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A ban on TikTok in 270 days is plausible, with credit going to Republican senators in Congress, as they insisted on it being incuded in the Ukraine aid bill package. Not only because of security and democratic process concerns- then one asks why what other real even larger concerns?  A ban on TikTok by restricting its use that does not affect education is already in place in China, yet such a ban is easier implemented in state power centralized government for the benefit of China's young generation and not in the US system of government. Excessive time spent on social media apps in the US including TikTok as the largest are a serious problem in America today -for young people's educational activity such as reading, studies, and for mental health. Taking a large part of the young generation in a direction that is not beneficial for the US, for democratic process to function with young people taking time to be better informed and for the health of the younger generation.  People assume that TikTok audiences will shift to other social media apps such as Facebook, but a large part of the TikTok population may engage in other activities that promote health as the consciousness for food and its preparation increases, for the value of exercise, engagement in sports and viewing sports or music, engagement in Nature and hobbies, and in time spent on travel, all happening as the Nation shifts its attention and consciousness after these troubled decades from financial crisis of 2009 to the pandemic, a period of dismal failure to deliver public services with funding diverted and misallocation in capital markets collapsing or near collapsing infrastructure around us sapping the Nation's spirit and its energies.  A new spirit is emerging in the Nation and a shift in the attention of the younger generation as it feels the fatigue that is now felt for music idols such as Taylor Swift is entirely plausible so that TikTok would have risen and faded away both in the US, India, and even in China as it shifts its attention in a different world. ...

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In all the coverage on the Indian election the impossible having been accomplished that of going beyond the 244 million voters in the US, beyond the 373 million voters in the European Union. The eligible voters in India 2024 are 640 million and all the counting done on one day was accomplished by the Electoral Commission and tackled under leadership of the team by Rajiv Kumar, a civil servant who earlier served as the Finance Secretary of India. The results show that the elections were free and fair as the results speak for themselves that the opposition parties did better than they expected. What was not told in media coverage in the US and EU/UK was that the Opposition and the current government are at odds on one fundamental issue that a continental country suffering from centuries of colonialism can only create a modern nation with the infrastructure enjoyed by the US, EU, China, if it creates a large enough pool of investment in the trillions of dollars, has a master plan of proven execution, with no leakages from this pool of investment. Leakages from the pool of investment only stopped after 2014, and actions of direct deposits to 400 million bank accounts or rural households was essential. For modernization to succeed another condition that had to be fulfilled was to create even through a pandemic a core of about 500 million of 1.4 billion people of the middle and lower classes who would approach the conditions o the US, EU, China consumer base for industry. This the Modi government has done with all its projects and hard work by adding the 250 million people to the consumer base pulled out of poverty. The task ahead is doing what the US, EU, China as continental nations have done to modernize and industrialize 2024-2035 to build the third largest economy ahead of the EU by 2035 and every state and city in India aspires to this transformation, from the south and northeast to the north and the west.   ...

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Bret Stephens of NYT shows a lack of knowledge of European history and remains oblivious of the disastrous consequences of Reagan's policies that he lauds. He cites Reagan as saying to his own audience - "My idea of policy towards the Soviet Union is simple, some would say simplistic. It is "We win, you lose."  The US did not win through Reagan policies, it began three decades of US involvement in wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East, with Iran, that have wasted trillions of dollars and many lives, a period in which it created space for the emergence of China as a world power with newer infrastructure built in a period in which China could quietly rebuild and modernize while the US frittered away its vital resources to the point that funding was missing for vital infrastructure rebuilding and education was not financed by the government as it had done in the early postwar years. The classic European History book by Cambridge historian Brendan Simms, "Europe- The Struggle for Supremacy 1453 to the Present" shows that every time any country became too powerful, the others regardless of religion, old ties or other affiliation joined together to counterbalance and restore the balance- Britain, France, Russia, Austria-Hungary were never allowed to become too dominant. The idea that the Soviet Union collapsed because of Reagan's policies is incorrect- it would have collapsed a decade later without Reagan as by the 1980's the people running the government and the ordinary people had realized the system was not meeting the aspirations of Russians. By buying into this myth Americans were embroiled in useless wars and in so doing probably destroyed more wealth in a short time than any period in world history- the trillions of dollars of oil wealth transferred not to countries such as China or India that had to pull themselves by the bootstraps but to Arab desert regions that were itself not benefitted because they went to fight wars and destruction. ...

