solution. Lindsay Graham senior Republican Senator agreed with Biden with one problem- the Republicans in US House of Representatives did not think it right to work with president Biden to settle the problem.  ...

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Sperling shows how Biden's economic plan rescued America and set the stage for America becoming the leader in the G7 economies. Gene Sperling is adviser to president Biden, coordinator of the America Rescue Plan, and had 8 years as adviser in 2000 and 2011 after the financial crisis to previous presidents. Here he says the arguments made that the trillion dollars investment spending Biden and a bipartisan group of senators have supported with legislation in Congress were causing inflation have proved not to be true. Inflation caused by bottlenecks in the supply chain, the pandemic shifts, and the Ukraine war, has come down to 3.4% in Dec 2023. By investing in the US economy, in US manufacturing and US jobs, the US under Biden now has the best economy of the 7 advanced economies with higher growth and unemployment below 4% for 24 straight months, lower inflation apples to apples. Sperling says there were 4 lessons learned during his work with the White House. The first to avoid harm to workers whose lives get scarred by loss of jobs. This happened in 1982 and again in 2008 after the financial crisis. Unemployment took 6 years to recover after 2008. And he says the unemployment rate was 15% for younger workers. For the first time economists like Sperling and Treasury Secretary Yellen have grasped what workers feel and have gone through. Sperling cites the devastation to people's lives - the mental health, the divorce, the loss of earnings and depression. The new policy after 2020 resulted in the fastest drop in longterm unemployment ever with black and hispanic unemployment reaching record lows by 2023. A first ever national eviction prevention policy led to 20% less evictions than prepandemic. Second Sperling says 650,000 jobs were lost by state and local governments in the three years after 2008 financial crisis. State and local budget cuts and mass layoffs seriously hit the economy. This time in after 2020 1.2 million jobs were added with the money in the Rescue Plan and lost jobs recovered in one third the time it took in 2008. Third state and local governments need to deal with the harm coming from the downturn and after 2008 the cupboard was empty. Whereas after 2008 only 154 cities and counties got help to tackle commericial blight, effects on communities, foreclosure and long term joblessness in 2020 Biden was able to send direct funding to all 20,000 local governments and 15,000 school districts. This helped tackle learning loss, crime, and address mental health needs. What a difference it made. Lastly one needed to anticipate something unexpected to happen that flattened projections of recovery. In 2011 3.7% growth projected was flattened when Sperling was senior adviser, and this was flattened by Fukushima nuclear disaster, Arab Spring spike in oil prices, and debt default negotiations. This time there was cushion in the plan so that when covid variants and unexpected Ukraine war happened the rescue could withstand and deliver with resilience. Growth was 3.4% average for the first 3 years of Biden's term and unemployment went down from 8% to 4% for 24 months. Coming from someone who had seen mistakes happen and corrected them, who had served three presidents and the last Biden ,this is a story of how Sperling, Yellen, with the help of Powell at the Federal Reserve, and the bipartisan support put together by a US president in Congress , one who has served the country in the Senate more than any other recent Senator and led the nation with courage, patience and determination. ...

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The Editorial Board of the WSJ questions the lack of debate on the frequent lockdowns and the quashing by public health officials Fauci and Collins of an alternative point of view on lockdowns. That point of view by epidemiologists at three universities Oxford, Harvard and Stanford favored a policy of "focused protection" of high risk populations instead of snap response of blanket lockdowns. It cites statement by Dr. Fauci that people who criticize him are "really criticizing science, because I represent science. That's dangerous." And questions the idea that one man can by himself represent science, saying scientific debate over pandemic policy was and still is in the public interest. In some ways the Biden administration has adopted some of these ideas on a new pandemic policy that does respond with focused and selective lockdowns. Today shuttered businesses, lost livelihoods, untreated illnesses, mental illness, isolation effects are all taken into account in decisions throughout the US, and other countries in Europe, in Asia and the rest of the world. Some of the emails mentioned in this WSJ editorial were in October 2020 at the height of the first wave and second waves before the vaccination drive in 2021, when the fear of the coronavirus was the dominant response. Yet a spirited public scientific debate could have prevented some of the rancor and division that has led to high vaccine resistance in the US with fully vaccinated stalling at about 62% of the American population at the beginning of 2022. It did'nt have to be that way. America could have done a lot better with sincere scientific and public debate. ...

