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This WSJ report shows ways in which companies are attracting and retaining employees by building homes. One company shown here is building the homes to keep costs down using subcontractors. Costs are kept down so that houses can be built at $200,000, to make them affordable at $1000 a month mortgages for workers earning $40,000 to $100,000.

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The Indian Express looks at the impact on children for learning and education of the coronavirus pandemic. More children in areas that have lagged behind economically are unable to read in second grade. In some states the number of children who are not able to read second grade text has more than doubled. This can be seen across other grades.

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The new prime minister of Pakistan Abbasi consults with former prime minister Sharif in Murree, Pakistan, after the Supreme Court disqualifies Sharif from the position. Sharif's brother, Shahbaz, the chief minister of Punjab province will contest a by-election for parliament to replace Abbasi.

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Steve Bannon is described in this indepth report by Scott Shane as a workaholic, born to working class family with his father a telephone line operator, who went to Virginia Tech and joined the Navy in the hope of advancing a career in politics. At Virginia Tech he won a leadership position of the student organization. He was described by another student who knew him well as passionate but not likely to get much done. The period at Virginia Tech and in the Navy were the Carter years followed by election of Ronald Reagan. The election of Reagan had a huge influence on Bannon- the same overtones of that campaign of Reagan are seen today in the forgotten men and women, white working class families that Conservatives then and Tea Party Conservatives in the Obama years felt ignored. The downward drift of the lower middle class families that saw incomes drop as manufacturing hollowed out in the U.S. with foreign competition, the failure of establishment politicians of both parties to protect American manufacturing and working class families, added to the sense of angst for Bannon. Bannon just like politicians in the Obama camp such as Emmanuel, found the way to politics through finance and gains made as the banking sector and financial institutions made huge financial gains by 2008. This was a stepping stone for their political ambitions. Emmanuel who is also a workaholic and passionate about his views worked to elect a black president, Bannon choosing to do the opposite and push for bringing back the Reagan era. Most on the liberal side see him as part of a racist movement. Reagan was none of those things. How does one reconcile the two? It is possible that seeing the fight against the established politics as an impossible task, Bannon in his passionate temperament did not object to the support of right wing extremists, in the same way that Trump did. As both Trump and Bannon have people of Jewish origin and black people in their circle of friends or family. What incensed Bannon as described here by Scott Shane of the NYT, was that after the financial crisis of 2008, hardly any bank executives who had committed wrongdoing went to jail, his father's line operator retirement savings were devastated by the financial crisis, and working class families struggled harder than ever, that his daughter at West Point was with mostly children of working class families who were the ones fighting America's wars. Many ironies abound in the story. Bannon got his business start in the same financial institutions that were involved in the financial crisis of 2008, Bannon & Co was acquired by Societe Generale. He is from an Irish Catholic working class family in Richmond and attended Benedictine High School, with a mother Doris that worked on the campaign to elect Douglas Wilder, a Democrat, as the first African American governor of Virgina.  The other ironies are in that Bannon sees Trump as "an imperfect vessel" but still good enough, and Trump sees himself as "making all the decisions" when asked about Bannon, as a range of interests struggle to form a coherent movement on the right in American politics- an unlikely combination of a telephone operator's son and real estate magnate's son who built his own real estate business in luxury real estate towers far removed from ordinary men and women they represent. ...

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The high cost of fines is likely to affect recapitalization of UK banks. Fines for Libor-rigging and compensations for customers on Payment Protection Insurance may cost the UK banking industry about 20 billion pounds, says Nixon. Other fines such as the $1.9 billion fine for money laundering activities of HSBC have to be added to this. This means less money for meeting stronger capital requirements and for lending to business and households. Higher compliance costs will mean higher costs in future years. HSBC estimates of the anti money laundering systems are about $990 million a year. The Bank of England has raised concerns about the need for additional capital to safeguard British banks.