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The Indian 2024 election involved huge giveaways and caste based selection that takes India backwards, which explains some of the gains of opposition parties in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, two large states. As the WSJ points out giveaways to buy votes for Rs 1 lakh for every woman in the state of Uttar Pradesh with population of 120 million women was part of the strategy used by a leading opposition party. Caste selection was carefully deployed by another large political party in Uttar Pradesh. Fears and misinformation about the BJP party changing the Indian Constitution to remove protection of lower castes enshrined in the Constitution by Ambedkar, was also a factor that swung votes to the opposition. The effects of the pandemic and the unemployment levels for a largely rural population in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra in north and west of India played a role as the BJP failed to get an outright majority following its majority wins in 2014 and 2019. The Opposition parties and the BJP main difference is that the Opposition parties have accepted the leakages of funds as part of the culture that has prevailed since 1960 which makes rapid development and modernization impossible as the pool of funds for investment in infrastructure is diminished. BJP party under Modi has fought this leakage every step of the way and by executing projects of infrastructure with on time delivery created the prospects of India modernizing and industrializing the way Japan and China have achieved. The other difference is the execution and the Master Plan Gati Shakti developed by BJP and Modi and a 20 year execution model developed in Gujarat state by Modi from 2001 to 2021. This has made India the fifth largest economy in the world with plans to make it the third largest by 2030 and do what Japan and China have achieved in Asia. It is not really about religion or so called Hindutva that is driving the hard work it is about making India a modern industrial nation with the standard of living of US, Europe, Japan and China.   ...

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This report in the Economist points to the improved situation for Mexico after the scare from Trump's plans to build the wall and deport large numbers of immigrants. The peso dropped by 15% between mid November 2016 and January 2017, but has since recovered, and non-oil exports were up 5.5% in February 2017 over prior year with the manufacturing growth in the U.S.  Growth forecasts are now up from about 1% GDP growth previously to 2% for 2017, close to the 2.3% in 2016. Much of the change in mood in Mexico is a result of the failure of the early travel bans being blocked in the courts, the failure to get health care legislation through Congress, and the effort by the trade advisers and economic advisers around Trump to move Trump's positions more to the centre and closer to traditional Republican party positions. Wilbur Ross, the Commerce Secretary, says " a sensible agreement" can be reached with Mexico. Peter Navarro, trade adviser, talks about making "a mutually beneficial regional powerhouse." Robert Lighthizer, a veteran from the Reagan days, is likely to be made the new U.S. Trade representative. Still as the Economist points out the "20% border adjustment tax" continues to be supported by Paul Ryan in Congress to pay for tax cuts. But certainly the mood has lifted in Mexico in the first 100 days. This is true for economic policy in relation to China and Germany, and the close circle of Ross, National Economic Council head Gary Cohn, and Secretary of State Tillerson is moving Trump to the centre in policy statements to get things done. Mexico is faced with internal challenges of reestablishing the rule of law, improving infrastructure, reducing red tape and corruption, addressing problems in the education system, to promote economic growth. These challenges may prove to be as large as the external challenges were once thought to be. ...

