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The PBOC makes a 0.25% cut in interest rates and a 0.5% reduction in bank reserve requirement ratios in October 2015, designed to lower financing costs for business and put more liquidity into the economy.

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The electric car industry in China is led by the state run electric companies. China Southern Power Grid is one of the companies leading the pioneering efforts.

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Kevin Maurer looks back at 15 years of covering Afghanistan since 2004, and asks was it worth it.  The conflict has cost 145,000 lives for the U.S. period of the war alone. Not counting the war in which the Russians were involved in the decade before the U.S. involvement. In fact the Russian involvement in Afghanistan was costly enough to hasten the collapse of the Soviet Union and bring Gorbachev to power to unwind the war and make the changes that led to the collapse of the Berlin Wall.  2400 U.S. servicemen dead and 20,000 Americans wounded. The cost to the U.S. is $737 billion for this war, according to a report in 2018 from Brown University's Costs of War Project. Just as the Soviet Union showed the damage from this war the U.S. has seen the cost of this war and foreign entanglement in another war that started accidentally with international interventions in the Iran-Iraq region as a cost that was borne with consequences. This includes the neglect of infrastructure and the damage to the middle class prosperity built up in the 1950's and 1960's after the Second World War. The U.S. got into this war with 9/11 attacks on New York City. By 2010 what began as a war fought by a few Special Operations teams turned into a war with troop levels reaching 100,000. Presidents Bush and Obama both failed to end the war by winning it. In 2014 finally combat operations stopped and American troops mainly conducted anti-terrorism operations and trained Afghan forces. In recent years the war has gradually disappeared from the national discussion in the U.S. and is barely talked about. President Trump wants to end the war even if it means talking to the Taliban and negotiations directly with the Taliban are ongoing.  One result of this war is the aversion to costly international entanglements and the highly unpopular nature of the conflicts. There are serious costs of the conflict in terms of neglected domestic priorities including infrastructure, loss of U.S. technological edge in key industries, and the competition from China, an the investments in health, education, services that were not made, the increase in inequalities and the diminishing of the middle class. The global financial crisis of 2008, the result of faulty banking, added an economic dimension through the loss of middle class savings in the U.S., worsening the financial situation of the middle class in the U.S.    ...

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Republican Jeb Bush's address to the 2013 CPAC conference focusses on the decline of social and educational mobility in the U.S. to its lowest point since 1945. In this address he points out that " the central mission of conservatives is to reignite social mobility in this country- restoring the right to rise." His focus on restoring the right to rise is on doing everything to increase opportunities for "quality education," an issue on which he focussed as governor of Florida. He sees technolgy and relative youthful population compared to China and other countries in Europe, as giving America a unique advantage. On this and individual efforts he pins the broad hopes of the middle class revival he sees. He puts the problems of America's middle class and working class as wages declined and the economy suffered from misallocation of resources in stark terms- "Today, the sad reality is that if you're born poor, if your parents did'nt go to college, if you don't know your father, if English isn't spoken at home- then the odds are stacked against you. You are more likely to stay poor today than at any other time since World War II." And he sees Conservatives having a response to this situation, and restoring the idea of America as a land of opportunity for all....

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Areva will take a writedown of 1.46 billion euros on the value of its uranium mining business. It will take an additional writedown of 800 million euros for the nuclear business following the nuclear accident in Japan. Areva expects a 2011 full year operating loss of 1.4-1.6 billion euros. Areva's new CEO, Luc Oursel, says he plans to reduce the company's debt load. About 1.2 billion euros of assets will be put on sale. The French sovereign fund, SFI, says it will buy Areva's 26% stake in mining group Eramet. Areva faces losses on its acquisition for $2 billion of uranium mining company UraMin, which has declined in value by 80% as uranium prices dropped and uranium reserves in African mines turned out to be less than estimated. Areva's new plans show organic growth of 3-6% from 2012 to 2013, increasing to 5-8% in 2015. Areva's shares at 19.20 euros on Dec. 12, 2011, were down 45% since the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster. Britain and the Czech Republic in Europe, China and India in Asia, plan to invest in nuclear energy....

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Fuel Subsidies in China and India that keep the price of fuel for transportation moderate tends to reduce the conservation otherwise possible. And biofuels are not encouraged for fear of raising farm prices for the poor. And conservation and efficiency of fuel use in factories and other places also is not as vigorous as it could be. With growth exceeding 10% China will continue to put pressure on demand for some years to come.

