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Bulletins and News Discussion from April 14th to April 20th, 2025 - The Lamentations of a Levy-Loving Leader

Image is of Trump's initial set of reciprocal tariffs. Source is CNN and Reuters.

It's difficult to keep up with the news around the tariffs; they get instated, then dropped, then reinstated... for example, on Friday, Trump said that certain electronics like smartphones would be exempt, causing markets to rally a great deal, but now the Commerce Secretary has said that they might not be exempt? The state of play right now, if you haven't been keeping up this week, is that the US recently announced a 90-day global pause on implementing the tariffs he had planned (that is, 25% on certain Canadian and Mexican goods, and at least 10% on every other nation) but nonetheless increased tariffs on China to 145%.

Meanwhile, China has been - quite remarkably - standing their ground, increasing tariffs on the US to 125%, and putting restrictions on rare earths. Xi Jinping has been in Vietnam and has made statements against a tariff war there, saying that it would have no winners. Meanwhile, a Chinese spokesperson has essentially said that China can endure the tariff war due to the increasing demand from its domestic market in combination with its growing economic ties with other countries.

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997 comments

  • And now for positive India news: Communist-led Kerala soon to become India’s first state free of extreme poverty

    The low levels of destitution in the state is a result of decades of progressive policy interventions such as:

    Land reforms

    High social spending

    Institutionalizing healthcare as a public service

    Providing job training and other necessary support for families that did not have a stable source of income

    Launching a minimum 100-day job guarantee

    Developing individual livelihood plans based on the specific needs of a particular family

    Various other programs under successive communist governments

    So Kerala is the indian state with the highest human development index. For those that don't know about Keralan politics, state elections are contests between the Communist Party of India (Marxist) led Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the Indian National Congress led United Democratic Front (UDF), Modi's BJP only has 1 single MP in the state.

    For decades it used to be that Keralan elections would go like this, every 5 years the incumbent government would lose and the opposition would get to govern, however in 2021 for the first time ever the LDF, which had been governing since 2016, consecutively won the elections and so they have governed the state for almost 10 years, that could explain why so much progress has been achieved.

    Now, as someone who doesn't know a lot about Kerala, if winning twice in a row is an outlier outcome then one would guess that, regardless how well they have governed, the LDF will probably lose in 2026 and the UDF will get to govern again, but I just saw this headline in an article I'm not gonna read saying they're polling well and could win 3 times in a row so maybe there's hope!

997 comments