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Geeta Anand and Jaeyeon Woo of the WSJ give this heartwarming story of how South Korea achieved a remarkable transformation in attitudes towards women in society after 1990, and reversed a dangerous imbalance in the ratio of females to males. This was done by the release of extraordinary energy of woman activists after the end of dictatorship in 1990 made this possible, and the efforts of media, courts, government and society. Women won the right to be heirs in the family lineage, and perceptions of women as well as the opportunities open to women changed in this period. Today the Korean government provides $177 a month for the first 5 years for child care at home. The story of one mother and daughter and their experiences, of Ms. Lim and Ms. Ko, both teaching at the university and having daughters only, shows how South Korea has changed by 2016. Moving further South Korea's government now offers incentives to companies to make paternity leave policies generous, with municipal governments adding cooking classes and housekeeping courses for fathers. ...

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The Economist points out the shortcomings in Indonesia's effort to attract foreign investment and increase growth under the Widodo administration.

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The small rate hike of 0.25% by China's central bank, as the first step in a long process of curbing inflating and reducing bank lending. The preference for better quality growth around 8%. Inflation is rising and was up 3.6% in september 2010. The rate hike increases what savers get from their deposits from 2.25% to 2.5%, to help deal with inflation, a small step but it appears that this is part of a long term process.

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At the Pittsburgh G-20 summit it is officially announced that the G-7 will now become permanently the G-20, with nations India, China and Brazil and countries in Latin America becoming part of the discussion group on major world issues.

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Northwestern University's Robert Gordon sees growth in the US economy dropping from 1.93 %- that it achieved in the period 1972-2007- to 1.5% from 2007 to 2027. At that rate of growth GDP per capita would increase by 35% in the next twenty years, compared to the 62% increase in the previous period. He says better educated workers would be needed to increase the growth rate. And he discounts the impact of the internet revolution as it has no magic quality, and he describes the present transformation technologically as a mere shift to smaller devices that is not changing productivity. He does not see another technological revolution like the internet boom. The coming retirement of baby boomers increases the number of retired people that wage earners would have to support, and there is no evidence of education levels increasing for the remaining workers. What this means is that it will be more difficult to fix large problems from carbon emission, energy to infrastructure improvement. Gordon arrived at these numbers by combining research on educational attainment, technological change, and workforce demographics for the USA, and running this data through models. Gordon has examined data going back to 1891 for the USA. This shows that the next twenty years will be the slowest growth in the nation's history, since George Washington assumed the Presidency....

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Olivier Blanchard, chief economist of the IMF says that as government borrowing around the world surges, interest rates will go up. Governments borrow by selling bonds to investors, and to attract investors the government competes with stock and corporate bond markets for investor's money, leading to rising yields for investors. As the confidence has returned to corporate bond markets this is already happening. From the end of 2008. the yield on the benchmark 10 year Treasury note has increased by one and ahalf percentage points, rising to 3.54% from 2%, the sharpest upward movement in 15 years. In Germany the yield on German 10 year bonds has also risen, rising to 3.57% from 2.93%. Similiarly British bond yields have risen to 3.78% from 3.41%. Congressional Budget Office estimates are that net government debt for the USA will rise to 65% of GDP at the end of fiscal 2010, from 41% at the end of fiscal 2008. In 2009 and 2010 the US government will sell $5 trillion in new debt, according to Citigroup. A decade from now the government's outstanding debt could equal 82% of GDP, or about $17 trillion. Every one point rise in interest rates costs the Treasury $50 billion annually over a few years, and Kenneth Rogoff estimates that this could reach $170 billion annually if the average yield on 10 year Treasury note goes up to 4.7%, as the Congressional Budget Office estimates. This will dampen the effects of stimulus spending. It is a big issue says Rogoff. A year ago under old policy and assumptions before the financial crisis the Congressional Budget Office projected outstanding debt at $5.3 trillion in 10 years. Now the estimate is $17 trillion, which is triple the old number and an increase of $11 trillion. A recovering economy would make these numbers less relevant. But with struggling industries like autos and banks needing more help from the government, and with consumers having to reduce a mountain of debt, a weak economy for a long time and small growth for a decade would make this a story that won't go away. Rogoff says its like what happened to the subprime borrowers, people assuming that the funding is always going to be there. In 2009 and 2010 Citigroup says, the Euro zone countries will sell nearly 1.6 trillion euros or $2.6 trillion in new debt, and Britain will offer 490 billion pounds or $799 billion in new debt. Over the next decade this would slow Europe's recovery and prolong the downturn. Britain faces a bigger problem in the near term as Britain's governmetn debt equals 55% of GDP, and Standard and Poors estimates it could approach 100% by 2013. South America and Eastern Europe will also face the situation of rising rates. Asian countries like China with lower levels of debt are in a better situation, IMF's Blanchard says....

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Th Bombay Stock Exchange closes after the Sensex surged by 17% in one day, after the decisive election victory of the Congress party, winning all but a dozen or so seats needed to have a majority at 272 seats in the new Parliament.

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The Economist cautions that because of a combination of household debt and toxic assets at banks, America's crisis may be even worse than Japan's, with low or nonexistent growth, and huge deficits to prop up demand as consumers raise their savings rate.

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Unilever's acquisition of Russian skin-care company Kalina for $850 million in October 2011.

