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GM plans to bring the Chevy Volt, a plug in type of car that will run more on the battery than the Toyota Prius- which uses gasoline support as soon as it picks up speed- to market in 3 years. But it doesn't yet know how it will do it. What created the opportunity is that Toyota is having a hard time of its own trying to figure out a battery that can provide more electric power, more punch, that would raise the Prius mpg from 46 to about 80 mpg. Its lithium ion technology batteries to achieve this haven't passed the safety tests so Toyota is pushing this back to 2011. This created a opportunity for GM to come up with its own for a plug in Chevy Volt. Its looking a small companies in the US that might supply these batteries. GM has come up with 2 consortiums of suppliers, one from MIT called A123 that is based on the work of MIT Prof.Yet-Ming Chinag who works with iron phosphate technology that is less prone to fires and safety issues. The other is led by S. Korean chemical maker LG Chem. Toshiba is working on research for a lithium ion battery for cars that will be safe on the Japanese side. It is not clear how this will turn out because batteries for laptops have had fires and safety issues, but the R&D is on in earnest for a new safe electric battery for cars. And automakers know its not just about an electric car. On it rests the image and innovation leader perception that is so important in marketing that no amount of advertising can fix, as the US automakers have learned to their extreme grief. ...

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Some economists expect growth in China's GDP to slow down to 5.8% for the 4th quarter. China's export driven growth model based on factories with plentiful hardworking young labor including young women, and plentiful foreign investment, Chinese investment from HongKong and Taiwan, and plentiful capital generated from China's high savings rate, and supply of land from local government officials eager to participate in the boom, is finally slowing down, after 3 decades since Deng launched China on this path. However this slowdown is happening drastically, and the whole model is coming apart. The first signs came earlier this year as the government initated a shift in policies after seeing the costs of runaway growth on the environment and in pollution of air and water, and in the wages of labor. Laws protecting labor rights and wages, and stricter pollution laws and enforcement for the first time in years that suggested the government was serious, pulled the bottom off of marginal export industries and companies. Only the larger better run companies were able to operate in this environment. About 67,000 factories closed in coastal regions in the first half of this year. See the link to this. Now that process is hit by the global credit crisis and the demand decline in 2008, and possible demand collapse in 2009 in US export markets if some things like the auto industry take a bad turn and unemployment jumps, all are hitting hard at China's export sector. This is in turn hitting investment as in Germany as companies pull back, and nervous consumers with losses in the stock market and seeing a decline in housing prices pull back on purchases resulting in inventories building up for different industries including the important auto industry. ...

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The large response triggered on the internet by Anne-Marie Slaughter's article in the July/August 2012 issue of the Atlantic on women and work, how it is difficult for women to work and raise children without making changes in today's American society so that a healthy balance can be achieved.

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About 3.5 million Americans ages 45-64 were unemployed as of May 2012, 39% for 1 year or more. This is even higher than the unemployment among younger workers and is a new aspect of this recession compared to the ones before this. Some have quit looking for jobs after depending on extended unemployment benefits of upto 99 weeks, and some have taken part-time jobs. Statistics on unemployment from the U.S. Labor Department give a more distorted picture this time because the unemployment rate as defined by the Labor Department includes only people looking for work. More people today are discouraged and not looking for work, dropping out of the labor market entirely or in part-time jobs. So that the unemployment rate is much higher when these workers are accounted for.

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The 3 week old government in Italy, led by former EU commissioner, Mario Monti, announced a three year plan of 30 billion euros in tax increases, spending cuts, reform of pension plans, and efforts to boost growth. Monti said at a news conference that "Italians are to blame for our public debt, and we risk compormising everything we've accomplished in the past 60 years." Under the new plan retirement age for women in the private sector would be increased from 60 to 66 years by 2018, bringing it in line with retirement ages for men. Italy's Labor minister, Elsa Fornero, broke down in tears as she described the change, saying it was necessary to avoid "collective impoverishment." Italy faces the difficult task of refinancing $400 billion in short term debt coming up for renewal in 2012, just as bond yields for Italy have spiked to over 7%. Because Italy lacks an extensive day care system, women helped raise grandchildren after early retirement at age 60. Other changes were to impose a 1.5% one time tax on money repatriated back to Italy under a tax amnesty scheme setup by former premier Berlusconi. Action was taken against widespread tax evasion by banning cash payments above 1000 euros. Stimulus measures of 10 billion euros are designed to boost small business and reduce high youth unemployment running at 29%. Companies get tax breaks of 2 billion euros if they hire young people....

