LyrArc Article Gist
Electricity production and consumption data from the provinces has been overstated say experts making the decline in economic growth in China look less severe than it really is. Coal stockpiles at one key storage location in Qinhuangdao port reached 9.5 million tons in June, says an analyst for Wood Mackenzie, global energy consulting firm, a level not seen since the level of 9.3 million tons in November 2008 during the height of the 2008 financial crisis.

LyrArc Article Gist
This WSJ editorial in September 2014 says Britain plays an important role in the world as a role model democracy. The vote to keep Britain united affirms that there is room for different stories under one nation state. Devolution it says can bring power closer to the local regions, and can be a good thing. The challenge is for the British government to come up with a workable arrangement for devolution of powers. The world needs a united Britain.

LyrArc Article Gist
Javad Zarif, Foreign Minister of Iran, on the situation in the Persian Gulf region following the Iranian support of Houthi rebels in Yemen, and the airstrikes by Saudi Arabia and the UAE. He says Iran's goal and top priority is good relations with its neighbors in the Gulf region, and calls for the setting up of a new forum for dialogue in the Persian Gulf region. This coud be done under the UN umbrella, says Zarif.

LyrArc Article Gist
Indonesia's good harvest for rice means that it will end up with a slight surplus and will be able to met its needs without importing rice. Indonesia's Trade Ministry will further ensure supplies by banning any private exports of rice. Prices in Indonesia have increased only by 7%in the last 6 months. This should ease the tight supply situation for rice. In addition the Philippines and India are cracking down on hoarders to keep prices from rising artificially.

LyrArc Article Gist
82% in the New York Times and 97% in the Wall Street Journal of the academic's opinion pieces on opinion and editorial pages are by men and 90-95% of the articles agreed with editorial page positions of these 2 papers. Shows the high degree of homogenity of opinion on the pages of these papers created a one sided picture on the editorial and opinion pages. Is this corrected by good informed and unbaised reporting on the other pages?

LyrArc Article Gist
Friedman in Greenland and Cpenhagen, Denmark and energy conservation in the region. With about 50% of people riding bicycles at evening rush hour in Copenhagen and high energy and gasoline taxes putting gasoline at $10 a gallon and Demarke 99% energy sufficient. There is a new perspective on high gas prices, this time its acceptable and even a good thing as promoting conservation, all the way down to 2 gear toilets that flush differently and conserve water in Greenland.

LyrArc Article Gist
Following Brexit on January 31, 2020, Britain's government led by Boris Johnson prepares to negotiate new trade deals with the U.S. and other countries. The freedom to negotiate these trade deals was a key part of the plan of Brexit supporters and Mr. Johnson. The Times, Britain's leading newspaper, looks at the prospects of trade deals with each country- the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Japan. Facing re-election Mr. Trump is seen as favorably inclined to work out a trade deal that he can show during the campaign. Trade discussions have taken place between the UK and Australia, Japan. Mr. Morrison in Australia and Mr. Shinzo Abe want to see strong trading ties and investment with Britain. Japan or Australia could be the first countries that work out a trade deal with Britain as discussions are at an advanced stage.  Britain has a small deficit with Japan in trade. It has a small dollar surplus in trade with the Australia and New Zealand. With the U.S Britain has a large surplus, it exports 121 billion pounds and imports 76 billion pounds. The prospects of trade deals are enhanced by the similarity in outlook of the governments of the U.S., Australia, and Japan, which share views on jobs expansion, economic growth and are centre right in economic philosophy. They also share a strong connection with working class voters under Johnson,Trump and Morrison. Mr. Trump is seen as a strong deal maker so that any deal would involve some concessions from Britain that increase U.S exports, including farm exports. Difficult issues with the U.S. are -pharmaceutical drug imports that could increase Britain's NHS cost for drugs, the digital services tax from Britain on U.S.  companies such as Google and the Trump retaliatory threat to impose tariffs beyond the current 2.5% on car imports of $11 billion from Britain. On agricultural imports Britain's natural foods preference conflicts with imports of genetically modified (GMO) foods from the U.S. Experts say this could lead to a partial or Phase 1 deal that does not need approval from the U.S. Congress, similar to the Phase 1 trade deal with China which sidestepped the thorny issues on trade. This is something both sides can show their support base as a win. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Mike Atherton looks at the Australia India series and sees hope for England. He says Bumrah had too heavy a burden to carry as a fast bowler missing the second innings of the last Test. Starc and Cummins are getting older now. Lyons was there but not by much. No batsmen looked confident. Not Smith or Labuschagne. Only Australia's Head and India's Jaiswal were good and consistent. Kohli and Sharma disappointed the Indians. Indian fielding was not at it's best at critical moments. 

