Understanding the US - Again

[Hriday]

^^
pravula ji, thank you for the great find. Very informative post, I wonder if the same will be true in other countries. One must keep in mind that China is an autocratic nation and it is possible that they are are forcing people to work hard in factories. I remember reading the same in this forum or elsewhere.

Assuming that the article is correct then one can say that humanity is now ready for the robots. And Elon Musk will be very happy, because one of his company makes general purpose robot, called Optimus. Recently saw several videos of robots performing back, side and front flips. Another one can quickly rise to standing position in just 2 seconds even if one pushes it to the floor.

https://nypost.com/2025/04/08/opinion/7 ... orce-them/

Time for ‘shock therapy’ — how to get our 7 million dropout men back to work.
...
Nearly 7 million men in the prime of life — over a tenth of the 25-to-54 age group — are neither working nor looking for work these days.
...
America’s disability system is so dysfunctional that no one in DC can tell you just how many people are currently getting benefits from its crazy-quilt of subcomponents (SSDI, SSI, Social Security, veterans’ benefits, state-level disability programs, worker’s comp programs — and more).

According to their numbers, working-age beneficiaries on the disability rolls grew sevenfold from 1965 to 2023.

Most of that explosion in claims was for afflictions of “nervous sense and organs” or “musculoskeletal system and connective tissue” — medical gray zones. Doctors can determine whether a patient has whooping cough or a broken leg, but there is no conclusive test for sad feelings or back pain.

A disability system overhaul that protects the truly needy while promoting a work-first principle might do wonders for America — not least for a great many dispirited men on the couch.

[A_Gupta]

That is 7.2 million men AND women going up to age 66 and weighted heavily at the older ages.

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/progdata/benef ... 02412.html

Further one can get this only if one has worked at a qualifying job. One can earn up to 4 Social Security credits per year based on wages, and generally you need 40 credits with 20 earned in the last ten years.

For before age 24, 6 credits in the past three years.
For 24 to 31, average of 2 credits per year since age 21.

Your condition must limit your ability to sit, stand, walk, remember. There are other rules for vision impairment.

The NY Post is known for its frequent rubbish.

Added later: the total number of men and women is 7,231,147 of which one finds, after putting the numbers in a spreadsheet, 2,253,538 are in the 25-54 age group, 25 and 54 inclusive.

[pravula]

That is 7.2 million men AND women going up to age 66 and weighted heavily at the older ages.

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/progdata/benef ... 02412.html

Further one can get this only if one has worked at a qualifying job. One can earn up to 4 Social Security credits per year based on wages, and generally you need 40 credits with 20 earned in the last ten years.

For before age 24, 6 credits in the past three years.
For 24 to 31, average of 2 credits per year since age 21.

Your condition must limit your ability to sit, stand, walk, remember. There are other rules for vision impairment.

The NY Post is known for its frequent rubbish.

Added later: the total number of men and women is 7,231,147 of which one finds, after putting the numbers in a spreadsheet, 2,253,538 are in the 25-54 age group, 25 and 54 inclusive.

I am confused. OP mentioned how people in India feel about entitlements and how they relate it to manual labour not willing to go above/beyond. OP asked if this was also true for US and I gave him an article penned not by a news paper, but someone editorializing for them.

[Mort Walker]

The US corporate bond market is drying up due to the volatility created by the Trump tariffs. Fewer investment grade corporate bonds. What happens when companies can't borrow money? Hiring is already slowing down and layoffs will come after June 2025. The US is going to become a real economic shit-show soon.

[Manish_P]

Didn't take him too long

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/12/tech ... index.html

Smartphones, computer monitors and various electronic parts are among the exempted products. The exemption applies to products entering the United States or removed from warehouses as early as April 5, according to the notice.

The move comes after the Trump administration imposed a minimum tariff rate of 145% on Chinese goods imported to the United States. The tariffs would have a major impact on tech giants like Apple, which make iPhones and other products in China.

[Vayutuvan]

@pravula gaaru, as per our our democrat partisans, NYP lies about everything.
Didn’t they lie about Hunter B’s laptop?!

[Vayutuvan]

The US corporate bond market is drying up due to the volatility created by the Trump tariffs. Fewer investment grade corporate bonds. What happens when companies can't borrow money? Hiring is already slowing down and layoffs will come after June 2025. The US is going to become a real economic shit-show soon.

