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"Pay their fair share of taxes" Biden asks of corporations showing 2017 predecessor tax cuts did not increase investment and added $100 billion yearly to the US Deficit
03/08/2024
By paying their fair share of taxes Biden says in State of Union speech to US Congress 2024 one can increase investment in education, affordable childcare and better living for seniors in their homes, and still cut the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars. What is fair share? Certainly not zero percent that 55 of the largest corporations paid on $40 billion in profits in 2020, and corporate minimum tax was introduced at levels of 15% for which most ordinary Americans are not eligible for. And certainly not 8.2% that Biden said was being paid by 1000 billionaires in the US. Not a single penny more is being asked of hard working Americans earning less than $400,000 a year. Biden said he wanted to see the corporate minimum tax at 21% not 15%, and the top corporate tax rate set at 28% not the 21% that it was reduced to in 2017 from 35%. In short his predecessor turned to help companies and billionaires profit from the popular distress of the shipping of jobs overseas and the 2009 financial crisis caused by Bank executives without investing the nation's capital resources in manufacturing at home in scale to match and exceed China's. And at the same time neglecting to do anything about the concerns of the people for ease of living- affordable access to childcare, preschool education, education, health care to match Europe/China/India in quality and cost, and aging transportation infrastructure of airports, subways, roads and bridges. The savings when this is done properly go to cut the deficit by over 4 trillion dollars and keep America as the leader of all G-20 economies.
Linked Articles
Biden Draws Sharp Contrast With Trump in State of the Union
WSJ 03/07/2024
Biden Pushes More Corporate-Tax Hikes to Draw Contrast With TrumpWSJ 03/07/2024
De Klerk, Desmond Tutu, Mandela and the New South Africa
12/27/2021
South Africa's amazing transformation into a racially harmonious society, with people of black, white, Afrikaans, English Afrikaans, Indian, building a new South Africa owes a lot to the leadership, humility, and vision of De Klerk and Desmond Tutu, as well as Nelson Mandela. South Africa's experience offers a new sense of hope that no matter what the difficulties involved one can pull together people of different backgrounds and cultures into a united country. It is in keeping with the best ideals of Britain and of India's Mohandas Gandhi who started his work in Cape Town, South Africa.
Linked Articles
Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Who Helped End Apartheid, Dies
WSJ 12/26/2021
Legacy of FW de Klerk, South Africa's last leader under apartheid | DW | 11.11.2021DW.COM 11/11/2021
What Tesla after the pandemic's first wave has in common with VW in 2015 at the time of the diesel emissions crisis
09/10/2020
CEO pay packages shooting into space just before and just after the first wave of the pandemic.
Linked Articles
Elon Musk’s Payday Could Cost Tesla Shareholders Dearly
WSJ 09/10/2020
Volkswagen’s Ex-CEO Is Ordered to Stand Trial Over Emissions ScandalWSJ 09/09/2020
From Germany to the state of Kerala in southern India - early start with contact tracing even short staffed delivered results
05/26/2020
Linked Articles
The first wave: How Germany’s coronavirus contact tracers helped to ease its lockdown
The Times 05/26/2020
The coronavirus slayer! How Kerala's rock star health minister helped save it from Covid-19The Guardian 05/14/2020
Donald Trump's proposal for 45% tariff on China's exports to the U.S.- how a policy of bringing jobs home could lead to the loss of 1 million U.S. jobs
03/08/2016
By damaging the international trading system including with allies such a Canada, Britain, France and Germany, the result of a downward spiral through higher tariffs in other countries, could end up costing the U.S. 1 million jobs. Under such a system the U.S. would lose many of the advantages of its booming tech sector, its tech driven global advantages in many industries, without signifcant gains in low cost imports such as clothing which would simply migrate to other countries such as India. The problem of worker wage stagnation in the U.S., and loss of jobs in certain sectors, is very real, but this is the wrong way to tackle the problem. China is already moving towards a consumer driven economy. Economists show that trade with Mexico would be seriously hurt both ways, creating more pressure of migrants at the border under such proposals as a 45% tariff and its indirect effect on Mexico, when the actual fact is that net migration from Mexico is the lowest it has ben in decades. Politics can do strange things as when two senators Smoot and Hawley from agricultural states Utah and Oregon, at the head of important committees in the U.S. Congress pushed and passed legislation for a 60% tariff in 1930 for the industrial sector they had no idea about. When Smoot and Hawley lost reelection in 1932 they left behind a lot of damage, especially for the farmers and workers they thought they were fighting for.
