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The US needs good manufacturing jobs for the jobs and income that it brings into communities, and also because of the tax revenues from the companies making products in America that provide the basis for local governments to provide good public services in healthcare, education, and transportation. To say comparitive advantage that helped first Japanese and now Chinese manufacturers is real and how society gains is to deny some basic facts that are self evident from observation that contradict textbook ideas in economics. Comparitive Advantage is a textbook economics concept that says countries are proficient in what they make best and should specialize in that product. But it is a static concept that exists only in textbooks. If Japan in 1960, China in 1980 and India in 2000 were each presented with this idea they would have turned down the idea of making steel and remained makers of lower end products such as footwear and textiles. If Japan in 1980, China in 2000, and India in 2020 were each presented with this idea they would have turned down the idea of making semiconductors and remained makers of lower end products such as steel. A senior vice president of US Steel in the late 1960's even told this writer a graduate student at Northwestern in Chicago- as the US can make steel better than India or China let us keep making it for you. He and much of the business faculty at Northwestern also could not understand in 1970 why Airbus was being setup to compete with Boeing who by the concept of comparitive advantage should have had the whole market to itself for commercial aircraft . By this kind of thinking Airbus would not exist today because it did not have the lowest cost or the manufacturing technologies Boeing had through its vast manufacturing operation. America would be still the only one making aircraft in 2023 if textbook concepts ruled the day. By indirect methods such as hidden preferential arrangements, provision of inputs such as land, capital and labor, tax relief, the costs can be represented in a way that shows it is cheaper to manufacture overseas. The lack of a level playing field is what president Biden is correcting by doing what first Japan, then South Korea, then China and now India are doing since the 1960's. By 1974 in four years after its founding in 1970 Airbus came up with its first model the A-300 using advanced technologies. America will regain its leadership in the cost and manufacturing of many products through Biden policy and the efforts of American companies by 2030, and do this in a transformative way that will benefit the world as a whole.  It is an enormous error to say the US does not need good manufacturing jobs, that local governments do not need the tax revenues from manufacturing plants to build services for communities where manufacturing workers live, and the US does not need the manufacturing experience curve that leads to reduced costs. It is this loss of the manufacturing experience curve that is the most vital aspect for understanding the need for the US government to compete effectively with the governments of Asian countries to keep manufacturing healthy and strong at home. Economics experts ignorant of how important this science and engineering principle is fail to grasp this. Related to this is the idea of a virtuous cycle in manufacturing- whoever braves the hard years of moving up the learning and experience curve gets rewarded because once that country has mastered that skill it gets better an better as the technology advances- making it harder and harder to prevent a new monopoly in manufacturing by the country (Japan, China or Taiwan) that had the highest costs and the least advantage ten or 20 years earlier but just persevered through it all with the government's help to gain cost competitiveness. This part does not make it into the economics textbooks which are mostly theory and much of it outdated by the time they are written. Observation is the best teacher and guide as it is in science, to guide policy and action. Obsessive attachment to theory that ignores observation becomes the enemy of progress. Comparitive advantage is one concept that needs to be retired even from the textbooks. Overseas manufacturing then is a piece of the overall picture that fits into what is good for the US. Macroeconomic principles determine microeconomic outcomes as opposed to microeconomic principles with companies out on their own being forced to compete without a level playing field, or handing out technology for special status in a recipient country as some do putting the US at a macroeconomic disadvantage. This is also healthy for the recipient country overseas, as recrimination with loss of manufacturing jobs in the US inevitably leads to the kind of recrimination that does not serve either country well as in the case of China today, and worse still can lead to conflict, even war. After the egregious situation of loss of manufacturing communities across the US leading to destabilizing the social fabric, it is hard to see such thinking prevail about the US not needing manufacturing as a vital part of its social fabric and industrial strength. China, it can be said, would have developed, and developed well over the past two decades without overconcentration of US and EU manufacturing in China. Without aggravating the problems of climate change and contamination of air, land and water, and destabilizing the social fabric in the US hurting workers and communities across the US, if macroeconomic policy was made to manage this process in the US government without it being left entirely to individual companies to decide. Instead China faces today a difficult situation through events such as destabilizing the social fabric in the US (the Trump tariffs), advanced economies in G-7 resistance to sharing of technologies, the damage to its environment from microeconomic locally determined policy at individual companies, and the global effects of climate change from climate unsustainable levels of growth since 2000.  ...

