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The Times looks at the needs of small business and workers in the West Leeds constituency of Rachel Reeves, Britain's finance minister, before the first Labour party budget in decades.

Issues of higher employer contributions for small business, and higher tax from no change in tax brackets, are cited by the owner of 2 gym locations.

Child care is important for working mothers. A business consultant says the local transport system needs investment. Cheaper funding and VAT reduction for a coffeeshop is he started is important for a web designer. A children's shoe shop owner says a tram system for Leeds like the one in Manchester is needed as the decision for a super bus in Leeds made 25 years back clearly has not worked. A rail or Metrorail to Leeds Bradford airport is needed. He also cites cutting importing red tape.

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Does it help to be an organization man, do organizations provide protection against the buffeting storms of life, against this economic crisis and everything it may hold in store? The publisher of the Rocky Mountain News is out of ajob an a free agent. suddenly the postwar security of a job with a large company is gone. You could be in sales with a pharmaceutical company, in the auto industry, in a newspaper, working for a local government, a bank thats disappearing, in a small business, or in some other business, and your job could disappear in a contracting economy.

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Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, is critical of the British government's cuts in annual rent subsidies by 8%, or $3.2 billon, by 2014-15. London Councils, the umbrella group for London's 33 local authorites, says that 82,000 households in London will become homeless as a result of these cuts. Johnson told the BBC that the cuts will push renters to the suburbs- as has happened in Paris- and he will not tolerate a Kosovo-style cleansing of London. A labor party lawmaker in Leeds says that 15,000 families in Leeds will be affected by rising rents.

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Garlic, ginger, turmeric and similar products are vital for healthy living and healthy food. So it is surprising that so little has been done before the Trump tariffs on Chinese food dumped in the U.S. This BBC report by Pamela Parker says 1994 was when the U.S. confirmed dumping by China of garlic yet the tariff that was placed was of an ineffective type that could be circumvented. As a result the U.S. producers such as Vessey in California that produced garlic for 100 years and 5 generations decided to not produce it beside cauliflower and cabbage. Of the surviving producers one producer today in California produces 100 million pounds of this product that has value way beyond the actual dollars as vital for healthy food supplies in the U.S. In fact after reports of contaminated water supplies in China imports of ginger and other such food products have been shifted away from China.  It is well known that the industrial revolution in China came too quickly and at a large cost to the environment after 1990 including contamination of the water, rivers. For this reason it is stunning that the people setting trade policy in Washington could have ignored the vital need of U.S. meeting food needs for healthy living out of its own soil and trusted farming community. To not have done so and let producers of garlic or ginger or other such vital food products to sustain health to go out of business is nothing less than a part of the growing calamity of self inflicted wounds that have happened so far. At no time more compelling an issue as today in the pandemic. The truth is that when it comes to healthy food supplies it is vitally important, as important as national security. And local supplies grown in one's own state or country particularly for vegetables, herbs, and fruit, are very critical. There is no way to even compare product grown locally to product grown in any country where water supplies may be contaminated by rapid industrial growth. ...

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Paul Ryan, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, wins the Republican primary in his house seat of Janesville, Wisconsin, defeating his challenger Nehlen, by 84% to 16%. The Republican nominee Donald Trump earlier had refused to endorse Ryan, and only reluctantly endorsed Ryan following the vice presidential nominee Mike Spence's endorsement of Ryan. Senator Susan Collins, senior Republican senator from Maine, joined other leading Republicans saying she would not support Trump. Paul Ryan has split with Trump on trade, immigration, Mexico, and other issues. He has insisted on decency and fairness in politics, and has won his seat in a working class town that had a closed GM plant in 2008 after Ryan voted to support rescue of the auto industry and worked hard to keep it open. Even though some of his policies have not directly helped working class families, he has won increasing support from his district as the economy recovered with unemployment down to 4.4% in Janesville, according to BLS for May 2016. Much of that support since 1998 has been based on Ryan's decency, faith and family. He made it a condition that he would go back on weekends to Wisconsin to stay in touch with people, when he accepted the position of Speaker of the House, and he listens to local concerns. Ryan said about the national discourse- "It's simple to prey on people's fears. That stuff sells, but it doesn't stick. It doesn't last. Most of all, it doesn't work." His job in today's deteriorated national discourse is as vital as ever, both for Wisconsin as representing the best in the national spirit, and for the country.   ...

