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With China's economy slowing, fewer jobs for college graduates in the cities, what is president Xi- who is visiting San Francisco this week- doing to tackle this problem? Even in Guangdong province with cities like Shenzen, it is very, very, very rural says Brian Spegele in this WSJ discussion. He talks about widespreard rural poverty. From his own experience spending time in the countryside in the impressionable years Xi has put this task to revitalize the rural areas to young people. In Guangdong alone about 300,000 youngsters will be given the opportunity to improve their credentials for future government work by going to the rural areas to bring talent that was drained from the 20 years of free market hypergrowth and urbanization. China is about 40% rural in 2023 and these regions have suffered badly, and Xi's efforts to revitalize come at a time after the pandemic when it makes little sense to continue urbanization as the only solution to problems. ...

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The new head of Roche, Severin Schwan, sees a huge opportunity in the current state of pharmaceuticals. He says drugmaking is still "so crude," because half of all known diseases cannot be treated at all, and the drugs for the diseases that are being treated don't work as well as they should and with a lot of side effects that make serious drawbacks in using them. He compares this state of affairs to acar that starts only half of the time and has brakes that don't always work. What gets hime excited is the rapid advances in diagnostics, genomics and biotechnology that can bring a"brand new revolution" in personalized medicine. He is pushing forward in the areas of biotechnology with the $47 billion deal that integrates Genentech into Roche, and in molecular diagnostics with the integration of 454 Life Sciences and Ventana. Doubts were raised during the integration of Genentech into Roche about whether the research climate at Genentech could be preserved and whether research scinetists would leave. But most have stayed. With the resources of a larger company behind Genentech and the patient approach that a firm with a founding family controlling the firm can take under a leadership determined to invest in research, experts like Tim Anderson of Bernstein Research see Roche well positioned to grow by aquarter over the next five years....

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The legenday hitter and catcher of the New York Yankees Yogi Berra (1925-2015) dies in New Jersey at the age of 90. His many popular sayings, including the one " It aint over, till its over," and "When you come to a fork in the road, take it." He was born in St. Louis to a family of immigrants from Northern Italy. In his best year with the Yankees in 1950 he had 124 runs batted in and 116 runs scored. He was MVP in 1951, 1954 and 1955, and was part of the team that was the rival for the Brooklyn Dodgers between 1947 to 1956. As a catcher he played Game 5 of the 1956 World Series, the only no-hitter in World Series history, which was played against Brooklyn Dodgers. He became a loved figure in American life with his wit and sayings, his skills in the game, and his integrity. Between 1963-1974 he served as manager and coach for the Yankees and the New York Mets, and later coached for the Houston Astros in the eighties.

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The crowded sports stadiums for soccer games during early February in the Lombardy region accelerated the spread of coronavirus in Italy by the end of February. The sports stadiums soccer games spread the virus like wildfire in northern Italy. This is why along with nursing homes, sports stadiums pose the greatest threat from coronavirus. The tens of thousands of people from a single game can contaminate as many as 40,000 or 50,000 people as these 10,000 people go on subways, restaurants and other places. This spreads to millions very quickly creating a wildfire effect. Airports and sports stadiums or music venues, theatres have this wildfire spreading effect that is then compounded by the use of public transport and restaurants other close proximity places, spreading it far and wide. These are also not essential activities as work and office, employees working at companies or in manufacturing, which are essential to the economy.  This is why in terms of priority sports and leisure travel can be deferred till a vaccine is developed. Business travel is increasingly being substituted by using videoconferencing and other ways of staying in touch remotely. ...

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Seniors helping seniors is the subject of this report by Clare Ansberry in the WSJ. This is a growing trend. Worker shortages increased in the home care industry during the pandemic. Now older workers such as Diane Richards, 81 years, a registered nurse, are filling some of these positions. Ms. Richards worked as a nurse for 59 years and after her husband's death decided to join Right at Home in Bend, Oregon. Some are retirees like Linda McCallum, 79 years, who are taking positions to supplement Social Security income at $20 per hour. Right at Home depends on her, as it lost half its workers during the pandemic. Over 20 years the broader workforce grew by 13%, yet the workers over 65 years working or seeking work increased by as much as 144% or 6.4 million in the US, according to the Labor Department. WSJ shows pictures of these older workers who are dependable and can relate to mobility issues, care of loved ones, need to take health medications in ways that younger workers cannot. ...

