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If the decline in manufacturing in rural southern Virginia for 500 workers in a low tech deli meatpacking plant can devastate whole communities, then imagine what happens  when manufacturing in chips and science with high paying jobs are put at risk by market forces focused on AI.  This week WSJ carried a story about Qualcomm which does design and does no manufacturing is planning a takeover of Intel, a leader in manufacturing for advanced chips in the US, a key part of Biden-Harris strategy to regain a American foothold in Chips manufacturing. Such a takeover makes no sense for America's long term interests. Qualcomm could simply jettison the manufacturing capabilities -a key part of America's long term chips and science strategy just because AI focus has distorted market forces. IMAGINE THE DAMAGE. Regulators need to safeguard the Nation's long term interests for reliable chips manufacturing within the US, to avoid the crisis experienced with chips outsourced overseas leading to severe shortages in 2021-2023. How this has happened is that AI has created distortions in the market so that companies are valued differently. So that an Nvidia gets valued at $1 trillion and even for a day at $2 trillion then going back down to half that, all within a 12 month period. AI is distorting the market in ways that a chip leader like Intel now gets valued at $90 billion a third of the $290 billion it is valued at only a short time ago, making talk of takeovers possible even from smaller design only companies such as Qualcomm. The market failure in this case comes from markets being distorted by not reflecting true costs of shortages America experienced in chips from lack of its own advanced manufacturing during 2021-2023.   ...

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Prime minister Modi's 5 commitments to get closer to net zero by 2030 will require making ambitious efforts starting from 2021. Modi cited Indian Railways as an example to be followed by the rest of industry and transportation, and homes, for the conversion to clean energy. Indian Railways, he told the COP26 conference, had set ambitious goals to achieve net zero emissions by 2030, cutting carbon emissions by 60 million tons from the 1 billion tons reduction of carbon emission Modi promised by 2030. The ambitious 2030 target of 500 gigawatts of renewable energy, mostly solar using new technologies, is another promise.  This Bloomberg report looks at India's energy mix today which is 44% coal, 25% oil, 6% natural gas, for a total of 75% fossil fuels, and the promise of 50% fossil, 50% renewable and other non fossil fuels hydroelectric, nuclear, that Modi made at COP26 Glasgow. Just as US and Europe, Japan, China have huge challenges ahead to make a massive transformation in record time, India faces the equal need to think clearly and embrace new technologies with speed and scale, and make the investments early for transformation. This is good for India to take on the challenge and venture out to seize the opportunities in new technologies that transform whole industries and a way of living that must be left behind. ...

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New risks are emerging in the shadow banking system as regulators work to make the banks safer. Banks as deposit backed financial firms are different from mutual funds, private equity and other firms that are doing more of the financing for business and home loans in the U.S. financial system. As banks deleverage responding to tighter regulation by increasing capital buffers and reducing assets, it makes the financial system safer, yet creates new risks in the shadow banking system not subject to regulation and not supported by bank deposits the way banks are. A IMF report put out in April 2015 underlines these new risks in the U.S. and European financial system. Mutual funds and exchange-traded funds now rival banks in providing financing to companies with high debt. Total bond holdings worldwide in 2014 were $9.6 trillion, increasing 25% over 2008, and the mutual funds leveraged loans increased 60% to $151 billion in the U.S., 223% in the eurozone to $126 billion, according to the IMF. The IMF points out that these mutual funds and exchange traded funds favor emerging market and corporate junk bonds, and operate in a way where they mimic each others in their investments, creating contagion. With hard to sell securities and the rapid decline in these types of funds in a panic, the effect could be to create contagion across the funds. In the mortgage lending field a similiar process of deleveraging is happening. U.S. banks share of federally guaranteed mortgages from big banks down from 61% in late 2012 to 33% in 2015, other smaller finance companies taking up 51% increasing from 24%, according to an American Enterprise Institute report. Paul Tucker, former deputy governor of the Bank of England, points out the dangers. He says policy makers and regulators are playing catchup with firms in the financial services industry who are constantly looking for gaps in the rules, a game that policymakers and regulators are likely to lose at some point....