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During the Battle of Britain Winston Churchill said on August 20, 1940, about the pilots in British skies from the Royal Air Force- "never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." Today as US, Europe, India and the nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America face the challenges of the coronavirus, climate change, and social divisions one could say this about the Cistercians in these abbeys in Europe about their message of self sufficiency, letting in sunlight into our lives, about their embrace of science and technology, about simplicity and concentration as ways to good mental health and opening the way to a better future. The Abbey at Fontenay near Dijon, a short train ride from the French capital, is the oldest and most complete of the Cistercian Abbeys. Their voices speak to us across the centuries. As Fesson points out the idea of self sufficiency is about returning industrial production home, about food sourced in the local region. The idea of sunlight in Cistercian architecture is about letting in Christ's- or the Buddha's or Brahman's- -light into our lives. The idea of simplicity and concentration is about lives that restore the spirit, bring peace into our lives. "For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us." (Ephesians, 2, 13). And in the Bhagavad Gita- "The Yogi, freed from taint of good and evil, constantly engaging the mind thus with passions quieted, with ease attains the infinite bliss of contact with Brahman."     ...

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The country's past was a factor in the new prime minister of Thuringia, a state in Germany, resigning after a flawed election in which the FDP's head with barely 5% election support was made prime minister. This happened with support from right wing parties including odd combination of local CDU and AfD parties. Merkel on a visit to South Africa called for this to be reversed. The Die Linke Left party from post war East German roots was the leading party with 31% of the electoral vote, CDU at 22% and AfD at 23%, SPD at 8% and Greens at 5%. Because Die Linke has roots in East Germany's communist party CDU as centre right party had competed with Die Linke in the election.

The Left and the SPD had 40% of the vote and with the Greens and CDU in the centre had about 70% of the votes in Thuringia, making Merkel at the head of a CDU-SPD coalition keen to reverse the result of a FDP premier with 5%-23% support.

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The European Banking Authority has lost credibility after two rounds of stress tests by the EBA failed to turn up the problems at Spanish banks that required a $125 billion recapitalization by the EU rescue fund. Now EU officials are turning to the European Central Bank as the eurozone's main banking regulator. The U.S. Federal Reserve is performing this role after the 2008 financial crisis, with the FDIC in charge of bank closures and resolution. ECB president Mari Draghi says, letting the ECB perform supervisory tasks, a decision made at the June 28 EU summit talks, is fully in line with the bank's mandate. Separate decisions will be needed for a bank resolution authority like the FDIC. The ECB will then have to hire hundreds of banking experts to make on site visits to eurozone banks and check their loan books and make independent assessments of bad loans, bank risks, and capital requirements. The important thing is an agency which is free of local and political interference to make the correct evaluations....

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Neera Chandhoke, a professor at Delhi University, looks back in the Hindu at the leadership of Indira Gandhi in India, following the death of her father Jawaharlal Nehru. Nov. 25, 2017 is the birth centenary of Indira Gandhi. In the context of today's populism she is seen as a leader who used her populist image to dominate the Congress party at a time when after Nehru the party was led by Kamaraj, Reddy, Ghosh and other local leaders in different states. The 1967 election campaign gave Indira Gandhi the populist support that helped her set the tone for the Congress party which continues to this day with her son, and daughter in law Sonia Gandhi- with the Nehru dynastic succession dominating Indian politics. Under Indira Gandhi the Congress party won in 1967 and 1971, setup Bangladesh, helped ensure food self-sufficiency, nationalized the banks, till the Emergency in 1975-77 led to an authoritarian form of government. Indira Gandhi lost her life in 1984 after the decision to storm the Golden Temple in Amritsar, seen as a historic error. Chandhoke says the populism had its underlying problems and instability, and has not served India well.    ...