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The affluent class and its handbags from Europe vs the US Navy not able to build the ships America needs with 50% outshoring of ship manufacturing to China, and the loss of 5 million jobs, removal of America's industrial base though outshoring. A level of self centeredness unparalleled in American history- for mere handbags, mere handbags and toys. The media not knowing any better in 2025, economists steeped in economic theory peddling the same theories that are not grounded in reality.

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Few economists predicted the third quarter 2014 GDP decline of 1.6%. The bright side to this is that much of the decline is due to falling inventories. Experts say excluding this effect growth would be about 0.6% for the 3rd quarter. Growth is expected to pick up as falling inventories are replenished in 2015. It also discredits officials at the Bank of Japan and the Finance Ministry who insisted the consumption tax should go ahead and would not be a drag on the economy, giving the government more room for stronger action in the future. Prime minister Abe is considering holding a snap election to run on a pro-growth platform to push ahead with his plans.

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The 28 year old pilot Andreas Lubitz of Lufthansa Germanwings Flight 9525 was being treated for depression at Dusseldorf University Hospital at the time of the flight. Several torn up doctors notes found in his apartment by investigators, including for the day of the flight by his neuropsychologist, show he did not disclose his condition to his employer. Prosecutors say he had intended to "destroy the aircraft" when he flew the plane into France's southern Alps.

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Rachel Ensign's WSJ report shows huge disparity in incomes and spending that has happened in the US even with the best efforts and intentions of the Biden administration in 2020-2024. US cumulative excess savings by income for the bottom 90% are a mere $291 billion compared to $1.2 trillion for the top 10%, 4 times as large. As a result about half of consumer spending comes from the top 10% in incomes says the WSJ. (Moody's Analytics). It provides clues on why Biden and even less so Harris failed to convince Americans, the middle class, blue collar workers, and others that large social gaps, income disparities and wealth disparities gap were being bridged under Democrats. And makes it harder for Republicans and Democrats alike to address such huge gaps built up over time by outshoring jobs and manufacturing, the 2009 financial crisis from banks speculation, the pandemic and supply shock cost of living crisis. As the $2.6 trillion in pandemic assistance from Biden faded people in the bottom 80% dipped into savings to pay for rising cost of living as supply chain bottlenecks and price gouging sent prices of groceries, housing, apartment rentals, cars up significantly. This has'nt happened to the top 10% or even the top 20% who continue to spend in the same way as before prices went up. Something like this is also happening in Europe and in China, India fueling and anti-incumbency mood, and dissatisfaction with governments. The Net Worth of the top 20% has grown by 45% or $35 trillion since 2019 compared to $14 trillion for the bottom 80%. (Moody's Analytics) ...

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A Gallup poll shows president Trump support is fairly stable in communities in rural America and in evangelical hubs. Support for Trump has declined in exurbs by 12 points and in military communities by 16 points for approval of job performance, for May 2017 when compared to the first 100 days. In these communities Trump has moved from net positive to net negative.

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Other than president Milos Zeman and the UN people still call the Czech Republic, the Czech Republic. The alternative Czechia is not liked by Mr. Babis, the prime minister, and is not the chosen word in the U.S. and Europe. The old name was Czechosolvakia. In 1990 Solvakia became an independent nation, with the other country being the Czech Republic with the capital Prague.

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China's Environment Ministry has not released the results of a soil survey from across China. Independent estimates from Nanjing Agricultural University in a 2007-2008 survey showed about 10% of rice in China contaminated by high levels of cadmium. In May 2013 officials found a large number of samples of rice from markets in Guangzhou contaminated with cadmium. Cadmium is a carcinogenic metal that damages the kidneys and weakens bones when unknowingly taken in excessive levels.

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Infratest Dimap polling institute is commissioned by DW.com to find out what Germans think of the refugee policy of chancellor Merkel one year later. In summer 2015 Merkel said on Aug 31, "We can do it." Costs related to the refugees are about $17 billion, do Germans think services are overstretched for education, healthcare housing and other services. On the other side German society is aging and for every 100 unemployed people there are 200 open positions for skilled personnel. But the refugees who are accepted do not have the skills required and have to acquire the skills or given training and education. On this issue DW.com asked the question whether it will strengthen the German economy. About 51% agree and 45% disagree on this question, and about the same number agree and disagree on the question that Germany will be overstretched providing the services for housing, education, healthcare and other services. The higher educated and young are more favorable to accepting refugees, with those over 50 and basic schooling unfavorable. On the AfD side most people are unfavorable, and in the Greens party most are favorable. On terrorist incidents probability, over 58% think this is more likely, 38% disagree. On the question of whether this will make Germany more diverse 56% agree, 40% disagree. Overall the situation appears to be balanced, with a range of views expressed, and the positive and negative sentiment "evenly balanced", says DW.com.  ...

