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Fearing retaliation by Chinese regulators, US executives are silent on trade issues. As a result the issue of wind energy subsidies to Chinese manufacturers was brought up not by GE, a manufacturer of wind turbines, but by the United Steelworkers Union in the US. The US filed a WTO complaint in this matter based on the US Steelworkers petition. GE has stayed silent in this matter in deference to Chinese regulators. Only Solar World, a German company, has stepped forward to strongly endorse the investigation. Solar World has manufacturing sites in Oregon and China, but no plants in China.

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How a tightly interconnected community such as tech startups can quickly fall apart in a crisis is the subject of this WSJ report by Christopher Mims. He says on the way up this meant positive leveraging that exceeded 150% and this is also true in the other direction on the way down just as fast. Most startups depended on Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic for financing. Venture capital moved from inside to unravel the SVB bank. The US government simply wants to stabilize the economy and is not intending to make the uninsured depositors whole except in the way that it is self contained and does not spread to other parts of the banking system. Tech startups will now find it difficult to get new financing, if not impossible, says this report. About 8% of total jobs in the US economy are dependent on tech. When it comes to work that is dependent on tech the number is higher closer to 20%. Some of the tech layoffs will be offset by new kinds of tech and with government private collaboration in the new frameworks coming up, such as for EV vehicles with manufacturing in the US, and the $53 billion for the  CHIPS and Science Act of president Biden. Solar and wind have new frameworks of a similar type as the focus shifts to fighting climate change. These networks are interconnected with the EU which is creating its own parallel networks of this type. ...

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Tom Friedman explains why Applied Materials is one of the largest solar panel manufacturers in the world but makes its panels in 5 factories in Germany, four in China and one each in India, Taiwan and Italy. With no factory in the USA. And all 14 factories put up in the last 2 years, put up overseas. Applied Materials is opening its largest worldwide research facility in Xian, China, in October 2009. Applied develops the knowhow for solar energy at its research facilities for manufacturing technology. These solar panel factories says Applied CEO Splinter go for about $200 million each. Solar panels technology can vary from thin film coated onto glass with nanotechnology using crystalline silicon, to other technologies. Germany is at the forefront of the world solar energy industry. It is the second largest industry in Germany employing some 50,000 people. China is putting a new emphasis on pollution free energy. What Germany has done says Friedman after visiting Applied Materials research facilities, is to allow any business or homeowner to generate solar energy, and if they decide have the power utility to connect them to the grid as well as buy the solar power at apric and duration attractive to the homeowner or business user. Something the USA has still to do. As a result solar energy consumption in the USA lags way behind these countries. Applied Materials largest USA customer is a German owned company in Oregon says Applied CEO Splinter. Splinter points to the fact that solar energy is becoming an important industry, similiar to the way the auto industry assumed importance. For Applied Materials this means revenues of $1.3 billion in the last 12 months, according to Splinter. ...

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This report in WSJ by Mike Colias about personal politics exaggerates the impact of political party Republican vs Democrat in the switch to electric cars as most of the resistance comes from the lack of charging facilities and not enough technological breakthrough in cost and efficiency to make the switch. And much of the political resistance by a third of the population comes more from the idea that it supports China sourced materials. This comes from misinformation and old data as Biden has imposed 100 percent duty tariff on imports of China made electric cars and 50% on solar panels just last week. Americans including Republicans are realizing that the only way to compete with China's subsidized push for key industries is for America to do the same. This gives the American manufacturers the time and the support from the US government to compete with EV's made in China supported by Chinese government large not so visible subsidies over long periods. WSJ reports recently showed how China's prime minister supported building Tesla plants in China to observe American manufacturing methods and technology, in the process advancing its own technologies in EV's at a faster pace. Making Tesla's role contradict the idea that politics not misinformation and technological lag is causing resistance to EV's both of which will fade over time. ...