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WSJ looks at how businesses are coping and how the government and the financial institutions are trying to make handling the stress of coronavirus easier and recovery easier. Bedrock is one of the financial firms that is forgiving rent for small bookshops, retailers, restaurants, gyms and other stores in Detroit, Michigan. Bedrock owns 50% of the leasable commercial real estate space in Detroit's 1.4 square mile downtown business district. In all it covers about 40% of downtown Detroit and retail. A similar program is underway in Seattle with help from Amazon. This story shows how Mr. Cullen who is Bedrock's CEO is doing this. He reports to Mr. Gilbert, a billionaire, who is also owner of Quicken Loans lender, Cleveland Cavaliers sports team. Mr. Gilbert is recovering from a severe stroke he had this year. This makes the job harder for Cullen as he has to seek approval from Mr. Gilbert and show this is something that will also benefit Mr. Gilbert. This will make recovery in Detroit easier. He says Detroit suffered badly in the 2008 economic crisis, and he does not want to see this happen again. Fortunately Mr. Gilbert, who is in therapy, has approved the action of Mr. Cullen. Cullen has to show that out of work local people in Detroit and empty storefronts hurts Mr. Gilbert as well as Detroit. So both come out winners from forgiveness for rent for a couple of months.   ...

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Inflation in India is at 9.1% in May 2011, compared to the prior year. GDP growth for the first quarter of 2011 slowed to 7.8%, from an annual rate of 8.3% in the fourth quarter of 2010. Other figures show the same trend. Local investment growth for the second half of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2011 was at 4.1%, a decline from 14.7% at the beginning of the year. Foreign investment in the first quarter 2011 declined 32% from the prior year, down to $3.4 billon. Car sales have also declined to the lowest rate in two years.

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A Fitch Ratings report says that an estimated 7.5 trillion yuan of loans have been made by Chinese banks, exceeding the limit that bank regulators had set for 2010 for new local currency lending. In addition another 3 trillion yuan was loaned by using trusts and other mechanisms and this has not been recorded on bank balance sheets. Including this lending taking place in a sort of shadow banking system, the total lending is the same as in 2009 when the heightened stimulus lending ocurred. This explains the inflationary pressures facing the Chinese economy and the growing property bubble.

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Questions about the euphoria for US stock market performance in 2011. Negative impact of housing market, rise in food and fuel prices, and the precarious condition of state and local government finances, raise concerns about the economy and stock markets for 2011-2012. John Makin sees a one third chance of sovereign debt crisis in the eurozone, and a 40% chance of China not making a soft landing, in a video interview with Wessel of the WSJ, December 30, 2010. This would impact stock markets in the US. WSJ's Brett Arends column also expresses similiar skepticism. Robini sees housing losses in 2011.

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Samuel Palmisano on the internationalization of IBM getting into 50 developing economies in the world that have great potential in the years and decades ahead and positioning IBM early on to take advantage of the growth by helping build infrastructure, education, and becoming a real partner for these countries and building a talent pool in these countries and building human resources, r&d capabilities. Countries like Egypt where IBM is growing fast and which has significant potential in addition to India and China. And building local centres for Brazil, the Middle East, Latin America, Africa and Eastern Europe. Countries like Bulgaria and Vietnam.

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The Conservatives get a big boost from the 2021 budget. This budget increased the corporate tax to 25% by 2023 from 20% under previous Conservative governments of Cameron, and 19% under May. A survey by YouGov shows 55% of the British public thinks this budget is "fair," only 16% saying it is "unfair." This is the highest rating for any British budget since 2009. For Boris Johnson's Conservatives this means a 4% increase in popularity just in the last week up to 45% and Labour under Keith Starmer dropping 4% to 32%. This has opened a 13 point lead for the Conservatives likely to show up in the local elections coming up. This Conservative lead is higher than the 44% vote share for Boris Johnson's Conservatives in the general election.