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The cultural identity of the Nation that has existed since the founders Washington and Jefferson, and since it's second beginning Lincoln and then TR and FDR,  was seen to be at risk in 2024, yet no party has put forward the need for Cultural Literacy as a Nation as part of national classroom education, a plea by E.D.Hirsch Jr. of University of Virginia, and others, from the 1980's onwards. Kash Patel is a public defender from New York, who worked in the NSC staff in the first Trump term. He is of Gujarati East Africa origin who studied at University of Richmond for history and Pace University for his JD. He actively defended DJT in what is known as the Nunes memo for the Mueller investigation into links with Russia. He also faced opposition after Defense Secretary Esper was replaced and he served as assistant to the new Defense Secretary, in appointment to the FBI, by then Attorney General William Barr. Kash Patel actively campaigned for DJT during the 2024 campaign. In addition to cost of living crisis for middle and working class families, unease about migration and the lack of Democrats sensitivity and urgency to serious issues raised by fentanyl flows and migrants crossing the border, the pressure on Border Patrol, were major issues in western, southern and midwestern states, leading to a Republicans gaining the White House, the Senate and the House in 2024.  The cultural identity of the Nation that has existed since the founders Washington and Jefferson, and since it's second beginning Lincoln and then TR and FDR,  was seen to be at risk, yet no party has put forward the need for Cultural Literacy as a Nation as part of national classroom education, a plea by E. D. Hirsch Jr. of University of Virginia, and others, from the 1980's onwards. Other issues were transgender and the dilution of morals and religion in the national life since the European settlement of the continent, the sense of losing identity as a Nation.  ...

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The relationship between the southerner finance minister Schauble, and chancellor Merkel from the former East Germany is close, with each depending on the other. The Greece crisis following the referendum, with Schauble's patience with Greece exhausted by July 9, 2015, is reflected in the words he used in February 2015 about the Greece bailout program "ich over", his southwest German accent version of "it's over." In the German parliament Schauble has described the Tsipras government's behaviour as "lacking any rhyme or reason," and Schauble's popularity rating in the ruling CDU party is higher than Merkel in 2015, at over 70%. Schauble is a key CDU member in bringing the CDU's conservative members behind Merkel. This also limits the room Merkel now has in negotiating some last minute deal on Greece before the expiry of the deadline of July 12, 2015. Merkel has also set a higher bar for the negotiation, and a multiyear deal making reforms a high priority. When Schauble says there is no "rhyme or reason" for Syriza party Tsipras's behaviour he may be referring to the EU giving in to Greece's key demand for a change in the surplus targets for 2014-2016. As economists including Krugman point out the surplus is what Greece transfers to its creditors, and additionally with the EU making transfers of about 5% of GNP to Greece according to Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff, aside from cuts to pensions as part of pension reforms to return a unsustainable pension system to sustainability, the Greeks had most of what they could expect at this time. The debt is basically being rolled over with EU loans helping pay what is now very low interest, making it an issue that could be tackled at a later stage, say economists, even though Syriza made it an overriding issue in the referendum. Both Schauble, Merkel, and the rest of the CDU, and many Social Democrats including their leader Sigmar Gabriel, find Syriza Tsipras's moves incomprehensible and damaging relations. German experts now see the Eurozone and the Euro currency better off for the future with a Grexit, which also limits what Merkel and Germany can now do....

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Under a new program the ECB will tilt the purchase of bonds for maturing debt towards weaker economies. Leading to purchase of $208 billion of bonds of weaker  economies such as Italy. Italy's bond yields climbed to 4.2% in June 2022. This will help prevent the fragmentation of the bonds in Europe into segments and is part of new thinking at ECB after the pandemic. Italy's bond yields dropped and stocks gained after the announcing of the decision. Under Merkel such decisions simply would not take place with the different thinking under that administration.  Today solidarity is uppermost in EU after the pandemic at EU in Brussels, at the ECB, and at the chancellor's office in Germany. No one even thinks twice about this.  Italian bond yields dropped from about and its stock index gained 3.2%. The stress in eurozone is reflected by the gap between the yields of 10 year German and Italian government bonds. It dropped from 2.4% to 2.13% after the decision. To keep the two yields close and not fragment eurozone yields is what preventing fragmentation means. ...