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How will deflation in the USA affect jobs in China? Not just Roubini talks about a deep recession. Kenneth Rogoff, an economist who has argued with Stiglitz's view of things during other banking and financial crises in Asia in the nineties and has been an optimist about things compared to Roubini's serious concerns, is now talking about a lost decade. Early on a lot was said of and made of the housing crisis in Sweden, where with strong government intervention and decisive action to capitalize and take stakes in banks, things were back to normal in a few years. One thing that Sweden did not face was a global slowdown and global systemic effects of credit crises worldwide so it now looks like a different situation. Here you have a series of things happening at the same time, housing price collapse, foreclosures, higher unemployment, no savings and high debt for consumers and banks foreshadowing possible collapse in consumer spending, and declines in capital spending, tight or no credit for small and larger business, global slowdown including China and India slowing exports significantly for the developed countries of USA, Europe and Japan. Interest rates near zero in the USA and Japan and trillion dollars already committed in the USA for bailouts and assistance, even before the ful force of the economic downturn has hit and this is the beginning of the downturn. ...

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GST is to India what land sales were for China in its phase of rapid development and accelerated growth. It consolidated capital that could be then invested at the national and state levels on infrastructure, logistics for exports growth, creating a virtuous cycle of capital growth that could finance ever widening scale of development projects from metros, subways, rail, roads, bridges, airports, ports, logistics, tech related improvements. This was done in 2017 through a midnight session of parliament that passed the legislation needed. Years of endless discussion were turned into one session of implementing a single major tax system for India, transparent, digitized with new IT  Infosys playing a key role, and providing the pool of capital that has financed 5 years of development to take India past Britain as the fifth largest economy. Its pace of growth over 11% and accelerating with Maharashtra's GST growing at 24% in 2022-2023 over the prior year suggest that this will play a critical role in giving India a large pool of capital for growth. To be supplemented with foreign investment to make New India as a modernized nation. With an economy that will be exceeded only by the US and should catch up to China over the next 10 years. ...

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Just days after the collapse of Francis Scott Key Bridge on the outer harbor of Baltimore, a key part of Maryland's infrastructure and its industrial and shipping jobs, this report in the WSJ shows candidates will not be discussing how they will fix the many problems from infrastructure, to rebuilding manufacturing, and investing in education, healthcare. On the same day March 30, 2024 the WSJ headline was that many other large bridges of this size all over America could collapse including Chesapeake Bay, Verrazano Narrows and George Washington in NY-NJ, and Golden Gate, San Francisco-Oakland in California. On the same day an interview with Morris Chang of Taiwan Semiconductor showed 92% of advanced semiconductor manufacturing was controlled  by TSMC with much of it located in Taiwan and China, under a business model that means advanced technology manufacturing in the US that would take the place of the lower tech textile and other mills sent to China, would also be shipped out. Manufacturers in the US including Apple HP and others agreed, leaving American workers in the lurch, hitting communities all across America without manufacturing jobs and without hope. That model has been around since the 1990's. It is as if the American people, workers and families in the US were never consulted. That story is told alongside this article in Lyrarc.com ...

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Denmark based Maersk is the link that connects Asian exporters to the US and Europe. It measures its container ships in size by TEU's a TEU being  20 foot container boxes, 20 foot equivalent units being standard. The Dali container ship had 4700 40 foot container boxes that was built for 10,000 TEU's. When Japan was the large exporter getting Toyota's into Long Beach it was 6400 TEU's , with China now sending BYD E vehicles it is now as large as 10,000 TEU's. In the future with India sending its exports under a resilient supply chain to the US it is 20,000 TEU's. What we don't see are these ports such as Long Beach and Hamburg (in which China has ownership stake) which are increasing capacity for taking in exports from Asia. It has reached these volumes only in one direction from Asia, which president Biden is trying to reverse by building factories at home for resilient supply chain and for jobs and a future for American workers. The Dali 4700 containers that hit the bridge at Scott Key in Baltimore also were figuratively hitting America's own manufacturing base, and its workers and communties built around factories, across the Nation. ...