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Matt Bai's interview with Mario Cuomo, former governor of New York. The conversation covers different topics: Mario Cuomo's speeches, the affinity and the dissonance with his son Andrew Cuomo's idea of liberalism and his own, about the kind of triangulation practiced by Clinton and Obama, and his sense of being a liberal in the old fashioned way. The talk goes to a speech Mario made about helping the poor without crushing the middle class and the sense today that the task ahead is about helping the middle class without crushing the poor. Mario mentions a conversation with Bill Clinton about an offer to join the Supreme Court. Mario said he told Clinton he would not be able to debate and talk freely about his views if he accepted that position. Considering Mario Cuomo's speeches this is sincere. He is torn between the struggles experienced by his father and others of the most ordinary working men and women of the period between the wars, the idea that there had to be a better way, and the difficulties of making that better way work in the real world in the postwar period. There is a sense that one has been forgotten or is now out of place- the dissonance with the times- when a serious contribution was made at one time and place that will always be there. One generation taking over from the last, adapting in its own way, the values timeless....

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The growing number of women in their 40's who are childless, one person homes, "child-free" adults, higher rates of divorce, are not limited just to Western Europe, the U.S. and Japan. This is spreading rapidly in lower income countries in the Arab world and Asia also. In Europe the progress is relentless. With divorce rates higher and fewer women marrying, the probability of a women of reproductive age getting married in Belgium is about 40%, and divorce at about 50%, according to Eurostat. So that the probability of women getting married and staying married is about 20%. This is true of other European countries also. There is a huge increase in "child-free' adults, men and women choosing voluntarily to not have children. The proportion of childless women in their 40's is highest in Berlin and Hamburg, nearly 33%, about 25% in Italy, and 20% in Sweden. One person homes are increasing in Western Europe, with about 32% in Europe and 45% in Denmark, not from aging alone as in Denmark as many as twice the number of one person homes are under age 65 than over 65. The UN population Division's "World Marraige Data 2012," shows that places like Morocco, Libya, and other parts of the Arab world are also experiencing these trends, with income and schooling levels much lower than in Europe and the U.S. These trends are now worldwide and affecting traditionally conservative societies like China....

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About 15% of black men of working age in the population, and 21% of black women, were employed in the U.S. public sector, according to the population survey. The Labor Department reports 500,000 jobs in the public sector were lost since 2007. This reverses an historical trend of resilience in jobs for the public sector during economic downturns. If population increase since 2007 is figured in there are even fewer jobs considering more jobs might have been added, with estimates as high as 1.8 million. This is bad for black people in the U.S. because many work in public sector jobs driving school buses, in the post office, in the police and in other public services, with black people being 30% more likely than whites to hold a public sector job, and twice that of Hispanics. Thic comes at a time when the black community has seen a devastating impact from the foreclosures and other economic damage that followed the 2008 financial crisis. The result is shown in a study of foreclosures for 2005-2009 at Cornell University showing mostly black and Latino neighborhoods were affected by foreclosures at three times the rates for white neighborhoods. According to Pew Research Center the median white family had net assets of $142,000 compared to $11,000 for the median black family. With median black household income at 60% of that of white households the gap keeps increasing especially with high unemployment in black neighborhoods....

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Geeta Anand and Jaeyeon Woo of the WSJ give this heartwarming story of how South Korea achieved a remarkable transformation in attitudes towards women in society after 1990, and reversed a dangerous imbalance in the ratio of females to males. This was done by the release of extraordinary energy of woman activists after the end of dictatorship in 1990 made this possible, and the efforts of media, courts, government and society. Women won the right to be heirs in the family lineage, and perceptions of women as well as the opportunities open to women changed in this period. Today the Korean government provides $177 a month for the first 5 years for child care at home. The story of one mother and daughter and their experiences, of Ms. Lim and Ms. Ko, both teaching at the university and having daughters only, shows how South Korea has changed by 2016. Moving further South Korea's government now offers incentives to companies to make paternity leave policies generous, with municipal governments adding cooking classes and housekeeping courses for fathers. ...

