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The sympathy Mohandas Gandhi had for the textile mill workers of Lancashire and their admiration for him is shown here in the Indian Express. Gandhi visited one Lancashire mill in 1931and was received with much enthusiasm with the crowd saying "Three cheers for Mr. Gandeye... hip hip.. Hurrah!" When British elections were called in 1945 the workers of Lancashire voted for Labour and Mr. Attlee and turned out Mr. Churchill. Mr. Attlee immediately started the negotiations for Gandhi's Hind Swaraj, the independence of India. This is a reminder of how Mohandas Gandhi would have viewed the globalization of the last 2 decades that ripped out manufacturing communities in the US and Europe in what is now seen as a failed supply chain that failed American workers and families. As the US and Europe build a new supply chain with the partners in the Free World including India, with the countries of Latin America, Asia and Africa, only the foundations of the new supply chain that build a better life for American, European and foreign workers and families is sound in principle and deserves the Free World's support. ...

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WSJ interview with Narendra Modi before he meets Joe Biden at the White House. This interview talks about India seeking larger role in world affairs, about Indian democracy. Seen from inside India the perspective is different. India is at the same stage where China was in 1990-2000 with the rising aspirations of a billion people, Japan in the Meiji period in 1900. It is all about jobs, investment, technologies and manufacturing on a scale that surpasses China in that period with newer technologies to meet the rising aspirations of 1.4 billion people. China's trade with the US was three times higher than the Indian trade with the US in 2022, India desperately wants to catch up and fast. The Danish ambassador to India was asked what he saw in India today and he said it was the rising confidence of people that struck him most. The digitalization that has changed the way government benefits are provided to 1.4 billion people and opened bank accounts for all, provided delivery of services to all parts of the population. The infrastructure that is being built at breakneck pace, and new colleges and universities expanding access to quality education, healthcare.   ...

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This report in WSJ shows a generational problem that is creating a shortage of workers in Vietnam and China, that will require factory owners to increase wages significantly. US and European government policy supports these higher wages so that some of the manufacturing can be returned to bring jobs back home.   Younger workers do not want to spend much of their lives behind factory walls, and prefer less strenuous jobs shorter working hours in the services sector. They are having fewer children and at later ages than parents, resulting in less pressure to work in their 20's for a steady income. Factories in Vietnam are offering glass walls, yoga classes, improving cafeteria food, and offering kindergarden for worker children to attract workers.  In China there is 21% urban youth unemployment at a time of factory shortages. South Asian countries such as Bangladesh have infrastructure problems, and in India factories are finding it difficult to sign up workers. In the next 2 years this will result in costlier goods in US and EU, over 3-5 years this will bring many jobs back to the home countries. ...

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Under the law overturned by the US Supreme Court it was illegal to carry a gun openly and a permit was needed in New York to carry it concealed. Three Supreme Court Justices appointed by president Trump were of a disposition that opposed gun control laws- Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. The requirement under the New York law was that you had to show "good moral character" and "cause" to carry a concealed weapon or carry a gun openly. Many other states have such laws in California, Hawaii and urban states in the north east. Republican states are loosening gun control laws. This comes as many random shooting incidents are taking place in the US some in schools and grocery stores, the most recent being a shooting in Buffalo, NY. The vote was 6-3 after the Supreme Court for years had avoided hearing such cases based on Second Amendment rights from the Constitution that some had interpreted to include freely carrying guns without any common sense restrictions. This issue is second only to abortion as a cultural issue in the US on which sides are taken by the public including the Supreme Court Justices selected by Mr. Trump. Though not directly apparent these and issues of immigration, other cultural issues surrounding gay rights are putting those who would normally come together on issues of national interest on opposite sides when it comes to common sense support for everyday issues of feeding families, keeping workers employed in good factories at home, child care, education, health care, fair wages, restoring America's manufacturing leadership and bringing back manufacturing to the US. The emergence of Tech and tech companies, Silicon Valley, the finance sector in New York, has reinforced the prejudice in these opposing sides as Tech and the finance sector have largely embedded themselves into the Democratic side. Tech and finance sector employees with higher incomes have largely insulated themselves from the interests of ordinary workers and families creating a split Democratic party when it comes to supporting workers and families who form the vast majority of the American people. In a sense today the national interest is separate from these cultural issues and supporters of national interests can be found in both parties who can look beyond and above these cultural issues. It is also where many of these cultural issues can be resolved to some degree using common sense on which most informed members of Congress can agree. This is true for gun control as a group of bipartisan Senators from both parties are preparing gun control around common sense principles that today are even beyond the capacity of the Supreme Court of the US that itself now reflects a raucous public sphere. ...

