MONPOLY IS CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Google faces trial over allegations of anticompetitive behaviour in search market

The justice department sued Google in 2020, accusing the $1.6 trillion company of illegally using its market muscle to hobble rivals in the biggest challenge to the power and influence of Big Tech since it sued Microsoft Corp in 1998

Reuters Washington

 Published 06.08.23


A US judge hearing the justice department’s antitrust lawsuit accusing Google of unlawfully maintaining monopolies in the Internet search market let stand key claims made by the federal government.

Google had asked for summary judgment on all the government’s claims in the case, which is to go to trial next month. US judge Amit Mehta in Washington in a decision made public on Friday granted Google’s request on some grounds but allowed the remainder of the claims to proceed to trial next month.

The justice department sued Google in 2020, accusing the $1.6 trillion company of illegally using its market muscle to hobble rivals in the biggest challenge to the power and influence of Big Tech since it sued Microsoft Corp in 1998. Mehta is also hearing a case brought against Google by the attorneys general of 38 states and territories.

Google said on Friday it appreciated the court’s “careful consideration and decision to dismiss claims regarding the design of Google Search” in the case brought by the state attorneys general.

“We look forward to showing at trial that promoting and distributing our services is both legal and pro-competitive,” Google added. Connecticut attorney general William Tong praised the decision to allow the states Google search antitrust suit to proceed to trial. “Google abused its dominance to inflate its own profits at the expense of American businesses and in violation of antitrust laws,” Tong said.

Mehta noted Google LLC operates the largest US Internet general search engine whose “brand name has become so ubiquitous that dictionaries recognise it as a verb”. He noted Google in 2020 had nearly 90 per cent market share and advertisers spend over $80 billion annually alone to reach general search users.

The government has argued that Google illegally paid billions of dollars each year to Apple, LG, Motorola and Samsung, carriers like Verizon and browsers like Mozilla to be the default search for their customers.

Forget Fukushima, from Japan to India nuclear power is retaking centre stage in the fight against climate change

China is leading the way, but South Korea, India and Japan are all also on board with the low-carbon energy source’s resurgence

Some call it ‘grasping at straws’ and nuclear certainly has its problems – but new technologies have restored confidence in the sector somewhat


Biman Mukherji

SCMP
6 Aug, 2023

A view of Japan’s crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant last month. In the years since the disaster, Japanese policymakers have gone from shunning nuclear to embracing it once again. Photo: Bloomberg


Japan’s plan to release treated waste water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant may have ignited controversy recently, but more than a decade after the 2011 disaster, the world’s gaze is once again turning to the low-carbon energy source as unprecedented heatwaves underscore Earth’s new ‘era of global boiling’.


In a G20 statement on the energy transition last month, world leaders highlighted the role nuclear energy can play in cutting emissions and providing energy security.


Nuclear plants are also capable of meeting baseload demand – providing the minimum amount of electricity a grid needs – because their power output is much more constant than intermittent sources such as solar or wind.

Climate experts say the prominence given to nuclear power by the G20 text is a sign of its possible resurgence. It’s certainly making a comeback in Asia, where China, South Korea, Japan, and India are leading the way.

A wind farm in China’s Xinjiang province. Domestic experts cite Japan’s lack of space for solar and other renewable energy infrastructure as a reason for refocusing on nuclear power. Photo: Shutterstock

“Japan is like a large Singapore with not so much land,” Tatsuya Terazawa, the chairman of Japan’s Institute of Energy Economics, told a July 26 webinar on Asia’s ‘Road to a Sustainable Energy Future’.

He cited this lack of space for solar panels and other infrastructure as among the “constraints on expanding renewable energy” in the country.

Restarting more of the nuclear plants taken offline in the wake of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that hit Fukushima could provide a way forward, but fears over atomic power have lingered ever since the disaster – with the Japanese government in 2012 promising to phase out its use entirely by the 2030s.

Policymakers now appear to be changing their tune, however, with Terazawa noting that a spike in global oil prices following third-largest producer Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year had helped refocus minds on nuclear energy, despite the psychological scars.