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Set a big goal, achieve it and set an even bigger goal- this is the way the PM is setting out to tackle the challenge of Vikshit or Developed Bharat by 2047. 2024 is next step followed by plan to 2030. PM Modi highlights important aspects of the Budget in his comments on the Indian Budget for 2024. The detailed Budget will come after a new government is formed. This provides an outline of the government's key priorities and investment in priorities. The focus is on the youth the next generation for opportunities, the farmers, the poor and the middle class. Investment will increase by 11% in 2024 over the prior year with expenditures of 1.1 million crores. Targets are set for delivering in housing from 40 million houses delivered to add 20 million more houses, for women setting up small business from 20 million lakhpatis to add 10 million more lakhpatis.  For the youth research and innovation budget capital allocation of $1 billion. Manufacturing of 40,000 railway bogies or railcars for the new Vande Bharat trains. Roof Top Solar campaign will give 10 million families free electricity as well as income of Rs 18,000 to sell surplus energy to the electric grid. Income tax remission for 10 million families. ...

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Greg Ip of the WSJ looks at the result of changes in supply chains away from China, and the new trading relationship with China to 2028. He says the shift to a new global supply chain that diversifies it away from concentration in China is taking place. Would taking the tariffs from 30% to 60% under a new Trump administration be a good idea? Greg Ip thinks it is a bad idea as the change is gradual and is actually taking place. It may have the unintended effect of worsening US China relations essential for global stability when it is coupled with erratic or retaliatory rhetoric. Rhetoric that appears to China that it is being singled out in world trade beyond what are changes that have taken place with Japan in the past in trade. The Biden administration is for good reasons working to restore a balanced yet stable relationship with China. Apple is shifting production of 25% of iPhones to India. Samsung is investing more in Vietnam. The trade deficit with Mexico has reached $151 billion twice as large as in 2017. And $100 billion with Vietnam three times as large as 2017. The US trade deficit with China has dropped from $381 billion to $281 billion in the last 12 months, the Commerce Department reports show. And from $1.1 trillion with the whole world from $1.2 trillion for the last 12 months, 4% of US GDP. Overall the Trump era tariffs of 30% have not reduced the US  trade deficit substantially but has shifted American and European foreign investment to India, Vietnam, Mexico and other countries as well as to the home country. Over time the supply chain would become truly diversified as India makes great strides to become the third largest economy with new infrastructure by 2030. The head emeritus of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, Joerg Wuttke, says the pressure to export will be high for China as its economy shifts more to manufacturing from construction. Most Chinese companies are producing more than internal demand in China, and most companies in solar are losing money, in wind turbines and solar all are losing money, Wuttke says. This means China will double down and increase its investments in Mexico, Vietnam, Morocco and other countries so that it can send its products to the US through third countries that do the final export. One expert even says removing a few screws here and some there, find a different supplier, and shipping to a third party for final export that makes it not 100% Chinese content, the pressure for that is high. ...

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Karishma Vaswani of the BBC points out that the Trump administration tariffs and the response from China with tariffs of its own, are not the beginning of a trade war but negotiating tactics of both sides. Behind the scenes and behind the declarations and position statements both sides are talking to each other and considering the options open to each. The U.S. position is that China has emerged with a bigger share of the global economy by dumping products, subsidizing its industries from solar panels to high tech ventures, and stealing American technology by forcing U.S. firms into joint ventures that increase pass through of advanced technology. U.S. firms seeking access to the Chinese market or using China as a manufacturing base such as Boeing, Apple, GE and other high tech companies are in ventures or manufacturing arrangements where China has access to advanced American technology. Nathaniel Taplin in his article in the WSJ also sees this as a negotiating position set out in the U.S. for talks with China. Taplin says the U.S. is in a stronger position in this negotiation because of the huge surplus of about $300 billion that China now has with the U.S., and which is increasing in 2018 with the strength of the dollar. The Trump administration is looking to correct the trade imbalance in the future by focussing on China's access to advanced U.S. technologies in the next phase of competition between the U.S., Europe and China. This limited objective is more likely to lead to concessions by China Taplin argues, because of two reasons. China needs the dynamism of U.S. firms and technology advances because these firms and Chinese firms that are getting foreign investment are the most productive part of the Chinese economy with jobs generated, rate of return about twice that of inefficient state run firms. China also needs access to advanced U.S. and European technologies even in a limited form as it pursues further modernization.   ...