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What has happened that makes it so hard for Democrats Biden who stood on a picket line for the UAW autoworkers union, Harris fighting for workers, that they cannot easily convince workers that they are on their side? It is because compared to 1980 not the lowest income groups but the "downwardly mobile" white and other groups without college degrees have taken the brunt of the loss of manufacturing jobs. It is why the "zero-sum" stories of the former president have appeal to some workers who have lost the most from deindustrialization of the US. Even though Biden, and Harris, have fought hard and are putting in place the policies for the fight to reindustrialize America by taking old plants and modernizing them one by one across the country. No one has ever done this before including years in which the former president was in office. In these visual graphs it is easy to see the sharp decline in incomes and status in society of workers without college degrees as the economy changed after 1980 sending steel, auto and other industries to Asia. By 2024 these workers lives had been upended by the loss of these industries and the hope for income and place in society that existed in 1980. Every US president from Reagan through Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump had failed to address this. Biden was the first president to take this up but too much has happened with to reverse this in 4 years, the pandemic, inflation from loss of supply chains to Asia, and wages not keeping up with cost of living.  NYT's Badger, Gebeloff and Bhatia show analysis of the economy, incomes and jobs in 1980 vs the economy, incomes and jobs in 2024 for persons with a college degree and without a college degree.It shows the sharp differences in the eastern Midwestern states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania over 4 decades of job losses, loss of income status and self worth for men without college degrees. With their jobs in manufacturing disappearing also disappearing was the middle class lifestyle- of owning a house, having a cottage or boat in the countryside, and sending kids to college. ...

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Of this $15.9 billion is for a writedown of assets that have less value now including for a production process called Intel 7, as the foundry business that makes chips for other companies shifts to advanced technologies. The foundry business had an operating loss of $5.8 billion and has the support of the Biden administration as it seeks to bring back manufacturing to the US in advanced chips made in Taiwan by TSMC. There is much debate inside Intel about how to structure the foundry business which makes product for other companies. Intel CEO Gelsinger is keeping the company together as Intel will need to invest in the foundry business for the long term goals of the US and Intel Corporation. The foundry business has the support of Amazon and 2 other large companies as customers. It is the national resolve of Biden-Harris to rebuild manufacturing for CHIPS and Intel is at the forefront no matter what short term focused Wall Street analysts say.  ...

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China want its company COSCO to have an equal share in ownership of the 40 ports including ones in Panama that Hutchison of Hong Kong is selling for $23 billion to Black Rock and MSC. 

In 2014 China blocked a deal where Maersk would merge with a French shipping company and MSC to form a larger company. Much of China's export surge and its manufacturing capacity largely for exports rests on shipping and logistics and a large role is played by Denmark's Maersk and by COSCO. This has led to the US and Europe losing with its manufacturing base its role in world shipping, and as a result also in shipbuilding. All three are linked. India as it builds its manufacturing base is also building up its logistics and shipping terminals. DJT has emphasized the importance of the ports and it is seen as an affront that the country that built the Panama Canal has ceded its ports there.