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Seoul is one of the cities that is shrinking in size during the pandemic. House prices doubled during the period of the pandemic. An average price of a home just 2 years before the pandemic was 341 million won or $252,000 now it is 626 million won in 2022. More South Koreans are moving to wide open spaces with more room and clean air. Seoul's population has dropped below 10 million and could reach 7 million in 2050 as population moves out to smaller more livable towns and cities. Says one teacher who moved out there is a higher quality of life, homes are bigger, prices much lower, and children can go outside and play instead of being surrounded by crowded places. Places at kindergarden are free and extra curricular activities are far cheaper. Another development is also taking place. The model of young people getting a degree and working at alarge corporation in the center of Seoul is now fading as young people start their own ventures or business as entrepreneurs. They can then use the flexibility of locating in places outside Seoul to attract talented employees who no longer like life in the big city compared to the outdoors and larger spaces in smaller cities. ...

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US House Republicans are pursuing cuts in spending of as much as 50% in many programs that are considered essential, such as a 50% cut in foreign aid at a time of global food insecurity, deep cuts in the FBI's counter intelligence budget, deep cuts in healthcare services and housing to low income Americans following the pandemic and high inflation, and other cuts to services benefiting workers and families. Democrats in Congress and president Biden oppose such cuts and hope to eliminate the deficit with cuts that do not place an unfair burden- taxes on the wealthiest with over $100 million and on stock buybacks would generate about $2 trillion to cover the whole deficit which is in the range of $1.4 trillion in 2023 moving to $2 trillion a year. Much of the Republican plan is being shaped by Mr. Trump's former Budget Director, Russell Vought, says this report in the NYT. Mr. Vought calls it an attack on the bureaucracy and woke spending. Other Republicans see this as an ideological approach that does not address today's problems. Chuck Schumer, Democrats Senate Majority Leader asks Republicans to spell out their plan. ...

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Ashton Verdery, a professor of sociology at Penn State University, says his simulations shows a severe impact for the nuclear family in China by 2050. By 2050 living parents and in laws will outnumber  children for middle aged men and women, he says in the WSJ. Verdery says policy planners have not anticipated or prepared for this unexpected even counterintuitive situation in China. This is a result of the one child policy and women's unwillingness today to have more children, prioritizing careers over children, which will not only impact the number of retired people supported by younger people, but also the family itself.  Because of the surfeit of baby boys during the one child policy this research shows that by 2050 18% of China's men in their 60's will have no living descendents, compared to about 9% today. This impact of defamilizing in China, can have an impact on the risk propensities of people, leading to risk aversion and impact the guanxi networks that propelled business during the 2000-2015 period when the family peaked. He calls it a kin crash between now and 2050 compared to the kin explosion that happened after 1980.   ...

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Yoon suk-yeol the prosecutor who decided to run in 2021 for the first time in politics, won the recent presidential election in South Korea. He talks to the WSJ in this interview report and outlines the policies of his administration.  Yoon say she sees upholding the constitution which embodies values of  liberal democracy and market economy as the deciding factors for foreign and domestic policy. He wants to build closer ties to the US and Japan. He will resume defense exercizes with the US that were suspended during the Trump administration. On China he sees continued economic relations as a trading partner, but sees flip flopping in foreign policy as creating risks for the Indo-Pacific region. If invited to join the Quad Yoon says South Korea  "will positively review joining." On domestic policy he says his goal is "to correct and normalize so that the market can operate as it should." Yoon led the prosecution in efforts against prior presidents and Samsung, and his known for his forthright approach. Yoon wants to see more foreign investment and says he will ensure that there is no discrimination against foreign companies, including eliminating unnecessary regulation. ...

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The Hindu provides this look at the life and career of European Union president Ursula von der Leyen. Today Leyen is one of the prominent leaders in the European Union, and leads the fight against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Leyen has visited places destroyed in the Russian invasion such as Bucha and talked to refugees, mostly women and children She has stated on Twitter after proposing a complete ban on Russian crude oil to Europe- "we want Ukraine to win this war." After a mediocre performance as Minister of Defense Leyen took the position at the EU headquarters in Brussels, where her father had served as a civil servant. Her father was  elected as Minister President of Lower Saxony province after working at EU in Brussels. Leyen went to secondary school in Brussels. Studying economics at London School of Economics before shifting to medicine, getting her degree in 1991. She followed her husband to Stanford University, and after her return to Hanover in 1996 was elected to the state parliament in Lower Saxony in 2003. She joined Merkel's cabinet as Minister of Youth and Family Affairs in 2005, deputy leader of CDU in 2010 and Defense Minister in 2013. ...