Japan could develop new nuclear power plants to boost energy security
24 Aug 2022


“If we are to realise carbon neutrality, if we are to realise energy security, we will have to have at least some significant portion of our energy mix through nuclear,” he said. “We believe that will be applicable to many Asian countries.”

Under a new policy adopted in December, Japan said it will aim to maximise the use of existing reactors and prolong the operating life of ageing ones. The government also pledged to develop next-generation reactors.

“In order for Japan to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, nuclear power will [have to] contribute 20-22 per cent of its target energy mix in 2030,” said Ada Li, vice-president at financial research company Moody’s Investors Service.

Rebuilding confidence

New technologies such as small modular reactors – which are a fraction of the size and more adaptable than mammoth, traditional reactors – have revived confidence in nuclear energy’s safety, affordability and ability to meet multiple energy demands.

As of 2020, more than 50 per cent of the Asia-Pacific’s nuclear-power generation was done in China, according to International Energy Agency data, with South Korea in second place at just under 25 per cent, followed by India and Japan both with around a 6 per cent share each.

New plants are coming online all the time. China is leading the charge, with construction expected to finish on 23 new reactors over the next seven years, according to the World Nuclear Association. India has eight in the works.

But the effect of plants being decommissioned elsewhere will mean nuclear’s share of the global energy mix won’t surpass the current level of around 10 per cent before 2050, International Atomic Energy Agency projections predict.

A multi-purpose onshore small modular reactor is seen last month in China’s northeastern Liaoning province after undergoing testing . Photo: Xinhua

China, India and Japan are exploring using thorium instead of uranium to power nuclear reactors, as it is much more abundant in the Earth’s crust. But Moody’s Li said extraction costs for the element remain high and there are other challenges in terms of handling the material and its waste.

Still, China’s nuclear-safety regulator issued a 10-year operational permit in June for the nation’s first thorium reactor, built by the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences on the edge of the Gobi desert, while construction is also under way on an onshore small module reactor that’s been touted as a world first.

“China is embarking on the world’s largest nuclear plant building programme and is expected to have the highest capacity globally by 2030,” said Trung Ghi, a partner at consulting firm Arthur D. Little and its head of energy for Southeast Asia.

China aims to double its nuclear capacity by building more than 150 reactors by 2035, and if achieved, it will mean the country would have built “more nuclear reactors than the rest of the world has done in the past 35 years”, Ghi said. The United States currently has the most nuclear capacity in the world.

An interior view of a new nuclear power plant in China’s southeastern Fujian province that went online in 2020. China aims to double its nuclear capacity by 2035. Photo: Xinhua

India is also gearing up for a major expansion of nuclear power, with plans to more than triple its capacity to 22.5 gigawatts from around 7GW currently, mainly through the construction of large plants.

But the importation of new reactors is likely to depend on negotiations surrounding India’s nuclear liability law, which assigns responsibility for compensation in case of an accident, said Kaveri Ashok, a senior associate at the Bengaluru-based Centre for Study of Science Technology and Policy think tank.

New Delhi is currently reviewing a six-decade old law that limits private firms’ involvement in the nuclear sector, Bloomberg reported on Thursday. Private companies can build but not operate plants at present, potentially stifling the development of smaller reactors.

“We will see discussions across other Asian nations in the coming years on nuclear,” energy specialist Ghi said.

We will see discussions across ... Asian nations in the coming years on nuclearTrung Ghi, energy specialist

Power demand is expected to boom in Asia over the coming decades, powered by a growing population and energy-intensive industries, and experts say regional players will need to explore multiple paths to reach net-zero emissions.

Ghi cited Indonesia as an example, where four Danish companies signed a memorandum of understanding with state-owned corporations in May to build a nuclear-powered ammonia plant on the island of Borneo.

Singapore has also identified nuclear energy as a potential alternative power source by 2050, Ghi said. The city state’s Energy Market Authority concluded in a March 2022 report that nuclear energy could supply 10 per cent of the country’s needs.

‘Grasping at straws’?

But opinions remain sharply divided over the use of nuclear energy in the region.