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For the first time in decades the U.S. trade deficit with China is falling significantly. China's exports to the U.S. dropped 12.5% to $296 billion in 2019 from $323 billion in 2018, according to Chinese customs data. Actually China's trade surplus with the U.S would have fallen even more had not the U.S. exports to China declined by 21%. With the Phase 1 trade deal negotiated recently U.S. exports to China will increase significantly, while 25% tariff on $250 billion in Chinese goods still in place limits China's exports. This means in 2021 and 2022 and years ahead China's surplus should shrink much faster achieving one of the principal goals of Mr. Trump and his trade negotiator Mr. Lighthizer. Mr. Lighthizer was chosen by Mr. Trump for having accomplished a similar goal decades back in the eighties with Japan's surplus. Even though China has not stated this in writing, American officials have said China will increase purchases of American goods and services by at least $200 billion over the next 2 years from 2017 levels. China and the U.S. have essentially agreed that the two economies so tightly intertwined works to the detriment of the U.S. with the Chinese surplus creating tensions. China will now have the European Union as the largest trading partner followed by south east Asian countries, and other regions. China decided that its priority is technological development and was unwilling to meet U.S. demands to reduce its efforts for technological competition and access to western technologies. Instead opting for shifting it economy away from dependence on exports to the U.S. in a gradual way. The other demand of the U.S. for stopping state subsidies is also a concession China is not willing to make as it sees it as an economic feature of its business model that is working and a competitive advantage.  This leaves the U.S. with a limited win so that trade and resulting jobs can be brought into favoring the U.S. a key Trump goal, and not a win in the technological competition with China which will continue. ...

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China is slowing infrastructure projects after loaning $30 billion to Venezuela. As Venezuela's economy declined under Maduro Venezuela is paying this off with oil exports in what is called a creditor trap. Both Russia and China are intent on trade with the US, Russia to open up business and trade and China to preserve it's trading and business relationship for its exports at a difficult time for it's economy. This tacitly preserves the idea of US direction in a beneficial way for the western hemisphere that was part of the message in 1823 by president Monroe to Congress. In the Mexican War, through Manifest Destiny during the administration of James Polk in 1843 this was still the accepted idea when Ulysses Grant a future president and civil war general on the side of Lincoln fought in that war. This brought slavery free, Spanish feudalism free, democratic processes and modernized economies to California, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado, much of the West and the Pacific shoreline. Russia hopes to get the US to accept it's aspirations to be a modern Northern power in Europe. The US DJT Republican administration has shown it's respect for Russia in its zone of influence, with it's main objection to Russia in Ukraine being the massive invasion of a neighboring country. When compared to Mexico it was the US replacing the Spanish who had invaded the Aztec tribes in Mexico setting up feudal regimes, not the US invading a neighboring country. The European Union and Germany now bear the burden of defending Western Europe as a European power. The situation is similar in Asia where China has it's area of influence and India, Japan, Australia as Asian powers sharing zones of influence in Asia with China, so that the US can maintain good relations with China including fair trade that brings back it's manufacturing. The US would continue to support Taiwan as an independent country. This balance can ensure peace in the Americas, Europe and Asia as nations modernize and choose better governance under governments that relate to their history and geography, as opposed to Communist and anti-communist or democratic or anti-democratic, when they meet the aspirations of their people.   ...

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June unemployment numbers will jump say experts at IHS Insight as GM and Chrysler downsize even more to become smaller companies with even less market share. This will reflect closing Pontiac and sale or closing of the other GM brands Saturn, Saab, and Hummer. It will reflect closing of more dealerships of GM and Chrysler. THis might be offset by a pickup in sales if something like the European trading clunkers for new cars program takes off in the USA. But with the US customers more in debt and with rising job losses, the pattern may be different in the US. It may only offer a small boost in sales. Manufacturing still matters in a recovery. In 1980 manufacturing was 20% of America's output, now it is 11.5% says Mark Zandl of Moody's Economy.com. Manufacturing, he says, has a bigger impact than its size suggests, because it responds quickly. As sales resume workers are called back to their jobs. The sharp V shaped recoveries in the early 80's reflected the rapid response of manufacturing. After the 1980's both the declines and the recoveries were shallow in 1990-1991 and 2001. Now with GM and Chrysler shrinking further under the government plan to fix these companies, and taking the supplier impact, the rebound leg of the V is missing. The kick from the Big Three and their suppliers is missing, says Nigel Gault of IHS Insight. Of the 5.7 million jobs lost from Jan 2008 to June 2009, 1.6 million were in manufacturing and 289,000 were in motor vehicles, split almost evenly between assemblers and supplier networks....