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About 15% of black men of working age in the population, and 21% of black women, were employed in the U.S. public sector, according to the population survey. The Labor Department reports 500,000 jobs in the public sector were lost since 2007. This reverses an historical trend of resilience in jobs for the public sector during economic downturns. If population increase since 2007 is figured in there are even fewer jobs considering more jobs might have been added, with estimates as high as 1.8 million. This is bad for black people in the U.S. because many work in public sector jobs driving school buses, in the post office, in the police and in other public services, with black people being 30% more likely than whites to hold a public sector job, and twice that of Hispanics. Thic comes at a time when the black community has seen a devastating impact from the foreclosures and other economic damage that followed the 2008 financial crisis. The result is shown in a study of foreclosures for 2005-2009 at Cornell University showing mostly black and Latino neighborhoods were affected by foreclosures at three times the rates for white neighborhoods. According to Pew Research Center the median white family had net assets of $142,000 compared to $11,000 for the median black family. With median black household income at 60% of that of white households the gap keeps increasing especially with high unemployment in black neighborhoods....

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Japan's Foreign Minister tells Martin Fackler of the NYT in an interview that the Abe government will follow previous governments in the postwar period that apologized for colonial policies that caused suffering in other parts of Asia. He repeatedly calls for Japanese to be humble about the past. Previous statements by persons seen to be close to the government, including the head of NHK broadcaster, were interpreted negatively in S. Korea, China and the U.S. as needlessly escalating tensions in the region. China and S. Korea responded with a public relations campaign of their own to present what happened in the prewar period. S. Korean president Park refused to meet Japan's premier Abe. Kishida used NYT and Fackler to send a message to a global audience about Japan taking a path of peace since 1945.

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This NYT editorial describes the inaction of the UK, Canada and the U.S. as Europe faces a huge migrant crisis.

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Feldstein points out that Obama economic plans missed the real target, which was on the home front where it came down to addressing the problems of 15 million homeowners under water- with mortgages exceeding the value of their homes- and lack of solutions to deal with the $1.5 trillion in troubled commercial real estate loans. Administration plans really did not help more than a couple of hundred thousand homeowners to reduce their monthly mortgage payments. Getting banks to start lending again by selling impaired loans to nonbank investors, also failed to work, as banks were reluctant to do so and reduce their accounting capital. Health care legislation simply distracted attention from the real problems. See the links to Feldstein's repeated insistence that the new administration (and even during the late stages of the Bush administration) focus on these problems. Health care legislation that passed simply would not control the increase in health care spending, that the public correctly perceived as the real problem if the other health care issues were to be resolved. Instead Obama's health care legislation offered to increase the deficit to unsustainable levels, with no solutions to more pressing home front problems in sight. Feldstein, is one of the most eminent US economists....

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Mortimer Zuckerman, publisher of U.S. News and World Report, looks behind the unemployment numbers and points to U-6 the real measure of under utilized labor and of workers working part time because of a lack of full time work, and says this is at about 15%. Add the eight million who quit looking and it is 19%, says Zuckerman The unemployment rate of 8.1% does not reflect the eight million workers who have quit looking. The long term unemployed, workers unemployed for more than 27 weeks is at 40.7%, or 5.2 million workers. Fewer Americans work today than in 2000, even though the population has increased by 31 million. Only 96,000 jobs were generated in August 2012. Something is seriously wrong and the right steps have not been taken.

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With Toyota facing amajor crisis the company speeded up the appointment of the new CEO, the grandson of Kiichiro Toyoda, who founded the automaker as it diversified from its textile automated looms in the prewar years. Note the statement by Koji Endo, analyst of Credit Suisse in Tokyo, that he expects Toyota to lose up to three times the 1.7 billion loss of the current fiscal year ending March 31, in the next fiscal year of 2009. This suggests that a lot will be happening at Toyota as major actions to reduce capacity and to improve management, reduce bureaucracy and speedup decisionmaking are taken by the new President. Especially so as Akio Toyoda, the new CEO, is different from the tradiitonal CEO's who have come up through manufacturing and not educated in the U.S. He will not have the same patience and comfort factor with Toyota's bureaucracy as these other CEO's like Watanabe who preceded him. By pushing the transition up the other elders like Shoichiro Toyoda may want to give Akio time to prepare for the tough decisions he will have to make, and to setup his own management team as early as possible....

