LyrArc Article Gist
The critical variable in knowing whether lockdowns of cities and countries are working is called the coronavirus RO, or reproduction ratio. This ratio measures the average number of people infected by a carrier A. It could be that he infects 1 person at work and transport call it B people , or in large gatherings call it C people he infects 2 persons, or in other surroundings such as restaurants he infects 1 person call it D people. The people A has infected B+C+D are the ones now not infected by A with the lockdowns such as in New York, Italy, Germany, UK and France. It is determined by global health experts that the number of B+C+D is about an average of 4 persons infected by 1 person A with coronavirus, though it may be much higher in practice in some areas. The natural rate of RO or reproduction ratio is considered by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control to be 3.86 or about 4, if no lockdown or social distancing or other prevention is practiced. This in a situation where people behaved as before unaware that the virus was around them. Governments such as New York and France, UK, Germany are including this key variable in their determination of how long a lockdown lasts, and for determining if the reopening is not going the right way or failing. In such situations the lockdown would be reinstated, or if it is a phased reopening such as in the U.S. and other countries go back to the previous phase. In Italy and Germany the RO reproduction ratio for coronavirus is estimated by official experts at 0.8. Germany's RO estimated by the Robert Koch Institute and Italy's by Franco Locatelli, scientific advisor to the government. In New York the margin is thin- with RO of 0.9, estimate from the state's governor. In France which has one of the tightest lockdowns of all with a document required to go outside it is at 0.6, the figure coming from the prime minister Mr. Philippe. In the UK it is below 1.0 but no accurate figure is reported. As Dr. Birx- leading the coordinated response in the U.S. - emphasizes over and over again this is a very contagious virus, about which not much is known. Social distancing, wearing masks, basic prevention measures such as frequent handwashing, and not gathering in large numbers of people, is essential for defeating this virus. This has to be followed up with extensive testing and contact tracing to win this fight.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Chinese views on the India war of 1962 are shown at the Beijing Military Museum in a display effort "One Hundred Questions on the China-India Border Self-Defense Counterattack."  China's PLA on its 95th anniversary looks at the 33 day war and calls it a "counterattack." It also says China withdrew because its goals were accomplished of getting back the territory it lost since August 1959 to India, that on the Indian side "the decision making was in the hands of civilian officials who did not understand the military at all," and called it "chaotic." It also brings up the international situation that Russia supported both China and India in the conflict and India had the US on its side. It says PLA withdrew because of the difficulty of supplying the military in the Arunachal region at a great distance from China particularly after the famine that resulted from the Great Leap Forward. Today there is a clear chain of command and joint work by the Indian Air force and the Army, infrastructure to support mountain operations being built at rapid speed, and building of modern defense manufacturing capabilities for the airforce and army as shown at the Defense Expo in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, this week.  One of the first aspects of the border that one sees in the region is how close it is to large population cities and towns in India and how remote it is from large population towns and cities in China. In this sense China after the experience with Russian conflict before 1900, later a large Japanese invasion in 1931and 1937 appears to have responded to its period of semi-colonialism with an aggressive policy of extending its frontiers to regions that were throughout history acting as large buffers between India and China- such being the case of Tibet which was occupied in the 1950's leading to the war with India and a border dispute that had never existed before in history. Other aspects today are that in 1962 the PLA had fought the war against the Japanese and the war agains the Americans in Korea all within a 20 year period. In 2022 China has focused for 50 years on modernizing its economy. The supply chain in the Ukraine war showed shortcomings in the Russian army, and the difficulties of supplying forces at great distances. There is also the question of morale when it is about  miles of icy terrain at heights over 10,000 feet, thousands of miles away from major population cities and towns in China- for reasons of Russian and Japanese semicolonialism behaviour not to be found in regions that had never seen large armies in history such as Tibet or Arunachal or the Himalayan border regions. The distances tell much of the story- the distance from Shanghai, Shenzen or Beijing, to Tibet is over 4000 kilometers and the border region with India additional thousands of kilometers over some of the most rugged terrain on earth with only remote mountain communities existing in the most difficult environments.       ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Paul Krugman describes the situation of slowing inflation in America and the prospects for president Biden in 2024. In just a few months since the midterms inflation is receding. Shoppers are showing resistance to price increases in retail stores. The Fed under Jay Powell has taken a resolute stand against inflation slowing inflation in house sales and rental, in automobile pricing and other sectors of the US economy. New investments under the climate change bill passed in Congress and the CHIPS and Science Act, Inflation Reduction Bill, mean more factory openings and jobs in America. A milder winter in Europe is helping it tackle an energy shortage and bringing oil prices under control.