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The record shows that like other industrial states such as Illinois, Michigan and Ohio, Massachusetts lost many manufacturing jobs during the period 2003-2007, when Romney was Governor of Massachusetts. At the end of 2002 there were 338,000 manufacturing jobs in Massachusetts, by 2007 this had declined by 12% to 298,000, according to Andrew Sum, an economist at Northeastern University. Romney cites a drop in the unemployment rate from 5.6% to 4.7%. Prof. Sum who heads the University's Centre for Labor Market Studies, says this was people left the workforce during this period in large numbers. He says only Louisiana of all U.S. states had a bigger decline in the labor force when it was hit by Hurricane Katrina. The dot com bubble burst during the period before Romney took office. Massachusetts had already lost 158,000 jobs in 2001-2002 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Romney was unable to do much to reverse the job losses that continued during his term in office.

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Maggie Haberman has covered Donald Trump from the period before he ran for president in 2016. Here she looks back at this period and reflects on the trial in New York with Judge Merchan, the campaign trail, and reflects on what it all means today to the people of the 51 states. She says it shows a former president who sees his best days in the 1980's when the Trump Tower was built, the connections with the New York elites who at once ignored and embraced this new view of the world and a place for greed in this world. It is also a period that began with Reagan Bush and the start of the Iran Iraq wars, the Bush war in Afghanistan, the Clinton embrace of economics that led to decline in US manufacturing, the 2009 financial crisis and Obama's continued war in Afghanistan- a period of decline in standard of living of the American people and failure to invest in essential infrastructure to improve quality of living.

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A sharp drop of over 6 points. 57.9 in March 2025 from 64.7 in Feb. the University of Michigan's index of consumer sentiment shows the effects of the uncertainty generated in tackling fentanyl flows by imposing tariffs on CMC countries Canada, Mexico and China. And the result of the uncertainty from reciprocal tariffs imposed to correct the loss of manufacturing in the US as a result of unfair trade by China, EU, Canada and Mexico. Some of this comes from the unfair coverage in the press and internet that these tariffs are economic tariffs to gain advantage when they are designed to correct huge trade imbalances that other countries had no incentive to correct when previous administrations, corporations and America's Ivy League economists- stuck to textbook economics divorced from reality- turned their back on the workers and communities in the Nation whose communities were destroyed with the loss of factories and plants shipped overseas. ...

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Markit's monthly purchasing managers index showed an increase in October 2013 to 51.6 from 51.3 in the prior month. Readings above 50 show an increase in manufacturing orders. German and Italian manufacturing activity shows increasing strength. The Markit survey is based on polling for 3000 manufacturing companies in the eurozone countries.

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A Phase 1 trial of over a thousand volunteers shows the Oxford vaccine works well with minimum side effects that can be handled with acetaminophen. Phase 2 trial is underway with volunteers in UK, Brazil and South Africa. Participants given the vaccine had significant increase in antibodies to neutralize the disease, and T cells for long term protection. About 70% reported fatigue or headaches which can be handled with acetaminophen. After the Ebola crisis of 2014 in West Africa the British government invested 120 million pounds to form a group to develop vaccines for top 10 likely threats dubbed "Disease X." On this list was the coronavirus. Scientists at the Jenner Institute at Oxford formed a team as part of this effort. Sarah Gilbert and Adrian Hill led the scientists at Jenner and pioneered research for  a new way to do this- to first replace a part of the virus with a component of the new virus. Then to remove the part of the virus that allows it to replicate in humans. This method is called recombinant adenovirus vector. The Oxford scientists used existing technology in new ways to increase the chances of getting a good vaccine early.  The first vaccine could be developed and tested for mass production by September. A 30,000 participant trial begins in U.S. in August. About 1 billion doses could be manufactured by end of 2020. India's Serum Institute has the manufacturing facilities to do this near Pune, India.  ...