“The quest for new nuclear power plants appears to be grasping at straws – very expensive straws – as a substitute for other, fossil-based thermal power plants,” said Grant Hauber, a US-based strategic energy finance adviser at the global Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

“New-build nuclear [power plants] will cost tens of billions of dollars per plant and take the better part of a decade to complete per unit. That is valuable [resources] and time being burnt while the use of higher-intensity carbon fuels continues,” he said.

Coal, gas and nuclear have all historically come with high monetary or environmental costs and countries like Japan would be better off focusing on renewables, Hauber said.

‘It’s not over’: 12 years after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster

“Japan’s efforts on renewable energy have been greatly lagging. This has happened despite Japan having one of the largest and most consistent renewable resources literally surrounding them: offshore wind,” he said.

As of last year, Japan had 136MW of installed offshore wind capacity – a fraction of the nearly 14GW installed in Britain and 31GW in world leader China, according to the Global Wind Energy Council.

Japan aims to have 10GW installed by 2030 and up to 45GW by 2040 as it wants renewables to provide 36-38 per cent of its electricity mix by the end of that decade, up from around 20 per cent now. The nation is aiming to be carbon-neutral by 2050.

Countries like India and China – which are staring down the barrel of a surge in demand and do not have Japan’s land constraints – would also be better off deploying more renewables, Hauber said, especially as nuclear facilities will not be able to replace the millions of jobs lost as fossil fuel-run plants close.

Russia could blow up Zaporizhzhia plant to halt Ukraine’s forces: Zelensky
9 Jul 2023


Nuclear power produces about the same amount of emissions per unit of electricity as wind and about one-third that of solar, energy expert Ghi said. But the power plants also generate radioactive waste, which is hazardous to human health if not indefinitely and securely stored away.

This waste is best disposed of in deep underground repositories, said Ximena Vasquez-Maignan, a nuclear expert with global law firm White & Case, such as the one Finland has already built to store waste for thousands of years, and the ones France and Sweden are developing.

On the whole, anti-nuclear sentiment appears to have ebbed in the years since the Fukushima disaster, she said – even as Russia’s seizure of the plant in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia has again highlighted the risks involved with nuclear power.

“Public perception with regard to nuclear is changing, due to the benefits that nuclear can bring. Waste is an issue that countries will have to deal [with],” Vasquez-Maignan said.

“Nuclear [power] will not divert resources from renewables, as the two types of energies are required in order to face constantly increasing energy needs.”



Biman Mukherji
has more than two decades of reporting and editing experience in Asia, focusing on Indian and Asia business.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

French billionaire Drahi to face investors as graft claims swirl

By AFP
Published August 5, 2023

Patrick Drahi hit the big time in 2014 when he took control of SFR, France's second-biggest mobile operator - Copyright AFP/File STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN

Jules BONNARD

French-Israeli billionaire Patrick Drahi is set to make a rare appearance in front of investors this week with his multinational business empire Altice in the grip of a corruption scandal.

Swiss-based Drahi, whose empire spans telecoms and media in Europe, Israel and North America, is expected to try to ease investor concerns weeks after one of his top lieutenants was detained in Portugal.

The authorities there have accused Portuguese billionaire Armando Pereira of 11 offences of corruption and money laundering, with a central allegation that he set up a network of bogus suppliers to embezzle money through Altice’s procurement system.

Pereira denies the claims but the scandal has spread from Portugal to other parts of Drahi’s empire, with executives in the United States and France being dismissed, suspended or stepping back.

Drahi, who generally keeps a low profile, has amassed a fortune estimated at more than $10 billion, making him France’s 13th richest man, according to French magazine Challenge.

He pieced together a network of companies through leveraged acquisitions and is now a major player in telecoms in France, Israel, Belgium, Luxembourg, Portugal and Switzerland.

Drahi, who also owns broadband firm Altice USA and part of Britain’s BT, is known as an art lover and bought the auction house Sotheby’s in 2019.

But his investment spree was made possible only by amassing a debt pile worth around $60 billion.

With interest rates rising and the corruption scandal making headlines, Drahi’s calls with investors on Monday and Tuesday will be closely monitored by investors.

– Fundamental questions –

The company has tried to play down the investigation, saying it is cooperating with the authorities and highlighting that several employees have been suspended.

Pereira, despite being widely seen as Drahi’s right-hand man, has no official post at the company.

