“the American government remains the single-most important entity in global health. The US spent nearly $13 billion on global health programs in its 2023 fiscal year. It provides one-third of the funding to and has a permanent seat on the board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, an organization also started during the George W. Bush administration, which supports prevention and treatment for some of the world’s most deadly diseases in 130 countries.
The US iso the single largest contributor to the World Bank’s newly established Pandemic Fund. And along with the United Kingdom and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the United States underwrites much of the budget for Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which largely supports vaccine programs in developing countries and has contributed to the vaccination of nearly 1 billion children since its founding in 2000.
But the failure to reauthorize PEPFAR signals growing ambivalence among some US political leaders about funding health programs around the world. The internationalist “compassionate conservatives” of yesteryear, perhaps best embodied in George W. Bush’s presidency, have been pushed out of the Republican Party, replaced by Trump acolytes less interested in public health domestically or abroad. Donald Trump’s “America First” nationalism and the ferocious conservative backlash against public health authorities during Covid have unmoored a field that long viewed itself as above politics.”
Why America cares about Israel’s security Alan W. Dowd. 2023 12 12. American Legion. https://www.legion.org/landingzone/260767/why-america-cares-about-israel%E2%80%99s-security U.S. National Interests in the Middle East Manuel Hassassian. 1997. Palestine-Israel Journal. https://www.pij.org/articles/450/us-national-interests-in-the-middle-east Why has it been considered in the United States’ national interest to have materially
“Toy makers grappling with surging costs in China are finding no easy options when it comes to shifting production to cheaper centres elsewhere.
Six years ago, monopoly maker Hasbro approached Indian durable goods and aerospace supplier Aequs to sub-contract.
“They said if you can get into toy manufacturing, now we’re looking to shift millions of dollars worth of product from China to India,” Rohit Hegde, Aequs’ head of consumer verticals, told Reuters. “We said: as long as we can get at least about $100 million of business in the next few years, we can definitely invest in it.”
Fast forward to today and Aequs makes dozens of types of toys for Hasbro and others including Spin Master in two 350,000-square-foot facilities in Belgaum, India.
But Hegde and other manufacturers acknowledge that India and other countries cannot match China for efficiency”
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“Still, for toy manufacturers including Hasbro and Barbie doll maker Mattel, the risks of relying on China for most of their production were highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Chinese ports struggled to export goods and were periodically shut down, leaving shipments stranded.
Soaring labour costs in China had already been driving manufacturers across industries to diversify production geographically.”
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“setting up to source from other countries can take 18 months if a company is buying product from a contract manufacturer, and up to three years if a firm is building a new factory from scratch, Rogers said.”
“In 2023, Maine became the first U.S. state to partially decriminalize prostitution. It’s unlikely to be the last. And sex-worker rights activists are concerned.
By criminalizing prostitution customers but not sex workers, Maine’s law may seem like a step in the right direction. But it threatens to derail momentum for full decriminalization, while recreating many of full prohibition’s harms.
It also represents a paternalistic philosophical premise: that sex workers are all victims and their consent to sexual activity is—like a minor’s—irrelevant. And this premise is used to justify all sorts of bad programs and policies, including drastically ramping up penalties for people who pay for sex.”
“Not only do we Americans still produce an enormous economic output, but the U.S. also continues to be a dominant force in manufacturing. A recent paper by the Cato Institute’s Colin Grabow even reports that American manufacturing surpasses the output of Japan, Germany, and South Korea combined. We are the world’s second-largest manufacturing economy and, better yet, we are a global frontrunner in critical sectors such as automotive and aerospace.”
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“government spending is not inherently efficient or effective. It often leads to a misallocation of resources, bureaucratic inefficiencies, and unintended consequences that exacerbate the problems government aims to solve. And when government fails, its mistakes are hard to correct. It’s a sharp contrast with the dynamic and adaptive nature of free markets. The collective decisions of millions of individuals freely spending and investing their own money are incredibly effective at allocating resources, responding to consumer needs and driving innovation. And when the market fails, people with their own money on the line don’t hesitate to change course.”