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Gap stores have experienced steadily declining sales with a failure to keep up with fashion trends and earlier overexpansion. Gap plans to close a fourth of its stores. 175 store closings are planned, with 140 by 2016. Most of the stores closed are in less desirable mall locations. Gap will continue to operate its outlet stores.

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Burton Malkiel says other ways to rebalance and adjust allocations after the surge in equity prices in the U.S. and Europe are to invest in high quality emerging market bonds, quality U.S. municipal bonds with rates of 7%, high quality large caps with dividends over 5%, and quality emerging market stocks which are at price earning multiples of 10.

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Who should lead the Conservative Party in 2016 till the next elections in 2020? The Economist magazine says strong negotiating skills and stamina are needed, and on this point it says Theresa May, Home Secretary, does better than former Energy minister, Andrea Leadsom, who has not done such tough negotiating and is not so well known as May. May had the support of 199 members of parliament to 84 for Leadsom, whose experience is less and was junior Treasury minister in prior position compared to May's 6 years in the position of Home Secretary handling immigration issues. Being an ardent Brexiter Leadsom has an advantage with Brexit supporters, though May handled her Brexit Remain position in a low key way and can appeal to both sides of the Conservative party. The result will come from a postal ballot to 150,000 members of the Conservative Party.

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Next five year plan for China calls for more concentration on industry, dominance in key sectors identified by China such as rare earths, and more exports- not less in each of these areas. Chinese Communist Party is very conservative and once this has worked for China it is not going to change its reliance on exports even at the risk of leaving goods unsold in China or oversupply. The result is that the US effort to reduce the trade deficit, trying every tool in the book does not work, leading to an effort to resort to tariffs as a last resort to cut the unhealthy and risky $1 trillion trade deficit China has with the world. Has it worked? WSJ and other reports show that large companies are diversifying their supply channels, only smaller companies without the resources are sticking with China dependence for supplies. The tariffs themselves make headlines yet the US has made careful calculations not to upset relationships with key partners Britain, European Union, and Japan, keeping tariffs low at 10% with EU, and 15% with Japan which exports automobiles to the US to recover some of the years US made concessions to Japan. There are also loopholes on certain products where it is in the US interest to do so. As a result the effective tariff is 10-12.5% not 17-20% shown in reports. Of this 10% what is passed on to consumers is small- as in autos 80% of tariffs are not passed on by auto importers such as Toyota and Subaru because of the higher margins postpandemic. In retail only 30% is passed on again because of the post pandemic higher margins. The administration of DJT has also carefully worked with world oil suppliers to keep oil prices low, lower than in 2023-2024. The result is that inflation is at about 3% in September 2025. The idea that a capricious DJT is doing the tariffs is a myth as careful economic planners including Bessent, Jamieson, Lighthizer, and Luttnick, economic advisors in the Republican party, are carefully articulating the policy with room for DJT's political talk and appeal to public sentiment. ...