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Issues raised by the huge mismatch between revenues and investment for AI. $400 billion estimated investment by 5 Tech firms in 2025 alone with revenue of about $40 billion and huge uncertainty about when AI will produce returns. Articles seen this week of November 17 in the WSJ and NYT on this issue, podcasts, discussions in other media outlets. Could this lead to a dot com bubble type economic crisis? Could that lead to a recession? Alongside these articles another article in the WSJ on Nov 17 shows the benefits small firms get by using AI, benefits which are on the fringes of their business, not essential but with some experimenting firm owners/managers able to tweak AI information for use in business. Nothing significant which firms will pay much money for. The uncertainty is a major factor. Should geopolitics trump all these concerns? Is the competition with China require this scale of investment, and is China following a more utilitarian approach as reported in a WSJ article this month, of investing in AI in a utilitarian way targeting its use in improving manufacturing, improving infrastructure, and not wildly throwing money at experimental uses that are unlikely to yield much result. In geopolitical sense would the country that not only promoted AI but used it efficiently and cost effectively, used it in ways that promote the overall public good, get the WIN. In short it behooves everyone of us to ask hard questions of AI, to dehype the hype, to look for the public good that comes out of this from it's efficient use. To ask the tough questions when $400 billion generates only $40 billion in 2025 and the $3 trillion planned investment over 5 years is half unfunded, is it going to crowd out energy needs for homes and business, push renewable energy targets back, crowd out essential investments in the crumbling aging infrastructure of the US and Europe, crowd out essential investments in education, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, and manufacturing, that hold better promise for our People. Will it also put retirees at risk when corporate bonds from retirees money fund the unfunded portion of AI? This means making the political dimension not about migration, settling the illegal migration issue that was meant to be settled a long time back, or about cultural issues that have little day to day impact on our lives which are about groceries, childcare, housing that are non ideological. Making the political dimension not about remote countries that one knows little about except when it affects public safety and health as with fentanyl. Capital allocation decisions to the vital needs of America can then be free of politically induced error, so that it can be subjected to the test of how best it serves the public interest and the people of the Nation. ...

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This opinion of the Editorial Board of WSJ says it is not clear why Taiwan has been excluded from the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework that includes most of South East Asia including Indonesia, and India, South Korea, Japan, Australia. The Biden administration plans to deepen economic ties with Taiwan. WSJ says this is a mistake and Taiwan should be included in the new Asian alliance led by the US. IPEF is a Asian alliance built around 4 pillars of digital economy, transparency and good governance, Asian security and rule of law, and rapid economic technological progress. Biden administration Commerce minister Raimondo says it will increase investment in the alliance countries for supply chain renewal and shift of investments away from China and into India, Vietnam. President Biden and Jake Sullivan see it as pulling in investment into the US for infrastructure and technology and into allies such as India who have the pool of manufacturing workers to compete with China in a new supply chain. Mr. Modi also sees it as he is focused on digital economy, good governance, and infrastructure with speed and scale at high levels to match rising aspirations for the economy in India. It is designed in a way that lets US, Japan South Korea and India to fill in the needs and strategies over the period to 2030 and 2040 so that US and Europe and the Free World in Asia and Latin America, Africa can preserve democratic values with matching technological and economic strength. ...

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This essay by Hein De Haas in the WSJ says there is a need for honest discussion about immigration in the US, about how best to accomodate the need for workers in certain trades and occupations in an organized way. In fact there is no need for the issue to be politicized this much. It needs to be depoliticized now that the needs for these workers are going to be larger not smaller as the US population ages and there is need for workers in healthcare and support for aging, and in other places such as construction, building infrastructure as US rebuilds aging bridges, roads and airports. In the seventies it was ned for agricultural workers and temporary workers moving back and forth across the border. Only in recent times has the border crossings assumed the scale and dimension it now has with 2.5 million border crossings at the peak. By comparison to the needs for workers only 500,000 are given work permits. And the laws have not been changed since the Reagan administration amnesty and legislation. Haas says workforce enforcement is negligible today in recognition of the fact of worker needs even under Republican administrations showing the need for honest discussion and resolution of this problem. The other problems of rebuilding manufacturing, US competitiveness, education and vocational training, are very different and require different solutions so that letting the immigration issue spill over the way it has is bad for America in deciding the future direction of the country and the economy, and renewing hope for the future. ...