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The large infrastructure investments in the high speed rail network - estimated at $300 billon- have increased the debt of the railway ministry to about 5% of national GDP in the 1st quarter of 2011.The high speed rail lines are not likely to be economically viable, with revenues not enough to pay for operation and investment costs. With the higher fares it would take 9% of monthly disposable per capita income of urbanites or 555 yuan ($86) to pay for the cheapest ticket on the 300 mile Beijing-Shanghai high speed rail line. This makes high speed rail less affordable for middle and lower income people in China. The acceleration of the program in 2008 with stimulus funds and the moving up of deadlines for completion have led to corruption, stress on suppliers, and overinvestment. The program suffered from lack of good financial management and supervision in the rush to complete the program. Lack of equitable access and affordability to income groups from a majority of Chinese people have left the impression that it was for higher income groups. Higher tolls on highways and now the higher prices on highspeed rail have left the impression among ordinary Chinese that all income groups are not being served by the large infrastructure investments....

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Peugeot-Citroen Europe's largest car maker after VW is seeingdeclining profitability as sales increases it expected in 2002 did not happen and its running plants well below capacity. Now the company is planning to increase sales by going into developing country markets- Russia, China, India, so on and will design and build small cars for these markets. It sell about 1.7 million cars outside Europe about half its sales of 3.37 million vehicles. Its hoping to add another 400,000 in vehicle sales by 2010. Its also planning to shorten the life of its models to 3 years i 2010 from 4 1/2 in 2006, and introduce 29 new models in the next 3 years to 2010, hoping to generate 300,000 additional car sales by 2010. About 53 ne models or variants of existing model are to be launched in the next 3 years worldwide to 2010. This plus cost reductions in purchasing, logistics, fixed and development costs, capacity utilization improvements, and headcount are planned to improve operating margins to 5.5% from 2.7% in first half 2007. In the emissions area Peugeot-Citroen wants to be a world leader in environmentally friendly vehicles. It will reduce CO2 emissions by having stop-start systems on all cars, and launch vehicles with hybrid diesel engines. ...

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Prices can top $100 a barrel, some reasons why this is possible including depleted old field and lower production relative to demand. Important article by King and Chazan because of the experts from Aramco, IEA, and Schlumberger being all pretty much aligned in their view and reasoning that not much is happening in the way of oil exploration and production is happening to meet the extra demand from India, China and deveoping countries. Aramco expert cites older depleted oil fields with a 15 year production plateau, Saddad Al- Husseini estimates that price will go up by $12 for every million barrels a day in additional demand. Nobuo Tanaka the new executive director IEA thinks supply will not keep up with demand because many oilresource rich countries are not bringing in outside investors, and also because he is not sure there will be enough investment, skilled workers and technology to to get the oil out in a timely manner. Note there have been constraints in engineering and manpower shortages. And Andrew Gould CEO of Schlumberger says that 70% of the oil fields are over 30 years old, amd just in the last four years from 2003 the demand has increased by the production thats generated from North Sea and Mexico....

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VW opens a new plant in Russia to manufacture 150,000 cars in 2009. Russian sales of foreign brands went up by 65% in 2008. The sales there are 2.4 million vehicles. With the number of cars at 180 per 1000 people, compared to 552 in Germany, most cars on the road already 10 years old, and with a population 1.7 times the size of Germany's, the potential for sales in Russia are significant. VW plans to produce the Octavia and Passat models , later adding Polo and Skoda Fabia models. VW hopes to increase sales in Russia from 3.2% to 10% by 2010, to catchup wth Toyota which also opened a new factory near St Petersburg. In 2008 Toyota sold more than twice the number of cars sold by VW. See VW's progress in other areas in the link to Skoda. The Octavia which it will bring to the Russian market is a success story from VW's Skoda operations in Czech Republic.This is a lower cost vehicle compared with VW's other models. VW is one of the fastest growing brands in Europe, ahead of Toyota, and it does very well in Poland and in Eastern Europe. It is the leading brand in China, ahead of GM. ...

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The prices of soyabeans have fallen by half since July and corn prices dropped from $7.54 a bushel in July in central Iowa to $3.81 a bushel Oct 21. But fertilizer and seed costs could go up 40% for next spring's plantings. This year net US farm incomes will hit $95.7 billion up 10% from $86 billion in 2007 and nearly double the $58 billion of 2006, according to the Agriculture Department. In the boom years farmland prices shot up where prices jumped by double digits percentages for 4 years, now Purdue University economist predicts declining prices moderately for next 5 years. The farmers are being squeezed on both sides. Declining farmland prices reduces borrowing power. With the commodities boom prices of everything from fertilizer to harvesting combines went up. Prices of fertilizer are not coming down even as the price of oil has come down. So farmers are reducing the amount of plantings they will make this coming year which should lead to reduced farm production and lower agricultural exports. In the boom years swelling middle class in places like China increased demand for US agricultural products. But with the global crisis and reduced demand from other countries prices are coming down. ...

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This WSJ editorial says the recent agreement at the Caterpillar Joliet plant in llinois is not about leverage but about increasing U.S. manufacturing competitiveness. As U.S. competitivness improves and the economy grows wages will increase. It does little service to management, labor and the U.S. economy for above market wage rates to lead to loss of manufacturing competitiveness as happened in the U.S. automobile industry, resulting in closing of plants.

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S7 is one of the largest private airlines in Russia and its purchases of Dreamliners and other Boeing planes show that it is planning for a large expansion in the Russian airlines passenger market as Russia continues its rapid growth, alongside China and India.