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This WSJ story shows how China started its steel industry from small beginnings when Chinese leader Deng visited a Nippon Steel plant in 1978. He made the decision to go big with Baosteel, with an investment of $6 billion, with the words- "if we do it lets do it big." This was 36 times the Chinese foreign exchange reserves at the time. From 4% of steel production, this went up and up, passing the U.S. in 1993, past Japan in 1996, and in 2018 producing three times the steel of U.S., Russia and China combined, producing 923 million metric tons of steel in 2018, or more than half of world production of steel. With steel China was able to build its automobile industry, shipbuilding, bridges, infrastructure, high speed rail network. This was done using global demand, subsidies from the government, cheap loans and tax breaks. Markets worldwide were affected by substantial excess production in China. From Baosteel the spread of the steel industry to all 23 Chinese provinces led to China accounting for 25% of world exports. By 2016 5 million workers mostly from the agrarian countryside were employed in the steel industry, helping China transform itself into an rapidly urbanizing and modern economy. It was a period when the rail network was tripled between 1975-2017, with shipping companies that ensured access to Australian coal and Brazilian iron ore. From 2011 to 2017 Chinese steel dropped global prices by 57% triggering closure of steel mills in EUrope and the U.S. About a third of trade complaints since 2001 by G20 countries against China are about steel. After entry into the WOrld Trade Organization Chinese steel exports rose to 8% of GDP from 2%. Subsidies, cheap energy, and shift of agrarian workers to cities. U.S. investigations around 2006 showed Chinese steelmakers subsidies covered 30% to 45% of the subsidized value of steel pipes exported overseas. China's steel prices were set 20-40% lower than the U.S. China responded to complaints saying it was trade protectionism. The WTO rules call for full disclosing of all subsidies. This was disclosed 5 years after joining WTO in 2001, and only for central subsidies. Local government subsidies were not disclosed till 2016- the U.S. says 15 years late. Still the Bush and Obama administrations failed to take action. In 2018 Mr. Trump seized on this as a campaign issue that resonated with American workers in manufacturing communities across the U.S. In 2018 November president Trump announced a 25% tariff on imports of Chinese steel. A six month probe by U.S. officials had already shown 40% of sales value came from subsidies for corrosion resistant steel from China. The U.S. Trade Commission imposed tariffs of its own from 39% to 241%, with the Trump tariffs of 25% coming as an additional tariff to tackle the trade surplus with China. Meanwhile in China the government is closing uncompetitive smaller steel mills and in 2016 it combined baosteel with Wuhan Steel to create a larger company, and consolidate remaining companies. Baosteel now provides the steel for CIMC to dominate the steel container business, and to make ship to shore cranes, and make the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.  It also goes to show what can be accomplished from small beginnings for countries in the developing world from Asia to Africa and Latin America, with government and industry focussed on development and growth.   ...

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The Bank of International Settlements warns that China's "credit to GDP gap" is 30.1. A figure of 10 normally is considered to be high and needs watching. The People's Daily carried an article presumably by president Xi Jinping warning about the consequences of the debt that had been growing "like a tree in the air." The debt to GDP ratio was at 255% at the end of 2015, and is up 107% since 2008 when the financial crisis led to a huge stimulus that has accelerated debt growth. The corporate debt is at 171% of GDP. The article in the People's Daily warned about reflexive stimulus every time growth slows and said that China cannot any longer "force economic growth by levering up." Cross border liabilities is one area of progress falling by a third to $698 billion, as companies cut debt quickly before the U.S. Federal Reserve raises rates. In the future China is more likely to roll over debt as Japan had done following its debt surge and bad debt with zombie companies, which would in turn lead to lower growth. In the past the government was able to absorb the growing debt because it was not as high as it is today, and the economy was growing rapidly. This is no longer the situation, the reason for alarm at the situation facing China. A spike in interest rates of 250 basis points is cited as one situation which could affect China adversely. ...

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As stimulus money reaches factories making products like hybrid buses, another trend is working to undo the positive effects. States are cutting back on their orders as they face budget shortfalls. See link to states budget shortfalls. The New Flyer hybrid bus fatory in St Cloud, Minnesota, is one such factory. The Chicago Transit Authority used some of the stimulus money to buy 58 hybrid electric buses. At the same time Chicago had to put aside plans to order 140 more buses using state money which now has disappeared. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities these effects of undoing, with one hand giving and another taking away are acting out across the economy. While the stiluus law cut federal taxes to put more money into the economy, about 30 states have raised taxes according to the Center. The Stimulus provides $27.5 billion in federal money on highway projects, but according to the American Road and Transport Builders Association, 19 states are planning to cut their highway spending in 2009. Even as the Stimulus provides $8.4 billion for mass tranisit, tranist systems are facing cutbacks in service and capital spending. Says Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, and author of a paper called "The State and Local Drag on the Stimulus," these cutbacks and the tax increases at the state and local levels are heading in the direction of offsetting much of the Stimulus impact....