Linked Articles
How Trump’s Hard Line on Trade Could Backfire
Wall Street Journal 03/25/2016
Can Trump Start a Trade War?Wall Street Journal 03/08/2016
2016 U.S. presidential candidate Jeb Bush's Tax Plan that spells out details, and takes a shot at 4% growth for restoring lost social and economic mobility in the U.S.
09/09/2015
The efforts to wrestle with the deficit in 2011-2012 led to a vigorous debate on changing the tax code, yet political leaders failed to take up new ideas or spell out the details. Jeb Bush, with advisors Martin Feldstein and Kevin Warsh, takes the unconventional approach of putting in the details, and taking up ideas such as the idea of limiting itemized deductions to 2% of adjusted gross income proposed by Feldstein in that debate. On the $2.1 trillion in income held overseas by U.S. companies Bush proposes 8.75% tax paid over 10 years. On business investment he proposes capital investment be allowed to be deducted in full immediately. It is based on the idea that business investment can drive a vigorous recovery, that workers bear 50% of the burden of higer taxes through sluggish wage growth. It levels the playing field for debt and equity capital, removing "carried interest" provision, as a lesson from the excessive leverage taken by financial institutions in the past.
Linked Articles
Wall Street Journal 09/10/2015
Jeb Bush Tax Plan Makes Forays Into PopulismNew York Times 09/09/2015
Looking back at Hong Kong and China today and yesterday- China in 1842 and in 1945, nationalism and commercial interests of foreign powers
01/09/2015
A wariness with foreign powers in China stems from the influences left behind from the British commercial interests and the Japanese invasion of China. Compared to that period, the period of collaboration on an equal footing and playing field is is a short and recent one that has taken place for just three decades 1985-2015. Fears that the accelerated development in China could slow down without a strong central government, combine with the awareness of the need for western technology and open communications in today's global economy to accelerate the development, create in the Chinese mind a problem that needs to be tackled carefully to continue progress. Awareness of the huge inequalities and corruption in the rush towards modernization, need to tackle extensive contamination of air and water, and need for social security and healthcare for an aging population create a new urgency for careful policy making to sustain progress.
Linked Articles
Wall Street Journal 01/12/2015
‘China 1945,’ by Richard BernsteinNew York Times 01/09/2015
A black law student at the University of Brasilia, a Harvard trained law graduate in Curitiba, and others changing Brazil's legal system
08/23/2013
Barbosa is one of eight children of a bricklayer in Minas Gerais, now Chief Justice in Brasilia. Dallagnol is a Harvard trained graduate who is working with other prosecutors in Curitiba, a provincial city, investigating corruption and money laundering in Petrobras.
Linked Articles
How Brazil’s ‘Nine Horsemen’ Cracked a Bribery Scandal
Wall Street Journal 04/07/2015
A Blunt Chief Justice Unafraid to Upset Brazilâs Status QuoNew York Times 08/23/2013
The growth in the Lego blocks toy business
12/20/2012
Linked Articles
Timely Movie Set to Prop Up Lego's U.S. Business
Wall Street Journal 02/27/2014
Lego Bucks Toy SlumpWall Street Journal 12/20/2012
The Sentier Research study that shows median American household income decline of $4019 from Jan 2009 to June 2012
08/23/2012
Worst hit groups in terms of the decline are blacks, people 55-64 nearing retirement, those with a high school diploma but no college degree. The decline affects both younger and older Americans.
Linked Articles
Big Income Losses for Those Nearing Retirement
New York Times 08/23/2012
Negative $4,019Wall Street Journal 08/25/2012
The struggling program of providing land and mentoring to black farmers in S. Africa
05/06/2012
Linked Articles
South Africa Reseeds Farm Debate
Wall Street Journal 06/29/2012
A Lack of Jobs Levies Pain on South AfricaWall Street Journal 05/06/2012
The IMF's view on austerity measures, the "German hypothesis," and the British economy
02/17/2012
The IMF's view is that it could take 5 years before the breakeven point on the effects of austerity measures is reached and it turns positive. The "German hypothesis" based on German experience as an exporting nation is that the benefits come sooner in the short term. For Britain, which is not an exporting nation like Germany, the benefits from exports are likely to be limited when the rest of Europe is'seeing declining or stagnant growth. The IMF view means Britain may be faced with the costs of the Cameron-Osborne austerity measures till 2016.
