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Joe Parkinson of the WSJ gives a in-depth account of the emergence of Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey's politics, with contributions by Emre Peker, Ayla Albayrak, Yeliz Candemir. Erdogan grew up in a poor neighborhood of Istanbul, and became the head of a local youth branch of the Islamist National Salvation Party in 1976 after an adolescent period steeped in mosque culture and Islamic ideas. In 1994 he is elected Mayor of Istanbul amid voter discontent with corruption and problems with infrastructure and public services. He served for four years making improvements. After reciting a poem publicly that said "the mosques are our barracks, domes our helmets, minarets our bayonets and faithful our soldiers," he is jailed for 4 months by a military backed secular government in 1999. During this period Erdogan, described by friends from his youth as having a unique ability to adapt to difficult situations, makes a transformation. He moves to the centre, coming out in favor of stronger ties to the EU, and works hard to attract support from the secular and nationalist voters to add to his conservative religious base. In 2003 he is elected prime minister as head of the Justice and Development Party. This begins a period of ten years in which Turkey sees remarkable period of economic growth during which Turkey's GNP nearly quadruples from a little over $200 billion in 2002 to $794.5 billion in 2012, according to the IMF. It may be partly coincidence and partly good management of the economy under Erdogan. Turkey's previous banking and currency crises before 2003 created a better understanding and discipline for managing the economy. Emerging markets such as Brazil, India, China, Russia, Indonesia, and other parts of Asia and Latin America were able to achieve high rates of growth during this 10 year period. Competitiveness in Brazil and Turkey has not improved significantly in this period according to experts, and large capital inflows into Turkey partly supported the credit boom in Turkey. And just as growth is slowing significantly in all emerging markets, Turkey under Erdogan faces a new test. Especially now that Erdogan is seen as autocratic in his effort to suppress protests to build an Ottoman era army barracks in Taksim Square, Istanbul. The fears of secularists in Turkey are that this is the Erdogan of the period in 1999, after serving as Mayor of Istanbul. Just as Turks turned away from the overreaching actions of the military, the public sentiment may be shifting beyond the overreaching actions of the religious parties in Turkish politics. The protests in Brazil against the Rouseff administration after the popularity of the Lula administration, show that slowing economic growth and missteps by the elected government can alienate younger voters. The parties still retain a majority but face an uncertain future in which lower economic growth and missteps lead to a search for alternatives. At the same time Turkey's efforts for accession to the EU are beng put on hold as Germany opposes the actions to suppress protests of the Justice Party in Turkey. ...

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Inflation in China and rising wages are pushing up costs for American manufacturers. The pressure on China, most recently in Congress, is helping to push up the value of the yuan. This combined trend is making it attractive for some manufacturers to bring factories home to the U.S. A trend in the U.S. towards non-unionized labor and the new trend to a two-tier wage level- with lower wages for entry level workers- and the shedding of legacy health care costs, is creating a more cost competitive labor force in the U.S. This extends from older industries such as furniture and auto components to newer industries and technology. The new factories setup in the U.S. use technologies that require a smaller number of workers, in most cases less than half the number of workers that were employed earlier. This adds another element in cost efficiency, though it means fewer jobs are created with new plants.

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Fears about a property price bubble in China bursting with the central bank not able to control the economy. Increasing fears that China may not be able to control the bubble. Other countries where bubble effects are taking place: Canada where housing prices are accelerating, Brazil with expected GDP growth of 5.8% and "hot money" pouring in, India where inflation has reached 15% and $92 billion of foreign investment in Indian stocks and bonds, Australia with its hot mining sector with trade connections to China, South Korea with growth approaching 5% and high rates of household debt. GDP and property prices increased by 11% in China in the 1st quarter of 2010. Many of these economies have connections with China, including Brazil and Australia with commodities sectors dependent on China.

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The continuing decline in copper prices in Nov. 2015, and the Federal Reserve's decision to hold off on raising rates, are the subject of this comment.

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Copper supplies are expected to be constrained in 2015-2016. Copper demand was up 18% in China in 2014 even with the slowdown in housing. This suggests the future for copper prices may be brighter than it is for other commodities such as crude and iron ore.

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Chile's president Bachelet takes office for the second time in Jan 2014, after serving a term from 2006-2010. Her new administration will boost public spending and spending on education. Corporate tax rates will be increased and personal tax rates lowered. As growth slowed to 4% in 2013 from the 5.8% in prior years, Chile will have to look for new ways to boost growth.

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The huge risks the misallocated stimulus capital from real estate speculation poses for the Chinese economy. China's government rapidly expanded lending after the 2008 global financial crisis. One estimate is that about 10 trillion yuan in new loans were made in 2009, over twice the amount of 2008, expanding the loan portfolio and money supply by one third. A major problem is vacant homes as Chinese put their money in second homes as an investment. Chinese are not investing in the stock market because of the volatility, and with the low yields in bonds and banks money is going into real estate. According to a Morgan Stanley economist, about 25-30% of private commercial and housing space is vacant. This happens just as middle class Chinese are being priced out of the housing market. Prices went up by 12% in the housing market this year according to the China National Bureau of Statistics. Couples wanting to leave their parent's homes find it difficult to do so. It was the topic for a Chinese TV series "Dwelling Narrowness." ...