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Any Asian conflict involving China would in a few months destroy Apple's value, CEO's would change quickly, and Apple policies change to shift entire production to India and the US in a rapid shift. Tim Cook would be seen as having gambled against America's interests, unresponsive and failing after repeated warnings.  Apple's goal of sourcing from India by 2027 a mere 26% of its iphones, means that a decade after USTR Lighthizer and DJT started the task of reshoring manufacturing to US and allies in 2016, the No. 1 outshoring company would still be making 75% of its dollar value iphones in China. A degree of overconcentration that would make no sense considering that Apple's 75% of manufacturing would be entirely at risk in 2027 after repeated warnings and inaction. The only option for Tim Cook in 2025 is to come up with new goals of shifting a minimum of 50-60% of its dollar value product manufacturing for iphones to India by 2027. . Tim Cook as Apple CEO has done little to prevent the overconcentration of manufacturing in China since 2016. About 10 years after DJT was elected to bring manufacturing back to India or close allies the simple idea of diversification was not implemented. Why? Having set up this system starting in 1998, a system that did not exist before that tiem when Steve Jobs hired Tim Cook with a winning formula to Make in China, a country just emerging from its Communist phase of failed state economy. By 2008 in 10 years the infrastructure was built in a backward largely agricultural economy that was rapidly modernizing under a market economy with state run capitalism under the Communist Party experiment. The Bush Obama 16 years were ones with America not responding to the challenge posed by this new system which could create huge surges in production capacity with focus on key technologies and flood markets. The next decade after 1998-2008 was one of rapid growth of this experiment which combined with design and engineering in the US generated few jobs in manufacturng in the US, but huge profits with huge margins fro a low cost base with a high image and technology innovation product. Lighthizer, Navarro, Jamieson had already sounded the alarm for American manufacturing and loss of jobs in 2016.  America's deindustrialization was becoming a bigger challenge by 2020 so that president Biden continued the policy of reindustrializing. In 2025 China 2025 Plan that was a warning in 2016 is already a reality with China flooding the world in solar panels, and ready to flood the markets overseas with electric cars. Apple may only get a reprieve, this exemption is not the same as the last one. National security is an issue, key technologies need to be protected. There is only one more opportunity to rebuild American manufacturing and keep promises.     ...

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China's BYD started in electric batteries and expanded into electric cars. It has emerged as the dominant electric car company in the world as China now has half of the electric cars on the road in the world. 35% of exports of electric cars are from China. Keith Bradsher of NYT reports from Shenzen that its first car was made in 2007 of poor quality, similar to Toyota in the 1930's as it tried car manufacturing for the first time. It has surpassed Tesla in making electric cars. In each of the last 2 years it has increased electric car sales by one million to reach electric car sales on 3 million. EV sales in China were up in 2023 to 9.49 million cars giving BYD the largest share of 31%., by comparison US electric car sales were 1.2 million. New assembly lines are being built in Brazil, Hungary and Thailand. And new lines are planned for Mexico and Indonesia. This kind of growth was seen only by General Motors in 1946 after the end of the war. It also shows the progress China is making. In solar panels something like the addition of 900 million solar panels meeting the entire increase in electricity demand for each year, so that emissions targets can be met earlier than planned to tackle climate change.  The same changes are happening in electric cars. China now has 40% of electric cars or gasoline/electric plug in cars going up to 50%. For export China is building large carrier ships, the first that will take 5000 cars for export to the Netherlands. The lowest priced electric car model the Seagull was priced at $11,000. BYD's lowering of manufacturing costs have given it the ability to price the cars to attract new car buyers.  Wang Chuanfu who studied at Central Southern University in Changsha known for its battery research, was an engineer who started the company in the 1990's to make batteris for Motorola. Between 2003-2006 he experimented with making cars in the hope of making electric cars. Stalled efforts in 2009 and 2011 were met with arenewed effort in 2016 trying a new approach to cut costs by developing a battery where supplies of lithium or cobalt would not be a constraint. He developed a new battery using iron and phospate to replace lithium cobalt batteries. A big break came in 2020 with the Blade battery that increased range to the level of cobalt lithium batteries at a much smaller cost. BYD hired German Audi designers for new model design. This time BYD was in the right position to build a car company matching all others with costs lower by about 35% than VW for some models. This comes from- lower costs to make in China, making its own parts inside the company for 75% of parts compared to VW only about 35%, and by the savings from its battery research.  BYD has shown ability to shift with market needs and opportunities. In 2022 assisted driving was facing hurdles, BYD had second thoughts about the new technology, by 2023 as it was increasing in use BYD committed $14 billion in autonomous driving technology. Driving range is a problem for people in urban areas going back to their villages in China. BYD has an advantage here compared to Tesla- it makes hybrid plug ins that account for half its sales. Toyota has also had emphasis on hybrid plug ins where it missed the opportunity was that it moved very slowly on all electric cars not realizing how fast things were moving outside it's world. This is the situation America also faces in 2024 and beyond who can deliver on the infrastructure capabilities, new research ,and tap American potential to compete in this new world where one innovation will follow another. ...

