LyrArc Article Gist
In his State of the Union speech president Trump was off on some points such as how many jobs were created, how good the economy is, and on on safety of cities El Paso and San Diego after border walls and fencing, according to the WSJ. El Paso was the second safest city of twenty similar sized cities in the U.S. before the border wall with Mexico, and continued to be that way after the wall was built over that section. San Diego has seen 91% drop in border apprehensions over a decade after fencing the border but this has not meant a discernible impact on people crossing illegally.  Mr. Trump was right that customs duties increased by $13 billion in the third quarter of 2018 after placing tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese goods. Wages are growing faster for manufacturing and construction workers than service occupations, as Trump claimed. On the growth of the economy the economy GDP grew by 3.5% in 2018 before slowing down by the end of the year. India and China's growth in GDP is much faster. Growth in jobs was at the pace in the first 2 years of the Trump administration in some 2 year periods of the Obama administration, and much faster in manufacturing in the 1990's, says the WSJ.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
China follows Japan in the proportion of its elderly population at a similar juncture in its development. A paper from Japan's Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry pointed out that the proportion of child and elderly populations in China as of 2020 was similar to Japan's in 1990. China reached that inflection point faster with fertility rate falling from 2.74 to 1.28 in a 4 decade period, while Japan's fell from 1.75 to 1.29. That paper also shows India's proportion of child and elderly population in 2020 was similar to China's in 1980 when its economic boom took off. The overconcentration of supply chain in China is now being addressed by business in US and Europe after the pandemic showed its weakness. Prime minister Modi says this overconcentration has hurt even and balanced development worldwide.

LyrArc Article Gist
Epidemic of betel nut addiction that affects China is the subject of this report in The Times. Chinese doctors study in 2017 shows that oral cancer patients related to use of the betel nut for chewing in recreational use could reach 1 million b y 2030. Betel nut is being banned in some cities. Advertising of betel nut online or on television is now banned. Over $10 billion is made by the betel nut producers and it has become a part of the local economy in the province of Hunan says this report. This shows the problems of public health that remain to be tackled in China, as well as India, after achievements in sanitation tackled the basic problems of disease. Tobacco use is a major problem in both countries, and a major danger to public health, with awareness happening only now.

LyrArc Article Gist
How financing for ambitious infrastructure and Atman Nirbhar Bharat (self-reliant economy) development is being financed in India is explained here. The central bank acting as debt manager for the government of India is pushing government securities to trade in lots of 5 crores or more, seven crores being about 1 million dollars. This is now being traded among commercial entities. These are essentially 3 month, 6 month, and 12 month treasury bills, and long term debt instruments for the government that run to maturities of 5 to 40 years. Retail investors are being provided opportunities to participate in a different pathway. Currently institutional investors such as banks, mutual funds, insurance companies are major participants.The government needs 1.2 million crores or $175 billion from the financial markets to fund its ambitious capital expenditures for 2021 financial year. To do this it turns to financing such as government securities. Higher demand for capital leads to higher interest rates. The RBI and the government want to keep interest rates down and one way its to broaden the base of investors for government securities which it is now doing. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Scott Shane of the NYT provides this exceptional account of how the ideology of Wahhabism on which the Saudi monarchy is based has influenced the evolution of Islam, but not in the way other religions have evolved into more moderate and open religions. Christianity evolved from the period of religious conflict, and evolved to the point that the basis of progress was based on education and technology in most of northern and southern Europe. Where the evolution did not take place because of more intolerant behaviours such as in Spain with the Spanish Inquisition and ideas from the medieval period, this development based on education and technology lagged severely behind.  Wahhabism developed as a result of a sect started by a religious cleric Wahhab in a poor desert region around Mecca and Medina, now the Saudi Kingdom, who sought the help of a tribal chief Ibn Saud. They used the religious-political alliance to gain tribal dominance in the region. Wahhabism sought to change Islam by banning worship and religious rites at tombs common in that period. It also as Brookings scholar William McCants cited here says, drew "sharp lines" and intolerance between believers and non-believers- all non-believers including other sects of Islam, Shiites, Christians. The movement spread throughout the region, but was crushed by the Ottoman Empire based in Istanbul, Turkey, by the 1850's, only to be revived in the 1920's following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. A Norwegian expert Heggenhammer cited here says clearly Islam did not benefit from the evolution that other religions had, and Wahhabism has slowed this evolution into and open, tolerant religion because of its "sharp lines" and intolerance of other faiths and ideas with the Wahhabism from a medieval perod. In India the British rule brought enlightenment thinkers (John Stuart Mill for example was a clerk for the British East India company). But no such change happened under Ottoman rule to inspire leaders like Gandhi and Nehru to setup a new constitution that made changes from medieval Hindu beliefs such as caste and religious practices based on superstition.  