Arthur Dreyfuss, CEO of Altice France, told a meeting with trade unions on Wednesday that only a handful of the companies named in the Portuguese inquiry had trading relations with Altice.

“At this stage, this represents less than four percent of our annual purchases in terms of volume,” he said.

But Olivier Lelong of the CFDT trade union, who was at Wednesday’s meeting, told AFP that the nature of the allegations suggested fundamental issues with the company.

“On a day-to-day basis, expenses are the most closely monitored thing in the group,” he said.

“It’s on such a scale… that there must have been a problem with the company’s control and governance.”

– Altice is ‘victim’ –

Drahi, 59, was born in the Moroccan city of Casablanca and moved to France at 15, eventually studying at the country’s top engineering school, the Ecole Polytechnique.

After an early career spent working for fibre-optics companies, he set out on his own and bought up several troubled cable and mobile operators, before hitting the big time in 2014 when he took control of SFR, France’s second-biggest mobile operator.

From there he built his vast empire, with unions dubbing him the “cost killer” for his habit of streamlining the firms he bought.

But with the corruption claims and rising interest rates forcing him to renegotiate the terms of his loans, Drahi pis facing one of his biggest challenges to date.

“Patrick Drahi has built his success on access to low-cost debt,” Denis Lafarge, a partner at PMP Strategy, told AFP.

Drahi is known as a smart financial operator and has long relied on selling off infrastructure like telecoms masts and fibre networks to raise cash.

Lafarge said those options are getting thinner but he still has some sellable assets — the Meo operator in Portugal and some data centres could be sacrificed.

Sylvain Chevallier of the BearingPoint consultancy added that rising inflation meant businesses like Altice will be able to raise prices and raise cash that way.

But the immediate need is for Drahi to stem the damage from the corruption inquiry.

“It’s important for him to speak out,” said Dreyfuss.

“Until we have proof to the contrary, Altice is a victim of all this.”

 

Morocco: Activist’s 5-year Prison Sentence For Criticising Relations With Israel Is Unfair, Must Be Rescinded

Sunday, 6 August 2023, 3:00 pm
Press Release: Euro Med Monitor

Geneva - The five-year imprisonment sentence of Moroccan activist Said Boukyoud on charges of free expression is unfair and cannot be justified under any circumstances, said Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor in a statement.

The First Instance Criminal Court of Casablanca sentenced Boukyoud, 48, to five years in prison on Monday 31 July for social media posts he made in 2020 that included criticism of Morocco’s decision to establish diplomatic relations with Israel. The arbitrary ruling is part of the Moroccan authorities’ campaign against freedom of expression, which includes practices aimed at criminalising critics and opinion-holders and silencing dissidents.

Moroccan authorities had arrested Boukyoud at Casablanca Mohammed V International Airport on the morning of Monday 24 July, upon the activist’s return from Qatar with his family. His request for parole was denied, and he was kept detained following the arrest. Euro-Med Monitor noted a violation of his right to a fair trial, citing the court’s decision to issue a verdict only seven days after his arrest, meaning the relevant authorities, the prosecution, and the defence may not have exhausted all legal procedures; this indicates a clear intent to punish Boukyoud for his dissenting views.

Boukyoud’s case exemplifies the country’s policy of using its judiciary to punish and retaliate against certain journalists and opponents. Several journalists and dissidents have been detained in recent years, with some receiving harsh sentences on charges that appear to be fabricated and biased. “The decision to imprison Boukyoud for five years for merely expressing his opinion reflects a shameful disregard for the right to freedom and human dignity, and demonstrates the risks and challenges that dissidents and opinion-holders face in Morocco,” said Euro-Med Monitor’s Chief Operating Officer Anas Jerjawi.

“Moroccan authorities are obligated to respect citizens’ freedom of publication and expression, as all individuals have the right to express their views on the country’s policies and relations with other countries, within the limits set by the Moroccan constitution and relevant international covenants,” Jerjawi added.