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The WSJ Editorial Board speaking for the business community traditional Republican groups finally takes up the election on issues of policy difference between Trump run Republican party and Harris run Democratic Party which it should have from Day One. The former president says something that has never happened in the last hundred years- policy will be decided after the election depending on what he decides to do. Cost of Living action is No 1 on voter priorities. "Drill, Baby Drill," is the whole Republican party platform for cost of living action. What is the Harris Democrats policy plan for cost of living action? WSJ says it is spending blowouts that caused inflation, the Green New Deal, entitlement expansions and student loan forgiveness.The real reason for the increase in cost of living comes from the overconcentration of supply chain by American business in China, on which every president Bush, Obama, Trump, did little or nothing. The lack of an effective vaccination program and ineffective vaccines in China by 2021 and 2022 led to the loss of the supplies from China leading to shortages for automobiles parts and other supplies and surge in prices in 2021-2023. Powell and the US central bank correctly raised rates but cautiously and waited for this to correct, president Biden brought manufacturing home through huge investments called the "spending blowout" that brought down the inflation from 9% to 3%. Some of that "spending blowout" went to chips and science to correct the errors of American Business and Reagan-Friedman theory of the Republican party that created this problem with a culture of utter  indifference to the ultimate costs of who makes what and where. The Inflation Reduction Act also tackled higher health and other costs paid by American workers and families, and invested in public services and in repairing the dilapidated crumbling American infrastructure. Are Republicans saying let the roads, bridges, airports, built in the 1940-1960's heyday of American industrialization as China and India's is now, let them crumble? What do the educated minds of the WSJ Board say about coal in China and India and their effects on their massive use multiple times that of US and EU in history, is it not damaging to the environment and why the Chinese realized the health in North China with coal winter use was worse than in South China cut their coal use. Are they saying lets burn fossil fuels and ignore, and if investment has to be made in solar who is going to do it? Is it Ok for Republicans thet we just import from China all our solar panels indefinitely into the future. "Green New Deal" is just a perjorative term, policy has to be made thoughtfully and without prejudice or bias of any sort for the best that we can do for the American people, ignoring so called "right" or "left." Doing what is right, what makes sense, is a lot harder.     ...

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Paul Krugman points out in the NYT that September 2022 high inflation numbers for core inflation excluding energy and food of 6.6% on annualized basis, is still not a good way to measure actual inflation. This is because housing costs as measured by the core inflation index used by the Labor Department are represented by housing rental costs. The rental costs have a time lag in this index and after a sharp spike are now cooling off. Add to this slowing economies and recessions in European economies and the situation suggests that the economy and inflation may be moderating more than expected. Additional factors are that the effects of sharp prior 2 increases in interest rates by the Fed of 0.75% and a third of 0.75% expected soon, are still not fully realized in the economy. This view was also expressed by experts in the WSJ. It was widely perceived that the high inflation that we are seeing is a result of temporary factors such as the war in Ukraine, food and oil supply constraints, supply chain bottlenecks, new adjustments to manufacturing at home after covid. As these factors ease and after the Fed's action to raise interest rates, slowing economies in Europe adjusting to climate change actions,  the moderating effects on the economy of the costs in switching to renewable energy also a factor, this high inflation has prospects of moderating. The successful switch to renewables particularly solar, and better agricultural practices, could set along term trajectory of moderate inflation in costs of energy and food supplies.  ...