The development of an oil rich state in Saudi Arabia with the discovery of oil, and the dependence from 1950-2010 of the global economy, has led say experts to the export of the Wahhabist kind of Islam to other countries in Middle East and South Asia. This they say made the evolution to democracy and peaceful coexistence difficult or impossible in the region. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Trade economists from Ivy League universities, are still peddling the old theories on trade from textbooks that make no sense and have got America in this huge mess that it is in where other countries are ripping America off with unfair trade practices. These economists have turned a blind eye, turned their backs to the great damage done to industrial towns and communities across America for two decades with the loss of manufacturing. Take Irwin's point that the US would have to monitor rates on 13000 tariff line items. This is ridiculous because the US simply needs to monitor the key products such as semiconductors, oil and gas, LNG. In just one negotiation with India the US having a trade deficit DJT states of $100 billion with India- terrible trade. By opening up supply of LNG and oil US can fill India's needs for Oil and LNG and cut the deficit to zero. Who came up with this idea. Indian PM Modi and his trade team. Once it was known that the status quo was unacceptable India came up with its own ideas lets import what we get from Russia from the US. Yes we had discounts from Russia but that was when oil prices were high. DJT's effort to get oil prices down by increasing US production will make it possible for India to get this oil at similar prices. India is a much bigger economy now than during Covid 5 years back India can do this. US and India win-win by doing joint aviation production deals and US gains with sale of F-35 stealth fighters. It is just common sense. Sadly, much of this is common sense that is beyond Ivy League Economics departments at American universities.  Reciprocal Tariffs make a lot of sense because this is how fairness is done- for China, for India. In the case of Mexico, Canada, China, on stopping flow of fentanyl- this reciprocal tariff is not a tariff it is as Commerce Secretarty Luttnick pointed out domestic policy of the United States. Which country would tolerate 490,000 deaths from fentanyl over 12 years and not take domesti policy action. It is not that the policy actions are taken it is that these action should have been taken a long time back. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Major decline in oil prices in Oct. 2014 as prices drop to $81 per barrel and are forecast to reach $70. U.S. oil production increased by about 56% or 3.1 million barrels a day since 2004. U.S. demand for gas and fuel declined 8% compared to 2004. Initially instability and wars in the Middle East sustained high oil prices in 2012-2013. Yet with growing output from shale and other sources in N. America and slowing economies of Europe and China, the situation reached a point in 2014 where supply exceeds demand. This shift more than offsets any instability in trouble spots. The situation affects the U.S. consumer favorably with an estimate of $1 billion in savings for American consumers with every one cent drop in price at the gas pump, by one estimate from Deutsche Bank analysts. Typical American families gained an extra $50 a month from the decline June to October 2014, according to analysts at Gasbuddy.com. The declines are a boost for the slowing economies of Europe, Japan, China, S, Korea and India. China's imports for 2015 are estimated at 61% of oil consumption, using official estimates. In the current slowdown the lower prices offer relief. India which imports 75% of its energy benefits signficantly, as this helps lower inflation and reduces cost of fuel subsidies for state run companies. Russia is adversely affected by the declines as it depends on oil and gas exports for 50% of the nation's budget. Estimates by AFK Sistema economists show the Russian economy contracting in 2015 with oil at near $90 per barrel (Brent crude is at about $85, and WTI at $81 in early Oct. 2014). Russia's former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin reflects opinion among Russian executives and politicians, when he told state television that Saudi Arabia may be pushing prices lower to target Russia's oil resource based economy and Mr. Putin, in an effort to broaden the effect of sanctions. (The Saudis have strongly protested the Putin intervention in Syria.) Venezuela has used $120 per barrel and Angola $98 for its budget, leading to a strong hit for the economy. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The Director General of the National Council of Applied Economic Research in India, Suman Bery, says that of all the countries in the G-20, India is least dependent on export led growth. This is why India gains from a reactivation of the American economy. This view was expressed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during President Obama's visit to India. Singh supported the Fed's move to purchase $600 billion in Treasury securities.