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The NYT report that provides details on what Iran agreed to in the deal reached in Geneva on November 23, 2013 with western nations and the P5+1 that includes Russia and China. It provides a 6 month period in which additional steps to secure that Iran's program is limited to peaceful uses can be achieved. It also slows the Iranian nuclear weapons program by about one month according to this report, and gives additional warning if Iran moves in that direction. Not enough to dismantle Iran's nuclear enrichment program which is what Israel, Saudi Arabia want to see. France has called for tougher steps to limit the nuclear program in prior negotiating sessions. U.S. president Obama has looked for a compromise which would provide the opportunity to do this at a later stage, possibly through a series of smaller agreements. The sticking point is Iran's insistence that it has the right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes like other signatories to the UN Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty. This may be the only agreement that could be reached at this time, leaving tougher negotiations for a later stage when more trust and credibility is achieved, without the risk of jeopardizing a future agreement that goes further and seriously tackles the problem....

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U.S. senior Republican Senators Lindsay Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona, are getting ready to launch a wide ranging probe of Russian interference in the U.S. 2016 presidential election through cyber attacks. The probe is not limited to DNC hacking and the concern is not just that any one candidate was targeted but for the integrity of the American election process. Even though it is not mentioned in this report in the Washington Post by Demirjian, Senators and Congressmen from the Republican Party in charge of key committees of oversight on foreign policy and defense now see it as their responsibility to prevent an enlargement of cyberattacks as Germany and France face elections. Mr. Trump has said in an interview with Time magazine that Russia was not responsible for cyber attacks, that it "could have been China, it could have been some guy in New Jersey." Senator McCain is readying a probe into cyber attacks into U.S. weapons systems, and U.S. military, as the issue widens in its scope and significance for the West and for the U.S. and its allies in Europe and Asia. Senate Select Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (N.C.) will be working closely with McCain, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman, on this particular issue and Senator Mitch McConnell has been apprised of the discussions, according to this report in WP. Senator Graham said- "They'll keep doing more here until they pay a price." Graham will hold a series of investigative hearings in 2017 about Russian meddling and "misadventures throughout the world."  This will include new legislation.  Graham told CNN on Dec. 7, 2016 in strong language- "I am going after Russia in every way you can go after Russia. I think they are one of the most destabilizing influences on the world stage. I think they did interfere with our election, and I want Putin personally to pay the price." During the debates Governor Pence of Indiana, the Vice President elect took a strong position on Russia, and the Vice President's positions on foreign policy and defense are similar to that of the Republican leaders in Congress.  It is hard to remember a time in the post war period when there was such a distinct difference in foreign policy and defense as it relates to Russia between a Republican president and both a Republican Congress and almost all Republican governors. Senator Corker from Tennessee, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is on the short list to be Secretary of State. A related story in the WSJ shows the selection of military leaders for key intelligence, defense and homeland security, and Gen. Petraeus considered for foreign policy, as diverging from historical practice of keeping civilian oversight preeminent in the U.S.. Rep. Peter King, an early supporter of Trump, who is on committees for intelligence and counterterrorism told MSNBC, that he is confident that Trump will not be "taken in by Putin." The U.S. Republican dominated Congress has taken a strong position on Russian interference in Syria and Ukraine. In the House of Representatives Republican Rep. Devin Nunes from California and Rep. Mac Thornberry from Texas are leading efforts on cyber and intelligence as heads of their committees. ...

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The weak dollar and lower unionized labor costs may make exports an attractive goal for US carmakers as the US market is shrinking. After years of shunning export markets US carmakers may finally be waking up to the potential in places like Brazil, China and India. GM is considering export of the Malibu to Brazil, and expects to send 25,000 Buick Enclaves to China because the Buick brand sells very well there. With the new UAW agreemets and lower unionized costs, the US carmakers backs to the wall and open to trying new things and not so America centric, and a cheaper dollar, exports may be one more way in which US carmakers can revive the automobile business in a declinig uS market. It is possible that after this recession the US market may have matured to the point where US sales levels may have peaked like that in Japan and Germany and exports and international markets are the only ways to growth. In this sense the transformation to making the so called Big 3 into global companies has begun in earnest in a true sense, and their company structures and the kind of people who work there will in future reflect this global nature of their business. The UAW is on board in this effort, new wages are at $14 per hour for new hires, and the UAW understands that exports mean additional jobs. In fact the Lordstown, Ohio plant is one location for another GM small car in the future which would be exported, this 42 year old plant once a target for closure could then become an example of renewal in a new kind of business model. Note that the US exported $50.66 billion in vehicles, half of it to Mexico and Canada. It imported $150 billion in vehicles. From now on the shift wold be to export to emerging markets....