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The transformation of towns in Iowa like Newton, once the place where Maytag and washing machine plants were located, and now with many of these plants closed the shift to making parts like blades for wind energy. The transformation of Toledo, a location for the auto industry factories, and now with the closing down of these plants the shift to manufacturing solar panels for solar energy. In all a transformation that is expected to generate 3 or 4 million jobs in the midwest in energy related products, to replace the jobs lost in the auto industry and in industries like appliances, like the Maytag plant in Newton that closed. Along the way there is hope and optimism and awe at the new product being built for wind and solar energy, which is cutting edge and not easily outsourced because of the size of the blades and the structures in wind energy generation. The struggles are chronicled of the people in Newton, Iowa and a whole generation of workers who even without a college education were able to live middle class lives because of Maytag plants in the area. And the distress caused as these plants cut employees and let the plants get antiquated, and finally the distress with the shutting down of the plants....

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Andy Grove makes this passionate plea for the dignity of workers in America in 2010. It is worth reading in 2020 what this founder of Intel Corp and pioneering spirit of Silicon Valley has to say. Andy Grove of Intel says there is something seriously wrong when the unemployment rate in the Bay Area is higher than the 9.7% national average for the USA. American companies have added jobs like crazy in Asia, but things are sputtering back home. Hon Hai has 800,000 employees and makes most of the electronic and computer products for American companies. Grove says startups are not the answer, unless they scale up and create jobs the way Intel did starting back in 1968, with a $3 million capital infusion by investors. The move from the first production model to mass production is critical, as companies hire thousands of people. Innovation and scaling up have to go together. He makes his point clearly by pointing out that Apple has 25,000 employees. For every Apple employee there are 10 employees in China working on Apple iMacs, iPods, iPhones. And he adds that the same 10 to 1 relationship applies to other U.S. tech companies. And here Grove asks the tough question by first posing an answer. He says it sounds like- no big deal, we keep the high paying jobs, we keep most of the profits, but what kind of society are we going to have with highly paid professional workers and lots of people unemployed? And he doesn't mention that there are a lot more young people unemployed. He says the US has become very inefficient at creating tech jobs, and it would be a great mistake not to act decisively early on. And adds that the investments in such areas as solar power and electric car batteries have to be made early on to maintain leadership in these areas. Grove faults academics like Alan Blinder and others who say loss of manufacturing jobs and whole industries was no big deal. The U.S. has forgotten the value of manufacturing jobs. He wants to see America focus on jobs and rebuild its industrial base. And less of transferring engineering knowhow and new technologies overseas, technology that can help bring innovation and scaling up of factories at home. In his view individual companies doing their own thing, in a misguided fashion that jobs don't matter, is not the answer to the situation we face. The industrial economies of Asia, China at the present day, have focussed on jobs and technology, and scaled up. Grove reminds readers of the situation in America in 1932, when jobless veterans demonstrating outside the White House in large numbers were dispersed by soldiers with live ammunition and fixed bayonets. This makes him shudder at the very thought of it, and brings back memories of his early years in Hungary, as a young man in 1956. Are we listening? ...

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U.S. tariffs on a long list of 1300 products includes products such as industrial robots that China sees as a potential area of future growth and technological advantage. In this way the Trump administration tariff is shaping up to be part of a longer term U.S. plan to meet the challenge from Chinese competition in key advanced technology products. These are products China explicitly targeted in its "Made in China 2025" plan. The list compiled by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, the former Trade negotiator under the Reagan Administration, targets products such as electric car batteries. China supports its own electric car battery makers by blocking U.S. suppliers from its domestic markets. The new tariffs would do the same for China in the U.S. market. In industrial robots China has 87,000 in 2016, and plans to meet a shortage of labor in its manufacturing plants by using better and more efficient robots. Aircraft and airplane parts are also targets as China has plans to expand its aerospace industry. The list also includes 200 machines, with machinery exports from China making up a significant part of exports to the U.S. So comprehensive is this list of 1100 products that it includes ships, trains, any product in which China's subsidies for its industries, its industrial policies make it easier for it to gain dominance in a product category as has happened in solar panels. ...