LyrArc Article Gist
WSJ's Andrew Restuccia and Michelle Hackman look at another deportation of about 1 million people of Mexican descent in 1954 under the Eisenhower administration. It looks at the human toll. Many of the people were brought in to tackle the shortage of men to do farm work and harvest crops during the war period 1941-1945.   The alternative proposed by Biden and senior Republican senators McConnell and Lankford and supported by most senior Republicans is the tough immigration legislation drafted by Lankford that president Harris has pledged to sign. In 1954 the US economy was a small fraction of what it is today and struggling from the aftermath of the world war and the Korean War. The US economy would suffer shortages of manpower in construction and farm work that would reduce economic growth by about 1%, from the effects of a 1954 type plan and from the distraction for American focus on chips, science, and manufacturing that is needed to compete in a new world of India, China in addition to Japanese EU competition. States such as Kansas in the midwest feel this shortage, and in the Carolinas in the south, Red states and blue face shortages. Kansas is actively seeking new legal immigrants and welcoming them as shown in the WSJ. This is a different country than 1954 and this must be recognized or we will fall behind China, Japan and India. Cultural literacy is world knowledge and was proposed before by the Exxon Foundation and E. D. Hirsch in 1988. This needs to be revived so that children like Harris who know enough about American history, language and culture to be productive American citizens- as they learn in school and through interaction with fellow citizens in the neighborhood and libraries- can become the norm. There is no reason this cannot be done effectively with the resources committed to this from the federal and state governments in tens of billions of dollars, including to the library system, community colleges, community civic education centers, and to literacy and world knowledge sites such as Lyrarc.com, Wikipedia and Britannica.com. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Changes that president Biden is making to make certain that students who took out a loan of $30,000 for college do not end up paying for two decades, and be still owing $60,000. WSJ explains that the original student loan law written decades ago does not take into account the realities of today as young people are forced into long repayment plans and still cannot complete payment. President Biden has stated that no student loan borrower would be expected to pay more than 5% of his or her income for student loan payments each month. This helps student borrowers across the country and makes college education affordable. Most Americans have failed to realize the importance of higher education and its affordability for the US economy, the US ability to compete with China, India and the EU, and the damage done to US education by outdated laws. The general failure to support education and its affordability has come at a great cost to the US economy and its strength in the world, similar to the damage done by the neglect of manufacturing and communities across America that depend on good manufacturing jobs. The failures of laissez faire theory under Reagan and it becoming part of exiting culture leading to lack of government support for education, manufacturing, and infrastructure has weakened America and neglected communities across the country. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
President Biden and leaders in the EU, Japan, India and other countries helped negotiate the global minimum tax. Companies would have to pay a minimum tax of 15% in 140 jurisdictions so that tax base shifting could not happen. Yet the US will not get the benefit of these increased taxes to invest more into R&D, manufacturing, infrastructure and strengthen its economy because Republicans have not supported it in Congress. The OECD countries, major EU countries from the EU, Japan and South Korea will get an additional revenue of $192 billion in 2024 as a result of the Global Minimum Tax. Yet even here the GMT is making a difference as companies see not much difference in the different jurisdictions for tax rates the shift is for companies to setup in the US especially for American companies who had always had their base in the US till the tax shifting began.

