Abortion

In today's world young fathers are expected to share in raising children meaning spending time with kids, cooking and house cleaning which is good for their character development as well as helpful. 85% of abortions are because the mother is stressed either emotionally or financially or both. Let's assume that Mom comes and tells Dad that she is expecting. Is it appropriate for Dad to suggest abortion saying he is not emotionally ready to be a father. Let's say Dad is just starting a new business and he has neither the time or the money to bring a new baby into the world. Is an abortion an acceptable solution. These are questions no one seems to ask.

Trump

Now that the election is finally over the big question is what will a second Trump administration look like and the short answer is that it will be much like his first term. On the domestic front he will extend the 2017 tax cuts. He will continue the tariffs on China. He will support reshoring by reducing regulation and offer tax incentives for business operating in the US. He will secure the border by forcing Mexico to close the Guatemala border, by re instituting remain in Mexico, stop catch and release and build the wall. He will deport illegals starting with the convicted felons. He will be strong on law and order and encourage states to end no bail, jail repeat offenders and stop reducing felonies to misdemeanors. He will maximize fossil fuel. On foreign policy he will bring back the sanctions on Iran. He will revitalize the Abraham Accords to bring in Saudi Arabia to join the other Arab countries. He will seek a peaceful settlement to the Ukraine War. He will offer a full commitment to Israel. He will continue to encourage NATO countries to build up their defenses.

Sputnik

China now has the first fully operational thorium molten salt reactor. It is producing 40 MW of power. This could be the Chinese version of the Russian Sputnick. Recall in 1957 when Russia launched the first satellite into space called Sputnik it awakened the sleeping giant USA and started the space race. Maybe now the US will wake up and fast track a program to build small nuclear reactors. This may get the attention of the politicians.

War

When Russia invaded Ukraine, people said it was just the first step for Putin to rebuild the old Soviet Union. They recall in 2005 he said, "the biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the century" was the collapse of the USSR. This is what led people in the West to believe that if he got past Ukraine he would then move on to other countries. This was a reasonable assumption at the time but all good managers are willing to reconsider their positions when new information becomes available. Over the past two years the total ineptness of the Russian war machine has been exposed to the world and the war has cost them dearly in both lives and treasure. Many, looking at the situation today, realize that Russia is not capable of challenging a US led NATO by invading other neighboring countries. As time passes this reality is becoming more evident and the time has arrived for a peaceful settlement. To continue the war just increases the chances that Putin will be forced to use nukes to safe face. Protesters are demanding a cease fire in GAZA, how about the same for Ukraine.

Abortion

The abortion issue has not become the big deal that many democrats thought it would be. One of the reasons is Trump's position. He says abortion should be legal up to 15 weeks with exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother. Trump also stated that he would not support a national ban on abortion. This is a more popular position than Harris who believes abortion should be legal at any time for any reason. Most people know there is something uncomfortable about abortion. This was exemplified when Bill Clinton said, abortion should be safe, rare and legal. He used the word rare indicating his feeling that it should be avoided when possible. Most women who have an abortions say it was a difficult decision and many experience emotional problems afterwards. This is not to say they should not have had an abortion but that it is something that they wish they hadn't had to deal with.

China

The upside to gridlock may sound like a oxymoron but the case of the Chinese economy clarifies the statement. Getting things done in the US is difficult because the constitution guarantees the separation of powers which means the president cannot act without help from the congress. In China Xi is an authoritarian who can quickly change the entire government. He has eliminated any contenders to power and is thus left standing alone to run the country. There is no one willing to challenge any of his dictates and through a series of bad decisions he has sent the country into a downward spiral. At first the labor cost in China was low enough that foreign companies were willing to put up with the countries irrational decisions but in time they discovered that it was not worthwhile. The use of slave labor and unsafe working conditions began to cause concern by foreign businesses operating in China and his demand that all companies share proprietary information made them uncomfortable. Then China's internal economy began to suffer because of government's almost free money to expand construction which led to a housing bubble and high youth unemployment. This was further aggravated by the now infamous one child policy and foreigners are leaving and taking their business elsewhere. Then Trump placed import taxes on Chinese goods and Xi clamped down on foreign companies and the result is that China is in danger of collapse. The US is in the process of reshoring but it takes time to build new factories and if China falls before the US can replace their imports it will cause serious problems in the US. If the US build up coincides nicely with the Chinese build down, some say it would be providential in the spiritual sense.

Grid

As part of the Infrastructure bill the government set aside $7.5 billion to build EV charging stations but only a hand full have been built to date. The reason for this lack of progress in not a surprise and could have been predicted years ago. The cost of a charging station and the location to place one is not a problem. The problem results from the fact that there is no power available at most sites along the grid. When people talked about the short comings of EV's they concentrated on charging time and distance traveled between charges but they never talked about the inability of the grid to support the power. This was well known by the experts but the excitement over EV's just overwhelmed their common sense. The big new kid on the block is AI and it faces the same shortage of power so many companies are trying to set up their own private electric power stations.