LyrArc Article Gist
This report says fewer jobs alone is not going to reduce inflation, US inflation is propelled by factors beyond economic theory. The Phillip's Curve is a inverse relationship between unemployment and inflation that was a convenient tool for the 1960's to get the economy to do well with low unemployment at 4% with moderate inflation. It was torn apart by high inflationary expectations in the 70's. In today's world Robert Gordon of Northwestern University suggests central banks consider inflationary embedded expectations, supply shocks and cost push as in the pandemic 2021-2022, and demand changes. The job that Mr. Powell at the Fed has is lowering inflationary expectations by reducing private sector investment and job creation by raising the cost of capital through interest rate increases. Yet today the government is a huge partner in capital investment for America in clean energy and infrastructure building which means job creation remains strong as it has in America. President Biden's effort to reduce pharmaceutical costs and for inflation reduction by fighting price increases through stealth fees, has at the same time cut into inflation. So as lower demand and increased supply in 2022 as the government better manages the supplies of energy, including release of oil stocks from the national reserves. Explained- The Phillips curve is an inverse relationship between unemployment and inflation observed by a New Zealand economist William Phillips in a paper in 1958 based on British unemployment and inflation data1861-1957. Economist Robert Samuelson turned it into a textbook concept as a simple tradeoff in 1960 more inflation gets you less unemployment- which fit the period of the 60's- but warned that it could change over time. Milton Friedman and others during the 1970's period of high inflationary expectations setting rejected it. In reality Mr. Phillips never meant for economists like Samuelson to generalize from his statistical observation of data on the British economy before 1958 and apply it to the US for the closing decades of the 20th much less the 21st century. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
This report in WSJ says 4 months before becoming China's president in 2012 Xi Jinping issued a Communist party directive as head of the party committee overseeing the former British colony. The directive cautioned officials about a growing separatist sentiment in Hong Kong. It said "we must dare to struggle and be good at fighting," a retired official describes as Xi's approach. Another facet of Xi's views on Hong Kong are that his father as a party leader for the southern province of Guangdong in 1978 to 1980 near Hong Kong was the first after the Cultural Revolution to set up ties between the mainland and the British colony of Hong Kong. China was experimenting with a different model for the economy and Xi's father set up the early links with Hong Kong so that the flow of economic refugees from mainland China to Hong Kong could be reduced and the gap in living standards could be narrowed. He set up the first "Special Economic Zone" and met delegations to start the Sino-British talks on Hong Kong's future. Xi Jinping grew up in the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution. His father Xi Zhongzun, was jailed in 1962 in internal party struggles, and his family was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution that started in 1966. The Cultural Revolution that went on till 1976 ironically was an attempt to stamp out possible capitalist or imperialist influences from the colonial period and the opium wars with Britain. He was later rehabilitated under premier Deng. During the turmoil Xi with some difficulty was admitted to University after spending some years in the countryside. His father remained loyal to the ideals of the Chinese Revolution even though he had suffered from the internal party struggles, an experience remains a strong memory for Xi Jinping. It is as if the period is seen as a period of experimentation and failure for the party not for its ideals of China rising from the colonial period after its failure to engage with the world before the colonial period leading to backwardness. The unity of the country had to be maintained bringing Hong Kong and possibly Taiwan together with the mainland. Rejuvenation was happening and stability was essential for Chia to grow and emerge into the "China Dream" a word coined by Xi for its emergence in the community of nations as an equal to western powers after the colonial period of oppression and cultural backwardness. In this way he is different than other leaders before him who followed premier Deng who started the experimentation with markets and economic structures. The leader preceding him was party secretary in Tibet with a prime minister who was an engineer working on public projects, in sharp contrast to Xi who had the the sense of authority from seeing different phases of Communist party experimentation in his early years. The Bo Xi Lai incident during the transition before 2012 also influenced Xi. This was an attempt similar possibly to the attempt by Lin Piao under Mao to subvert Communist Party leadership into a new direction bringing China under Soviet influence after the break by Mao. Bo Xi Lai, a party secretary for an interior less developed region Chongqing, who rose from being Mayor of Dalien to