LyrArc Article Gist
Greg Ip of the WSJ looks at the result of changes in supply chains away from China, and the new trading relationship with China to 2028. He says the shift to a new global supply chain that diversifies it away from concentration in China is taking place. Would taking the tariffs from 30% to 60% under a new Trump administration be a good idea? Greg Ip thinks it is a bad idea as the change is gradual and is actually taking place. It may have the unintended effect of worsening US China relations essential for global stability when it is coupled with erratic or retaliatory rhetoric. Rhetoric that appears to China that it is being singled out in world trade beyond what are changes that have taken place with Japan in the past in trade. The Biden administration is for good reasons working to restore a balanced yet stable relationship with China. Apple is shifting production of 25% of iPhones to India. Samsung is investing more in Vietnam. The trade deficit with Mexico has reached $151 billion twice as large as in 2017. And $100 billion with Vietnam three times as large as 2017. The US trade deficit with China has dropped from $381 billion to $281 billion in the last 12 months, the Commerce Department reports show. And from $1.1 trillion with the whole world from $1.2 trillion for the last 12 months, 4% of US GDP. Overall the Trump era tariffs of 30% have not reduced the US  trade deficit substantially but has shifted American and European foreign investment to India, Vietnam, Mexico and other countries as well as to the home country. Over time the supply chain would become truly diversified as India makes great strides to become the third largest economy with new infrastructure by 2030. The head emeritus of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, Joerg Wuttke, says the pressure to export will be high for China as its economy shifts more to manufacturing from construction. Most Chinese companies are producing more than internal demand in China, and most companies in solar are losing money, in wind turbines and solar all are losing money, Wuttke says. This means China will double down and increase its investments in Mexico, Vietnam, Morocco and other countries so that it can send its products to the US through third countries that do the final export. One expert even says removing a few screws here and some there, find a different supplier, and shipping to a third party for final export that makes it not 100% Chinese content, the pressure for that is high. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
India plans to convert 500 railway carraiges into places to keep coronavirus patients in Delhi.  Daily new cases now are over 12,000, with total confirmed cases of 320,000, deaths at 9195. Delhi bed capacity in private and government hospitals  for coronavirus is 9698 wit 4248 beds vacant. Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal says he expects a surge and is preparing for this as the economy reopens. Delhi, Tamilnadu, and Maharashtra are the worst hit states. The lockdown of March 25 has been lifted and markets are crowded. Many businesses and workplaces are now open. And local flights have resumed.

LyrArc Article Gist
New rules for foreign direct investment in India will allow foreign multibrand retailers to own upto 51% of joint ventures in India. Rules set earlier allowed foreign retailers like Wal-Mart to only setup wholesale joint ventures. The move by the Indian government lets Wal-Mart, Carrefour, Metro Group and other retailers open supermarkets. The rules were also changed to allow 100% ownership for single brand retailers such as Nike stores. Prior rules limited single brand retailers to 51% ownership. This is a major step because of the growth in the Indian retail market, and the small portion of the overall market that is occupied by large retail chains with well developed supply chain management. Technopak Advisors Pvt. Ltd, a consulting firm in New Delhi, estimates that the Indian retail market has sales of about $470 billion a year, with only about 5% of this or $27 billion in modern organized retail operations. In the five year period 2012-2016 sales are expected to grow to $675 billion, with $85 billion coming from organized retail. Companies with operations in India that are expected to expand operations include Bharti Wal-Mart, Tesco which has a agreement with Tata Group's Star Bazaar stores, Germany's Metro Group AG. according to these numbers, even with competition from the organized large stores, smaller stores will still occupy 88% compared to 95% of the retail space in 2016. And the growth in the overall market means that the smaller mom and pop type stores will still have growth from $443 billion today to $590 billion in 2016. A government backed study by ICRIER shows that smaller stores lose about 23% of sales in the first year, but recover quickly in following years because of growth in the overall market. The introduction of modern supply chain management, modern refrigeration methods, and large investments by leading global retailers is likely to change the way food and other products are stored and marketed, a revolutionary change for India where these methods and investments lag far behind the developed world. For this reason this may give major impetus to modernizing the Indian economy....