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Pope Francis spoke against the effort by the European Union bureaucracy to limit the use of "Happy Christmas" and called it a form of "ideological colonization." He told reporters "many, many dictatorships" had tried this and all had failed on a trip back from Greece and Cyprus. The European Union bureaucracy then withdrew the 32 page guide on use of sensitive language.  Francis said European Union was "necessary" but warned against the EU bureaucracy trying to iron out the differences of culture and religion around the EU bloc countries. "This could end up dividing the countries and causing it to fail. The EU must respect each country as it is structured and not make them uniform." One of the main influences for the European identity, of western civilization, is Christianity. Less known is that King Alfred in his reign 871-899 AD, in one of the most stirring periods of British history, relied on Christianity as a civilizing influence on tribes of the Nordic countries that were invading Britain. The same process of bringing a civilizing influence on heathen tribes happened in mainland Europe. And a similar process took place in India with Vedanta and Buddhism as it spread to China, Japan, Sri Lanka and the rest of Asia. Civilization meant education, learning, wisdom, and came at this time through the ideas of the Bible or the Upanishads, or the Buddhist ideas.  Alfred struggles with how that wisdom once lost, may be retrieved by being written in the English language from Latin. He writes during this period of tumult and invasions- Learning had declined so thoroughly in England, that there were very few people on this side of the Humber who could understand their divine services in English. There were so few of them that I cannot recall a single one south of the Thames when I succeeded to the kingdom. Thanks be to God Almighty that we have any supply of teachers at all! Therefore I beseech you to do as I believe you are willing to do, as often as you can, free yourself from worldly affairs so that you can apply that wisdom that God gave you where ever you can. Remember what punishments befell us in this world when we ourselves did not cherish learning nor transmit it to other men. We were Christians in name only and very few of us possessed Christian virtues." What a contrast from the time of Alfred when Christian thought was identified with learning and wisdom, and the loss of learning and wisdom felt so deeply in this way. In the 12th century Dogen brought Buddhist thought and learning from China to Japan, before that Bodhidharma from India to China in the sixth century AD, and Buddhist thought evolved out of the Upanishads in the 6th century BC, in the same spirit of reflection.   ...

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Xi's speech at the 20th CCP party congress is strikingly similar to the speech he gave at the 100th anniversary of the CCP on July 23, 2021. Xi sees the CCP, the Communist party of China, as carrying the mission of the May 14, 1919 Movement for modernization of China that spans the period of semicolonialism with China not much different from British India, and split into spheres of foreign influence, particularly British and Japanese, the May 14, 1919 Movement after the revolution of 1912 that ended the royal dynasty, the Japanese invasion and loss of tens of millions of lives, the founding of the People's Republic in 1949 under Mao, and the reforms of market economy under socialist rule under Deng. This is the larger context in which Xi sees the CCP.

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How restaurant chains deal with introduction of new flavors, new product s on the menu, and experiment for what might turn out to be a hit product to boost popularity with customers. As the country's ethnic makeup changes and the intercultural mixation continues at a rapid pace so also the speed is at which new tastes and flavors are finding their way into menus is increasing. And chains like Applebee that haven't experimented and tried new things are losing out. Gives examples for chains like Panera that are picking up new ideas at Fancy Food Shows such as the one in New York. What does this tell one for other industries?

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Chozick and Parker of the NYT show how Donald Trump's frequent sexist comments on women and references to Hillary Clinton in similiar terms are likely to influence the outcome of the general election of 2016. The women's vote has played a significant part in the recent elections of 2008 and 2012 helping Democratic candidate Obama. Trump has a astonishingly high disapproval rating with women, unprecedented in U.S. election history, cited by the WSJ as 75%. Cruz's choice of Carly Fiorina as a running mate shows an awareness of the importance of the women's vote. Some of the comments cited here include the Trump comment that "if Hillary Clinton were a man, I don't think she would get 5% of the vote." It is not clear if this will help the Republican party, as such comments could alienate the mass base of women voters, including the base of young women voters who supported Sanders, women who are independents and moderate Republican women. Hillary Clinton is carefully planning a fall campaign in which such Trump attacks are expected, and the response will be handled not directly by Hillary but by Super PAC's, as Hillary sticks to calling them sexist and energizing her base from the attacks. CBS polls show Trump has the support of 39 percent of white women, compared to 50% for Hillary Clinton. Trump's attacks on women are strangely enough targeted at getting the support of white women- and men - in another wild twist of the 2016 campaign....

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Robert Reich, a former Labor Secretary, says that instead of "rebalancing" with Chinese consumers buying more American goods and China exporting less to the USA, things are headed in the opposite direction. Why? Because at the macroeconomic level China is devoting more of its country's resources to production capacity. Chinese consumers are taking home a smaller proportion of the total economy. In 2008 personal consumption amounted to 35% of the total economy, whereas in 1998 it was 50%. Capital investment in the same 10 years went up 35% to 44%. Chinese continue to save and these savings are going into infrastructure and manufacturing capacity. There is even a social twist to the savings, with fewer young Chinese women than men parents with boys have to compete in the marraige market and save assets for this. Households are also saving to support more elderly people as population is aging quickly with population policies. All this means that with all the talk (see links to Niall Ferguson and Krugman), the situation will likely roll on in this manner till things reach an impasse, or there is a strong political backlash in the USA which leads to stronger trade actions by the government, or there is a crisis. Meanwhile the trade deficit is headed higher and Chinese foreign reserves will go far above the current $2.3 trillion. And the Europeans will also be getting restless with their trade imbalance, as the euro edges higher and the yuan remians pegged to the dollar, leading to trade distortions. ...