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This editorial view in The Guardian says the Tories win in 2019 was a result of homeowners and mortgage holders feeling richer with the soaring house prices in England. It could hurt the Conservatives as interest rates rise and house prices drop. Conservatives could lose support gradually, then suddenly as home prices drop fast. It cites the forthcoming book Shattered Nation by Prof. Danny Dorling of Oxford University on the extractive model of housing in Britain being out of step with its European neighbors. Dorling says that had house prices gone up with inflation in the last 70 years, the average home in Britain would have cost 63,000 pounds, that is twice the median UK salary of 31,000 pounds. Instead government's ONS shows price of average house in Britain is 296,000 pounds in 2022 August, up 36,000 pounds- the price increase of 14% is one year's salary. Dorling says money is siphoned off from the less well off to the already wealthy when paying excessive rents, buying an overpriced house, or keeping up with larger mortgage payments. Lawmakers don't see the problem Dorling says because so many of them are landlords including Mr. Sunak. ...

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Softbank the epitome or synonym of waste on a huge scale of capital allocation for the last 2 decades in massively distorted capital markets when healthcare, childcare, manufacturing technologies and infrastructure is suffering from lack of funding, is hit with a loss of $23 billion for the second quarter which was one and half times the loss of the first quarter. As the WSJ reports Softbank and Masayoshi Sen was delirious in his own words during the tech booms of the last 20 years and its founder talked about bigger and bigger capital allocation even as productivity of capital declined rapidly. This happened astonishingly with little restraint in capital markets shown by participants even as healthcare in the ten years before the pandemic was not adequately funded, and education, infrastructure, manufacturing technologies were neglected which would have provided better returns on capital and served the interests of the American people and the world in a way that would have been said was well done had this been done. This went on astonishingly right into the pandemic period. Investments of about $50 billion were made in tech startup companies in 2021.  ...

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This WSJ report looks at the work of Alexei Miller as head of Gazprom which supplies Russian natural gas through the Nordstream pipeline to Europe. Mr. Miller is shown to have put too much reliance on the European market which is now shrinking with the European decision to cut dependence on Russian gas. compared to alternative markets in China Russia has invested too little in pipelines to other regions in Asia. He has also not invested in LNG which could be shipped to China and other countries leaving Russia too dependent on pipelines that run mostly to Europe such as Nordstream 1 and 2.  Russia was sending 160 billion cubic metres of natural gas to Europe and only 11 billion cubic metres to China in 2021. A major shift requires much new infrastructure. Miller also did not grasp how shale oil and gas would boom in the US. Mr. Miller started as a 39 year old economics PhD in 2001 when Putin made him head of Gazprom. Both had worked together in St Petersburg local government, and Miller was Deputy Energy Minister for 1 year, briefly head of a pipeline system to the Gulf of Finland. ...

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Leah Williamson is the author of the new book You Have the Power with Guardian football writer Suzanne Wrack. It is a motivational story of England's European cup soccer winning team from 2022 for girls ages 10 to 14 years. Its subtitle is Find Your Strength and Believe You Can. Leah says this is the age group that struggles the most in terms of who we want to be as young women. It is also the age when young girls decide to drop out of sport. What has made a difference for Leah is that her mother was a footballer playing for Milton Keynes and her grandmother played badminton competitively. She remembers going to Arsenal for games with her mom and grandmother at an early age. By age 7 she was playing competitively and she was scouted for Arsenal girls. She has played for Arsenal since then. She started on boys team when there were no teams for girls. A confident attitude came naturally to her and once she decided to play soccer competitively it did not matter that professional soccer for women did not exist when she joined Arsenal girls. ...