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New regulations permit foreign investors to invest at least $100 million to setup multibrand retail operations in cities with populations of more than 1 millon people. Foreign multibrand retailers are at this time not permitted to directly invest in domestic retailers selling to consumers. A government panel "the Committee of Secretaries," proposed the change, which now goes to the federal cabinet for approval. The change means international retailers like Wal-Mart can sell to Indian consumers through partnerships with Indian retailers, and can own upto 51% of such local joint ventures. Of the investment at least half must go to setting up back-end infrastructure such as cold storage and laboratories. India has a huge retail market of an estimated $450 billion but much of the retail sector has fragmented smaller operations and mom and pop stores. Tata, Reliance, Bharti, Godrej and other local companies have made an effort to change this and formed alliances with Tesco, Wal-Mart, and other international retailers. One of the pressing needs is the building of back up infrastructure- cold storage, retail facilities, etc. This change means Wal-Mart, Carrefour, Metro AG can now enter the retail market. The prior efforts of these companies were restricted to wholesale stores such as Metro Cash & Carry India Pvt. Ltd, Wal-Mart's technical support for Bharti's retail brand of Easyday stores, and UK based Tesco's back-end support to Trent Ltd's Star Bazaar stores....

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The fragility of the financial system is cited as one of the risks for China by Standard & Poors, and by the IMF in 2014. After 2008 total debt including government, corporate and household jumped by 100% to reach 250% by 2014, according to the Economist. The complacency, poor statistics showing bad debt at low levels, the tendency for local governments to continue old practices, dependence on the state to pick up the tab when companies run into losses, or for bad debt at banks, papering over bad loans with new loans, and corruption with close connections between state owned companies and the state, create a situation in which this problem continues to grow.

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CNN reporter Cassie Spodak provides this exceptional report into the minds of New Hampshire Democratic voters who gave Bernie Sanders a 22 percent lead in the New Hampshire Democratic primary over Hillary Clinton. In October 2016 Hillary Clinton has the support of Bernie Sanders against Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election. She described it as "100 percent support" in television debate. Sanders has appeared with Clinton twice, and campaigned 4 times in New Hampshire, and continually across the country. Younger New Hampshire voters still long for Sanders as their favored candidate. Older voters and some who have been motivated by Sanders to run for local office see the shaping of the Democratic Party platform as a victory for Sanders. Key planks of Sanders, taxes on the wealthy and higher incomes to pay for student tuition, infrastructure, and helping working class families, are now key parts of the Democratic platform. These voters see this as a pragmatic step and are enthusiastic in their support for Hillary Clinton. Overall Clinton now has 87 percent of Democratic voter support in New Hampshire according to a WMUR/UNH poll in mid October 2016, and she is doing well with millenials and independents nationally, a critical bloc of voters for Clinton to show nationwide support. One member of the steering committee for Sanders in New Hampshire named Dudley Dudley, reflects the opinion that has shifted the party to emerge united during and even more so in the final months of the presidential campaign of 2016- she tells the CNN reporter Spodak that she supports Hillary because "of the way she has grown, and stretched," and the way Clinton and Sanders are now campaigning together and working together. Both Clinton and Sanders deserve credit for their extraordinary ability to grow during their campaigns and during the party's way to shape the way forward. ...

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Tom Keene of Blomberg BusinessWeek talks to a panel of experts about the future prospects for the US and the global economy. The discussion was spurred by Carmen Reinhart's paper at the central banker's Jackson Hole, Wyoming, conference. This paper forecasts high unemployment, low housing prices and very low growth in the US upto 2017. Shiller, Calomiris, Orszag, Kaufman and Bill Gross are part of this panel. Shiller's to do list main item is to get help to local and state governments by restoring general revenue sharing arrangements. Gross would focus on jobs that can hold up in a competitive economy, and put back some of the production that is taking place in the developing countries back into the developed countries, as part of a rebalancing; through a currency realignment. Kaufman would like to see a capital expenditure program by the US government, including infrastructure and education. Calomiris would like to see a setup of a new Republican Congresss to set the stage for post 2012 efforts. Calomiris favors cutting entitlements, cutting payroll taxes, but is not clear how this would help lower the deficit. Orszag points to feedback from business leaders suggesting a lowering of payroll taxes will not spur hiring, as the real reason for not hiring was low 1-2 % expected growth. Shiller, Kaufman and Gross see government efforts as realistically needed in the current situation....

