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The U.S. Labor Department reports 204,000 nonfarm jobs were created in October 2013. Upward revisions of prior months lead to a level of about 202,000 jobs created in the three months July to October 2013. The unemployment rate goes up from 7.2% to 7.3% in the household survey, with furloughed government employees counted after the temporary government shutdown. The negative part of the picture is that 720,000 persons dropped out of the labor force, a high and puzzling number, and the labor participation rate drops to a 35 year low of 62.8%. This has been a problem since the 2008 crisis as more discouraged workers drop out of the work force, go to school or stay home and care for children, and increasing numbers retire. Some economists now see the Fed waiting till the unemployment rate drops to 6% before withdrawing from the bond buying program in place of the earlier announced 6.5%.

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Labor problems at its Manesar plant, higher imported parts and royalty costs due to the rising yen, and sluggish sales led to a steep loss of 64% in net profit for third quarter ending Dec. 31, 2011- down to 2.06 billion rupees- for Maruti-Suzuki India Ltd. Demand is slower because of higher gasoline prices and higher rates on loans.

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Some startling statistics on U.S. wages and incomes and the increase of part-time workers, by the publisher of U.S. News and World Report, Mortimer Zuckerman. He cites the Pew Research Center reports that show one third of Americans identifying themeselves as lower class or lower middle class compared to one quarter before 2008. This affects social mobility with the increasing gaps in incomes, education and social behaviour acting to reinforce each other and leading to even lower future mobility. Industries that are showing growth are in low wage occupations. The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows growth in future in industries noted for low wage part time work- health care, social assistance and retail, with some jobs lacking minimum wage and overtime protections. Revealing in this respect is that in the last 2 years fully 43% of net employment growth is in the 1.7 million jobs added in low wage work in food service, retail and employment services industries. The number of Americans working full time declined by 5.9 million since Sept 2007, part time workers increased by 2.6 million. The effects of higher part time workers and job recovery predominantly in lower wage industries is likely to affect consumer spending and slow growth....

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The peaceful transition in Zambia as Michael Sata wins the election. Sata's party won the election with 43% of the votes compared to Hastings Banda's party's 36%. The outgoing president Hastings Banda's party had been in power for two decades. This is a remarkable peaceful transition of power after disputed elections in the Ivory Coast, Zimbabwe and Nigeria. Sata's support came from the urban young, jobless people and the labor unions. He was critical of mining investments by western companies and China for paying low wages, and campaigned for higher tax revenues from the mining industry. This is a remarkable transition and a good example for future elections in Africa. Recent elections in the Ivory Coast led to a transition that had to be enforced with French support.

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The federal German minimum wage passed into law of 8.50 euros or about $11.60, is closer to what it should be in the U.S. than the $10.10 in the Democrat proposal, says this editorial in the NYT. The new minimum wage goes into effect in Germany in 2014. It is meant to counteract the trend of a growing number of workers who are not covered by wage agreements between labor and business in Germany. An increasing number of women are doing low wage jobs in Germany, and the number of workers in part time jobs with lower wages has increased as German labor union exercized restraint on wages in the last decade.

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Daniel Finkelstein of The Times of London says in this essay that DJT's world view is essentially the worldview that the US has held for much of the 20th century. He cautions Starmer and his Foreign Secretary David Lammy- the better to understand where this worldview comes from than to look ridiculous simply praising this worldview in 2025.  On McKinley as president DJT is more well read than others. Two Roosevelts backed the buildup of the US Navy, TR Teddy Roosevelt and his nephew Franklin Roosevelt as Secretary of the Navy. The US Navy emerges for America's role in the Pacific from this time at the turn of the century. Francis Perkins in her book  "The Roosevelt I Knew" describes Roosevelt's advice to Perkins in 1934 about the League of Nations and how Woodrow Wilson's failure to get Congress to understand it on Senators own terms led to the US not becoming part of the League of Nations. The US was not automatically inclined to accept the world role or its role in Europe. Roosevelt tells Frances Perkins  who was closest to him in his presidency- on International Labor Organization membership FDR told Perkins he must get the Senate Foreign Relations Committee members on board. "Remember how Wilson lost the League of Nations, lost the opportunity for the United States to take part in the most important international undertaking ever conceived. He lost it by not getting Congress to participate. They have a sense of responsibility and can't have sincere convictions unless they are given a chance."   ...