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Spain provides 14 public holidays that are mostly Catholic holidays, and an additional 22 vacation days, which is similiar to the the EU average. Unlike the practice in the U.S. and Britain to have these holidays fall mostly on Fridays and Mondays, in Spain many of these holidays fall in the middle of the week. This disrupts productivity as Spaniards use bridge days or puentes to create long weekends during which many offices and factories are empty, disrupting productivity. Most companies cannot plan for meetings and work because counterparts may be using the bridge days during these holidays, and working with international clients is difficult and hard to explain. Spain's new prime minister is determined to increase Spain's competitiveness, and bring Spain to the level of competitiveness of countries that do well in this measure, including other European and Asian economies. He describes this in his book "En confianza. Mi vida y mi proyecto de cambio para Espana." ("In confidence. My life and project of change for Spain") In his inauguration address he said Spain should correct "the work calendar to make the rights of workers compatible with the competitiveness of our companies." Vacations are a sensitive issue in Spain because tourism generates 10% of GDP and employs 10% of the workers. Alberto Nadal, who addresses labor issues at the main business association in Spain, says a change of mentality is needed in Spain, and doing away with bridges shows Spain is grasping the idea that things should be done differently for the eurozone community of nations. This also shows some of the differences in the Iberian peninsula countries of Spain and Portugal, where the countries are embracing the change and there is less unrest even with high unemployment, as compared to Greece. In Greece the changes are being resisted by politically connected groups, where political parties enjoy little support and there is much unrest, making the project difficult. Mariana Rajoy, Sarkozy and Merkel are from centre right parties in Spain, France and Germany, and have had a close association for years before Rajoy was elected- during EU meetings of centre right parties, as is evident in Rajoy's book. They also share a similiar business and political orientation. ...

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The question remains why the defamation law has remained a part of the Indian Constitutional law and the Indian  Supreme Court has upheld it. Under Britain there must be the sense that this would have put the unified subcontinental government at risk. Under India post independence this could be seen as an effort to keep the unified country India that emerged from the British Indian rule together as one nation. It may not be individual to individual defamation that underlies the spirit of this law. Its spirit may lie in keeping together as one nation a country with many languages and people after centuries of foreign rule by not letting the spirit that keeps it together be undermined in any way or form. Gandhi and the independence movement before Gandhi created the spirit for a new nation from many peoples and languages, this has now taken the form of timely delivery of the services and infrastructure that these peoples are entitled without any dilution of any sort, after all the hard work, sacrifices and aspirational effort of an earlier generation of leaders. ...

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A women's rights advocate, and mayor of Seoul, South Korea, and one who as a lawyer was active in defending women's rights against harassment, is found dead. This happened 2 days after a former secretary who joined his office in 2017 filed a complaint at a police precinct about sexual harassment. Park Won-Soon was mayor of Seoul since 2011 and led the fight against the coronavirus. He had also fought for civil rights with the ruling party leaders in the struggle against the dictatorship in the 1980's.  The city of Seoul was in shock after it became apparent that Park had killed himself. South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun took his life in 2009 after the state prosecutors began investigating corruption allegations against his family. Culture in South Korea and Japan is changing from a long history and tradition of male dominant society as women assert rights to equality under the law and fair treatment at work. This is an unusual twist to the story as Park was actually one of the people initiating and supporting constructive change, and is the reason it has led to mourning in South Korea for the loss of Park Won-Soon.  ...

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Ajit Singh , president of Google for Work, shares insights he has gained over the years with the NYT's Adam Bryant. He says coaching with a positive attitude and offering advice in a positive way as things happen, so that it doesn't sound like mere criticism, is important. This is actually received enthusiastically if done correctly because people believe you are helping them succeed. Communicating with your team and others is also very important, to provide inspiration and meaning for work, and requires careful thought. In his work he concentrates on a few things as its not possible to everything well.

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Kamala Harris is profoundly influenced by the Gandhian ideal of public service coming from the influence of her mother Shyamala and her mother's father P. V. Gopalan, who was a leading civil servant in the transition to independence under Gandhi in India in the late 1940's. P.V. Gopalan was 31 years old during the Quit India Movement launched by Mohandas Gandhi in 1942. In this sense what even Martin Luther King Jr experienced about Gandhiji from a distance came to her directly in ways that may be inscrutable even to Kamala herself.  Robert Draper looks at Kamala Harris at different points of her childhood, university education and work as District Attorney for Alameda County, California, and Attorney General of California. He describes her as a daughter of highly educated yet stoic parents and one with a reverence for law and order, methodical and diligent, a caring and compassionate person to the people in the communities she lived in. As one who would experience disrespect as a woman of color many times she chose not to complain but to do something about it in bringing about a better life for all Americans. Not only did she do this, Kamala Harris also was always striving to do better for the people she served, putting all her energies into that task, always keeping in mind "We the People." ...

