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Browne describes the excessive focus on "hard" GDP targets in China and the results in wasteful spending and neglect of other vital indicators of development such as healthcare, education, environment.

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Alan Mulally talks to Charlie Rose about cost competitiveness, negotiations with the UAW, creating jobs, and the repayment of $20 billion of the $23.5 billion borrowed in 2006. Mullaly points out that 70% of R&D is connected with design and manufacturing- all the technology that goes into designing and building and the associated R&D.

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There is cramped space for renters and limited supply of housing space per capita in Shanghai, China. After a decade of hyper building China still lacks affordable housing space. The residential space per capita in Shanghai is only 183 square feet or 17 square metres per person- about the size of a small room. And estimates by GK Dragonomics Research show one third of China's 225 million households lack kitchens and plumbing. At the same time housing is increasingly unaffordable for the middle class. Government restrictions on price increases reflect growing concern with the fact that the average Shanghai residential home sold for about $276,000 in 2011, even though annual per capita income in Shanghai is about $13,000. Prices for homes in Shanghai increased 2.6 times in 5 years, according to the Shanghai Urban Real Estate Surveyors Company. With the slowdown in construction developers are working through inventories, and more homes were sold than built in 2012, compared to about 1.5 units built for every unit sold in 2011. ...

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China's central bank, the People's Bank of China, reduces the capital reserve requirement ratio for the largest banks by 1% to 18.5%, on April 19, 2015. This move is expected to free up $200 billion for new lending by banks. China's securities regulator also acted to curb margin financing, the using of borrowed money to invest in the stock market which faces bubble conditions. China's economy is reported to be slowing making it uncertain whether the 7% annual growth target can be met.

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The yuan is up 5.5% since the peg to the dollar ended in 2010, reaching 6.469 to the dollar. But this is not helping the U.S. trade deficit. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the price of imports from China are up 2.8% in May over the same month prior year. And the trade surplus for China in the first four months of 2011 is higher than the same period in 2010. What is happening? The improvements in productivity of Chinese manufacturers and the acceptance of lower margins is reducing the effects on trade balance of a small appreciation of the yuan, so that only a fraction of that appreciation is showing up in higher prices for Chinese goods. Also significant is that the yuan's small appreciation against the dollar is not enough to make up for the dollar's fall against other currencies. The yuan is down 8.3% against the euro and has actually declined 3.7% on a trade weighted basis in the last year.

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WSJ reporter Bob Davis writes this report on the end of the China economic miracle in 2014 as he completes a 4 year assignment covering China. He says China's economy is slowing rapidly and he is pessimistic abou the future. Construction cranes visible across China's skyline says Davis, can no longer be interpreted as growth inducing. With rows upon rows of empty flats in third and fourth tier cities which account for the bulk of the increase in housing construction, the consequences of a debt fueled construction boom are easy to see. Davis cites the IMF on the dangers of credit fueled growth in China- only 4 countries have experienced as rapid an increase in credit to GDP ratio in 5 years. Each of the 4 countries Brazil, Ireland, Spain and Sweden experienced a sharp decline in GDP growth and banking crises following the credit bubble. Estimates of debt to GDP are as high as 250% for China. Krugman, Roubini and other economists have warned about the credit bubble, saying China is no exception to the rule for the risks posed by such a bubble. ...

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The election of the Metropolitan Krill to head the Russian Orthodox Church marks a new beginning for Russia. His father and grandfather before him, were dissidents who spent time in soviet prison camps and were priests. He talked about the need for the church to rely on its own inner spiritual strength to carry on the dialogue with society and the state, and the need to find ways to restore the moral values now in decline in Russian society. He believes in the outreach to secular society. Greater involvement of the church to bring Russian society improvements in values and moral fabric can be expected.

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China Investment Corp., China's sovereign wealth fund, and its investment strategies. Efforts to separate investments in China's state banks from CIC. Changes made in 2011 resulted in the formation of CIC International, separate from the Central Huijin unit which is focussed on investments inside China. CIC controls both. CIC was started in 2007 to get better returns on China's foreign exchange reserves which upto that point were mostly in U.S. Treasury securities. At the end of 2010 CIC had assets of $410 billion. China's foreign exchange reserves are about $3.2 trillion. CIC initial funding of $200 billion was allocated with half going to investments overseas, and the rest in China's state banks. A new $30 billion in funding for CIC from the People's Bank of China will go to overseas investment.