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This NYT analysis of fund raising by the Republican and Democratic parties for the 2020 election campaign shows Republicans hardly raising any money from people with incomes over 250,000 and very little from incomes over $200,000 with most funding coming from the base white working class and lower and upper middle class. For Democrats fund raising is significant at the levels of income over $200,000. Geographically the Democrats get most of their funding from the east and west coast areas.  This reflects the changes in the parties starting in the the 2008 elections when higher income groups in software, finance, and in professions of law and medicine and Silicon Valley tech shifted to Democrats. The Democrats also held onto minority votes. In 2016 this changed with a sharp turn with tech on the west coast and finance professionals on the east coast shifting to the Democrats. The PPP agreement under Obama favored tech over the auto industry, and renewal fossil fuels such as solar were favored over the oil industry and fracking. In 2016 this helped shift the votes in Michigan and Pennsylvania to Republicans. Older manufacturing industries, oil and fracking were supported by Republicans who pushed back against ceding global dominance in manufacturing to China. By 2020 these changes are now entrenched with white working class voters in industries decimated and communities destroyed by foreign imports mainly from China, supporting Republicans. Republicans under Trump have made regaining the manufacturing leadership of the U.S. that was the situation after World War II, a top priority for the U.S.  The minority vote shifted with Hispanics moving towards Republicans to a much larger degree than before. The urban rural divide is similar to Europe where the similar impact of foreign imports mainly from China have destroyed older industries and led to sharp decline in older towns and communities outside major cities. This is the situation facing the U.S. and Britain, France, Italy Spain, and Poland. Germany as a manufacturing country dependent on exports is also affected but to a lesser degree. The unwholesome aspect of this is that the larger urban areas are divorced from the rest of the country  and rural small towns, smaller cities. In some form reintegration has to take place. The vast majority of the working class classified in today's terminology as the less educated lacking a college degree and white are  paradoxically with Republicans, and the wealthy professionals and industries in software, finance with Democrats. Nothing makes this more evident than a quick look at the map of the U.S. with blue on the opposite coasts for Democrats and mostly red in between and in the south. This is unprecedented in American history. A rising tide that lifts all boats in the U.S. and the return of the U.S. to the position it held after World War II could change this in the next decade. ...

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As Keith Bradsher of the NYT points out in this report too much may be made of the tariffs of 25% imposed by president Trump on steel imports. The effect Bradsher says on China is trivial because China imports make up a fraction of 1% or 0.1% of China's production, and only 2% of American steel imports. Most of China's aluminium is made into products such as auto parts and solar panel frames, and little of it is imported as raw metal. On the day the tariffs were announced, China's top economic official Liu He met with economic officials of the Trump administration and China's reaction was cautious and reflected the fact mentioned b.y Trump about its huge trade surplus with the U.S. of $375 billion in 2017. China's officials stated "that its dialogue with the U.S. was very useful, constructive, and helpful."  China's principal goals are first to preserve its broader trading relationship with the U.S. which gives it th $375 billion trade surplus for 2017 and creates millions of jobs in China, and to preserve its ability to invest in the U.S.  This has given China access to American technology and manufacturing expertise that would be difficult to develop independently. The Trump administration is meanwhile working with senior members of Congress to come up with new rules for tighter scrutiny of Chinese investments in the U.S. as a new phase of competition in technology takes place between China and the U.S.  ...