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Biden goes to Brownsville, Texas, on the same day that Trump goes to the Texas border with Governor Abbott. Biden talks to Border Patrol and Trump visits a barbed wire section of the border with Abbott. The two visits show different approaches to the fight to control border crossings of migrants that reached 250,000 in December, an all time high that requires action and has the support of the president. Biden offered a compromise legislation with Republicans in the Senate which passed 70 to 30 with 22 Republican senators supporting Biden to toughen the asylum policies, add Border Patrol resources, and make it harder for fentanyl to enter the country. Biden has worked out and agreement with China and Xi Jinping as part of an overall economic agreement and cooperation to eliminate the source of fentanyl production in China. Republicans led by Trump hoped to use immigration as an issue in the election in Nov. 2024 and refused to even let the House vote on it, as there is likely a majority in the House that would pass it over Mr. Trump's objections. Republicans now look to president Biden to issue executive orders to get the job done to which Congress offers it deference today. Biden has the State of the Union speech coming up next week.   ...

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UNICEF say 2.5 million children are not attending school in Syria and another 1 million are in danger of dropping out. And that one third of school buildings are destroyed. This is what is left after decades of civil war. The intervention of local and foreign powers in the Arab world has led to huge breakdowns in society, and massive destruction in countries facing civil war such as Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya. This is the kind of situation that happened in China's northern and southern provinces in the 1930's, and 1940's. A new pathway for peaceful development outside of ideologies and socialist movements, pan arabist or religious movements need to be found for the region, the Arab world in North Africa to the Middle East. China, Korea, and Vietnam found a way out after civil wars over 1940-1975. India is putting out a map for a course of action with Vikshit Bharat  or Developed India after two centuries of stagnation under the British Empire 1756-1947, and 5 decades of stagnation under the Congress Raj 1947-2000. The spirit of development and desire for modernization, for modern science and technology, good governance and institutions, must come from within.   ...

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In novels and short stories Mo Yan writes about Chinese life in the villages and rural areas using animal narrators and fairy tales His novel "Red Sorghum," tackles the issues of the Japanese occupation, bandits and the difficult conditions in rural China. This novel was made into a movie by Zhang Yimou. In its citation for the award of the Nobel literature prize for 2012, the Swedish Academy says: "Through a mixture of fantasy and reality, historical and social perspectives Mo Yan has created a world reminiscent in its complexity of those in the writings of William Faulkner and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, at the same time finding a departure point in old Chinese literature and in oral tradition."

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Home Depot to keep prices steady by making products outside China- May 2025. Home Depot says it will do this by making products outside of China. DJT administration is working to get American retailers to hold prices steady as the US grapples with overconcentration of production in China. For three decades American administrations from Bush to Obama allowed the overconcentration of production in China to take place and diverted attention to unwinnable foreign wars where American interests were not at stake. US president DJT faces a difficult situation to reverse this overconcentration having to resort to tariffs and other actions to correct these missteps of previous presidents.

 During the transition period Americans need to be protected from rising prices to keep increase in the cost of living under control. Companies such as Home Depot are taking a responsible step considering the importance of the action for America's long term interests.

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Questions about whether the emerging market countries are looking ahead at a period of lower growth in the next decade. If the slowdown in 2013 is structural then these countries have to to make changes in economic policies that will help them return to higher rates of growth. If the slowdown is cyclical then this is temporary and emerging market countries will return to higher growth rates. Countries such as Brazil, Mexico and India need to improve infrastructure and educational systems, and invest in research and development to generate more growth. Turkey and India depend on foreign capital, which puts limits to growth, creating a need to boost domestic savings and investment for long term growth. Lower rate of about 7% compared to the 9-10% of the last decade in China are because the wave of investment in construction and infrastructure building through huge state investments is now slowing, says Peter Aslund of the Peterson Institute of International Economics. It is a positive prospect for China, according to Kalpana Kochhar, a deputy director of IMF, because of the asset bubbles developing in real estate. It is seen positively by China's new government as it tackles problems created by a rush to industrialization of widespread pollution of the environment, and lack of balanced development without attention paid to healthcare, worker wages and social security. Stephen Schwartz of BBVA bank, says urbanizaton will drive further gains, especially in India, which has lagged behind the gains made in China and is likely to follow the rapid urbanization seen in China. New elections in India in 2014 are likely to lead to more growth oriented government policies. A pause in the U.S. Federal Reserve's policy of withdrawing economic stimulus gives emerging markets, especially India, and opportunity to come up with new economic policies to restore growth....