LyrArc Article Gist
43% of children under 5 are underweight in India, according to nutrition experts. This compares with 5% for China. China made its biggest strides in combatting malnutrition between 1990 and 2002, say experts by reducing malnutrion for children by two thirds. This suggest that malnutrition must have been much higher than 21% in China in 1990. And during the period between 1949 and 1980 China had focussed under Mao and his successors on the bread bowl, making sure that hunger was no longer a problem. This suggests the Indian middle class that thinks of the poor as there but not so worse off as to require a sense of urgency, or feeling slighted by the comparison with China need to do some thinking. From the perspective of progress the economy can only do well if rural and poorer areas are also part of development and share in the benefits of development. The other aspect of this is that the government can setup a program, and other countries like Brazil are also faced with the similiar problem and are tackling it aggressively. This is already takng place with a Right to Food Act in the Indian Parliament. Drafts of this Act call for a government subsidized minimum of 25 kilograms of food grain per family per month. But atttitudes in India need to go through a big change to take this problem seriously and with the urgency it requires from a developmental point of view, not only a moral point of view. What good is demographic devidend that many Indian leaders in many fields talk about if that demographic dividend is stunted by malnutrition, is the question all have to answer. Even software leader, Infosys's Nilekhani, in his book Imagining India talks about the large changes affecting India in the rural areas, the economic and technological progress, but fails to mention this aspect of malnutrition....

LyrArc Article Gist
See the BBC show geography of the Straits Hormuz of Iran and Saudi/Oman. Would Iran block the Straits of Hormuz, the narrow waters in the Persian Gulf where Oman, Saudi Arabia on one side and Iran on the other meet. At some points the corridor in the sea which is 20 miles wide at narrowest point, is 108 miles long, is only 6 miles wide for oceangoing tankers carrying a fifth of world oil supplies. The reason Iran woul be hesitant to do this are- Iran supplies China with discounted oil through these Straits. Iran central bank says $67 billion of its total oil exports go through the Straits Hormuz, 90% of it to China. China gets a third of its oil supplies from the Saudis/Iran through these Straits. India gets 40% of its oil supplies, Japan 75% and South Korea 60% of crude oil supplies through tankers plying this waterway. It would put China and  all industrialized countries in opposition to Iran. It would also cut Iranian oil exports and leave it's oil based economy unfunded.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The problem facing Africa is whether vaccine supplies will run out before new vaccine supplies come from America, Britain and France. Only less than 1% of African people have been fully vaccinated out of a population of 1.3 billion people. US president Biden said America will provide 500 million doses of Pfizer vaccine to poor nations before the G-7 meeting in Cornwall, UK. Britain added 100 million and France 30 million doses. With new more transmissable variants out there Africa is in considerable danger today. The Delta variant from India has been shown to be about 70% more contagious than the Alpha variant from Kent UK. It is already the dominant variant for new cases in the UK. The new variants are now spreading in Africa. Cities such as Johannesburg, South Africa, and Kampala, Uganda are seeing a surge in cases. Another problem in Africa is that governments are increasingly reluctant to impose strong lockdowns because of the economy. Already it is believed that Africa's middle class has been severely affected during the last 18 months. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The migration of Miexcans to the US, or Keralites to the Gulf states, are other ways in which the impacts of this recession are felt across countries. This is passed on through lower remittances to the home country from its workers overseas and in the people returning to their home country unemployed. Putting aside national borders its seen in the way huge migrations of workers from rural areas moving to the coastal areas of China is being reversed as export industries on the coast are collapsing. In that case there are no remitttances but the effects are just as severe as these people are unemployed. And in parts of rural China where there is a severe drought the rural economies and the farming areas are suffering from poor agricultural production. Kerala, a coastal state in southern India, is a state heavily dependent on the Gulf economies for jobs and remittances. The Keral Manpower Exporters Association says that about 500,000 workers from Kerala will be forced to return from the Gulf in a few months. Kerala contributes about half of the 5 million Indians working in the Gulf economies. The estimated $6 billion that these workers send to Kerala ia about a fourth of the state's economy and twice its government budget. Skilled workers doing jobs as carpenters, plumbers, painters and administrative staff working in the construction boom in the Gulg especially Dubai, are likely to remain unemployed. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The Indian economy is expected to grow by 8.5% this year compared to 6.5% in 2009. But a major problem looms in the high inflation facing India. The poor monsoon in 2009 led to higher prices for foodgrains, lentils, and sugar. And the government's cut in the fuel subsidies will lead to more efficient use of energy, but will lead to one additional percentage point in wholesale price inflation according to the Reserve Bank of India, India's central bank. The whoesale price index in India went up by 10.5% in June from the prior year, and this after a 10.1% increase in May. Bloomberg's tracking of consumer prices in the Asia-Pacific region shows India at the top of 17 countries in inflation, and consumer prices paid by industrial and farm workers in India are shown to be increasing at 14% annually. The government is coming under criticism for not releasing more grains from its stocks to soften the impact of last year's monsoon. The Manmohan Singh government finds inflation at above 10% unacceptable and is looking for further action from the central bank. Reserve Bank of India governor Subbarao has raised rates 3 times since March 2010 to 5.5%, and a further increase is expected at its next meeting on July 27. A better harvest in September, from a better monsoon season, could help lower food prices. If this does not happen, more tightening by the central bank could hurt economic growth, putting the government in a quandary....