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The European Union governments are finding it increasingly difficult to salvage the Iran nuclear deal and lifting of sanctions. European governments rejected Iran's 60 day ultimatum to help circumvent U.S. Trump administration sanctions. The U.S. sanctions have already led to Iran's oil export to drop from 2.5 million barrels a day to 1 million. Lost shipments have cost Iran $10 billion hurting its economy. Initially European nations France and Germany hoped to keep the 2015 Iran nuclear deal by working with Iran, but this has become increasingly difficult with the Trump administration increasing sanctions including limiting access to U.S. markets for nations that do not cooperate with U.S. policy. The U.S. pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal and now it looks like the Europeans are faced with a difficult choice in continuing to work with Iran.

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Krugman on why running a country's economy is a different thing from running a company, and why the lessons learned in running companies don't apply when running a country. The difference and why it matters.

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FR24 points out that it is not that unusual to see prosecution of French former presidents and prime ministers for campaign financing irregularities or putting political party officials on public payrolls. It shows that this happened to president Chirac, president Sarkozy, and prime minister Fillon. In fact former prime minister Fillon was doing well in the elections after the presidency of Socialist president Hollande. The revelation that he had put his wife on public payroll as parliamentary assistant with little work led to Mr. Macron taking his place as the leading candidate. No jail terms were served for these charges under French law. Here it is important to note that French law limits spending on election campaigns to 22 million euros and Sarkozy exceeded that number. In the US and India there are no such strict limits. So are France's leaders that much worse than the American leaders who spend and collect money lavishly? Or in India where the campaign financing has the result of making it hard to build the infrastructure desperately needed by a young aspiring population. Framers of the Indian constitution including Gandhi and Nehru intent on getting the British out never realized that political parties would look to public funds as ways to finance their campaigns, leaving less for the intended purpose of building roads and bridges making the country a poor place to invest in and entrenching underdevelopment and poverty.  In the US tech companies in Silicon Valley or banks in New York and Silicon Valley, pharmaceutical companies and companies in other sectors, are able to gain monopoly positions or favored regulatory setups for their industries by funding election campaigns for Congress. When this results in egregious behaviour such as the 2009 financial crisis or the current banking crisis this behaviour causes severe damage to ordinary Americans much worse than what Mr Chirac or Sarkozy were prosecuted for.  South Korea has a long history of prosecuting former presidents. Three presidents have been prosecuted so far. One president served as much as five years for a jail term. ...

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An email by a Tokyo Elecric Power Company employee working at one of the Fukushima nuclear power plants shows in stark detail the struggles of workers at the plant. She writes: " My parents were washed away by the tsunami and I still don't know where they are. Normally I would rush to their house as soon as I could. But I can't even enter the area because it is under an evacuation order." She works for the plant manager of the Fukushima Daini plant. She says that where her parents lived the whole town was washed away by the tsunami. Describing her work location she says: "The scene is completely like a war zone," and that people are "working without sleep or rest." The email continues- "everyone has lost everything- their home, their job, their school, their friends, their families."

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This interview by Michael Schmidt of the NYT with president Trump shows a more conciliatory mood following the passage of the Republican tax law. Trump says he feels Mueller will treat him fairly but that the investigation will drag along for some time. Trump says this is bad for the country.  On the tax law he says he would have tackled the local and state tax deduction either not touched it or worked out a compromise if Democrats agreed to talk to him about taxes. Democrats he says thought they had McCain's vote when he left for Arizona, yet that did not happen. He says expensing for investing in equipment should unleash growth through new investment in the U.S. On infrastructure he sees a hundred Democrats joining the Republicans in Congress to do a deal. He says Democrats need him for DACA on the Dreamers issue, and he will work with them.  Other topics covered were the election itself which Trump says he fairly won by focussing on the Electoral College and going frequently to small states like Maine, up and down the East Coast knowing he would lose New York. He says there was no collusion with the Russians for his campaign and says it was Democrats who did the collusion. Manafort worked longer for others including Reagan, says Trump, and was with him for only about 4 months. This interview shows a upbeat Trump following the passage of the tax legislation. ...