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This commentary in the WSJ says it is essential that the U.S. get back manufacturing of all technological goods back to the U.S. or its allies. The dangers of depending on China or other countries not clearly allied with the U.S. is quite clear especially after the pandemic. The U.S. and European supply chains need to be completely remade, restructured, to avoid dependence on China or countries that are not allies. This is what supply chain renewal is about. Yet initiatives alone with hundreds of billions of dollars price tag re not the answer to the problem. What is needed are specific targeted actions such government direct assistance to key sectors to ensure U.S. technological advantages in worldwide competition. Giving a hole range of incentives and direct financial support to industries making everything from electronic and computer components to high tech parts that go to defense and civilian production.   The U.S educational component in this puzzle is university students in all high tech courses which should be kept for U.S. citizens or from key allied nations at American universities. The manufacturing base would mean securing incentives and aid to manufacturing industries, component by component, part by part, to secure American leadership and distinct advantage.  Job losses have to be reversed and industries relocated back to the U.S. And only in cases where it is advantageous to manufacture overseas to relocate in allied countries India, Japan or South Korea. U.S. labor has to be brought into the picture as a key participant in the national interest and given an important role. R& D efforts have to be developed component by component, technological part by part, and technology by technology, so that a systematic plan can be followed to secure American leadership for the rest of this century, is what experts including this one say is required today. ...

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Krugman on taxes, Simpson Bowles and "low rates." He describes the U.S. under Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican president and war hero. A period which he describes in which unions had bargaining power, a third of workers were union members, and in contrast to to the 1920 business executives lived modestly and paid higher taxes. And yet the U.S. registered high rates of growth. There are several aspects to this period in contrast to the present that also need to be kept in mind. The post war booming economy after two decades of slow growth and war. Much of the present infrastructure in the U.S. was built during this period including the interstate highway system started under Eisenhower. The workers of developing countries of China, India and other parts of the world were not a part of the global labor force till the 1990's, with technology and transportation making global manufacturing a reality. The major factor in lowering wages and creating lower levels of unionized workers in the automobile as in other industries is the competition from lower wage labor in China and other Asian countries, and the presence of non unionized plants in the U.S. The choices made by economic decisionmakers of both parties in the last two decades, say experts including Fed chairman Bernanke, created a huge inflow of capital from Asia that led to housing and other bubbles, creating economic crises such as the one in 2008 and aggravating economic inequality. ...

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Apple relies on Chinese suppliers for about 90% of its products. So reliant is Apple on China that it is slow to make changes to adapt to president Biden's policies for a new US Asian Economic Framework that builds new supply chains. By contrast Samsung has largely stayed out of China using supply chain manufacturing in Vietnam and other countries. India and Vietnam are major alternatives and only India can offer the well trained workforce and supplies of land, labour, incentives and facilities that China offers. This makes Apple a laggard in the changes that are happening today to supply chains bringing manufacturing closer to home and making products in countries allied to the US in Asia. This includes South Korea, Japan, India and Vietnam as production hubs for parts and assembly of advanced technology products. Apple is only now beginning the task of building supply chains outside China and returning manufacturing to the US which will bring back US technological leadership by 2030, American policy set by president Biden. ...

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A look at Israel at 70 by the Economist magazine shows a country that has combined early achievements of socialist governments such as free health care system and good education system with the addition of 1 million immigrants from the collapsing Soviet Union, to build a highly trained technically skilled workforce and international companies.  It says the Israeli Arabs are still poor and unable to integrate. With ultra Orthodox Jews they make up 30% of the population, and many of them who do not work. Infrastructure has suffered from lack of investment and public transport is in poor condition. About 4.5 million Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza remain a continuous source of tension with no settlement in sight. The shift of the capital to Jerusalem is recognized by the U.S. Trump administration, a win for Israel, but leaving the divisive politics of Mr. Netanyahu in place. So that with the growing economy, there are social problems and political division which need to be addressed as much as the economy. A problem left for another administration, another leader from possibly a revived Labor party and another day. ...