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There appears to be a conscious deliberate decision by the Chinese government and policymakers to shift the economy from low-end technologically unsophisticated and polluting industry, that pays low wages with little worker protections, towards technologically sophisticated, environment respecting, and higher wage industry. This does not mean textiles are out, but textile companies that are larger better managed, able to introduce newer technologies and produce higher quality product- that command higher prices in the world market and therefore also able to sustain decent wages and worker protection- are in. Phasing out the smaller shops and the poorly run or deliberately polluting and labor exploiting companies run from Hong Kong or elsewhere. The general shift is to be a leader in products which are value added either by technology or human capital, such as better trained more knowledgeable workers. This is similiar to the shift Japan made after the sixties, as it moved from a rural to a urbanized society and textile companies like Kanebo became technologically sophisticated, while small shops withered out, and Japan gradually shifted into automobiles, electronics and chip making. The noticeable difference is that Japan with a prewar industrial base and a smaller market protected its home market for Japanese companies, whereas China lacking this prewar industrial base let foreign investment and companies overseas bring in equipment and use low cost Chinese labor to supply western markets. And it turned a blind eye to labor protections, at least till it had built up its own industrial base and knowhow with policy requiring Chinese partners in industry and technology transfer. Economic winds are also doing the job. Inflation, Chinese goods prices increased by 4.6% in May according to the U.S. Commerce Department. This is a result of the Chinese government requiring worker protections and decent wages and stricter pollution enforcement resulting in increased energy costs. For years the U.S. and other countries depended on China for low cost goods and the demand for low cost goods depressed margins which resulted in legitmate costs such as pollution control technology, worker protection and decent wages, being ignored. China is now left with heavy environmental cleanup costs, and a bad image internationally as a heavy polluter. The huge external trade surpluses China has built up exceeding a trillion dollars have pushed up the value of the yuan making Chinese goods costlier in world markets, and apparel and shoe makers in developed countries seeing Vietnam as a better lowcost alternative. The story of this phase of Chinese industrial development can be seen in a town like Honghe, a 90 minute drive from Shanghai, which has half of its 100,000 residents working in 100 factories and 8000 shops that knit, dye, package and ship some 200 million sweaters a year, bringing in according to local government estimates $650 million a year. Now many of these shops are idle and mirant workers are returning home. To see the subtler signs of the Chinese policymakers hand note that even visa policies have been tightened to make it harder for foreign buyers to visit Chineses factories and trade shows. Also the Chinese government has raised the minimum age for workers in these factories from 16 to age 18 and so on. And the impact is being felt in places like Honghe near Shanghai, Shengzhou another city near Shanghai which makes one third of the world's neckties, and in Dongguan in Guangdong where its toy, shoes shops close. The change also shows how quickly things can change in the world economy. Only 3 years earlier in 2005, Jiaxing Yishangmei Fashion Company, a family owned company was booming and had just landed Walmart Stores as a customer. Now Walmart no longer sources from this company. Analysts say that the Chinese sweater industry was probably overbuilt, with about 6 cities in China claiming to produce more than 100 million sweaters annually. A wave of consolidation could boost efficiency, and bring pressures to innovate rater than compete only on price. And many Chinese economists, and policymakers think China has relied too much on cost-cutting and simple production models to increase exports. A researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences thinks such a high dependence on foreign trade is not good for China. For the US and Japan this researcher says that trade is equivalent to 20% of gross national product and by contrast for China trade is equivalent to an extreme of 75% of GNP. ...

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The need for a special effort by the U.S. and European governments to ensure that the resources of the East African region centred around Congo and Uganda are not used by militias and resource development companies at the expense of economic development for the region.

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What can be guessed easily the less forunate or poorer sections of society are way more likely to be charged high interest rates or exorbitant interest rates by credit card companies is confiremed by a research report. Demos, a nonpartisan public policy research and advocacy group, says in areport, that low-uincome and lower-middle class income cardholders were about five times more likely than the wealthiest cardholders to pay more than 20% interest. It breaks down users into 4 categories, with the last two being late payers and people with revolving balances. If this graphed out the picture would show practically the entire profit of the credit card companies coming from these two. The reason being that the other two categories are those who have cards and don't use them so don't get billed, and those who pay before the due date so they pay no charges except what the credit card companies make from the business from whom the purchase is made. This means says Singletary of the WPost that the better off well to do sections of society are actually having their annual fees subsidized by the poorer sections of society, or the lower middle class. Singletary says to a online discussion person who though his cards without annual fees were free, they were never really free, and few people think of this. As a society its like hitting oneself in the foot, because by impacting students, minorities, the lower middle class and other sections of society- which form amajority of the people in the country- at a time when they are deeply in debt, is to make for another hurdle to economic recovery. Its going to impact consumption, foreclosures and worsen the cycle that creates more unemployment. ...

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Dangers of capital allocation to AI when other needs are great -housing and cost of living concerns. The prospects of boom bust cycle.