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U.S. added 245,000 jobs in November. Unemployment rate drops from 6.9% to 6.7% as some Americans give up looking for work. The concern now is not the rate of job creation which is healthy but the drop outs from the workforce.  Concern arises from the long drawn out effects of the 2009 financial crisis and its effects which were seen over a decade. This report in NYT says the share of prime age Americans who were employed returned to the January 2008 level in 2019. And then the pandemic hits putting everything back again. This time if the lesson is learned about the long term damage to working families it is that this be tackled as a priority for the central bank, the U.S. Federal Reserve, an the Treasury, and Council of Economic Advisors, under the leadership of president Biden. Fortunately both Yellen and the new proposed head of the Council are students of labor markets and have stated this is one of the lessons they have learned and will act on. As this report says the opiate crisis, the risks of addiction increased, and there were links to the long period people were without jobs. The longer a person is without a job the more likely he will become permanently unemployed. The hope now is that the vaccination effort could bring people back to work quickly as business and life resumes in 2021, with workers being hired back. The share of prime age Americans working in November is 76.5% compared to 80.5% in February, which means this has to go up by about 4 percentage points. The people who are not in the labor force today but still want a job are 2.2 million. It is this that needs to be the focus of the new administration, central bank, and Congress. ...

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Japanese Dads are taking on a bigger role and changing parenting. BBC Future shows this story about Japanese dads from a new generations that are taking on the joys, difficulties and responsibilities of parenting.  A new kind of superhero in Japanese manga comics is Ikumen, a Japanese term (from ikuji for childcare) for young dads actively spending time with their children compared to an earlier generation of fathers who spent most of their time at work, and rarely took on family responsibilities. During the sixties and seventies as Japan emerged from the wartime recovery and modernized Japanese culture defined men's role to spend most of the time at work, even getting allowance for spending from their wives who controlled the family budget.  In 2010 the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare started the Ikumen project to increase paternal involvement in child caring. This was a major cultural change and was part of the change in culture needed for the Third Arrow of Japan's Abenomics project to get women's participation up to western country levels. Today the women's participation rate in workplaces exceeds that of the U.S. Even in the 1980's men spent on average about 40 minutes with their children mostly during the family meal in the evening and even had to have their wives find their clothes. The common saying was - "jishin, kaminari, kaji, oyaji," earthquake, thunder, fire and father, remote and given respect. Women's reaction was not positive as they postponed marraige for later, then even not marrying at all for the next generation, leading to reduced childbirth rates. The Ikumen project projected fathers in a masculine role of heroes for taking on parenting, like the t-shirt logo "Strength for Society" portraying them as saving society, saving the  country. About 45% now support the idea of "men should work, women should stay at home" compared to 60% in 1992- drop of 15%. The statistics do not quite tell the story because during this period women participation in the workplace has jumped to western country levels as part of Abenomics Third Arrow to revive the economy. The problem that is still being tackled is that of bosses in the workplace who lack awareness and discourage taking paternal leave which has risen from 2% to 7% in five years 2012 to 2017. ...

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Remarks by president Biden in Accokeep, Maryland, at the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 77, April 19, 2023 outlining his vision for American workers and for its economy. "I am pro-union because union workers are the best workers in the world. Not a joke. That's the God's truth. That is the God's truth. You are the best in the world. It's better  for them to hire you, because you get the job done, you get it done on time, and ultimately it costs them less when they hire you." "So I've said many times Wall Street didn't build America. The middle class built America. And unions built the middle class. That's a fact. Unions. One of the reasons I ran for president was to rebuild the backbone, the backbone of this country, the middle class, to grow the economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not from the top down. Because when the middle class does well the poor have a ladder up and the wealthy do very well still. And we middle class can get a shot. We do well as well." "And that's in clear contrast to my friends on the other side of the aisle these days. DIdn't used to be. Did'nt used to be, but it is now. For decades they've said the best way to grow the economy is from the top down- trickle-down economics. Well, growing up, I didn't see a whole hell of a lot trickle down on our three-bedroom house with four kids at our dad's kitchen table. You know what, Trickle-Down did'nt work for us, and it did'nt work for a long time." "And by the way it's not just what's been with MAGA Republicans. For the last three, four decades we have been losing ground. And you know- it's hollowed out the middle class, you know rewarding wealth, not work; rewarding companies moving overseas because they get cheaper labor. Look at all- a lot of you know- and maybe you come from neighborhoods and small towns, like Scranton, Pennsylvania, where I come from, or Claymont, Delaware- where there used to be a lot of pride, because we had businesses, we had factories that were working, operating. In Scranton, and Claymont, there were 4500 steelworkers. There are none today. And not only do you lose jobs, you lose a sense of pride, lose a sense of who are you. You begin to wonder. Does anybody see me? I mean it sincerely." ...