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This editorial in the Economist says China faces risks of a steep fall in the currency in its management of the currency. It suggests temporarily using capital controls to stabilize the currency and later gradually lift the controls. In any case it says the exercize will not be painless because of high debt of companies and in the Chinese economy.

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Nvidia's Head of Engineering, Jonah Alben, is from Schenectady, upstate New York. Here he is credited with exporting the latest US advanced chips to China by reducing their effectiveness. US administrations Biden's and DJT's say this pushes the rules of export controls. It also undermines the US lead in advanced technologies needed for the US to keep the peace in the Pacific and in Europe as new tensions emerge over Taiwan and in Eastern Europe. For years the US egregiously restricted the flow of technologies to democracies such as India and allowed a concentration of semiconductor manufacture in Taiwan, over concentration of manufacturing in China, both of which led to supply chain issues in recent years and pose supply chain issues in the future. Ironically restrictions on technologies sale to India which with 1.4 billon people, and a similar culture in Indonesia forms homogenous culture of 1.7 billion people, is the only place of this size where parliamentary democracy has taken root. With an exercise of legislative assemblies through elections in all Indian states in the 1930's under the British with Mohandas Gandhi's leadership and example. Because of Gandhi and the leaders who preceded him Dadabhai Naoroji and Vivekananda in the 1890's India has older democratic forms than Germany, Japan, Italy, Spain and most of Europe, all of Asia, Latin America and Africa. It also has among the ordinary people a deep respect for Lincon, FDR and his fight to help Gandhi with Sukarno fight the British and Dutch Empires to bring freedom to 1.7 billion people.  ...

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The survival of the failed Kim regime has cost millions of lives for the people of North Korea. Yet the international politics of the countries has focussed on other issues: the South Koreans wanted to avoid the burden of taking on the people of North Korea as West Germans did for the East Germans after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, China wanted to avoid a reunified pro-western neighbor to the south and the potential influx of refugees across the border, Japan and the U.S. were focussed on the nuclear threat from N. Korea. The result is a failed state and an uncertain future for the people of North Korea.

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The dollar has reached the mark of 86 yen by the begining of August 2010. Japanese analysts see the dollar at 90-100 yen as reasonable for Japan's export based companies. One factor causing this is the Chinese government increasing its holding of Japanese government bonds. By May 2010 China had accumulated 1.27 trillion yen according to the Japanese government. This rise of the yen will have a negative effect on Japanese exporting companies.

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James Hagerty of WSJ provides this exceptional account of a company that proves it can be done if only you learn from setbacks, and innovate, even in a declining industry. In rural Arcadia in western Wisconsin, an unlikely person trained for farming in an unlikely location, Ron Wynek has built the largest furniture maker in America, growing at 10% a year! This story tells how it started, the setbacks, the resonse and how it is done. Speed in decision making comes from Ashley Industries being a family owned operation with Ron and his son Todd very attuned to the manufacturing process for keeping costs down, and attuned to the opportunities in providing value to customers in America. As furniture makers in the South withered under the impact of Asian manufacturers, Ashley thrives with 60% of manufacturing done in highly efficient American midwest factories with costs kept down, and an efficient delivery system of its own that helps retailers keep low inventory. The imports come from three factories in Vietnam to Prince Rupert in B.C., Canada and are shipped by rail containers to Wisconsin, with grain and hide shipped back in the same containers. Ron Wynek was destined to be a farmer, but his wife preferred to stay in town, where he decided to go into the furniture business. The business faced Asian imports with half the cost of manufacturing, and Wynek took the advice of his Congressman not to look for government protection but find new ways to compete. He started importing from Taiwan, moved into furniture products such as bedroom furniture that faced less intense competition in the early days. He invested heavily in logistics, technology and manufacturing efficiency, to come up with a model that could withstand and grow in the face of Asian competition. Ashley is now larger than Lazy Boy and Ethan Allen combined, with sales close to $4 billion, and is expanding with a large store opened in Shanghai, China. ...