Linked Articles
Britain's Economy Contracts More Than Predicted
New York Times 03/28/2012
Austerity Debate a Matter of DegreeWall Street Journal 02/17/2012
Mexico's failures in introducing competition in the economy and addressing problems in education that restrict its growth potential 2011-2015
08/27/2011
The need for competition and other private sector involvement in sectors such as oil, telecom, airlines and other sectors, and the reform of labor laws that reduce GDP growth by an estimated 2.5%. The Mexican educational system suffers from a lack of trained teachers and change is blocked by a powerful union leading to poorly educated workers from the public educational system.
Linked Articles
Mexico’s economy: Making the desert bloom
Economist 08/27/2011
Mexico’s failing schools spell defeat for ruling party - The Washington PostWashington Post 06/09/2012
Transition Investing hits $1.8 trillion in 2023 a 17% increase to tackle climate change
03/03/2024
ESG or environmental social governance seemed to be telling people they were inadequate and telling them what they needed to do. Now Larry Fink of Black Rock sticks to Transition Investing. The dangers of climate change are everywhere and well known. The transition was needed, and how to make it happen, how to make the transition with the right investments, how to prepare for the future- this is Transition Investing.
Linked Articles
Step Aside, ESG. BlackRock Is Doing ‘Transition Investing’ Now.
WSJ 03/03/2024
WSJ News Exclusive | The Investment Firm That Keeps Raising Giant Climate FundsWSJ 02/05/2024
Vaccines that took 40 years to develop- vaccines for malaria and coronavirus
10/17/2021
In a world of short run startups it is important to remember that our lives truly depend on the work done by scientists over decades. The stories of the scientists who developed the vaccine for malaria and the vaccine for mRNA technologies embedded in Pfizer vaccine.
Linked Articles
The Vaccine That Took 40 Years to Make - The Journal. - WSJ Podcasts
WSJ 10/17/2021
Their coronavirus vaccine candidate has made them billionaires. This modest German Turkish couple doesn’t own a car.Washington Post 10/17/2021
Twitter's short form of 140 characters, the iphone, and the tech platforms building on the declining cultural and other literacy in America, Europe, other countries
05/28/2020
Twitter founder Jack Dorsey's regrets on what he sees as the lack of any depth in the short form that works well on mobile phones. The first smartphones came in 2007 and 2008 iphone and android versions, Twitter started in 2006, both growing at the same time, the story of a tech boom that is paralleled by declining cultural and other literacy in America. It also parallels the decline in sense of what is in the national interest among communities in America and Europe and in other countries, leaving them with fewer defences against the coronavirus pandemic by 2020.
Linked Articles
Opinion | A Presidential Smear
WSJ 05/26/2020
A Founder of Twitter Goes LongNYTimes.com 11/09/2013
Why initiating Brexit by invoking the Lisbon Treaty's Article 50 could go into 2017, or even past 2020 into new general elections- (1) the pro stay vote in Ireland and Scotland
08/16/2016
Theresa May, Britain's prime minister, is deeply committed to the idea of the union of England with Scotland and Ireland. Invoking Article 50 of Lisbon Treaty, a step necessary for Brexit, would also lead to Scotland's ruling Scottish National Party to initiate plans for a second referendum for Scottish independence, as Scotland votd to remain in the European Union. The issue of Ireland and Northern Ireland's vote to remain in the EU would also lead to serious repercussions. In short it will be hard to separate the leave vote in England from the stay vote in Scotland and Ireland, as it will be difficult for most British people to imagine a England without a British identity. If the referendum had asked the second question "Do you still vote leave if this means the end of Britain or the United Kingdom?" the vote could have turned out differently for nationalist voters.
Linked Articles
Wait and see: Theresa May is in no hurry on Brexit | Europe | DW.COM | 15.08.2016
DW.COM 08/15/2016
No return to border controls in Northern Ireland, UK PM May says | News | DW.COM | 25.07.2016DW.COM 07/25/2016
The EU's evolving relations with Turkey in 2016- Germany's Merkel and the Erdogan government reach an agreement on refugees in March 2016
03/07/2016
Merkel facing populist pressures and opposition from the CDU to accepting more refugees tries to get Turkey to stem the flow and send refugees back to Turkey. The Erdogan government with its own problems and seeking a closer relationship with the EU following the Russian bombing of the Turkmen in Syria and shooting down of a Russian plane approves the agreement.