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This is an indepth article on Donald Trump's financial holdings, looking at the debt that Trump has built up in his real estate dealings, by Susanne Craig of the NYT. To get a detailed look of this the NYT inquiry into the holdings engaged RedVision Systems, a national property information firm to search publicly available data. Much of Trump's business is shrouded in mystery. But it is well known that Trump has used debt to build his business in a way that is not considered good practice in business, having led to three bankruptcies. Trump says he "is the king of debt." And "he loves debt." The recovery of real estate values during a rescue effort for the country's financial system also helped Trump tackle debt in a way that was not available to other entrepreneurs who suffered from the oil price collapse- one of them McClendon also used debt aggressively and his business collapsed leading to suicidal car crash. You can love excessive debt only if the government supports you with some sort of financial guarnatee misplaced, or you are lucky to get away with it- just ask McClendon. The irony is that the rescue of the financial system led to the low interest rates that hurt savings of the middle and working class, and the lack of help to Main Street in the home foreclosure crisis also hurt the same people disproportionately. The Obama administration policies in this regard rescued the very same business interests such as the New York real commercial estate symbolized by Trump, that are now appealing to those hurt as president Obama worked to let the financial system recover. The intention was never to support excessively overleveraged banks or overleveraged real estate built on debt, but in reality this is what happened. A nation cannot run its financial affairs in this manner of overleveraging to extract high profits that an investment bank such as Lehman or Goldman Sachs does, or a real estate company such as Trump's does- if regulators let them do this. Normally after the financial crisis of such dimensions that it shook the world economy in 2008-2009 leading to fears of a collapse as happened in the 1930's, the same faces would not still be there. But this is a strange period or a transition period where things are being sorted out, and the same faces Blankfein at Goldman Sachs and Trump in New York commercial real estate are with us.  And though the bashing of Goldman Sachs connection to Clinton is evident in the campaigns of Trump and Sanders, the bashing of Trump real estate and finance companies with its overleveraging and bankruptcies is evident in the campaign of Clinton against one posing as a representative of the working class. John Paulson who benefitted by shorting mortgage securities that caused the financial crisis of 2008 is on Trump's top economic advisory team, including the hedge funds and financial interests on Wall Street that Trump is saying support Clinton. No one, not the NYT or WSJ, can answer this, its just the paradox of today's situation. Hillary Clinton can say she has learned her lesson, with her Methodist upbringing and her own supporters such as Robert Reich and others, and break with the past especially as it in no way contributes to her success as president, not one bit. In fact rebuilding the middle class and infrastructure require entirely different connections and views on life, a different imagination.  Trump has billions of dollars and a real estate business that is so complex that even the NYT and property information firms can only say that in the end it is shrouded in mystery. Companies owned by Trump says the NYT from this inquiry have debt of $650 million. Other Trump business activities through 3 passive partnerships owe an additional $2 billion. It is a lot easier for Hillary Clinton to put the speech fees behind her as they have little to do with what she is as a Methodist and a proponent of improving women's lives, than it is for Donald Trump- for whom his business is everything that he is including his art of the deal- to reject who he is. ...

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This story by Fiona Macdonald of BBC is from the BBC Britain series to be found on the Britain homepage.  It has some remarkable poems that help one deal with the fears of everyday life, how to cross these barriers that one comes across with different feelings of both hope and despair, how to bend with them and come out healing and growing. It shows how poetry can help bring a calmer soother element into our busy and sometimes frantic lives. Poetry that is read for its deeper subtle meaning with pauses and time to reflect on the words, each word gently,and let it gradually sink into our subconscious minds. The results can be amazing if it is read the right way, slowly, and not the way we read journalism, news reports, prose or essays. It is well worth reading the poems given here by Fiona Macdonald, even reading one can be soothing and calming in its effect.

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This WSJ report on developers and home buyers in Tianjin show how the government policy of controlling speculation in housing prices affects ordinary home buyers when prices drop. A homebuyer from Hebei province hoped to find a better life in Tianjin, better education for her children. She used her entire savings and borrowed from relatives to pull together funds to buy an apartment for 1.5 million yuan. She is desperate paying the mortgage of 3700 yuan, works several part time jobs, and is mortified at the drop in price of the apartment, in this report. For decades housing prices were going up, now the government has sent clear messages that housing speculation has to stop and home prices for the first time are moderating to increases of about 4% a year and are falling in some cities including Beijing, Tianjin, and Guangzhou. The governments message is that people should use apartments for living, not for speculative price increase and profit. Local governments have their own reasons to prop up this speculation as they have for decades now depended on land sales to meet economic growth targets, a situation unique to China, which has financed a lot of the local infrastructure including overspending. ...