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Nature Conservancy reports that trees planted in cities reduce particulate matter by between 7% and 24%.  Particulate matter are microscopic particles we breathe in when there is polluted air from automobiles, factories, or smoking. The cooling effect is about 2 degrees centigrade or 3.6 degrees fahrenheit. Outdoor air pollution causes asthma and other lung diseases, and led to premature deaths of about 3 million people in 2012, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Hospitalization from high pollution levels is another major problem, especially in poor and middle income nations, such as Brazil, Mexico, India, China and Indonesia. Air Flow should be considered when planting trees in congested urban areas. Cities in the west also benefit from tree planting, and London has benefitted from the park spaces and tree planting.

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The WSJ cites economic studies that show 60% of China's overseas loans are troubled in 2022 compared to 10% in 2010. China has scaled down the Belt and Road Initiative and is reorganizing the effort to introduce risk controls and reduce lending. China's preferred approach in an increasing interest rate environment is to extend the maturity of loans. Yet the climate change disasters and rising rates have put many countries into a highly indebted position. China no longer touts the Belt and Road as a way for developing countries to advance their economies and infrastructure development.

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This report in NYT suggests that coronavirus in New York is becoming endemic. Endemic means chronic instead of the acute crisis situation in 2020. This is because hospitalizations are not filling up ICU's the way they did in 2020. The burden of the coronavirus pandemic is now on people who are unvaccinated and people under 45 years.  New York has a higher rate of vaccination than the rest of the country. About 76% of people ages 12 and over in New York are vaccinated. Yet the 24% of younger people who remain unvaccinated is a part of the population that has fears about getting vaccinated which are harder to overcome. As many of these younger people also spend more time outdoors, and are part of the community, more likely to be in contact with families, relatives and friends indoors in winter, and less likely to wear masks and follow social distancing the pandemic, one could see another surge in the winter of 2021.  Another problem could be that some portion of the population of vaccinated has not taken booster shots by the middle of winter which would create a population of a third of the people even in cities such as New York that remain unprotected. The emergence of another difficult variant could also be a complicating factor. In this way chronic or endemic may still be elusive where masking, social distancing and other preventive actions are not taken. For the community as a whole there will be the risk to upward mobility from the people who risk losing jobs because of fears of the vaccine.     ...

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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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The situation in small towns in East Germany such as Loecknitz on the Polish border. The economy is depressed with unemployment twice the level in West Germany, and young people moving away. The economy on the Polish side is much healthier and Poles are moving to the German side from the Polish city of Szczecin, a 30 minute drive. Poles are also buying depressed German real estate and starting businesses. This is adding to the local economy as young Germans have moved to the larger cities but there is the sense of being left behind among some Germans. It comes from the period of reunification when after investing $2 trillion to integrate the two economies the best that could be done was making cities like Leipzig and Dresden in the east prosper but leaving the coutnryside in East Germany in an abandoned state as young people sought opportunities elsewhere. This may be why Angela Merkel who grew up and studied in the former East Germany told the German parliament in June 2012, "Germany's strength is not infinite. Germany's powers, too, are not unlimited."...