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A look at gangsterism under the Koumintang government and the gangsterism prevalent at local government levels in China today. And the way in which the central government is trying to accomodate petitioners and complaints of corruption and misuse of power. There is aperception that only if the central government knows about the abuses that these would be corrected. However the central government has not been able to control corrupt local officials working in collusion with gangster elements and the police. As long as economic growth is high the central government can risk ignoring the problem and send petitioners back home.

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Over 60% of GM revenues in North America come from larger vehicles and SUV's. This is the situation as oil prices are rising and change is sweeping across the Middle East. Another problem is overcapacity in the auto industry. The overinvestment is highlighted by the recent decision of Geely to invest $10 billion in Volvo to double production to 800,000 units over 5 years. The car industry can produce 94 million cars the Economist magazine estimates, and demand worldwide is only 64 million. One estimate shows production capacity could reach 40 million in China by 2015!

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Liverpool has lost its World Heritage Site status but this may not be a bad thing, says Christoph Brumann, research leader at the Max Planck Research Institute for Ethnological Research in Halle, Germany. Fewer tourists, he says in this report in DW.com, but now the city can do what it wants to modernize the docks area, and not have to worry about the World Heritage Committee or the British government interfering in its plans. The World Heritage Committee is now subject to diplomatic lobbying of many countries, and the label has lost some of its value as more countries push sites in their country. Liverpool was asked by the World Heritage Committee to stop construction on the waterfront that was helping to bring new life to the city and revitalize the docks area to keep its World Heritage status. In the end the committee that met in China with China as the chair and lobbying by other countries, deteriorating China-UK relations, and and the UK sending only a representative from the Culture Ministry not the Foreign Ministry, played a part in the vote at the World Heritage Committee, says this report. Since 1972 Europe has gained a larger share of the World Heritage Sites. After 2010 meeting in Brazil this has shifted to other countries. There is no clear idea of what a World Heritage site is- cultural, or natural. Cultural is at this point 80% of the sites. This DW report shows some of the contenders in 2021, and only a few of them can be considered to be worthy of visiting. The committee that decides this has removed Dresden for building a new bridge across the Elbe river site, a decision made in 2007, so that it is becoming more controversial. ...

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Experiment conducted at the Gujarat Electricity Board by researchers from MIT and Harvard on correcting the flaws in the audit process for compliance with pollution control regulations by heavily polluting plants. The experiment is conducted in the state of Gujarat in northwestern India. The heavy polluters faced a audit process where fees were paid out of a central fund, were told plants could be audited for a scond time for false reporting on pollutants emittted, and faced additional disincentives of cut off of electricity supplies for noncompliance in correct reporting. This type of improvement is relevant for pollution control in China, India, Indonesia and other developing countries with similiar reporting issues and non compliance with pollution laws. Noncompliance and cozy relationships with auditors and regulators is a major problem for implementing pollution laws in these countries.

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Taiwan adds new spending of $8.7 billion over 5 years to its military spending to fund acquisition of home developed precision missiles, naval ships, and weapons systems for existing warships. The military budget will grow by 4% to $15.1 billion in 2022. China's PLA air force flew 19 warplanes into Taiwan's air defense zone on Sunday, September 14.

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The arrest of the CEO of Samsung marks the end of a period when large business and Samsung had close ties to the South Korean government. Public mood and culture in South Korea is changing. The strong competition from China in telecom and other industries is reducing South Korea's advantage and companies like Samsung are not perceived the same way as before.