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The tensions that exist in Australian society, as a result of the large Chinese investments and imports of infrastructure building commodities such as iron ore, natural gas and other commodities. Australia's Pilbara region in the northwestern part of the country, has become one huge quarry for China, as an estimated 1 million tons of iron ore raw material is loaded onto 2 story high trucks each day- with automated driverless trucks system being implemented- and shipped by 2 mile long trains to waiting ships on the coast. Australians remember this done on a smaller scale in the 1980's by Japan. At the time Japan brought in Japanese workers. The same is true today but on a bigger scale, with China bringing in workers with lower pay. The concern now is what it was then, as one local leader put it- are we going to have towns with mines or mines with towns, he asked. The mining companies are looking at it purely as a commercial venture, and not investing in the towns. The towns now fear they will find the boom times gone someday and nothing tangible to show for it, no schools, hospitals and no infrastructure. And because the mining project companies fly people in and out, the 8000 aboriginal people in Pilbara- the original people of this land- see little of the mining expansion's benefits. Wandoan, a small place with 300 homes in the outback in Queensland, in eastern Australia, is an example of the gut wrenching change taking place in the mining areas. The lives of the people from the local pharmacy, the local supermarket, and the local ranchers, depend on the mining decisions made in China. This area was part of a planned, on again off again, $6 billion coal mine -part of a A$150 billion complex of natural gas and coal projects for exports to Asia in Queensland- and involved Xstrata buying 70,000 acres of the best grazing land for 7 coal mines. With the locals selling off, the mining uncertain, the supermarket closing, the whole town has the feeling of being up in the air, and fading out someday. Australian public sentiment recognizes this feeling, and at the same time is ambivalent about the impact. Polls conducted by the Lowy Institute for International Policy, show 73% of Australians feel Chinese economic growth has a positive impact, and at the same time 57% feel that there is now excessive Chinese investment, and 46% feel China will be a military threat in 20 years. Australians remember the same feeling about Japan's investments in raw material sources in the eighties. In 1988, polls then showed 70% of Australians saying there was too much Japanese investment, even though they also recognized that Australia had benefitted. The difference now is that there are also fears of China's influence, and foreign investment guidelines limit investments in Australian mining companies to below 50%. China's investment in Australia's natural resources comes in several ways: in the year upto July 2009 A$42 billion in export demand, A$3 billion in direct investment in Australian companies, and about A$5 billion in project financing. Iron ore sales to China amount to A$22 billion each year, and about one fourth of Australia's exports went to China, growing at a rate of 31% in 2009. According to the chief economist of Austrade, the government trade organization, Australia benefits from the economic relationship with China- this adds A$3,400 per year to every Australian household. Efforts to use some of the profits made by mining corporations for infrastructure and other public purposes, by increasing the mining tax have failed; as the mining industry launched a campaign against the government of Kevin Rudd, who was removed from office by his party. In the recent national elections, the ruling Labor party lost its majority, after losses in the resource rich states of Western Australia and Queensland. In the meantime the Australian currency has become the currency used by currency speculators who cannot use the yuan to make a bet on the currency- as the yuan is pegged to the dollar- and instead use the Australian dollar as a proxy. This makes it volatile, with the Australian dollar losing 10% of its value in a single day, when pessimism increased about China's growth forecasts. It also shows how much of the good story of employment and gdp growth in Australia is tied to the story in China, and the extent of the negative impact a reversal in this area can mean for Australians; especially now that the bad debt in the post-2008 explosion of bank lending poses risks to China's banknig system. ...

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"So that Berlin remains our home" posters and signs are all over Berlin, Germany. The escalating housing crisis in Berlin is leading to a referendum on September 26, same day as national elections. This referendum is about taking over developer housing over 3000 units with compensation and is supported by a small majority of voters in Berlin. The referendum  required gathering 175,000 signatures in a few months. The Left Party in the Berlin coalition government of SPD, Greens and Die Linke supports it , Greens are skeptical and SPD is opposed to expropriation. The referendum needs 25% yes votes to expropriation which may not happen. More likely is that housing developers will have to work with the government to come up with solutions to the housing crisis in Berlin.  The referendum is constitutionally compatible with the Basic Law in Germany which says- " Land, natural resources and means of production may, for the purpose of nationalization, be transferred to public ownership or other forms of public enterprise by a law that determines the nature and extent of compensation." Private developers expansion has made housing less affordable for Berlin residents and the target is Deutsche Wohnen, which owns 113,000 housing units in Berlin. This trend shows how different the public opinion is in Berlin after decades in which the housing concerns of local residents were set aside. Clearly Germany needs to invest more in housing infrastructure that is affordable and enhances the opportunities for ordinary workers in Berlin to live in the city. ...