The public responded to the contest with 833,000 coming to the Test matches in Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and at the MCG, SCG Final Test.

LyrArc Article Gist
Declining sales in 2015 at Subway sandwich chain stores and lower profits for franchise owners, following overexpansion. Sales at U.S. Subway chain stores declined by 3.3% to $11.9 billion, acccording to Technomic Inc. There are about 27,000 Subway stores in the U.S. compared to 14,300 McDonald's stores, and the saturation appears to be hurting sales and profits, say experts. The system setup by Doctor's Inc. which started Subway incentivizes expansion.

LyrArc Article Gist
Efforts to develop the next generation Ukrainian aircraft industry from its current moribund state by discarding the old Soviet model. Attracting new foreign investment alongside state investment, modern management, preserving intellectual property rights, and looking for contracts across Europe, is critical for future development. Ukraine has a history of technology development and design in the aircraft industry, which makes this industry a good candidate for export revenues. The first mass produced helicopter was made in the U.S. and used a Sikorsky design in 1936. Igor Sikorsky is from Kiev, Ukraine, and immigrated to the U.S. in 1919, as Soviets took control of Russia. His son was a vice president of United Technologies Sikorsky helicopter division. (Wikipedia). MacFarquhar describes this industry in its new form at its early beginnings- a decade from now the industry under good management could provide large export revenues. Many of the old Soviet auto plants also developed in this direction with investments and technology from companies such as Renault, GM and others, helping revive the industry. There are no spheres of influence in modern industry- Ukraine, Russia, Europe, and the U.S., all benefit from openness to new technology and investment, which improve the economy and living standards. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
GM and Ford are burning cash at a rapid rate. And the Energy Department says it is unlikely that any of the $25 billion in loans already approved for fuel eficiency retooling of plants will be disbursed by the end of 2008. GM used up $6.9 billion in cash in the third quarter of 2008 leaving cash reserves at $16.2 billion. It needs $11-$14 billion to fund ongoing operations. Ford burned through $7.7 billion in cash in the third quarter of 2008, leaving it with $18.9 billion. Both companies cannot fund salaries and ongoing operations if the market continues to collapse the way it did in the third quarter 2008 with losses of 30-45% in sales. Government support is the only way to fund operations but instead of the $50 billion initially talked about for lifesupport by the government the numbers will run into much more and even then there is no limit to what may be needed. Chrysler is in much worse shape, because it depends on the US market entirely for sales, and is the weakest of the three Detroit carmakers. It is privately owned so figures are hidden, one can guess that big numbers are involved for Chrysler being rescued or merged or taken over by the government....

LyrArc Article Gist
Serious problems with transparency, and the quality of data used for the CPI and property prices index prepared by China's National Bureau of Statistics. The statistics are seen as flawed by experts because they understate the serious property price bubble in China. It does this by diluting the large rises in big cities with smaller rises in smaller cities. From now on data will be published separately for each of the 70 cities that make up the index, and a new method will be used for calculating property prices that only looks at housing, not commercial property. For housing prices it will use data from online property registries, instead of a survey of transactions that earlier understated housing price increases.

LyrArc Article Gist
President Trump reset the border debate after the government shutdown on border wall funding by emphasizing immigration issues but not repeating his threat to call an emergency. This time he was more conciliatory on the border wall issue, explaining that it be " a smart, strategic, see through steel barrier, not just a simple concrete wall," and deployed in areas identified by border agents as having the greatest need. On withdrawal from Middle East, the president said "great nations do not fight endless wars." Trump now faces a rocky second half of his term because Democrats control the House of Representatives after the 2018 Congressional elections. He said "if there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be a war and investigation." He faces the Mueller investigation by Special Counsel Mueller on the meddling by foreign powers in U.S. 2016 presidential election, with the arrest of lawyer Roger Stone recently, and Democrats in no mood to compromise on the wall. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England blamed the Brexit "fog of uncertainty" for the decline in the forecast for Britain's economic growth to 1.2% for 2019, worst in a decade. This is based on a "soft" Brexit. He said a no-deal Brexit would be a "economic shock" for Britain, that "we shouldn't be under any illusions about it."

Carney rejected the view of David Davis in The Times, that a 20% decline in the British pound would be good for Britain by "making  exports more competitive." Davis had called Carney's view "too doom-laden." A fall in the pound would be a necessary adjustment mechanism, Carney says, but it is "a hit to incomes, and not a step to prosperity." The pound declined by 17% from its 2015 peak after the referendum on Brexit.