LyrArc Article Gist
Dreams of democracy in Hong Kong fade and Martin Lee, a founder of the city's pro-democracy party is becoming marginalized. This report describes Lee's fleeing to Hong Kong as a child after 1949. He became a UK trained barristers and head of the bar association, Queen's Counsel, and only adopted his current role of democracy advocate after 1980 when the handover of the city back to China was discussed. During the British period Lee did not protest and the city was ruled in an authoritarian manner by the British governor. Only a handful of seats were opened for direct election in 1991 for the legislative council, so that the British never really experimented with democratic institutions in Hong Kong. In other British dominions in India and Ceylon elections for state legislatures started in the 1920's and 1930's in response to demands from Gandhi and the Congress party in India. In South Africa and Canada, Australia, these elections were held much earlier. No such effort happened in Hong Kong, and Hong Kong's elite mostly concentrated on business and expanding economy. When handover took place authority was simply transferred from one authoritarian system to another says this report in WSJ. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
About 100 Special Economic Zones operate in India. The government has approved 478 new SEZ's. Investment in these zones is expected to double to $66 billion by 2012, according to India's Commerce Ministry. The government is encouraging the SEZ's to increase manufacturing from 17% of the economy to 22% of the economy.

LyrArc Article Gist
The Economist points out (in this cover issue on India-Pakistan relations) several fundamental facts. The first is that the current state of relations betweeen India and Pakistan hurts Pakistan the most. It makes a much smaller country and smaller economy bear the burden of defense against a large neighbor- defense takes up much needed allocation of funds for infrastructure and development, education and healthcare. It also weakens democratic institutions and their development by an overdependence on the military for governance. Poor India-Pakistan relations have significant adverse effects on the U.S. In fighting the Taliban U.S. forces are fighting a force that Pakistan's military helped create and support from its early beginnings as a way to counter Indian influence. With an Indian-Pakistani peace settlement of issues in Kashmir and other outstanding issues the U.S. would be in a significantly better position to disengage from the region, especially when the entire Middle East is moving in a new direction in 2011. Consider the difficulties in establishing peace in Northern Ireland, and between Turkey and Greece, and the difficulties of establishing peace between India and Pakistan cannot be considered even more difficult. Pakistan and India muddle along- neither side is doing much to take the initiative. For the U.S. disengagement from South Asia can be best achieved by pushing for a settlement between the two countries. Pakistan and India have much to gain from a settlement. Considering the progress made in Ireland, such places as Yugoslavia, and in Turkish-Greek relations, there is a lot more that can be done and should be done to bring India and Pakistan together. In Ireland diplomatic efforts were made by U.S. envoy George Mitchell, and in Yugoslavia U.S. envoy Holbrooke made diplomatic efforts towards the Dayton accords. Greek-Turkish relations have advanced to the point where Erdogan and Papandreou, the Greek and Turkish prime ministers, discuss solutions to the Greek debt crisis. This includes options to reduce Greece's defense expenditures in the light of Turkey's new foreign policies. The lack of such efforts to break the deadlock between India and Pakistan by the U.S,. the U.K. and other countries involved in the NATO mission in Afghanistan, the emphasis on a military solution supported first by Gen. McChrystal, and then by by Gen. Petraeus, all show a lack of understanding of the real issues that need to be tackled- issues relating to a peace settlement between India and Pakistan....