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Unemployment in the U.S. will be hard to bring down with the mismatch in skills for new jobs created. The National Skills Coalition, which works to promote job training, says in a report that 46% of the jobs in New York state in 2009 were in the middle skills category, and only 39% of New York workers had the skills for these jobs. Mid-skilled workers are workers with a high school diploma and training, an associates degree or vocational training. The problem is that students from public schools and community colleges who are not prepared with mid-skills and training, or lack a two year degree, are not prepared for these mid-skilled jobs in health care, transportation and other fields. This report says 40% of new jobs created in New York state will be for mid-skilled workers. In the low skilled workers category there is downward pressure on wages because there are more workers than jobs- 21% of new jobs are low-skilled and 23% of New York workers are low-skilled, according to the report. The problem is serious because funding for training programs has been cut over the years, and at the same time government policy- including that of the Obama administration- has focussed on getting people to college. Less attention has gone to training programs and vocational education. This at a time when a college education has become costly and difficult for families....

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Warren Stephens, head of Stephens Inc, in Little Rock, Arkansas, says repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act was a mistake. U.S. banks should have a 5% cap on holdings of total deposits in the U.S., and no "grandfathering" of banks over the 5% limit. Five institutions controlling 50% of the deposits in the U.S. creates too much systemic risk in another financial crisis. Banks should be expected to be one or the other, commercial banks or investment banks, not both. These recommendations are not new. Bank of England Governor, Mervyn King, called for breaking up the largest banks or shrinking the size of the largest banks during the global financial crisis in 2008. This position for banks that are smaller in size is supported by veteran bankers Paul Volcker, Thomas Hoenig and other experts.

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German defense forces Bundeswehr at 182,000 soldiers and 60,000 civilian employees will add 60,000 through voluntary enlistments as more men are willing to consider service in the defense forces. A look at a young man of 27 years enlisting in Erfurt, Germany after working in healthcare administration for 7 years. He says he has benefitted a lot from free education and wants to give back to the country. An internship got him interested and after talking to a friend. Quietly SDP's Boris Pistorius at Defense and CDU's chancellor Merz are changing Germany's Bundeswehr and its capabilities as Germany sees its new role in the European Union.

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China trade pause deadline of Aug 12 and its renewal. US negotiators Bessent and Greer in Stockholm report back to DJT for a final decision on whether to extend the trade truce with China by 3 months. China wants to remove the duty related to fentanyl entering the US from origins of the chemicals in China of 20% imposed by DJT, yet trade negotiators say no significant improvements on cracking down on the chemicals used to make fentanyl are seen. Currently duties are at 50-55% and would go up to 80% without a truce. The UK, Japan and European Union, Indonesia, Vietnam have come up with trade agreements with the US by July 28, 2025.

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A statement from Britain's King Charles on censure of Prince Edward-

These censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him.

Their Majesties wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse.

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Bridgeport, Connecticut, an old American manufacturing town that is getting back its manufacturing prowess. Bridgeport was home to Remington, to divisions of Westinghouse and General Electric, Bryan Electric. During the allied effort in WWII it made half a million Thompson submachine guns. After the deindustrialization of the 1980's and 1990's and the period of stagnation since, the city is now making a resurgence in manufacturing using a talented workforce and education system. A resolute effort to revive American manufacturing can be seen everywhere. Newer companies are different from the past using new technologies, highly trained employees, these businesses are smaller, cleaner and more expensive to operate, say city planners and new business owners.

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The UK NHS is urgently tracking down parents of 35,000 children in London who are not fully vaccinated against polio, says this report in The Times. Health officials have detected the first outbreak since 1984. They are trying to trace it back to a "single household or street." London has lower rates of polio vaccination than the rest of England, dropping to levels that are seen as risky for the health of children. Vaccination rates are low in north and east London says this report in The Times. In London as a whole the vaccination rate for one year olds in 2021 is at 87%,  5 percentage points lower than that of the UK as a whole of 92%.  

Lack of investment in public health and services has weakened the public health system even as hundreds of billions of dollars were misallocated by capital markets gone astray. The pandemic exacerbated a bad situation in public health lowering vaccination rates even further.