 

 

LyrArc Article Gist
The amazing thing about Katherine was that with only a pencil and a slide rule she could calculate the precise trajectories for Apollo 11 to land on the moon in 1969. She could do so much of the math in her head that determined the success of missions to the moon and other planets.  Another amazing thing is that even though the white women worked separate from the white men and the black women worked separately, there was mutual respect. As Katherine puts it NASA was a very professional organization and there was not the time to think what color I was. She said she never had a feeling of inferiority, never, she thought of herself as good as anybody else, and not any better. NASA has its computational facility named after her. She also had a famous line- calling her group of women mathematicians at NASA "computers in skirts." A movie "Hidden Figures" recalls this time and the women at NASA, America's space program agency. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Bloomberg Associates is a firm created by Mayor Bloomberg to help cities all over the world improve city living from Louisville, Kentucky to Mexico City. The focus is on cities using the expertise and experience gained in running New York City, and replicating some of the success in New York elsewhere. Public health, economic development and environment sustainability remain at the forefront. Other ideas include making more room for pedestrian plazas in busy areas, calorie counts in fast-food chains, curbing smoking, a customer-service hotline for city residents. This includes projects such as turning blighted or neglected neighborhoods into attractive public spaces and making subway friendly residential neighborhoods. In places such as New Orleans the Mayor's staff has already produced changes in the crime rate with innovative programs and financing from Bloomberg Philanthropies. Their will be no fees for sharing this expertise and knowledge. Joining the new firm are most of Mayor Bloomberg's top staff, including Amanda Burden, director of city planning. George Fertitta will run the firm....

LyrArc Article Gist
Ethanol stocks are trading for what they were went they went public in 2006 or early 2007 way down from the highs they reached. When the IPO's were done corn was $1.80 a bushe and ethaol was $4.50 a gallon, since then things have changed and corn is now $5.64 a bushel and ethanol is $2.60 a gallon, corn prices tripling and ethanol prices almost half of what they were. So things look very different now. It takes refiners one bushel of corn to produce 2.8 gallons of ethanol. Ethanol sudden surge was because of its use as a replacement to methyl tertiary-butyl ether, a gasoline additive that has been proved to be a carcinogenic groundwater pollutant. But there are many uncertainties surrounding ethanol, the price of gasoline, corn, and ethanol and the future government mandates, subsidies to refiners and a possibility that tariffs on imported ethanol may be reduced or eliminated, and the effects on food prices of dedicating so much corn production to ethanol creates other concerns. So the inital excitement as faded....

LyrArc Article Gist
Next to what Brzail is doing under President Da Silva with a program to aid the poorest in Brazil pay for food and necessities, this program is a commendable one and could turn ou to be a big achievement as it becomes popular with the poorest people in India. It certainly will be true over the next 5-10 years that by improving the conditions of the poorest 300 million people it will go a long way towards creating and enhancing the conditions throughout India, and bring millions of people who could become new markets for the nation's consumer and other companies. The task of providing better nutrition along with hospital care could also be tackled with similar programs and also schooling so that the lives of the next generation can be significantly improved and children do not have to live the drudgery and difficult lives of their parents who are struggling for a living. Important thing is for a small cost of $1 billion people it carries the whole nation and its poorest 300 million people forward....

LyrArc Article Gist
FR24 looks at the work of Didier Deschamps in building a good French National team. Karim Benzema was back, with Mbappe, Griezman, Pogba, for the first time during the European championships. Deschamps takes the French team into the World Cup in 2024 without Benzema and by turning Griezman and Giroud into players who can take the place of Benzema and Pogba out from injuries. He was the youngest captain at 24 to win the Champions team title for a French club Marseille in 1993, and he brings experience that goes back 30 years as player and coach.

LyrArc Article Gist
Diesel prices are regulated and subsidized by the Indian government, but gasoline prices are deregulated since 2010, resulting in gasoline costing 64% more than diesel in India. As a result buyers are staying away from gasoline cars and shifting to diesel creating distortions in demand. The government is considering a tax on diesel cars and SUV's of between $3000 to $4600 to correct the distortion. Because lower income people woud be hurt by increasing the price of diesel it continues to be subsidized. Because of the uncertainty car manufacturers are shutting down production to reduce growing inventory of gasoline vehicles. High interest rates of 12% on car loans also reduces demand. Suzuki Maruti sales declined 6% in May 2012, Ford and GM showed sales declines of 14% and 20%. The year ending March 2012 shows Indian car sales growing only slightly by 2.2% to 2 million cars. Sales were rising at 29% only about a year ago. Gasoline costs 68 rupees a liter in New Delhi after a 11.5% increase in May 2012, compared to 41 rupees per liter for diesel. The increase in gasoline prices is a result of the government having difficulty paying the rising imports of oil, costing $141 billion for the year ending March 31, 2012. The sharp slowdown in the car industry and the problems in the energy sector have affected India's growth rate....