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Janet Yellen Fed chairwoman, says many obstacles still exist for women in the workforce. Bringing more women into the workforce will increase the productive capacity of the American economy. The increasing participation of women in the workforce was factor in the growth and prosperity of America by the middle of the 20th century. In a speech sharing her personal narrative at Brown University, her alma mater, she described how other nations had passed the U.S. in women's participation in the workforce, and how it remains stalled at 75% for women either working or looking for work. Her speech was at a conference "125 Years of Women at Brown." The U.S. is now 17th among 22 developed nations in participation of women in workforce, mostly because of government and business policies that relate to paid maternity leave, affordable child care, and flexible work schedules.

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About 75% of French women oppose the pension changes in France planned by president Macron. Women get 40% lower pension than men, yet they work longer and harder in roles taking care of children, and helping elderly, and face age discrimination at work. Women are structurally underpaid and their pensions are lower as a result. And they work long exhausting hours, says this report. It says women stand to lose the most from a reform in pensions. It also disproportionately affects lower skilled workers who start work early and women says FR24, who would be required to work for longer years.

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With an extraordinary sentiment for China's people Joe Stilwell showed America as different from the colonial powers of which Japan was a part with its occupation of Korea and China in 1930-1945. America should recognize and be proud of men like  Joe Stilwell who commanded all American Forces in China and the Asian sector in World War II. Such forced labor as shown in Tuchman's book "Stilwell and the American Experience in China," was never seen in its human aspect. Stilwell was the first American to understand the ordinary Chinese people struggles of that period. He participated in their struggles, once even hid himself in Chinese freight trains in the 1930's to collect intelligence about Japanese intentions in northern China.  The war conditions for the Imperial Japanese war effort railway built through dense jungle between Rangoon and Bangkok in 1942-43. Tamil Indian and Indonesian laborers who died working on the railway are remembered here. 250,000 romusha or forced laborers of whom 90,000 died were Asian Indian. A much smaller number were Britishers and European POW's 12,000 in number immortalized in Bridge over the River Kwai, a movie about this period. Till now most of the Indian laborers remained obscure like so many millions obscure in the history books about the colonial period for Indonesia and India, with a population now numbering 1.7 billion people in the world. China with 1.2 billion people suffered the same fate in bombings by Imperial Japanese forces that rampaged across China in the war years. Such forced labor as shown in Tuchman's book "Stilwell and the American Experience in China," was never seen in its human aspect. Stilwell was the first American to understand the ordinary Chinese people struggles of that period. He participated in their struggles, once even hid himself in Chinese freight trains in the 1930's to collect intelligence about Japanese intentions in northern China.  ...

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Biden administration slightly changes wording using  "statehood" as it relates to Taiwan, a well functioning Democracy nation of 23 million people just south of the Korean peninsula. China protests and weeks later it is reversed. The DJT administration is restoring this wording on grounds that US does not want ambiguity, it wants to see a democratic nation be able to follow peaceful coexistence in Asia. Early hints how the world situation is changing with DJT administration's return to "common sense" in policies is that it seeks to bring Russia back into the community of western nations. Restoring relations  reminiscent of when China breaks away from the Soviet bloc in the 1970's, Russia moving away from its subordinate position to China.  American Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg seeks to avoid losing a whole generation of young people in Russia and Ukraine with continued war. America's idea is consistent with Wilson support of China during Sun Yat Sen's 1911 Revolution, FDR and Gen. Joe Stilwell support for China during the Imperial Japanese Army rampage through Asia in 1930's. America does not want to see fellow Europeans an entire generation of young men from Ukraine and from Russia lose their lives in a senseless war. DJT shows America is listening when he says Russia would never accept Ukraine in NATO and some voices in Europe (British, East European) have made it appear that this is possible.. Kasyanov a former senior Russian policymaker says Russia wants to see a new generation structure replacing old outdated institutions from the Cold War. NATO needs to be rethought, and a new institution be formed to replace it that puts behind us the Cold War. This is also a European idea expressed by Macron and other leaders.   ...

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Turner and Travis get ideas of what a better prison system would look like in German prisons- showing a different way to treat and rehabilitate prisoners, a system with a human face.