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Critical to move forward in making investments for growth in the Indian economy are the government debt to GDP ratio and GST revenue collections. FInance minister Sitharaman tells parliament that the government debt to GDP ratio is 56.2 % and considerably less than many countries of the leading economies in Europe and the US, less than France and the US, Canada which are in triple digits. GST collections are at 1.49 lakh crores for July 2022, the second highest in history. Inflation is at 7% or below that.  Non performing assets of commercial banks are at 5.9%. She said about 4000 banks in China were reportedly on verge of being bankrupt by comparison and China has huge debt problem for local government. Much of the hard work of the government is makingit possible to set the conditions such as these for basic macroeconomic factors to be put in place for the next stage in India's journey to fulfill the aspirations of its people for a modern and technologically advanced economy with opportunity for all. ...

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OPEC and Russian oil producers are planning to increase oil production by 400,000 barrels a day for each month through 2022. Demand is increasing with economic recovery and this will lead to higher oil prices. Oil prices are now $80 a barrel in October 2021. Shortages of natural gas and high prices are leading power generation companies to use oil in place of natural gas. This will increase demand for oil by 500,000 barrels a day. Oil export revenue was cut in half to $119 billion for Saudi Arabia in 2020 and Saudis want to see higher prices to make up for lost revenue. OPEC + that includes Russia decided to end a price war during the Trump administration and this time have designed a strategy that will gradually push up prices. In recent years shale oil producers in the US quickly responded to higher prices of oil and increased production. After the pandemic in March 2020 American shale oil producers in 2021 are not increasing production. This gives OPEC+ better ability to set oil prices at higher levels. ...

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The debate in the U.S. Congress about whether pandemic jobless benefits are deterring people from returning to work. Are extra $600 weekly payments affecting the way people return to work. The surge in the pandemic in many states in July could also be a factor. The extra weekly jobless benefits amount to about $18 billion a week and are set to expire unless Congress renews them.

The enhanced payments of about $15 an hour in the U.S. for a 40 hour week amount to $600, before regular state unemployment benefits are added in. Researchers say 68% of unemployed workers receive more benefits than they did working. Some of this added benefit during the pandemic helps people to stay home for work that involves contact with people such as in travel and food increasing risk of spread, which can be a good investment in prevention. In other work such that involves no contact or which can be done from home, there is good reason for incentives for gradual return to work.

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One in every 12 women or 2 million will be a victim of some form of sexual violence in England and Wales every year a police chiefs  report says. One in 20 adults or 2.3 million will be perpetrators.The alarming scale of violence against women and girls is shown in the national analysis for England and Wales of the National Police Chiefs Council. Violence against women has grown 37% over 5 years. Two million women are affected, says NPCC, from stalking, harrassment, sexual assault and domestic violence. And people involved are getting younger. Police chiefs are demanding that tech companies take down extreme material and warning about the influencers who are "radicalizing" men online. The attitude and culture towards violence in general has deteriorated in the UK and the US, and the violence against women of this magnitude shows that a lot of work will be needed to change this attitude and culture. It truly is a National Emergency in the UK and in the US. ...

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One cocoa pod gives enough cocoa for one chocolate bar. Cocoa farms in Ghana and Ivory Coast are the world's largest producers of cocoa. Production declined in 2024 by about 25% in the two countries from bad weather with rain in the dry season and not enough rain in the west season. To protect farmers both West African countries decided to give farmers a fixed price for their cocoa. With surging prices farmers do not get to benefit from the higher price. Government fertilizer support is lacking.

With buyers in Europe insisting that no trees get cut on forested land for new farming, farmers are restricted to their old plots and have to take out old trees which costs more. As a result of these factors cocoa farms are shifting to other crops including palm oil in Ghana.

Other countries in West Africa including Cameroon and Nigeria are also producing cocoa. Outside of this region Ecuador and Brazil also produce cocoa.