Problem is that stocks are overheated due to AI vapor ware and SM. How many people were let go from Twitter/X? Rumors are 80%. It is still doing well. Too many people doing make work jobs in Si valley which is sucking all the investor money.

[Vayutuvan]

@Manish_P gaaru, I think he made some his buddies very wealthy. For example, he met Charles Schwab and another Wall Street bigwig in WH and openly bragged that Schwab made 2.5 Billion in a few days.

[Vayutuvan]

Didn't take him too long

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/12/tech ... index.html

This from X (Chamath P. was on Ingraham Angle last evening)

NEW: Billionaire Chamath Palihapitiya praises Trump's tariffs on China, rips the global elite for trying to "scare-monger" him.

"For the last forty years, whether they want to admit it or not, Donald Trump has been right."

"What you see right now is them violently trying to push back and trying to create a narrative."

"If you opened up the papers, there's an entire wing of the media that is now trying to say that the president blinked."

"Why do they want us to think that? I think they want us to think that because they want to believe that they can talk about the stock market and then affect policy every five and ten minutes."

"We are in a unique moment in time where we have the ability to reset the global order, and we have to follow through."

[chetak]

Didn't take him too long

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/12/tech ... index.html

[img]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GoRKUzkXgAI ... medium[img]

This from X (Chamath P. was on Ingraham Angle last evening)

NEW: Billionaire Chamath Palihapitiya praises Trump's tariffs on China, rips the global elite for trying to "scare-monger" him.

"For the last forty years, whether they want to admit it or not, Donald Trump has been right."

"What you see right now is them violently trying to push back and trying to create a narrative."

"If you opened up the papers, there's an entire wing of the media that is now trying to say that the president blinked."

"Why do they want us to think that? I think they want us to think that because they want to believe that they can talk about the stock market and then affect policy every five and ten minutes."

"We are in a unique moment in time where we have the ability to reset the global order, and we have to follow through."

Vayutuvan ji,


during trumpwa's first term, the stock markets went up by 65%. Everyone benefitted but the wokes, lefties and the deep state conspired to get him out, and thereafter, anyone who has even half a brain, knows what happened


He is disruptive, not reckless. He has an end game in mind, and the relentless push to get there

Just when the woke commies and lefties all thought that he was done for and wouldn't get / should not get a second term, he had spent the intervening years with some close advisors, planning out an agenda, gaming it, refining it, and deploying it and all this was done with such secrecy that no one was even aware that such a thing was happening

The campaign for trumpwa's second term was masterful because he and his team knew exactly what issues to rake up, which demographics to shoot for, and what was the locale specific flavor that appealed the voters

This was how the BIF team got khujliwal elected in dilli for the first time. The slickness and efficiency of that campaign did not have a parallel in any existing Indian talent/group that was helping the normal Indian political party in standing for elections

The global lefties are trying to hit back and are building a narrative to embed a sense of gloom and doom about him in the markets of the world, and also his supporters in the US.

Now, with the tariff tsunami sweeping the world, some people who did some planning for trumpwa have slowly being identified, and it's now that the soreass gang is just beginning to see the idiotic narrative that they had built actually helped in underestimating their opponent to the extent that they thought of him as being irrelevant.

Trump doesn't need approval ratings because he will not get another term, but he need results and that has panicked the lefties

[Mort Walker]

As of Friday night, Trump has exempted smartphones, tablets, computers & chips from tariffs.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/12/trump-e ... -dell.html

This is all amateur governance, or Trump's buddies got in on AAPL at $180 and will selloff when it gets to $250 next week.

[Mort Walker]

The US corporate bond market is drying up due to the volatility created by the Trump tariffs. Fewer investment grade corporate bonds. What happens when companies can't borrow money? Hiring is already slowing down and layoffs will come after June 2025. The US is going to become a real economic shit-show soon.

Problem is that stocks are overheated due to AI vapor ware and SM. How many people were let go from Twitter/X? Rumors are 80%. It is still doing well. Too many people doing make work jobs in Si valley which is sucking all the investor money.

This is happening outside of Silicon Valley too. Corporate bonds are bought by private banks and equity firms. Flip-flop tariff policy creates uncertainty. Gold is going up and Germany now wants its gold being held by the US returned. Somewhere between 1500-3500 tons.