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Barry Ritholtz lists the causes of the financial crisis, He says New York Mayor Bloomberg's exoneration of the financial industry is simply false- what he calls "the Big Lie"- even though Congress, regulators and the Greenspan Fed acted irresponsibly and created favorable conditions for the actions of the financial industry.

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Climate change study from Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany published in Nature magazine retracted in December 2025. The study is an example of how such research when not done right can misrepresent situations leading to policy errors. Policy error under such misrepresentation can lead to errors such as a policy that excludes adjustments and a dual response to climate change and cost of living crisis attacking both on two fronts necessary today so soon after a disastrous pandemic and people living in scarcity not able to meet heating bills. What happened is that the study made predictions for 2100- which is impossible to do. Studied 1600 regions in the world. Showed decline of economic output by 62% in 2100. Did not mention that excluding Uzbekistan would make the reduction in growth 23%. It shows how overzealous work in one direction or the other can actually hurt the fight to address climate change and also tackle everday concerns like cost of living crisis. Recent reports in WSJ show how the approach of single focus has hurt economic growth in Germany and hobbled its industries. Other reports show how deprived and less deprived areas in the UK (also in the US) sit by side showing how decades of neglect of manufacturing and outshoring of factories have destroyed jobs and destroyed communities across Europe and the US, making them open to scourge such as fentanyl in the Nation's neighborhoods, and creating a climate of despair that feeds into other fears. Such as the fears of the surge of illegal migration promoted by traffickers and the influx of drug trafficking gangs in the Nation's neighborhoods. Such reports are then used by the World Bank and the Congressional Budget Office and central banks of 90 counties in the coalition Network for Greening of the Financial System, leading to distortions in policy actions, destroying the social consensus needed among wide sectors of the population in democracies in the EU and US and worldwide to address climate change and cost of living crises.  Leonie Wenz, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany says-“We broadly agree with the issues raised, and have made corrections to the underlying economic data and to our methodology to address them. These changes are too substantial for a correction of the original article in Nature.”   ...

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The 'Querdenker" ("lateral thinkers") movement in Germany now has branches in 50 towns across the country, and calls for freedom of opinion, expression, and assembly. Some of these protests are against the coronavirus restrictions, particularly because of economic difficulties and cultural attitudes towards restricted life during the first and now second lockdowns. It covers all backgrounds including far right and far left fringes and people of different views on other issues. A Berlin demonstration in late August brought out about 38,000 people and briefly some demonstrators attempted to rush into the Reichstag or parliament building. The police in Germany can only act if the town and municipal authority says it is right to intervene against unruly behaviour in demonstrations. The other factor protecting the Basic Law which protects freedoms in the German Constitution is that the courts in Germany have acted in favor of the demonstrators so that there remains a fair balance between the need for covid restrictions and the need to demonstrate against these restrictions affecting the right to work and economic freedoms. As well as the pushback against these restrictions for cultural and other reasons.  The initial fear of being infected is now being strongly offset by fears of the economic consequences of an extended lockdown particularly for vulnerable groups who cannot work from home such as in construction, manufacturing, transportation, retail and tourism related industries. The next big demonstration is set for Saturday November 14 in the eastern city of Leipzig with about 20,000 demonstrators expected and police getting reinforcements from neighboring states and federal police. ...

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WSJ's Chuin-Wei Yap provides a glimpse of life in Chengdu with the closing of the Panchenggang steel factory. The Chengdu Iron and Steel factory was started in 1958 under Mao's effort at industrialization. The city depended on the huge steel complex for jobs as generation after generation worked at the same factory. The factory was closed in 2015. Mr. Deng is a laid off worker who gets $24,000 in buyout following 26 years at the plant, and 1500 yuan or about $235 month for 2 years of unemployment benefits with required retraining classes. Economic uncertainty is faced by many laid off workers, worrying about children's college education, spouses doing odd jobs, including a pedicab run by Mr. Deng's wife. About 2 million workers in China work in steel factories, with production having reached extremely high level of overcapacity of 800 million tons. With the plant gone, the local hospital Panchenggang District Hospital, is restructured and bought by a private company, 115 doctors and other staff are offered buyouts....