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Inflation in the European Union is being pushed up by higher profit margins of companies as they push up prices. Wage pay rise is only part of the problem, says Mr. Panetta, an executive board member of the ECB. Profit margins at public companies in the eurozone were pushed up from 7.2% in 2019 before the pandemic to 8.5% for the year through March 2023. A similar situation exists in the US. Companies could be increasing prices to make up for input price rises, anticipating future price inceases, or with market power to take advantage of  the situation, says Panetta. Panetta says his job on the 6 member executive board team of ECB is to look at all the causes of inflation. He has found sectors where even when input prices are decreasing profit margins and profit are increasing, a cause for concern. At a conference in Frankfurt last week Panetta pointed out that about half of the pressure for inflation came from wages, the other half from rising profits. In Europe wages rise is slower than in the US. It is also seen that market power of European companies was higher than in the US last year.  ...

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This bridge in the Reasi district of Jammu and Kashmir is at an height of 359 metres, the tallest bridge in the world. It is expected to open by January 2024. Vande Bharat will run across the bridge and Vande Metro trains between Jammu and Srinagar, cutting travel time between the two cities to 3.5 hours. About 28,000 tons of steel went into building the arch of the bridge. Himalayan tunnels need a horse shoe shape of curvature, an elliptical shape that prevents loose soil from causing landslides. India is only now building the kind of infrastructure the region needs as most of this region remains isolated compared to countries in Europe. This is true of Nepal and much of the Himalayan region. The level of infrastructure building is taking on a new pace and vigor as more roads, highways and bridges are being built in the Indian Himalayan states under the Modi administration. This will increase the economic activity in the region giving new life to agriculture and industry in the region, raising incomes and providing a better life for the people in these states. This comes as the region is being connected for access to tap water, electricity, mobility, banking in all villages and towns.  ...

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This report in WSJ says Mr. Musk's agreement with Twitter for the $44 billion merger had terrible timing. It comes with the future for social media companies becoming dimmer and the plunging shares in Tesla with the high inflation and the war in Ukraine hitting stocks.  It is striking that Musk around January 2022 before the invasion of Ukraine referred to Twitter as "the future of civilization," as reported by WSJ. This was typical of the hyperbole and talk typical of the last two decades that hyped up internet stocks. Musk said- "Having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important for the future of civilization. I don't care about the economics at all." Twitter stock meanwhile has dropped to 20% below the price it came into public markets in 2013, now at about $35 a share. Mr. Musk agreed to buy Twitter at $54.20 a share about 50% more than it stands now. Twitter ad revenue outlook is dimming further as has happened at other social media companies and the company is now cutting jobs says the WSJ. ...

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A quick look at the graph in this Times Report shows the carbon dioxide CO2 emissions for the US, European Union, China and the Rest of the World in 2020. For the EU it is about 3.0 billion tons of CO2 emissions, for US it is 5 billon tons, for China 10 billion tons and the Rest of the World 16.0 billion tons. What this tells us is that a lot will depend on not just China, but India and other countries such as Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia in the developing world for how much CO2 emissions can be reduced to tackle climate change and other environmental problems.  For that 16 billion tons in the rest of the world reduction will depend on renewable supply and technologies to do it, rapid growth of economies in India and other countries to generate the resources and technology initiatives to get a shift from coal. Meanwhile it is a choice between having electricity for homes in rural areas in India or not. This is where bright spots such as solar technology in India that are giving quantum leaps for renewable solar energy with new technology cutting cost in successive waves of development can play a part.  ...

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Experts say solar energy costs are going down by 30-40% every time the deployment of solar energy doubles in a country. The Modi administration plans to triple solar energy production in the next 5 years. This investment in solar energy should drive down costs from the $35 per megawatt hour in 2020. Experts say that costs are going down at a rate that was never expected.  For India the courage in making these investments in solar energy since 2010 and accelerated in 2016, are path breaking. This could be a world changing event for India as cost of energy can bring up living standards throughout the country. Gone will be the days when children lacked electric bulb light to read and study in villages in India. It also shows the need to heed Vivekananda's words: "This I have seen in my life- he who is overcautious  about himself falls into dangers at every step; he who is afraid of losing honor and respect, gets only disgrace; he who is always afraid of loss always loses." The pioneers in India pushing forward these new initiatives have listened to these words. ...