[vimal]

As of Friday night, Trump has exempted smartphones, tablets, computers & chips from tariffs.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/12/trump-e ... -dell.html

This is all amateur governance, or Trump's buddies got in on AAPL at $180 and will selloff when it gets to $250 next week.

Shows that he has no clue about how the global trade works.
His government is controlled by the same class of billionaires that he wanted to drain the swamp of.
China and Xi must be laughing their a$$ off.
Poor MAGAts.

[Vayutuvan]

Just now watched Journal Editorial Report on Fox news. Every saturday 12-1PM eastern. (Wall Street) Journal's editorial team's assessment is that there are two camps in the Trump economic advisors. One camp led by Navarro feel that tariffs do really help rake in money. The other camp led by Bessent thinks them as a tool to negotiate. Historian Walter Russell Mead was also on the program for 15 minutes. He made a couple points that are important.

My views below.

1. Twenty years back, the realization was there that Chinese were ripping off the US - businesses as well common folks - using unfair trade practices and non-tariff barriers. There is a Chuck Schumer video of 2005 in which he was railing against China and their tariffs on the US goods.

2. Probably Chinese paid off the Democrats who sold American people down the river.

3. Trump was saying the same even 40 years before. But he also got benefitted and also was not in power to do anything about it. All said and done, he himself has no qualms in his business dealings and was a big donor to Democrats.

4. Obama was nothing but a pure political animal. If you look at all the medals of freedom he distributed, arts/humanities/social work/NGO do gooders dominate more than business folks and STEM folks. That was not the case during Clinton term and Dubya's term.

5. Trump wanted to put a stop in 2017 but the Covid pandemic had to be stopped first.

6. Biden was on the take from the Chinese via Hunter B. So he let China run roughshod over the US in trade. Europeans/Canada were also helping China. Covid and Biden four years were crucial for China in that they pumped out a lot of defense equipment, they got all fabs built there by Korea/Japan/Taiwan and also made forays in to Africa and elsewhere while the US was spinning wheels on helping Ukraine win an unwinnable war.

7. It has come down to now or never with China. If China cannot be taken down now, it can never be taken down. The situation is similar to Bharat in 1996-98 timeframe. Our nuc scientists were retiring and they had to do the test as they knew that Pakistan might get nucs from China.

In a few years' time, China becomes so powerful that American hegemony would be in question, especially so because post-Trump, whoever comes in would not have the gumption to take down China a few notches.

So this is it. If the US fails now, game over. If they succeed, at least there will be two blocks rather than China being the sole superpower in about five years.

Very high risk strategy but probably and hopefully the policy makers and conservative think tanks simulated many many what-if scenarios and drew up a plan which has high probability of succeeding in the medium term. This might lead to pareto optimality for the three blocks - US and allies, China/Russia/Central Asia and ROW led by JIB (Japan, India, Brazil, and global south).

If CHIna is not taken down now, US block and ROW become subservient to China/Russia combo.

[Vayutuvan]

Shows that he has no clue about how the global trade works.
His government is controlled by the same class of billionaires that he wanted to drain the swamp of.
China and Xi must be laughing their a$$ off.
Poor MAGAts.

@vimal, not so fast.

There are lot of moving parts. Everybody who is anybody agrees that there are a lot of non-tariff trade barriers in the world trade. Couple this with China hoarding resources and buying (literally) influence in Africa is going to make China too strong to not think of taking over a few countries in SEA and parts of India, Myanmar, and BD.

Now is the time to put paid to those Chinese ambitions. If the world waits for a five years, it is finished it would be The Man in the High Castle scenario but with Chinese instead of Germans/Japanese.

[Manish_P]

@Manish_P gaaru, I think he made some his buddies very wealthy. For example, he met Charles Schwab and another Wall Street bigwig in WH and openly bragged that Schwab made 2.5 Billion in a few days.

That he surely did, sir. I just wonder how much of his own personal losses did he manage to recoup...

[pravula]

@pravula gaaru, as per our our democrat partisans, NYP lies about everything.
Didn’t they lie about Hunter B’s laptop?!

Yep, that was obviously a lie. They were banned from Twitter (now X) iirc.

[vimal]

Shows that he has no clue about how the global trade works.
His government is controlled by the same class of billionaires that he wanted to drain the swamp of.
China and Xi must be laughing their a$$ off.
Poor MAGAts.