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Christina Romer, Prof. of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, was chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisors under U.S. president Obama. Here she discusses the different aspects of the debate on raising the minimum wage. Romer says the negative effects on unemployment are small. The impact on consumer spending is also limited. The anti-poverty effects are real for raising the minimum wage from the current $7.25 an hour, says Romer, as over half the families earning a minimum wage make less than $40,000 an hour. President Obama called for raising the minimum wage to $9 an hour in 2013. Studies show 13 million U.S. workers earning less than $9 an hour. Raising the incomes of these families by about $3500 an year under the president's proposal gives workers badly needed income to cope with rising cost of gas, food and other basic necessities. The effects on consumer spending are small, estimated at between $10 to $20 billion. Its main virtue is keeping the principle of fairness and maintaining social cohesion at a time of increaing inequality. Romer says there is competition for workers which makes it possible for workers at the lower end to get a fair wage, but does not account for the effect of high unemployment which takes pressure off raising the minimum wage in the market economy. Another benefit for countries of keeping a fair minimum wage is that other actions can be taken to improve competitiveness for business and manufacturing and reducing the deficit and be seen in a positive context of overall improvement. This is part of the case made in Europe for boosting the mnimum wage as austerity measures are taking place....

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The stimulus checks in government pandemic aid packages are being spent prudently in the US. Government aid checks were sent out in the first wave since March 2020 and now again in the second wave in 2021. The stimulus pandemic checks are being allocated wisely. A Federal Reserve Bank of New York study shows that Americans saved about 36% of the first stimulus payment checks, 29% was spent, and 35% was used to pay down debt. For the second stimulus payment underway in 2021 this survey also shows Americans are expected to spend even less and use even more to pay down debts. With stores mostly closed, travel restricted, and consumers not having the opportunities to spend, and the sense of insecurity, additional income from unemployment checks, saving has increased. Americans saved $1.4 trillion in the first 9 months of 2020 compared to half that in the same period in 2019, according to analysis by Berenberg Economics. That amount is about 10% of household spending. The tight spending during 2020 means, say economic researchers, that spending will jump in 2021 after the vaccination drive. The trend is positive in that Americans tended not to save enough. People in China and India, tend to save more giving government a larger pool of savings to draw from in national infrastructure spending. In November 2020 Commerce Department estimate is that saving in the U.S. was 12.9%, up from 7.5% in November 2019. Anecdotal evidence shows U.S. savings accounts for people at the lower end of incomes have been depleted for years, hit by the unemployment of the 2009 recession. This was caused by errors by the banking community and business. To this is added people in arts and culture, people in professions involving contact, travel and leisure, food, during this pandemic ten years later. National priorities need to be set to bolster this part of American society and its core social fabric. The steps to bring home manufacturing jobs under Mr. Trump and the "Buy American" initiative under Mr. Biden is just the first step. More steps are needed and the resources, implementation and drive to bring America back to the healthy society of social cohesion and upward mobility aspirations under presidents Truman and Eisenhower in the 1950's. ...

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Jenny Strasbourg of the WSJ provides this much needed report from London about the courageous decision by AstraZeneca and Oxford University to give vaccines away at no profit to the whole world, to billions of people in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Without this brave decision by a British company and a British University the world would be a lot poorer, more variants could have happened, making us realize the great contribution Britain has made and how indispensable it is to the planet. Add to this the effort of Indian companies including Serum Institute that provided the manufacturing facilities and capabilities for making most of the British vaccine. AstraZeneca delivered 2.3 billion doses of the vaccine globally as of mid-December, according to the company. The International Monetary Fund estimates that low and middle income countries received 3.25 billion vaccines as of Dec. 11, About half of this or 1.6 billion doses were Astra Zeneca shots. This is a bigger share than any other vaccine by far and a life saver to the world. AstraZeneca stepped up early in a true to the best ideals in Britain to meet the needs of the world-  aiming to deliver 3 billion doses in 2022 and sell them at no profit as long as the pandemic continues. As the shot does not need cold storage it is ideal for India and other Asia, Africa and Latin America. "We are all very proud throughout the company of the impact we have had," says AstrZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot. By far the biggest manufacturing was done at Serum Institute of India which supplied 1.3 billion doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to 70 countries. Mr. Modi pushed forward the export of vaccine made in India to the world from the beginning in the same spirit of cooperation and the best ideals that Britain was living upto. Serum Institute can produce as much as 250 million doses of vaccine a month making it possible for India to tackle the vaccination population of 1.3 billion people.   None of this could have happened without Oxford University and AstraZeneca and Indian companies with Mr. Modi's active support living up to the best ideals of Britain and India for the world. "When you add up the benefits to humanity, I think you'll find the vaccine holds up pretty well in terms of the ill health it has prevented, and the deaths it has prevented," says John Bell, a senior Oxford academic who in 2020 guided the University through its vaccine-partnership talks with Astra Zeneca. Because in the real world AstraZeneca shot has held up so well it is also a choice for booster shots. ...