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In EU elections the German coalition parties of SPD, Greens and FDP barely get the vote percentage of the CDU/CSU of 30%. The SPD 13.9%, Greens 11.9% and FDP 5.2%. This is the lowest showing of the SPD. Much of the problems come from the SPD socialist democratic party that seeks to bring more social democracy by building infrastructure, public services as Biden is doing in the US, yet is prevented from doing this with the presence of the FDP which is against spending and seeks budget discipline as the charter of its party. The Finance minister Lindner is from the FDP. As a result the SPD and Greens are not able to do what they prmised in the last election to invest in infrastructure and public services. A visit to Germany shows this with the Deutsche Bahn, the rail stations with a dilapidated look as if built in the last century, trains late with old technology and less investment in maintenance. Not much construction is seen and public transport looks haggard and old. Germany's constitution makes investment difficult and court decisions limit spending or finding other sources for investment, the FDP acting as a brake on spending. The far right AfD vote was upto to15%. Without investment and offering a new vision of a modern Germany even after managing the energy crisis of which some of the fault lay with the way Merkel allowed over dependence on Russian supplies of oil and gas, even then the CDU is getting more of the vote. Another reason is the CDU under Leyen taking a strong stand on Ukraine with the SPD's history of maintaining better relations with Russia limiting its role in this crisis. As a result Germany under Scholz labors on with no solution to current problems requiring spending and investment. The next parliament election is in 2025. ...

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Macron is a close advisor to president Hollande since 2008. With the resignation of Montebourg as Economy Minister, Hollande offered the position to Emmanuel Macron to help improve conditions for business and increase investment in France. Macron pushed measures for changes through parliament by resorting to constitutional provisions because of opposition from the president;s own Socialist party members. Prime minister Valls was able to win the no-confidence vote that followed. In the 4th quarter of 2014 GDP growth in France was only 0.1%, lagging behind Germany at 0.7%. The economic stagnation has pushed Macron and the president to take more risks in overcoming resistance within the Socialist Party to relax labor restrictions and increase business investment. Macron says he agrees with investors that the 2 year tax of 75% on salaries of more than 1 million euros

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Not Kentucky as the title suggests but Denmark's Mette Frederiksen. Lara Spirit in The Times of London looks at Starmer and Labour in the month of Feb 2025 with the challenge it faces from Reform UK. Mette Frederiksen PM from the Socialist party in Denmark and her policy to tightly restrict immigration and oppose illegal migrants are of great interest to No. 10 Downing Street. This report says No 10 is interested in how Mette Frederiksen has for years pointed out that the only people hurt from socialist parties supporting migrants are the workers and families across Denmark.  There is a disconnect with history. In the US history shows that since the 1850's to 1960 the US vigorously opposed migration from Asia, and migration from Mexico was only supported during the war years 1940-45 because of the demand for labor and quickly  reversed under president Eisenhower's 1954 Operation Wetback. Today's situation of migrant and fentanyl flows following 490,000 deaths from fentanyl over 12 years is totally unprecedented in American history, and would be unimaginable to every president from Washington and Adams to Lincoln, TR, Wilson, FDR and Kennedy. How did this happen? Why are parties including Harris Democrats, Mayorkas Democrats, in contrast to Fetterman and  Ruben Gallegos Democrats who are asking serious questions about migrants finding themselves caught with Merkel and Scholz in Germany in this situation where the wellbeing of people in each country is obscured by lofty ideas that have no connection to the history of each country and to the situation of unease on the ground? ...

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Argentina, South Africa, Mexico, India, UK, European Union elections are taking place by June 2024 and US in November 2024. Yet it is misleading to lump them together. Much discontent is there to see as in the UK with cost of living, governance, time wasted on Brexit, India with lingering effects of the pandemic on rural voters, caste based voting. In India protest vote of lower caste Dalit voters in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, even with government support in forms of universal healthcare, food for poor households during pandemic extended, cooking gas, housing support, clean tap water, direct bank account deposit to accounts of poor and farmers. Yet in the states in the south and east in Orissa and Andhra Pradesh, and generally in the south the BJP vote count increased so that losses in the north were made up leaving the percentage of vote for India for Modi's BJP party at 37 percent in 2024 instead of 38% in 2019, losing the absolute majority 240 seats of 543 yet having campaigned heavily for partners who added seats 294 of 543. In the UK Keir Starmer may see some vote preference for Labor erode yet the Conservative record is in shambles even conservative experts will say, as in India where the opposition parties offer no prospects for the future and little track record for making India the second or third largest economy in the world which the BJP has set and shown to have achieved over 10 years by taking India to No. 5 in the world economies. ...