The detention of individuals for expressing their opinions clearly violates Morocco’s relevant international obligations as well as Article 25 of the Moroccan constitution, which guarantees the “freedoms of thought, of opinion and of expression under all their forms”. Furthermore, it violates Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ratified by Morocco, which states that “[E]veryone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference” as well as “the right to freedom of expression”.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor emphasised the importance of establishing a truly independent judiciary in Morocco—one that is not used to punish opponents or undermine freedoms, and is free of all forms of government influence—and urged authorities to rescind the arbitrary sentence imposed on activist Said Boukyoud, release him unconditionally, stop prosecuting and criminalising peaceful activity, and cease all practices that undermine individuals’ rights.

The organisation also called on Moroccan authorities to release all prisoners of conscience, including all journalists and dissidents convicted on charges that may be fabricated and unfair, stop viewing dissidents and critics as threats that must be neutralised and silenced, and respect individuals’ opinions and peaceful activism.

 

Ex-aide of Israel far-right MP held over Palestinian’s murder, media report

At Saturday’s funeral, Palestinian mourners carried Maatan’s body through the streets wrapped in a black and white keffiyeh headscarf and a Palestinian flag. — Reuters pic

Sunday, 06 Aug 2023 

BURQAH (Palestinian Territories), Aug 6 — A former aide of a lawmaker from Israel’s hard-right governing coalition was among two settlers arrested yesterday over the killing of a 19-year-old Palestinian in the occupied West Bank, Israeli media reported.

Qusai Jamal Maatan was shot dead in Burqah, east of Ramallah, on Friday as armed settlers clashed with villagers.

The UN has warned of a dramatic spike in such cases since the most right-wing government in Israel’s history took power at the end of last year.

Israeli media reported that the main suspect in the deadly shooting had sustained injuries in the clashes and been admitted to hospital.

The second suspect had acted as spokesman to a member of parliament from the far-right Jewish Power party, whose leader Itamar Ben-Gvir is public security minister in the coalition government, the reports said.

Police said a remand hearing was to be held in Jerusalem later Saturday to extend the custody of the two suspects.

Palestinian Civil Affairs Minister Hussein al-Sheikh called on the international community to blacklist Jewish Power as a terrorist organisation in a post on social media.

“Yesterday, a member of his (Ben-Gvir’s) party shot dead a Palestinian citizen in the village of Burqah. It should be included in international terrorism blacklists,” Sheikh said, noting the party leader’s own history of inflammatory remarks against Palestinians.

Ben-Gvir was charged more than 50 times in his youth with incitement to violence or hate speech and was convicted in 2007 of supporting a terrorist group and inciting racism.

At Saturday’s funeral, Palestinian mourners carried Maatan’s body through the streets wrapped in a black and white keffiyeh headscarf and a Palestinian flag, an AFP journalist reported.

In a statement released late Friday, Palestinian militant group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, called for revenge for Maatan’s murder at the hands of a “settler gang”.

A Palestinian gunman killed an Israeli municipal officer in commercial hub Tel Aviv on Saturday, before being fatally shot by another officer, authorities said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

A Hamas spokesman called the attack “a response to the crimes of the occupation and settlers against our people”.

Since early last year, the West Bank has seen a string of attacks by Palestinians on Israeli targets, as well as violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinian communities and regular raids by Israeli forces who say they are pursuing militants.

Violence this year linked to the conflict has killed at least 208 Palestinians, 28 Israelis, one Ukrainian and one Italian, according to an AFP tally compiled from official sources on both sides.

They include, on the Palestinian side, combatants as well as civilians and, on the Israeli side, three members of the Arab minority.

Settler violence

In a statement on Friday’s shooting, the Israeli army cited Palestinian reports and witnesses as saying that both sides had thrown stones at each other before the Israeli civilians had opened fire.

“As a result of the confrontation, a Palestinian was killed, four others were injured, and a Palestinian vehicle was found burned. Several Israeli civilians were injured from rocks hurled at them,” it said on Saturday, adding security forces arrived after the shooting.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since the Six-Day War of 1967.

Excluding annexed east Jerusalem, the territory is home to nearly three million Palestinians and around 490,000 Israelis who live in settlements considered illegal under international law.

The last major case of Israeli settler violence against Palestinians occurred in June.