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The situation in California on December 12 is dire as its daily cases for coronavirus increase to over 25,000. For Los Angeles county the figure is over 10,000. California coped well with the first wave. As the summer arrived fatigue with lockdown restrictions had increased, social distancing and mask wearing were not followed. When bars and restaurants opened in Los Angeles county huge numbers of people gathered in close proximity. Beaches were crowded.  A further spike in cases is expected from the Thanksgiving period. LA officials are saying one person is dying every 20 minutes. ICU capacity is shrinking. In southern California it has dwindled to less than 10%.  In Santa Clara county in Bay area only 31 ICU beds remain for 2 million residents. San Francisco is expected to run out of ICU beds on December 27, 2020. A patchwork of restrictions varying by county means there is no uniform effort. Fatigue with restrictions means compliance is patchy with social distancing and mask wearing even at the height of this pandemic. Public officials have failed to convince the public to do their part including the governor of the state and the mayor of San Francisco, because of inconsistent messages. ...

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The lack of vaccine supplies in Africa and Latin America, parts of Asia, is a major problem in 2021. Of the 66 million doses of vaccine planned to be given to Africa under COVAX plan only 19 million have been delivered. In total about 49 million doses have been delivered. Vaccine shortages are a result of the huge wave of coronavirus in India in April, so that vaccine shipments from India have stalled. Of the countries in Africa a few have made some progress- Egypt, Ghana, Nigeria. Other problems in Africa are lack of trained people to give vaccination. Last week 2.3 billion dollars in additional funds were raised at a donor conference for COVAX, the initiative for poor countries vaccines. That is enough to buy 1.8 billion doses. US and UK have not exported vaccines. India has made a good start in shipping vaccines to many countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America as shown in the Ministry of External Affairs website of the Indian government. For India to do this once it meets its own needs and resume exports, vaccine patent protection needs to be lifted for sometime, which the US is now accepting. ...

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Six European Union states pass Britain, France and Germany in fully vaccinated percentages on August 5, 2021- Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Malta. Fully vaccinated are very close to 60% in these states. The fully vaccinated person in the EU gets a EU Digital Covid Certificate as shown here. The vaccination drives in Britain, France and Germany have now stalled due to the vaccine hesitant groups. To get some idea of this the second dose was given to 265,000 in France and 165,000 in UK on August 4. In the US southern states vaccination drive never got off to a good start adding to the problem of unvaccinated who are most of the people in new daily cases, leading to a new surge by August 4. France will soon overtake the UK in fully vaccinated percentage, showing that an early start as in UK is not enough. One in three in the UK in the 18-30 years age group has not taken the first shot, which is alarming. The US has a similar problem in the southern states in an aggravated form and also across the US in some form where young people have not taken up vaccination. ...

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In speaking about Indian democracy and human freedom not mentioned was the unprecedented food security or freedom from hunger that was offered to one sixth of the world's population in India since March 2021, year of the pandemic. Not mentioned was the unprecedented health security or freedom from viral epidemic that was offered to the same people in that period with 900 million vaccine doses. Not mentioned was the freedom of expression in 15 Indian languages including freedom to write about the government at local, state and federal levels in the country with a wider spread of language and regional dialects than Europe for 75 years since independence. Not mentioned was the struggle within this democracy to give the younger generation of people under 30 who make up the biggest part of the population an opportunity for the first time in about one thousand years to take charge of their own future. All this one can see with open eyes and open mind. These are also the young people who have the most to gain or lose from the wrong actions at the wrong time, as they take up the challenges of modernization of a clean and vibrant infrastructure friendly India of the future.  ...

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US president Biden's 2024 Budget places great emphasis on aid to workers and families in the US and shores up the Medicare hospital-insurance trust fund. He will do this by raising taxes on the wages, investment gains and self-employment income of people making more than $400,000 a year. Additional savings come from increasing the drugs on which Medicare can negotiate prices from 20 to 50 drugs.  Childcare- families making less than $200,000 a year will get subsidized child health care, the lowest income families paying nothing. Housing- Building and preserving 2 million housing units. Series of tax credits to make buying homes more affordable. College education- Reducing the cost of going to education with $12 billion allocated for this. Offering tution free community college. Family and Medical Leave- Federal paid family and medical leave program. Retirees- a $2000 cap on out of pocket cost of prescription drugs for retirees. Reduced taxes for under $400,000 income households- This would be done without increasing the deficits to extend the tax reduction from the 2017 tax cuts to households making less than $400,000 a year.     ...