Linked Articles
Stakes Are High for Germany’s Angela Merkel in Success of New Migrant Deal
Wall Street Journal 03/24/2016
Turkey Places Conditions on E.U. for Migrant HelpNew York Times 03/07/2016
The economic problems of black communities- (1) decline in public sector jobs and the hollowing out of manufacturing in the last decade
05/06/2015
Linked Articles
Public-Sector Jobs Vanish, Hitting Blacks Hard
New York Times 05/24/2015
Pittsburgh’s Revival Lesson for BaltimoreWall Street Journal 05/06/2015
Predominance of rail over pipelines in transport of crude from Canada and the Bakken region till 2016
02/02/2014
Pressure to build pipelines comes from congestion and safety issues for the rail system in the U.S. In the short term rail still remains the main method of transport.
Linked Articles
In Dakota Oil Patch, Trains Trump Pipelines
Wall Street Journal 03/04/2014
Even Without Keystone Pipeline, Oil Has FlowedWall Street Journal 02/02/2014
Policy contrast between socialist governments in Venezuela and Bolivia
04/12/2013
Bolivia's socialist government of Evo Morales has taken a different approach by reducing subsidies and increasing gasoline prices to about $2.00 a gallon in 2013. Salaries of governent workers was also increased by 20% in 2013, and additional 10% added to price of locally produced grain and corn, in policy actions. Morales cited as a reason the $150 million in smuggling to neighboring countries of the $660 million in gasoline imports, wasting a significant part of the $380 million annual state gasoline subsidy which could be used for infrastructure. In Venezuela both opposing candidates for president Maduro and Capriles supported the state subsidy for gasoline that is exceptional among developing countries, and at a time when Venezuela is short of foreign currency for other imports.
Linked Articles
Almost-Free Gas Comes at a High Cost
Wall Street Journal 04/12/2013
Turnabout in Bolivia as Economy Rises From InstabilityNew York Times 02/16/2014
The perils for Turkey's economy with the surge in short term external debt of the private sector and the street protests in Istanbul
10/04/2012
Linked Articles
Syria Isn't Turkey's Only External Worry
Wall Street Journal 10/04/2012
Financial Fears Gain Credence as Unrest Shakes TurkeyNew York Times 06/05/2013
Germany's distorted national priorities- underinvestment in childcare centers and in wages for childcare and early education teachers
06/06/2012
Melissa Eddy of the NYT provides these two exceptional accounts of Germany's national priorities gone awry as the economic revival takes place in manufacturing, but leaves behind important areas such as early childhood education and child care centers. A lack of investment in the people who form the backbone of the educational system, is one of the forms of the distorted priorities. It may be recorded as the singular lapse of the Merkel administration in the last decade.
Linked Articles
German Child Care Workers’ Strike Brings Debate on Priorities
New York Times 06/05/2015
Germany Considers Subsidies for Non-State Child CareNew York Times 06/06/2012
Greece's long delayed bond swap with European banks of March 9, 2012
03/09/2012
The bond swap of new bonds with long maturities reflecting a writedown of 53.5% for the old bonds with short maturities was finally achieved on March 9, 2012. By this time Greece's economy was shrinking badly and the new bonds were trading at levels that reflected the need for further writedowns only days after the deal. Prof. Cochrane at the University of Chicago and Prof. John Taylor at Stanford say French and German banks exaggerated the effects of contagion from the beginning to delay writedowns for as long as possible. The effects on the eurozone of the delays in tackling the problem early and decisively are negative or slowing growth and is likely to hurt the banks operating in that environment, raising questions about the wisdom of that strategy.
Linked Articles
Wall Street Journal 03/09/2012
Greece Passes Key Debt TestWall Street Journal 03/09/2012
India's central bank, the Reserve Bank of India, and efforts to balance inflation goals with the need to stimulate growth in 2012
02/14/2012
The RBI made a rate cut of 0.5 percentage point in April 2012, following a series of rate increases in 2010-2011 to control inflationary pressures. The RBI governor Devi Subbarao's view is that the government which faces a lack of political leadership and state elections needs to do more to increase growth.
Linked Articles
Wall Street Journal 04/18/2012
Indian Central Banker Hits His Government's SpendingWall Street Journal 02/14/2012
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