Revenge attacks on the West Bank village of Turmus Ayya and others followed the killing of four Israelis by Palestinian gunmen, which militant group Hamas said was in response to an Israeli army raid on Jenin refugee camp which killed six Palestinians.

The UN humanitarian agency OCHA said on Friday it had recorded 591 settler-related “incidents” in the West Bank in the first six months of 2023 resulting in Palestinian casualties, property damage, or both.

“That’s an average of 99 incidents every month, and a 39-per cent-increase compared with the monthly average of the whole of 2022, which is 71,” spokesman Jens Laerke said. — AFP

 

Human rights abuses from U.S. border agents rampant: reporti

Xinhua, August 4, 2023

U.S. border patrol agents frequently treat migrants poorly and that Customs and Border Protec (CBP), the county's largest law enforcement agency, has systemic problems, The Hill on Wednesday cited a report from two human rights nonprofits.

"(CBP) has a persistent problem of human rights abuse without accountability," said the report compiled by the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) and the Kino Border Initiative (KBI).

"The frequency and severity of abuse allegations indicate that a substantial number of officers and agents don't meet that standard," it noted.

A WOLA database has listed more than 400 incidents of abuses against migrants encountered by CBP in the field or in custody since 2020, including physical violence, withholding of food and medicine and racial profiling.

Most cases of abuse go unreported, it emphasized.

"Most of the cases ... would have gone completely unknown without reporting from victims and those, outside of government, who accompany them. That such abuses are happening so frequently at CBP and Border Patrol indicates that DHS's accountability system has done little to dissuade or disincentivize them," added the report. 

Indian consulate offers to fly home 'depressed' Hyderabad woman found starving on US streets

The mother said her daughter Syeda Lulu Minhaj Zaidi went to the USA to pursue MS from TRINE University, Detroit, in August 2021

PTI New York

 Published 06.08.23, 

Syeda Lulu Minhaj Zaidi, who hails from Telangana and came to the US to pursue higher education, was seen on a street in Chicago on the verge of starvation.

The Consulate General of India in Chicago has established contact with a woman student hailing from Hyderabad, who was reportedly depressed and starving, and said she was fit and offered help, including medical assistance and travel to India.

Syeda Lulu Minhaj Zaidi, who hails from Telangana and came to the US to pursue higher education, was seen on a street in Chicago on the verge of starvation.

Her mother had written a letter to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar seeking his help to bring her back home.

"Happy that we could contact Ms Syeda Zaidi and offered help, including medical assistance and travel to India. She is fit and has spoken to her mother in India," the Consulate General of India in Chicago posted on platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

"She is yet to respond to our offer of support to return to India. We stand ready to extend to her all assistance," it said.

The mother said her daughter went to the USA to pursue MS from TRINE University, Detroit, in August 2021.

“For the last two months, she was not in touch with me and recently through two Hyderabadi youths, we came to know that my daughter is in deep depression and her entire belongings have been stolen due to which she is on the verge of starvation and was spotted on roads of Chicago, USA," the mother said in her letter.

 How lessons learned from COVID are preparing the world for future health threats

PBS NewsHour

 Aug 4, 2023

The State Department is putting lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic into action. The Bureau of Global Health Security and Diplomacy is aimed at better preventing, detecting and responding to existing and future health threats. Its first leader is renowned virologist Dr. John Nkengasong. He sat down with Geoff Bennett to discuss the new effort to respond to global health crises.

 Fears rise over Japan’s upcoming release of Fukushima nuclear wastewater

PBS NewsHour

 Aug 5, 2023

Japan could soon start releasing treated wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the ocean. They’re running out of space to store the radiation-tainted water at the plant, which was damaged by the devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami, but both locals and neighboring countries worry about the effect on their health and livelihoods. Special correspondent Rebecca Bundhun reports.

U$A

Raw data: Consumer confidence is still really low

AuthorKevin Drum

Published onAugust 5, 2023 – on Raw data: Consumer confidence is still really low

Here are two measures of consumer confidence, one from an OECD survey and one from the University of Michigan:

Both measures agree that consumer confidence has been rising over the past year. However, it's still way below normal. It's no wonder that the economy hasn't yet helped improve Joe Biden's approval rating.