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The US is on track to bring back 350,000 jobs in 2022 that were taken overseas during the two decades of hyper growth in China, according to the Reshoring Initiative. A false idea was created mostly by economists and business that shifted jobs to China during two Democratic and one Republican administration, the Clinton, Obama and the Bush administrations, that this would benefit the American workers and families through lower prices at the retail level. It ignored the severe damage this would do to jobs, incomes and whole communities when factories on which they depended for a living were shipped overseas. It damaged labor in ways that destroyed much of the American working class and the families built during the years of FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson. Business failed during this period to meet the challenge of higher American wages and productivity issues by using innovation and other steps to keep manufacturing at home.  This led to the hyper growth that did not benefit China, because a moderate pace of growth would have helped China control the rampant contamination of its air, water and soil. It also was leading China to a dead end reached during the 2016 election campaign with the election of president Trump with deep discontent from workers in midwestern states. The pandemic simply underscored the need for supply chains that were close to home and reliable in crises. By 2020 president  Biden was committing to a restructuring of the supply chains and pushing forward with it with legislation in the $369 billion Climate bill, and SCIENCE and Chips Act, to make solar panels, semiconductors and other products in the US. Reports from China showed that growth was slight or flat during 2022 and youth unemployment at 20%. The policy was to shift people back from the cities to the rural areas and support the informal economy, a sense of nationalist sentiment, and preparing for a future where the supply chain for the US and the European Union had moved away from China. In the long run the policies now look as ones that benefitted neither the US, the European Union, India or China.  ...

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Treasury Secretary Yellen says on her second trip to China that she will make this the top issue in discussions, the danger that Chinese overproduction in green energy products will lead to the kind of overspill that happened for steel and aluminium where subsidized products drove American companies out of the market. Speaking at a solar energy factory in Norcross, Georgia, that was itself closed in 2017 and is back up again with the assistance in the Inflation Reduction Act for promoting American green energy manufacturing, Yellen said: "It is important to me and the president that American firms and workers can compete on a level playing field." Yellen's remarks on supply chain resilience- "China's overcapacity distorts global prices and production patterns and hurts American firms and workers, as well as firms and workers around the world. Challenges for individual firms can lead to concentrated supply chains, negatively impacting global economic resilience.”   ...

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Brazilians writing about Brazil in the Brazil Report. Brazil Report says Brazil has carefully avoided Chinese debt where it involves taking on debt that has risks for repayment. Brazil has not joined the BRI Belt and Road Initiative and it staking out its own debt free path to development like India. Xinhua in a recent article calls the "debt trap" a rhetorical trap set by the US and EU, arguing with World Bank figures that debt of Ecuador, Brazil, and Argentina is 6.8%, 0.6% and 1.2% of GDP for these countries.  Here are the projects China has financed in Latin America using its technologies and manufacturing, $15 billion of greenfield investment in 2019, $12 billion in 2020-2022. Monterrey Metro and tram, Bogota Metro, Panama Canal fourth bridge Chancay megaport Peru Brazil- BYD EV plant, Santos port terminal, Curitiba 5G City, Cauchari solar plant Las Mambas copper mine, Lithium mines Argentina     ...

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Much of China's strong GDP growth year after year of 9-12% was generated through large fixed investments in manufacturing. More than 40% of GDP is from factory construction or fixed asset investment in housing and infrastructure. And this spawned suddenly on its own a whole generation of new small business bootstrap entrepreneurs, as if from nowhere, who were good at adapting and seeking out new opportunities as new factories and exports shot upwards. GDP multiplied 14 fold from 1980's. And created 5 million businesses of over 8 employees each, according to the State Administration for Industry and Commerce. In the processs creating 75 million jobs for university graduates, workers from state companies and fro migrants from the rural areas. These private companies and their investment spending make up half of the 2008 GDP of $4.42 trillion. But with the export model heavily dependent on overseas markets especially the USA, the collapsing export markets is shrinking production and investment. Industrial production which went up by 16% annually for 5 years, dropped to 3.8% for Jan-Feb 2009. Mr Yu and his company GenTech, profiled here, was an engineer who studied engineering in Beijing, then at Newcastle University in the UK, worked for Cargill in Iowa, and looked for opportunities away from agricultural engineering. Adapting to China's needs in first semiconductors and then solar equipment assembly lines, he provided the high tech tubing for the gases and chemicals used in manufacturing assembly lines, competing with the likes of Air Products and Chemicals of the USA....