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Higher exports and lower imports boosted GDP growth by 1.59%, higher investment in equipment and AI related intellectual property investments, and consumer spending on healthcare services, pushed US GDP up to 4.5% for third quarter 2025. The annual rate of growth was pushed up to 2.5% matching the 2.4% growth in GDP for 2024 under the Biden administration. As the benefits of the rebuilding of American manufacturing, the benefits of the rapid depreciation of equipment and plant investments under the BIg Beautiful Bill are still in the future the GDP number is expected to be higher for 2025 and 2026. The formula for GDP estimates is to take total domestic spending and minus imports which are part of domestic spending in the US on imports, and to add the exports number, as these are goods produced in the US. An administration such as DJT administration today that promotes US exports, takes strong action such as tariffs against unfair trade goods pushed into the US, promotes US jobs and growth, ensures fair trade prevails, and invests in the US, is far more likely to get better GDP growth and jobs growth results. ...

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The aggressive effort of the US central bank, the Federal Reserve, to increase interest rates to dampen inflation will have an effect on Asian currencies and trade. The Japanese yen lost 14% of its value and the Korean won 8%, Chinese yuan 5% since the beginning of 2022. This is a result of the widening gap between interest rates in the US and Japan where the interest rates have not been increased due to mild inflation.  Asian trade is done in US dollars and exports to the US are invoiced in dollars. Citigroup says about three quarters of trade in Asia-Pacific is invoiced in dollars. Weaker currencies would translate into higher effective prices for imported commodities - energy and food. This pushes up domestic inflation and hurts manufacturing.   Add to this a shift in the US demand from goods into services in 2022 and there is weaker external demand for the economies of Asia. This will exacerbate the slowdown in Asian economies. Many countries such as South Korea and Thailand have increased their external borrowing in dollars. Debt service ratio was 21% in South Korea and 14.5% in Thailand, according to Bank for International Settlements. Years of low rates allowed governments in Asia to borrow more without incurring high interest bills. Now that situation is changing quickly and will result in difficulties for South Korea and Thailand says this report in WSJ. In the last 10 years Asian economies excluding China increased debt to GDP ratios by 15 percentage points, according to Gavekal. The result might not be debt crises as in Sri Lanka but painful slowdowns in economy with combination of loss in external demand from the US and higher inflation, higher interest bills. ...

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China's manufacturing sector contracts in June with the PMI index dropping below 50 - to 49.0.  Exports were also coming in lower. Experts say the increase in interest rates by the US is reducing imports of Chinese goods into the US. This comes as local governments are strained in their finances by $900 billion, and a budding revolt is taking place from property buyers with developers in financial trouble, as reported in the WSJ. Psychological hurdles now loom in the loss of confidence in the public in the property sector, loss of confidence of foreign investors with many constraints in operating, mental health issues for the population in many cities with the covid lockdowns.   The growth has slowed to 0.4% and there is now a realization dawning that there was overdependence both on property sector and foreign investment that set up new factories offshored from the US and Europe that alienated the public in these countries. Unlike wih the situation of Japan in the sixties and seventies for modernizing its economy growth of the scale China was pushed into by misguided and self interested  business interests in the US including its investment banks and local government officials in China without restraint by the central government in Beijing, ultimately led to trade friction and permanent damage to US China friendly relations. Communities in the US and the EU simply could not cope with the hyper growth from hyper shift of factories from the home countries to China that pushed this hyper growth. The property sector played the same role in the domestic front with too big a burden carried by it resulting in hyper growth. This did not have to happen. It happened because of a lack of understanding that this would have consequences in the longer run which is now showing up. ...