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Under a new program the ECB will tilt the purchase of bonds for maturing debt towards weaker economies. Leading to purchase of $208 billion of bonds of weaker  economies such as Italy. Italy's bond yields climbed to 4.2% in June 2022. This will help prevent the fragmentation of the bonds in Europe into segments and is part of new thinking at ECB after the pandemic. Italy's bond yields dropped and stocks gained after the announcing of the decision. Under Merkel such decisions simply would not take place with the different thinking under that administration.  Today solidarity is uppermost in EU after the pandemic at EU in Brussels, at the ECB, and at the chancellor's office in Germany. No one even thinks twice about this.  Italian bond yields dropped from about and its stock index gained 3.2%. The stress in eurozone is reflected by the gap between the yields of 10 year German and Italian government bonds. It dropped from 2.4% to 2.13% after the decision. To keep the two yields close and not fragment eurozone yields is what preventing fragmentation means. ...

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Ashton Verdery, a professor of sociology at Penn State University, says his simulations shows a severe impact for the nuclear family in China by 2050. By 2050 living parents and in laws will outnumber  children for middle aged men and women, he says in the WSJ. Verdery says policy planners have not anticipated or prepared for this unexpected even counterintuitive situation in China. This is a result of the one child policy and women's unwillingness today to have more children, prioritizing careers over children, which will not only impact the number of retired people supported by younger people, but also the family itself.  Because of the surfeit of baby boys during the one child policy this research shows that by 2050 18% of China's men in their 60's will have no living descendents, compared to about 9% today. This impact of defamilizing in China, can have an impact on the risk propensities of people, leading to risk aversion and impact the guanxi networks that propelled business during the 2000-2015 period when the family peaked. He calls it a kin crash between now and 2050 compared to the kin explosion that happened after 1980.   ...

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Germany's Foreign Ministry warned in a cabinet note that investment by China's COSCO in Hamburg port terminal "disproportionately expands China's influence on German and European transport infrastructure as well as Germany's dependence on China." Germany handed over a 25% stake in the Hamburg port terminal to China's COSCO shipping with the decision approved by chancellor Scholz. Several government ministries in Germany including the Economy ministry headed by Habeck and the Foreign Ministry have opposed the bid which is seen as having geopolitical aspects as Germany has no stakes in Chinese ports. "On behalf of the Foreign Ministry, I point out the considerable risks that arise when elements of Germany's transport infrastructure are influenced and controlled by China- while China itself does not allow Germany to participate in Chinese ports," said the note from the Foreign Ministry brought forward by Anna Luhrmann, Minister of State for Europe.  China is seen by Germany and NATO as posing security challenges. "In this respect the acquisition of the container terminal does not only have an economic aspect, but also a geopolitical aspect."  ...

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This WSJ report looks at the work of Alexei Miller as head of Gazprom which supplies Russian natural gas through the Nordstream pipeline to Europe. Mr. Miller is shown to have put too much reliance on the European market which is now shrinking with the European decision to cut dependence on Russian gas. compared to alternative markets in China Russia has invested too little in pipelines to other regions in Asia. He has also not invested in LNG which could be shipped to China and other countries leaving Russia too dependent on pipelines that run mostly to Europe such as Nordstream 1 and 2.  Russia was sending 160 billion cubic metres of natural gas to Europe and only 11 billion cubic metres to China in 2021. A major shift requires much new infrastructure. Miller also did not grasp how shale oil and gas would boom in the US. Mr. Miller started as a 39 year old economics PhD in 2001 when Putin made him head of Gazprom. Both had worked together in St Petersburg local government, and Miller was Deputy Energy Minister for 1 year, briefly head of a pipeline system to the Gulf of Finland. ...

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Leah Williamson is the author of the new book You Have the Power with Guardian football writer Suzanne Wrack. It is a motivational story of England's European cup soccer winning team from 2022 for girls ages 10 to 14 years. Its subtitle is Find Your Strength and Believe You Can. Leah says this is the age group that struggles the most in terms of who we want to be as young women. It is also the age when young girls decide to drop out of sport. What has made a difference for Leah is that her mother was a footballer playing for Milton Keynes and her grandmother played badminton competitively. She remembers going to Arsenal for games with her mom and grandmother at an early age. By age 7 she was playing competitively and she was scouted for Arsenal girls. She has played for Arsenal since then. She started on boys team when there were no teams for girls. A confident attitude came naturally to her and once she decided to play soccer competitively it did not matter that professional soccer for women did not exist when she joined Arsenal girls. ...