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Apple is investing $700 million in a new material called sapphire that will replace glass to provide better breakage protection for the iPhone. The first sapphire screens will be coming off a manufacturing plant in Mesa, Arizona, that Apple runs with GT Advanced Technologies. Apple is using sapphire, a harder and more corrosion resistant material that is costly to produce, for the cover on the fingerprint reader and iphone camera lens. About 11% of iPhone owner screens have cracked or broken screens, according to warranty provider SquareTrade. Compared to Gorilla Glass costing $3 per screen, the sapphire screen would cost $16. Apple paid $113 million for a 1.4 million square foot Mesa facility from a solar panel producer and leased it to GT, a manufacturer of furnaces to produce sapphire. Apple is paying GT $578 million to install furnaces at the factory and run the plant.

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A new solar module factory in Freiberg, near Dresden, Germany, with the latest technology, requiring workers to only supervise the manufacturing process, is shown in this report in DW.com. It is cheaper to make higher performance solar panels that produce 20% more electricity in Germany than to import from China. This could be a global trend in automated supply chains. This is a technological shift says the CEO because more efficient production technology requires less resources and fewer steps in the manufacturing process. Key components such as solar cells are also made nearby in Leipzig in eastern Germany, 90 miles away.    This report shows the interesting changes that are underway. In 2018 the factory building in Freiberg now being used for solar modules was left empty after German manufacturer solar company Solarworld lost a price war with Chinese competitors. Today this solar company Meyer Burger brings new jobs and excitement to Freiberg and the region. By 2026 plans are for it to make 5 GW of modules annually in Germany. Meyer Burger made the heterojunction SmartWire technology machines that made solar modules. In 2020 it decided to make solar modules instead of selling its equipment to others, using its own proprietary technology. Thinking has changed. CEO Erfurt says it is complete nonsense to transport solar modules halfway across the world from China, they should be made where the products are used as it is energy infrastructure. Transport costs 10% of cost, and new technology is constantly being developed and costs decreasing with technology advances. He adds that this is how energy sovereignty can be achieved. In 2021 the demand is expected at 209 GW worldwide. Erfurt expects it to be 500 GW in 2025. Large demand that will now be met locally in the regions themselves- in Spain, in Germany, and in India.   ...

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Sharp showed a loss of $3.1 billion for the third quarter of 2012, far larger than expected. Sharp's new forecast is for losses of $5.6 billion for 2012. Sharp CEO, Takashi Okuda, even said the company has "material doubts" about its survival because of "serious negative operating cash flow." Sharp made large bets on LCD panel manufacturing with large investments in added capacity as the television market turned into a commodity business with declining prices and with new competition from China. Just one factory in Sakai, Japan, could manufacture 6 million LCD panels a year- the total global market size at the time. Two other events hurt Sharp- missing the smartphone shift with the introduction of the iPhone in Japan in 2008 leading to a sharp drop in sales, and the collapse of the solar business with cheap products from China. The global economic crisis and overstretched consumers in the U.S. and Europe led to declining sales. Sharp's new factories for LCD panels at Kaneyama now make panels for iPads and iPhones. ...

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Toyota moves back to its utilitarian roots, where costs matter and pricing matters. Higher cost technological advances are being rejected in favor of older approaches that accomplish the same thing in the manufacturing process at alower cost. And pricier features like the solar ventilation system option on the new Prius are being rejected so that the price can be made more competitive with American cars. Even the idea of pricing Toyota's cars at apremium of $1000 or $1500 over American cars is being questioned in this market. The new Prius mad due to come out this year, developed at a time when Toyota was coasting as it emerged as the most profitable and the largest auto manufacturer in the world, has a price tag of $28,000 versus the $22,000 for the current Prius. This has alarmed some of the bigger Toyota dealers so much that Akio Toyoda the new CEO visited Southern California to talk to these dealers about what has gone wrong with the pricing. These dealers told him that they were worried about that price when they were drastically discounting current Prius models to maintain their sales rate. This is also happening when Toyotas are piling up unsold on car lots at most ports in the US. As Toyota competed with GM for top spot in sales Toyota's management of Watanabe and Kinoshita, the outgoing CEO and his assistant, say critics inside Toyota, lost sight of the need for caution as the company's manufacturing capacity expanded in Japan and overseas. Now with the selection of Akio Toyoda to succeed Watanabe as new CEO, the decision has been made to make a shift to anew generation of managers, with the retirement of 3 executives including Kinoshita and Watanabe. ...