@vimal, not so fast.

There are lot of moving parts. Everybody who is anybody agrees that there are a lot of non-tariff trade barriers in the world trade. Couple this with China hoarding resources and buying (literally) influence in Africa is going to make China too strong to not think of taking over a few countries in SEA and parts of India, Myanmar, and BD.

Now is the time to put paid to those Chinese ambitions. If the world waits for a five years, it is finished it would be The Man in the High Castle scenario but with Chinese instead of Germans/Japanese.

I understand your pov. I was for stronger action on xi too but DT’s constant flip flops and total lack of commitment to anything other than personal gains for him and his friends has me permanently off the wagon now. He was never a policy guy but I was hoping he’d show a little bit more maturity in his second and last term. Clearly he hasn’t learnt much. When it came to his personal profit he unbanned Chinese app like TikTok. Caused massive harm to US economy and its image. I just watched his interview and he was “hoping” to get a call from President Xi with whom he has “excellent relationship”. WTF is this dude?

[Mort Walker]

I understand your pov. I was for stronger action on xi too but DT’s constant flip flops and total lack of commitment to anything other than personal gains for him and his friends has me permanently off the wagon now. He was never a policy guy but I was hoping he’d show a little bit more maturity in his second and last term. Clearly he hasn’t learnt much. When it came to his personal profit he unbanned Chinese app like TikTok. Caused massive harm to US economy and its image. I just watched his interview and he was “hoping” to get a call from President Xi with whom he has “excellent relationship”. WTF is this dude?

Same here. When DT did the flip flop with China on nearly 2/3's of Chineses imports into the US - people were perplexed. WTF man, our portfolios are hemorrhaging for nothing. I was waiting to get in on AAPL at 150-160, but now it went back up to 200. What will really piss a lot of Indians off is next week DT puts tariffs on pharmaceuticals coming from India. He'll flip-flop when Modi calls & some big pharma companies donate to the DT sovereign wealth fund.

DT promised to get rid of the capital gains tax - and he's doing that by eliminating all capital gains.

[vera_k]

Agree.
With modern day shysters like that VC coming out in support, the tariffs are more about market manipulation than serious policy.

[Vayutuvan]

DT promised to get rid of the capital gains tax - and he's doing that by eliminating all capital gains.

classic mort. praNaam

[Vayutuvan]

Agree.
With modern day shysters like that VC coming out in support, the tariffs are more about market manipulation than serious policy.

Who is "that VC"?

[vera_k]

The very social one who talked to Ingraham.

[S_Madhukar]

Well instead of getting Rocky Balboa vs Ivan Drago we are getting Apollo Creed (Drumpf) vs Ivan Drago (or Eleven Drago) …
Drumpf could have activated his inner Reagan and instead of tariffs could have said Chairman Eleven tear down that firewall … (like Berlin Wall) … and isn’t Elevens daughter in NYC, surely Papa can call ?

What drama instead of realpolitik we get these days!

[bala]

Just a round up various news items. DJT is claiming that US is having talks with Iran and things are progressing. No nukes for Iran bottom line. Houthis were subject to 29 strikes by US bomber jets while talks with Iran are proceeding. DJT believes that the Ukraine Russia talks are going well. Inflation in the US is low, most prices stabilize on gasoline prices which are heading down, crude is around $60/ barrel. DJT has opened up more drilling and coal has been green lighted for the US power industry. Talks with various nations on tariffs are proceeding well. India is in the list. Quick negotiation means that stable relations and trade with the US can happen.

With China, some reversal on electronics/phones/chips on tariffs by the US. However trinkets from China are facing huge tariffs. The US stock market is going down and then up, then down and so on. China has been dumping its US treasury bonds. Emperor is under pressure on all sides, the PLA and CCP are at odds with each other. Rampant pile up of goods at Chinese ports, unemployment is raging in China. In the US there were many states wanting to sue China for Covid. Missisippi state courts have confiscated China owned lands as compensation for court case judgements. Many other states are following the lead. Looks like China owned property in the US will be guinea pig to court judgements against China. Many estimates are floating around on the damage of tariffs on China, some go as high as 17T which implies ruin for China economically. Let us wait and see where tariffs on China leads towards. My guess is that the US and China have to negotiate somewhere in the middle on each others position.