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The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) says in a new report that the cost of renewable energy production in India in 2020 is the lowest of 8 countries, including China, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK, U.S. It also points out that India has lowered the cost of solar energy faster than any other country since 2017- by 80% for the period 2010-2018. Solar energy for India in 2018 cost 27% lower than in 2017. Major achievements have been made in solar energy and are continuing with bold targets. In 2020 solar makes up 36% of total energy capacity, with production at 136 gigawatts. In India the conditions with high degree of sunlight in most parts of the country, and the technology cost reductions, lower cost of land and labor, help bring down the cost of solar energy every year. The bold targets and action taken are symbolic of the new efforts in India. The early efforts in India are described as overcoming the hurdle of preconceived notions that electricity shortages had to be accepted as a way of life. In Gujarat the first efforts over 15 years ago were taken by rejecting the idea that electricity could not be made widely and freely available. To do this policy had to be set by starting with first a clean slate and then with a clean heart say pioneers in India's early gains. A clean heart because of how desperately people needed electricity. And a clean slate because how desperately people needed to start from scratch with a new structure and new way of doing things set in place. As Vivekananda put it over 100 years ago "This I have seen in life. One who is overcautious about himself falls into dangers at every step. he who is afraid of losing honor and respect gets only disgrace. He who is always afraid of loss always loses." By taking bold action, making small experiments then setting bold targets and setting structures in place to execute manned with resources, India has achieved 4G in all parts of the country, and is doing the same for renewable energy to make electricity widely available in all parts of the country. ...

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This report in The Times shows that from April to October the Tory red wall seats in the north of England have been hit hard by the coronavirus, much harder than the south of England. The infection rates in October are about three or four times in the north of England. The second lockdown came earlier in the north, in Liverpool Greater Manchester and Yorkshire. The result is that instead of levelling up the great disparities in wealth and income that are seen between the south, London and the north of England the gap is widening under the impact of coronavirus. Deindustrialization in the north after their prominent role in Britain's industrial revolution was followed by the same type of decline seen in parts of the American midwestern states. Imports from China and globalization, hit these areas in a sort of second wave, just as America was hit first by the wave of Japanese imports, followed by an even bigger wave of imports from China and complete loss of manufacturing. With it the loss of well paying jobs for workers in manufacturing and the decline of industrial cities. Influx of cheap labor from other parts of the European Union also affected the north. The result is that the popularity of Boris Johnson and the Conservatives with 58% approval rating in April in the north of England is replaced by a rating of about 31% in October 2020. The 40 Tory MP's in the Northern Research Group expressed their serious concern to the prime minister. ...

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Mira Patel provides this report in great detail on how Indians living in the UK have grown from a tiny minority of 30,000 before independence in 1947 with little recognition in the UK to a population of 250,000 by 1961. In the years after 1945 many of the Sikhs and Punjabis in the British Army stayed in the UK. Two more waves of migration followed one with the East African Indians coming to the UK and one with Sikhs going to the UK. Race Relations Act of 1968 and a bill in 1961 changed the nature of immigrants to more professional people and students to maintain racial balance. By 1971 there were 483,000 Indians in the UK. Even today with 1.4 million Indians in the UK this forms only 2.5% of the UK population. Rishi Sunak and Priti Patel have important positions in the 2 year old Boris Johnson government yet too much can be read into this. Both are not deeply popular among the British public. Penny Mordaunt is the favorite at the grassroots of the Conservative Party. When one looks at the immigrant communities of Indians in the UK at one time in the 1880's only one MP Dadabhai Naoroji was in the British parliament. Today there are several ministers but mostly in a collapsing Conservative party administration of Boris Johnson. By comparison most of the Indian community migration in America has developed deeper roots and merged with the consciousness of the American society and public. Sunak and Patel are seen by most of the Labour grassroots as elitist, a kind of Macaulay class that Mira Patel describes. Macaulay a Britisher of the period of the British East India Company described the need in 1800's for a class of Indians "Indian in blood and color, but English in taste, in opinion, in morals, and in intellect." This Indian diaspora is a distinct Indian entity which is why it is a class of Indians that Macaulay coveted says Mira Patel, but one that she says forms leaders in Britain not leaders in India. In some ways the US is different with less of the class society that the Empire and the Tory party represent. And in this way formed under a country that fought this very same Empire the Indian community in the US seems to have integrated into the vision of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln in ways that cannot be imagined in Britain or in Europe. ...