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This very exceptional report from the city of Recife in Brazil's northeastern state of Pernambuco, comes from WSJ reporters Johnson and Jelmayer. It is about the physicians Vanessa van der Linden Mota, and Ana van der Linden Mota, her mother, who first alerted health authorites in Pernambuco about the cases of encephaly and the links to the mosquito Zika Virus in Recife, Brazil. From 147 recorded encephaly cases, and babies born with shrunken skulls or calcified brain structure in 2014 in Brazil, the cases reported jumped to 4,180 suspected cases. Estimates of cases by 2020 for such cases run up to 50,000 to 100,000 if the problem is not tackled. The family of the van der lindens come from Dutch-German immigrants settled in northeastern Brazil, a less developed region of the country. The family is unique with five doctors including neuro pediatricians Ana and Vanessa working in public hospitals in Recife , and father Helio a neuro surgeon. The entire state of Pernambuco has a total of 15 neuropediatricians, according to this report. The Ebola Virus emerged in countries such as Sierra Leone and Liberia which suffered from war and neglect of health infrastructure. Here in Pernambuco state, as reporters Johnson and Jelmayer point out, the problem stems from neglect in public health infrastructure, especially sanitation and drinking water for shantytown dwellers and vast majority of poor residents in a city of 3.5 million, typical of developing countries in Latin America and South Asia, where development in some parts of the country have lagged far behind, and where needed public health infrastructure investments have not been made. Lack of dependable drinking water means collecting water in containers that are susceptible to breeding mosquitoes, such as the mosquitoes carrying the Zika Virus. A public debate on the lack of attention by socialist and worker's party led governments to this type of infrastructure and transportation services was already underway in Brazil leading to widespread protests in 2013. A $226 million investment in a soccer stadium in Recife, and similar investments in other smaller cities in the northeast were made under the Worker's Party government. Large investments for the Olympics now come as the economy contracted in 2015, and Brazil is hurt by another boom-bust cycle with the slowdown in China- with fiscal austerity policies, a loss of a third in the value of its currency, and the popularity rating of the newly elected government from the Worker's Party in single digits....

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This NYT analysis of fund raising by the Republican and Democratic parties for the 2020 election campaign shows Republicans hardly raising any money from people with incomes over 250,000 and very little from incomes over $200,000 with most funding coming from the base white working class and lower and upper middle class. For Democrats fund raising is significant at the levels of income over $200,000. Geographically the Democrats get most of their funding from the east and west coast areas.  This reflects the changes in the parties starting in the the 2008 elections when higher income groups in software, finance, and in professions of law and medicine and Silicon Valley tech shifted to Democrats. The Democrats also held onto minority votes. In 2016 this changed with a sharp turn with tech on the west coast and finance professionals on the east coast shifting to the Democrats. The PPP agreement under Obama favored tech over the auto industry, and renewal fossil fuels such as solar were favored over the oil industry and fracking. In 2016 this helped shift the votes in Michigan and Pennsylvania to Republicans. Older manufacturing industries, oil and fracking were supported by Republicans who pushed back against ceding global dominance in manufacturing to China. By 2020 these changes are now entrenched with white working class voters in industries decimated and communities destroyed by foreign imports mainly from China, supporting Republicans. Republicans under Trump have made regaining the manufacturing leadership of the U.S. that was the situation after World War II, a top priority for the U.S.  The minority vote shifted with Hispanics moving towards Republicans to a much larger degree than before. The urban rural divide is similar to Europe where the similar impact of foreign imports mainly from China have destroyed older industries and led to sharp decline in older towns and communities outside major cities. This is the situation facing the U.S. and Britain, France, Italy Spain, and Poland. Germany as a manufacturing country dependent on exports is also affected but to a lesser degree. The unwholesome aspect of this is that the larger urban areas are divorced from the rest of the country  and rural small towns, smaller cities. In some form reintegration has to take place. The vast majority of the working class classified in today's terminology as the less educated lacking a college degree and white are  paradoxically with Republicans, and the wealthy professionals and industries in software, finance with Democrats. Nothing makes this more evident than a quick look at the map of the U.S. with blue on the opposite coasts for Democrats and mostly red in between and in the south. This is unprecedented in American history. A rising tide that lifts all boats in the U.S. and the return of the U.S. to the position it held after World War II could change this in the next decade. ...