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Research from Australian National University shows steadily improving conditions for migrant workers in China. Migrant workers were able to spend more time in cities- an average of 8.9 years. The hukou sysem ensures migrants return to rural areas when they have to raise a family. About 252 million migrant workers work in factories and construction jobs in urban areas. Migrants with children leave them with grandparents back home. Improving the conditions of these workers is important to reduce the wage and income disparities in China and to reduce inequality. About a fifth of the migrant population now has pension and health benefits. Creating a balanced economy with domestic consumer spending making a larger share of GDP also requires improving wages and benefits of migrant workers. Incoming prime minister Li Keqiang says in a statement on a government website: China "must take migrant rural workers and gradually change them into urban residents. This requires that we push forward household registration reform." If done seriously this will create a new kind of China as these migrant workers are integrated into urban society after years of being shunned and ignored by China's educated middle class. Professor Meng's research at Australian National University of migrant workers shows the proportion of migrant workers with unemployment insurance increased from 11% in 2008 to 21% in 2012. The research shows similiar figures for health and pensions. Improving their living standards also make it attractive for more young people from rural areas to migrate to cities increasing urbanization....

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This editorial in the New York Times points out that the new president of the ANC party -that runs South Africa and has a monopoly of power in the post Apartheid years, under Mandela, Mbeki and Zuma- faces a uphill task as the ANC remains deeply divided after supporting Mr. Zuma in office till the very end. Apart from the stagnant economy, there are challenges the ANC faces in the lethargy of the post Apartheid years, and the culture of corruption, and patronage management that led to mismanagement of state enterprises.

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Researchers David Autor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Gordon Hanson of the University of California, San Diego, and David Dorn of the Center for Monetary and Fiscal Studies in Madrid, in independent research, studied the impact of trade on 722 clusters of interrelated counties in the U.S. They focussed on the surge in Chinese imports and found a pattern. Counties with higher exposure to Chinese import growth showed higher unemployment and higher expenditures by the government for unemployment benefits, food stamps and disability benefits. Their calculations show the increased government payments amount to one to two thirds of the gains from trade with China. This does not include the losses suffered by people losing jobs who deplete savings as they look for new jobs. Hanson studied the effects of trade and Chinese imports in the 1990's and found the effects were relatively small. This time the effects are large and show counties that lacked local investments in industrial machinery and technologies in which China was still playing catchup such as Caterpillar in Peoria, Illinois, and Boeing in Everett, Washington, were most susceptible to higher jobless rates and in need of government support payments. Autor and Hanson found that from 2000-2007, communities in the 75th percentile- ones with greater exposure to Chinese import growth than 75% of all communities- saw a manufacturing jobless rate of about one-third more than communities in the 25th percentile. The government payments mean higher taxes or larger deficits are needed to support these communities, and long periods of unemployment reduce the incentive to work. Michael Spence, a Nobel prize winning economist from New York University, says the world has never seen such a rapid pace of growth as China experienced between 2000-2011, with rates approaching 12% in some years, making past experience and prevailing theories on trade an insufficient guide to what is happening....

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Anglo American responds to declining commodity prices and the slowdown in China with deep cuts of 53,000 jobs from its 151,000 workforce. Some of the jobs will be layoffs and other job cuts will be through sale of mines. In Australia mining employment is down 13% in the 2d quarter of 2015 over prior year. Anglo American plans to sell over a quarter of assets in the downsizing. BHP has spun off over ten mines into a separate company called South32. American Pittsburgh based company Consol Energy says it will no longer provide guaranteed health insurance to retired workers. Anglo American is one of the hardest hit companies. It had losses of $3 billion for the first half of 2015, and needs $1.5 billion in cost cutting to become profitable again.

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Two Harvard economists, Lawrence Summers and Lant Pritchett, say China is likely to revert to the mean of average long term growth of developed countries after this spurt of growth is over. Growth is likely to slow to 6% by 2016, and revert to the mean of 2% for industrialized countries in the long term. Goldman Sachs banker Jim O'Neill, says the growth at a higher rate could be sustained because of urbanization. Summers does not rule out this outcome as he accepts a range of outcomes, with the most likely outcome being a reversion to the mean. The factors often cited for slowing growth are lower of productivity of capital as corruption and close connections determine where capital is allocated, misallocation of capital, large increases in credit in the economy since 2009 leading to bad debt in the financial system, aging society and demographics with increasing numbers of older people. Other reasons are the choices being made by Chinese leaders for slowing down to address the problems of air pollution and contamination of water supplies, inflation in housing prices, overdependence on exports, need to shift to increasing domestic consumer spending but unable to do this with the lack of spending power of large parts of the population because wealth is excessively concentrated in the upper ranks of society. The need to manage these forces ensuring some measure of stability depends on finding ways to reduce the growing concentration of wealth and power, in itself a challenge for the Communist Party elite. A combination of different factors with some still unknown factors are likely to play a part in this reversion to the mean for China, a situation encountered by every country so far in North America, Europe and Japan. This makes it even more important that each developing society structure its development around the most optimal goals with the least costs attached to the development....