[vimal]

^^ Hardly makes a difference to China. They dump all their maal via Mexico and Vietnam which are off the list. DT has not a clue about real world. He is a showman a bad one at that.

[Manish_P]

All this is probably hitting Vance chance of being POTUS.

Maybe he will not be so keen on saying Thank you to Trump now.

[Cyrano]

Vivek made the right choice ducking out of this shit show!
Col Davis has a good summary of this flip flops, impact on the US businesses, and how it has made the US a very untrustworthy leader of the free world.

[Tanaji]

Trump becoming the President is equivalent to Ajit powerful becoming the PM - neither has a clue about governance, though I suspect the powerful has more of one!

There is another thing that is interesting: the Reps have been railing against Soros and his organisation for a long time now. Yet no action or investigation against them yet. Sure, they have acted against DEI excess in government which was the cover Soros orgs used but no action against his multi billion dollar organisation…

[Cyrano]

US and China are both two giants with feet of clay going against each other. One is led by a egoistic clown and the other by an insecure idiot.

If it comes to an all out trade war, China may come out better because Xi faces no elections and Chinese people cannot revolt and can be made to slave away their lives for the world.

In which case the US will start a war on China on some pretext or the other.

[chetak]

Georgia has become the first U.S. state to introduce a bill recognising Hinduphobia and anti-Hindu discrimination.

Bipartisan bill SB 375 aims to define Hinduphobia in law and require law enforcement to consider it in discrimination cases

https://www.indiatoday.in/world/us-news ... 2025-04-11

Georgia State Senate members Shawn Still and Clint Dixon — both Republicans — and Jason Esteves and Emanuel Jones — both Democrats — were the four sponsors.

"Over the past few years, we have seen a marked increase in hate crimes against Hindus across the country," said Shawn Still, who introduced the bill "a few days ago."

The bill seeks to introduce a new section to the Georgia state government code that defines "Hinduphobia" as a "set of antagonistic, destructive, and derogatory attitudes and behaviours towards Hinduism."

It would require state and local law enforcement agencies that enforce anti-discrimination laws to consider Hinduphobia while investigating potential discrimination cases.

[bala]

Lt. Gen P R Shankar (retd) has an interesting take on how DJT is taking on various factions and turning them upside down in DJT V2.0. He has support from, surprise of surprise, NYT article on shaking up the status quo. On Greenland, the US defended the island against Nazi Germany in 1943. DJT has squarely turned the table on China in various dimensions - Greenland is one of them, Middle East, trade and of course the influence of china on Asia. These are major moves which have no precedent. US Treasury Sec Bessent is quite clear that the US needs to get back into manufacturing and selling to America implies making in america. China is trying to solve its imbalanced manufacturing might by making the rest of the world as their consumer base and US happens to be large market. Given such a situation, the US has the upper hand to dictate terms, similar to one who has a very very large loan from a bank can dictate terms to the bank. DJT V2.0 is ring fencing all other nations aligned to China, no imports of China via them. At the same time those nations aligned with US are sending a message to China, to avoid additional tariffs upon them due to their China relations which they may have. This is resetting the table by the US.

US is also bolstering its Guam presence in the pacific. Around the globe DJT is using the US Dhanda effectively, like the bombing of Houthis.

However, the DJT strategy has some flaws. The US market and public sentiment could go against him. The Chinese hold the key to many popular electronics which flood the world consumer market. Then there is the US Bond market. China has been sucked into reacting to DJT. This is a weakness that China has to navigate, it has isolated them in the world. China is also on the brink of internal strife. 600 million chinese survive on $140 per month or less. Their population is ageing fast. The rich have fled the nation with their ill-gotten wealth. Youth unemployment, especially the educated, is at an all time high. Consumer prices are sliding downwards, deflation persists in the economy. Stimulus will hardly work in China. Emperor is getting to be highly unpopular within China and the tiff between PLA and CCP is huge.

China's relationship with the rest is based on Chinese arrogance. Russia China relation is under strain. With EU the Chinese stance with Russia on Ukraine has soured the EU relationship. In Asia, the Chinese disputes reign supreme. The US is isolating each nation away from China. North Korea is thumbing its nose with China.