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Mexico's GDP increases at 3.9% compared to 2.7% for Brazil in 2011. Foreign investment is increasing in Mexico especially in the automobile industry and in industries where Mexico is favored over China as a production location. The G-20 meets in Los Cabos, Mexico in June 2012.

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Stiglitz wants to put money in places where it will be spent immediately, unemployment compensation, in state and local governments hands to build critical infrastructure, state education budgets and environment spending for benefits in the long run, only limited help in the mortgage mess to the deserving and to reduce foreclosures, and no money to upperclass Americans who won't be spending much of it anyway.

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Research firm Dragonomics says real estate prices fell 4.9% in April from the prior year for nine cities in China. In 2010 prices in these nine cities went up by 21.5%, the increase in 2009 was 10%. Standard Chartered estimates China's second tier cities, such as Dalian and Tianjin, could have 20 months of housing inventory by the end of 2011. Standard Chartered says price declines of 10-20% can be expected. Government data understates the extent of the bubble and the drop in prices say analysts. Beijing real estate consultant, Soufun, confirms the slowdown in price increases, saying its data show average property prices went up by 5.1% in May over the prior year, compared to the jump in prices in 2009 and 2010. Prices of copper and steel are coming down after rapid increases. The price increases in the Chinese real estate market have put housing out of the reach of ordinary couples. In 2006 an average price of a new apartment in Beijing cost $100,000, by 2011 this had gone up to $250,000. It woud take 57 years of saving for an average person to buy the apartment at todays cost. The government's response has been to boost down payments on mortgages for second homes to 60% from 40%, prohibiting state owned enterprises outside the real estate sector from investing in real estate, and raising the reserve requirements of banks....

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Hon Hai, a Chinese company which makes IPads and IPhones for Apple has grown by doing high quality work for lower prices than anyone else. In the process Hon Hai has generated a culture that is tough even by Chinese standards. About 250,000 workers are employed in its factories in Shenzen alone. A series of suicides at the plant has attracted attention to the tough conditions. One worker says conversation on the production line is banned, bathroom breaks are limited to 10 minutes for every 2 hours, and the discipline is strict. Hon Hai won Apple's order says one supply-chain search expert, by pricing low. Its CEO Gou was willing to sell some components at zero profit according to people familiar with his actions. Workers come from rural areas, are very young, the first time they are away from their families, and live in dormitories, eight to ten people to a room. Hon Hai's response is to increase wages 30%. But a report about a college graduate who was asked about conditions reflects the general feeling. This graduate makes twice as much in product development, at 2000 yuan a month, or $293 a month. But the monotonous life and the feeling of no future affects this worker and may be a sign of something changing in China's factories. The unwillingness to accept the conditions that existed in the past....

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Wessel describes the changes in American manufacturing as it goes through some of the same changes that happened in Germany in the years after reunification. With high unemployment German manufacturing companies worked with unions and the government for wage restraint over the last decade, resulting in wages barely keeping up with inflation. The increase in productivity and wage restraint helped Germany become more competitive with factories in Asia and Eastern Europe. Wages are now increasing with larger wage increase negotiated by the unions in Germany, as skilled labor is becoming scarce. In the U.S. Labor Department figures show an increase in output per hour in American manufacturing of 13% in the last 5 years and 21% in the five years before that. Typical of the wage changes in manufacturing- American Axle & Manufacturing plant in Three Rivers, Michigan hires assembly workers at $10 per hour, with older "legacy workers" making $18 per hour. General Electric brought back manufacturing work from Mexico paying workers $13 per hour for new hires, compared to to $21- $23 in prior years. At GM, Ford and Chrysler workers make $16-$19 per hour in base pay compared to older workers with legacy rates of $29-$33. The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows earnings for production workers in manufacturing averaging $19.15 per hour in April, which is where they were in 2000 adjusted for inflation. The impact of this large increase in productivity with new machinery and production methods, and the wage reductions in manufacturing, is a return of offshored jobs. Wages increased in China and Mexico in the last decade. After a 35% decrease in the number of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. from 1998-2010, the number of jobs has increased by 4.3% to 11.9 million in April 2012, according to the Labor Department....