LyrArc Article Gist
Zero covid lockdowns have added to the sentiment seeing China as a less attractive location for foreign investment. American companies are seeing staff resign due the lockdowns and zero covid policy. About a fourth of companies in a US Chamber of Commerce survey see a 20% drop in sales in 2022. A similar situation is being seen for European companies in China. The other area of growth from property sector is not working anymore as there is a 59% drop in demand for new property units. Investors in the property sector fear  another situation like that of property developer Evergrande's collapse.  Similar to Japan by 2000 a lot of the government infrastructure for roads and rail and automobiles has already been built leaving less room for this sector to kick in. Investments are possible in AI, renewables, electric cars, and advanced technologies, with limited potential to tackle loss of jobs in other sectors such as construction and government financed infrastructure spending and in retail stores. Retail sales are hit by inflation and high gas prices. The result is that China's GDP may fall by 1% according to one estimate for this quarter from the previous year. For growth and foreign investment look to India where a surge in government financed infrastructure in construction of roads and rapid transit, fast rail, construction of housing, and rapid increase in use of mobile phones, automobiles, and appliances is taking place. A new logistics system is being built with a Master plan for the whole economy under Gati Shakti creating a whole new place for foreign investment in a country of 1.3 billion. With Indonesia and Bangladesh closely related to India this is a market of 1.8 billion people far surpassing China and built on values of democracy ingrained over 100 years since the experiments under the British of elected state assemblies. This happened under limited Hind Swaraj since 1930's when India was led by Mohandas Gandhi in these early experiments with democracy. Germany, France and the US have a lot in common with India and the ground is being prepared with improvements for extensive German, US foreign investment by the Modi administration.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
See the World Economic Outlook November 2007 which talks about this phenomenon in Chapter 5 on the moderating influences in the global economic cycle, the drop in volatility in the global economy, and the expansion of the economy being across most countries in the global economy. Is this a period or a phase the global economy is going through as most emerging economies and developing countries are improving living standards and developing infrastructure, or will it last for several decades with broad sustained economic growth and foreign trade. Some smaller crises are to be expected for example the stock bubbles in China and India(?) will pop if this bubble phenomena continues in these countries. The pressures for expression of public opinion and environmental degradation in China are further challenges and at some point China's development might slow to a more sustainable longer term rate. Will India then pick up as it urbanizes and develops its manufacturing industry?

LyrArc Article Gist
Zeit Online shows in this article the continued efforts of the Russian government of president Putin to discredit Chancellor Merkel, following efforts to do this for Hillary Clinton in the U.S. presidential election.  During the Ukraine crisis and the settlement accords of 2014 Germany was seen as a partner by Russia, following sanctions, and renewal of these sanctions Russia no longer sees Germany as a partner. This report shows Russian efforts to discredit chancellor Merkel and the use of RT German channel, WikiLeaks reports of Chancellor Merkel and the TTIP agreement, for the same purpose. The refugee crisis following what is happening in Syria with Russian involvement, terrorism, financial crisis aftermath from 2008, are being used  says Zeit Online to support a movement for "order" as the state ideology now put forward from the Russian government. This could be an early indicator for the 2017 German federal elections, says Zeit Online. Merkel has said that she supports continuation of western sanctions on Russia. It is hard to see what Russia has gained in improving its economy and the standard of living of the people from this type of political action. Putin was able to achieve economic goals during 2005-2010 using good Germany- Russian relations as shown in LyrArc. This was the earlier period of Putin's terms in office, with a broad group of advisors, including finance minister Kudrin, who set forward a prudent economic course for Russia including foreign investment. The world and Russia are poorer from the departure from this earlier set of policies which would have enhanced Russia's economic growth. Kudrin was fired in September 2011, and the economic course has gradually drifted away from what is most prudent for the Russian economy and growth, and for the global economy. Nationalism was part of an earlier period before 1950, that led to frequent wars and economic catastrophes. A new course has been set since then, especially by American presidents Truman and Eisenhower, and people in India, China, the developing world, in Europe and in the U.S., would see little to gain from the politics of that earlier period in world relations.  ...