There is more, watching the YT is worth your time.

youtube.com/watch?v=dNyFFXX-XyY

[S_Madhukar]

Electronics today is as much a drug as Fentanyl . I won’t be surprised if there are similar revolts by tech and gaming addicts and pure cash flow FANG chasing Wall Streeters

[Vayutuvan]

Missisippi state courts have confiscated China owned lands (1) as compensation for court case judgements.
...
some go as high as 17T which implies ruin for China economically (2) . Let us wait and see where tariffs on China leads towards. My guess is that the US and China have to negotiate somewhere in the middle on each others position.

(1) That is an interesting point. China owns close 300K acres of farmland in the US in about 29 states including OK, NE, TX, IL, Kansas, California, OH, IN, PA.

(2) What I don't understand is that Chinese internal market is huge. Why are they not consuming internally what they produce? They have reasonable amount of natural resources too including water. They are a water surplus country same as the US, Canada, Russia, Brazil, and Japan. India is a water deficit country unfortunately. They can farm, they can grow their beef and pork.

This is the only chance US has got to bring the Chinese to the table. If GOP loses control in midterms, the US itself has to recapitulate to China.

[Vayutuvan]

But 300K acres is not that much of land. If you take the average price of 3000 per acre, it works out to 900 million - peanuts. Even if you make 9000 USD /acre it is still just 3 B USD. It is chump change considering the trade deficit is in the range 300 B USD.

[bala]

The two retd generals of Indian army have this observation:

China export to US around 440 B and import is 140 B from US. Net 300 B but there are other nations like Vietnam, Mexico, Canada and more that are conduits for China made stuff. China imports the machinery to make things from US. Tariffs on US machinery implies more cost for making stuff to export to the US. India has to target the list of items that China exports to the US. Currently, it is cheaper to get the latest Apple iPhone from India. 40 ships with containers loaded with export items have returned back in China. The US wants to reduce its dependency on China, the decision has been made to move things from China into other nations. The Deep State has two factions one anti-china and the other pro-china. These competing viewpoints are necessary to sow confusion in aam admi, so that the actual deed of shafting China is more palatable in the world view.

The Global Left have amped up their talking points with their favorite topics:
1. Globalization is under threat
2. Tariffs will affect the US more than China
3. The US global trust is going down
4. Global recession and deflation
5. De-dollarization

Why is the US buddying up with Russia? Answer is Rare earth. The US has rare earth, but extracting them is highly polluting chemicals. Rare earth is available in the US and actually US produced them but switched to importing from China due to polluting chemicals. Other nations like Australia, India have rare earth resources. CK Hutchinson Li Ka-Shing of HongKong sold all his industries in China and HongKong, all his investments are abroad. China has no leverage on him on the Panama Canal issue. Shipping lanes are being protected from the takeover by China and its blackmail on free movement of ships worldwide.

India has to take advantage of the situation and make it easy for Companies to relocate from China into India. Already, states like Gujarat, TN, MP, Maha and more have land banks, so companies can acquire land for their manufacturing. Doing business in India should be easy. Babucracy and officialdom has to be reduced to bare minimum or none. Many tier 3, villages in India are supplying labor to dedicated MNCs like Croc shoewear in TN. Deep Sea ports in India have to come up quickly and make India a hub for export. Stepping up big time is the need of the hour.

youtube.com/watch?v=uLQfOjFyxSI

[vimal]

^^ These have been discussed for decades on this forum. For every Modi there are twenty Jihadis ready to block and even reverse any progress. Remember Sterlite plant?

[Vayutuvan]

https://www.chronicle.com/article/linke ... king-trump

All the news pertaining to higher education funding are here. It is a nice compilation for someone who wants to analyze this in detail.

Tracking Trump’s Higher-Ed Agenda
The federal government is reshaping its relationship with the nation’s colleges. Here’s the latest.

April 14, 2025
President Trump’s administration has swiftly sought to advance major changes across higher education, such as eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts on campuses; punishing individuals and institutions over allegations of antisemitism; and laying off thousands of employees in the Education Department.

The Chronicle is tracking executive orders, statements from Trump, and agency actions that affect higher education, plus legal challenges directed at those measures. The tracker focuses on four areas: civil rights, research, policy, and immigration.


Newest Updates

Harvard demands: Harvard University said it would not comply with a long list of demands from the Trump administration to change policies and practices. The federal government had sought to leverage concerns about antisemitism and billions in research funding to force Harvard’s hand.