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A quick look at the graph in this Times Report shows the carbon dioxide CO2 emissions for the US, European Union, China and the Rest of the World in 2020. For the EU it is about 3.0 billion tons of CO2 emissions, for US it is 5 billon tons, for China 10 billion tons and the Rest of the World 16.0 billion tons. What this tells us is that a lot will depend on not just China, but India and other countries such as Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia in the developing world for how much CO2 emissions can be reduced to tackle climate change and other environmental problems.  For that 16 billion tons in the rest of the world reduction will depend on renewable supply and technologies to do it, rapid growth of economies in India and other countries to generate the resources and technology initiatives to get a shift from coal. Meanwhile it is a choice between having electricity for homes in rural areas in India or not. This is where bright spots such as solar technology in India that are giving quantum leaps for renewable solar energy with new technology cutting cost in successive waves of development can play a part.  ...

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The Oxford vaccine developed by British scientists could be ready by September. Astra Zeneca has joined with Oxford so that it can produce 100 million vaccine doses by the end of the year. This is because in a sense the vaccine is not new. It uses an existing tech platform where there is a lot of experience. The use of ring vaccination method shortens the process of testing on humans the vaccine to a few months. The core of the virus ChAdox1 already exists in chimpanzees and has a mild effect on humans. This is an adenovirus. It is combined with another virus to produce the covid vaccine for coronavirus. Researchers at Oxford have used ChAdox1 in the past to test vaccines for Ebola and MERS as well as other virus.  Already tests have been conducted on rhesus macaques. The rhesus macaques given the vaccine at a Montana lab did not get coronavirus.The surface protein of coronavirus is simply added to the ChAdox1 so that it is able to attach to host cells and infect them in the human body, and let antibodies develop from this. The purpose is to let the human body develop defense mechanism against this attaching to a human cell.   ...

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New developments in the lawsuits filed in Washington DC by 38 states attorney generals related to legal theory. A separate lawsuit was filed by the Justice Department in Virginia against Google. With 90% of the advertising search queries worldwide and $160 billion-in-sales advertising business Google is in a position that is not supported by the idea of competition that is inherent to the American system of business and the economy that holds that no one competitor should dominate the market. This happened during the early twentieth century under Rockefeller's Standard Oil and is happening once again with Google and other tech companies that monopolize space that is vital to maintaining an economy based on fairness and competition. Current legal theory practice fails in this respect as it does not clearly recognize that the principle is at stake that no one company should be allowed to control vital public space or resource such as in this case internet or in the case of Rockefeller energy. Monopolies seen in this way fail the people because they make it impossible to exercize the inalienable rights of man and limit his possibilities by excluding alternatives and alternative expressions. ...

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Special Counsel Miller who conducted the long investigation into the president's conduct during the election campaign protests that the 4 page report of Attorney General Barr does not reflect the findings of the investigation. Mueller wrote to Barr in a letter that "The summary letter the Department and released to the public in the afternoon of March 24 did not fully capture the context, nature and substance of this Office's work and conclusions." Because Barr's summary in 4 pages was meant to preclude Congress from arriving at its own conclusions Mr. Mueller's comments are significant. The House of Representatives is questioning the conduct of Mr.Barr. Mr. Mueller says in his letter that "There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations." Mr. Barr calls the letter "snitty." Congress plans to subpoena Mr. Barr as he has turned down appearing before the House of Representatives, leading to a subpoena and a showdown with Congress.     ...

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China's rapid construction in the Doklam plateau of Bhutan is covered in this report in WSJ. This is a small corridor of territory that connects parts of India to its northeast. PM Modi recently visited Bhutan and India has a security treaty with Bhutan which adjoins populated regions of India in the northern Ganges region. History is being repeated with China intervening in the northernmost regions of Indian Himalayas in 1950- 2024 at great distance from China's population centers in mainland China in the way Japan intervened in the far northern regions of China in the 1870-1945 period. Modern road and aircraft connections have made this possible for China- yet today India is building its own road and aircraft capabilities rapidly so that in the long run not much is to be gained for China in the Himalayan region where it has not had a presence since the early Buddhist period of Bodhidharma that brought Buddhism to China from India in the 5th century. It is a reminder that both suffered from colonialism and are struggling to find a path that benefits their peoples, that eventually rejects the path Japan had found to lead nowhere. ...