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Working part-time during retirement years is important for health- staying active, using ones mind and brain, social engagement, and getting satisfaction in the workplace. A Study in 2017 by the Rand Corporation finds about 40% of workers over 65 who had previously retired back to the workplace. People are lengthening careers, and returning to work not just for financial reasons. Many of these people are looking for ways to remain active after realizing that staying active was important and if this could be combined with having extra time off in part time jobs for other hobbies and interests- this would better fit today's lifestyle and choices with people living longer and having more productive lives than ever before. A recent Pew Research analysis of data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the proportion of people over age 65 who are employed part time or full time has gone up in 2016 from about 13% to 19% with about half these people working full time. This trend to work following retirement has a word for it- people call it "unretirement." Where work is less taxing as for graduates and people with higher education this is happening more.  From a health perspective this can be important, as people can become more reclusive and more internal looking, less socially engaged as they retire without even realizing it. Some level of social engagement is planned by people retiring, and many retirees do volunteer work, yet this may not be enough. For those people who retired early because of burnout in the workplace, strains with other workers, poor culture in the workplace, the retirement for a few years after 60 can serve as a way to replenish one's resources, recover and resume working again in a place that is better suited for them. The restorative break can then serve as a way to get back to the workplace in a positive way. Work that is meaningful, offering opportunities for contributing one's skills, adds a new dimension to people's lives, and is also a contributor to living healthy lives, at a time when people live longer. Retirement at 65 may not make sense in this new environment, opportunities for part-time work bring the knowledge and skills of experienced people to the workplace and offer a win-win solution for both. More needs to be done to create these opportunities in a planned and organized way in business and government, in all workplaces. ...

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Barley says the review of LIBOR rates by the new UK Financial Conduct Authority could lead to changes with the unintended effect of raising interest rates. This could impede the economic recovery.

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After the loss of a crucial UK byelection by Labour under Keir Starmer (May 2021 Hartlepool) Shabana Mahmood says she brought out her inner-Kashmiri and steadied the party with wins in other byelections over the Tories. Shabana is the daughter of a teenager from Kashmir who came to Britain in the sixties, studied to be an engineer and settled in Birmingham. She is the Shadow Secretary of Justice and as a Oxford trained barrister she wants to put Britain's justice system on a good footing by remaking prisons and making the system work.  Shabana is a special kind of person simply because she has kept her values and religious beliefs and still taken the best of British thought and culture and the scieintific mind even as Britain faces real challenges. One is struck by the sheer broadness of her mind-  “I don’t like anything that smells of fundamentalism in any way, religious or political or ideological, it doesn’t really matter what it is, in the end. “It’s quite authoritarian in nature, and in my own life experience of people that are most intransigent and the most prescriptive about what everyone else can say and think and do tend not to be the best of people themselves.” ...

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David Cameron's standing with the British public is hurt by the phone hacking scandal and his close ties with News International's Coulson and Rebecca Brooks. This has boosted the standing of Labor party leader Ed Miliband. Miliband said in an intervew with the Observer newspaper: "I think that we've got to look at the situation whereby one person can own more than 20% of the newspaper market, the Sky platform and Sky News. I think it's unhealthy because that amount of power in one person's hands has clearly led to abuses of power within his organization." Miliband has called for the breakup of Rupert Murdoch's media holdings, saying News Corporation "has too much power over British public life." He told the Observer he would work to get a cross-party agreement on new rules governing media ownership that would reduce market share of News Corporation.