“No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” President Alan M. Garber wrote in a message to the campus community. Garber’s refusal to comply contrasts with the approach taken by Columbia University, where administrators made concessions to try to restore canceled grants. See more in Civil Rights.

Indirect costs: The U.S. Department of Energy announced that it would start limiting its reimbursements for colleges’ indirect research costs — which support administrative expenses and facility maintenance — to 15 percent. It’s similar to a proposed policy at the National Institutes of Health that’s been held up in court. See more in Research.

Mahmoud Khalil: A federal immigration-court judge in Louisiana ruled that Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University graduate student, can be deported. The judge said she had no authority to overrule the U.S. Secretary of State’s determination that Khalil violated a Cold War-era law and threatened the nation’s foreign-policy goals.

Secretary Marco Rubio argued in a Thursday memo that Khalil’s pro-Palestinian activism last year was antisemitic, and that allowing him to remain in the United States would “undermine” efforts to keep Jewish students safe. Another federal judge, in New Jersey, has ruled that Khalil cannot be deported pending a ruling on his lawsuit that he was improperly arrested and detained. See more in Immigration.

[bala]

Donald Trump Freezes Fund For Harvard University after It rejects is policies.

In a major development The Trump administration announced on April 14th that it would freeze $2.2 billion in multi-year grants and $60 million in multi-year contract value at Harvard University after the school said it would not follow policy demands from the administration.

Harvard is a WEALTHY, private institution and does not require US taxpayer's dollars.

youtube.com/watch?v=TdzoqxjF2KI

// About time Harvard faces the music. This Univ is the pit head central for many anti-INDIA activities. Rajiv Malhotra has shown how central program are created within Harvard and these become the beacons for worldwide anti India snake head stuff. We are well aware of Michael Witzel types.

[bala]

This YT is packed with many things and it comes from Sumit Peer YT in PGurus:

youtube.com/watch?v=SBUNvgXVdL8

Agenda:
=======
1. Nuclear Talks
a) with Saudi
b) Iran
2. Trade war with China
3. US Trade agreements with India
4. Pounding of Houthis

1 a) Nuclear talks with Saudi: this is a huge surprise that the US is springing on the world. MBS and the princes have deep $ Ts pocket. US is tapping the money line and dangling a complete civil nuclear pact, including on-site enrichment of Uranium in Saudi Arabia. Ostensibly this is not going well with the Israelis who are balking at the whole concept. DJT is perhaps using this ploy to get Saudi money and at the same time put Iran on notice. Fine details will emerge later. Already Israeli opposition is raking up this issue and Netanyahu is being trolled.

1 b) Iran nuclear talks: Steve Whitkoff a trusted lieutenant of DJT is holding talks with Iran. Bottom line no nukes. According to IAEA Iran has around 270 kg of 60% enriched uranium and getting to 90+% for bombs is a matter of time. The centrifuges are being watched very very closely by the US. Underground hiding would invite the deep bombs of the US. Both US and Israel are ready with plan B if Iran does not agree for nuclear dismantling. DJT has been clear about this.

2 Trade war with China: The DJT admin is now in full fledged war with China on trade. The concessions for electronics still attracts 20% however it will be selective to allow companies like Apple etc to bring some maal manufactured in China. The deal is going to be short lived to tide over supply issues. Emperor and co are saying that DJT came down in negotiation but this is far from the truth. Emperor is making a 3 day visit to nations like Vietnam, Malayasia, Laos, Cambodia to assure them of continued China supply. The US knows about these conduits of China and the heat will be turned on the nations in terms of tariffs.

3. US trade talks with India: The Indians realize the potential for trade and are going about it sector by sector. Some sectors may have significant trade barriers but the idea is to soften the amounts within reason. The overall projections are 1/2 T to start with in trade bothways and enlarge to the 1T mark soon. Getting this settled quickly is important. There will be skeptics who don't trust America. But India should look past such concerns and seal the deal. The US is wanting India to takeover China manufacturing. India, Japan, South Korea are part of strategy by the US.

4. Pounding of Houthis: this is unabated and has a direct link into Iran. Houthis are the POC guinea pigs for Iran weaponry (supplied by China?). At least two US aircraft carriers are conducting sorties everyday.