governor of Liaoning province. Bo Xi Lai attempted to subvert the process operating since the Cultural Revolution of leadership by consensus within the party ensuring stability and continuity needed for development and pushing the trauma of the Cultural Revolution out of memory. He did this by seeking high party office for his own ambitions not for the party and China's interests that guided leaders after the Cultural Revolution. This incident and the period of two decades of growth of market economy had led to growing corruption and Xi was convinced that "corruption would doom the Communist Party and the State" and the resulting instability was bad for China. During this period in 2012 Xi Jinping said that it was necessary to remove "tigers and flies" who could endanger the party's ideals and the future growth and stability of the country.  About 10,000 party officials were removed for corruption, and the rule of Politburo Standing Committee immunity (PSC) of the party operating after the Cultural Revolution was removed. The PSC is the body that at the top of the organization structure that runs China. On Hong Kong Xi now believes that the problem is best tackled by the Hong Kong government not by intervening from Beijing. There is increasing perception in Beijing and Hong Kong that the local government, business leaders have messed things up, by getting into the habit of telling Beijing planners what they wanted to hear, and failing to communicate with the 7 million people of Hong Kong. These leaders are also in a bind because Xi believes that Beijing exercized "overall governance authority" over Hong Kong. A 2014 government white paper warns against "confused or lopsided perceptions" of Hong Kong's status, saying that its partial autonomy comes "solely from the authorization of the central leadership."     ...

LyrArc Article Gist
This article in the Economist says the bad loans in the financial system threaten to derail India's rapid growth. It points out that about 17 percent of all loans are estimated to be non-performing. Government plans to set up a bad bank and have bad loans transferred at steep discounted rate to the bad bank are still at an early stage. India weathered the 2008 financial crisis with a financial system in better shape. Since then a surge in lending has led to an increase in the bad loans. Today both banks and corporate firms are facing this problem. The political system and dysfunctional governance with frequent changes for management at state controlled banks are part of the problem.

LyrArc Article Gist
Northwestern University's Robert Gordon sees growth in the US economy dropping from 1.93 %- that it achieved in the period 1972-2007- to 1.5% from 2007 to 2027. At that rate of growth GDP per capita would increase by 35% in the next twenty years, compared to the 62% increase in the previous period. He says better educated workers would be needed to increase the growth rate. And he discounts the impact of the internet revolution as it has no magic quality, and he describes the present transformation technologically as a mere shift to smaller devices that is not changing productivity. He does not see another technological revolution like the internet boom. The coming retirement of baby boomers increases the number of retired people that wage earners would have to support, and there is no evidence of education levels increasing for the remaining workers. What this means is that it will be more difficult to fix large problems from carbon emission, energy to infrastructure improvement. Gordon arrived at these numbers by combining research on educational attainment, technological change, and workforce demographics for the USA, and running this data through models. Gordon has examined data going back to 1891 for the USA. This shows that the next twenty years will be the slowest growth in the nation's history, since George Washington assumed the Presidency....

LyrArc Article Gist
The Economist's view is that trade and currency tensions are too high to result in an accord along the lines of the 1985 Plaza Accord. There may be a general underestimation of how strongly the American public feels about trade and jobs issues, and the currency issues that are intertwined with trade issues. This includes the Economist. See the 2010 survey of American public opinion (Murray, Belkin, WSJ, Oct 2, 2010, Americans Sour on Trade), which shows that better educated and higher income professionals are also shifting to firm opinions on trade that impacts jobs in the U.S. Also see Roubini's recent analysis (interview with Peter Stein, WSJ, 10/2/2010, Yen Revaluation for China's Own Sake), on why it is imperative in China's own interest to move forward with a currency revaluation. Economist Robert Gordon of Northwestern University (Peter Coy, Business Week, 9/30/2010, Why One Economist Predicts Slow US Economic Growth), recently pointed out that his models show a significant slowing down of the U.S. economy over the next two decades, the slowest growth since the Presidency of George Washington. This means growth slowing down to 1.5% in the period 2007-2027, from 1.93% in the prior three decades, which he says leaves less money for everything from tackling carbon emissions to infrastructure needs. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Administrative costs are one of the key reasons tution costs have increased to excessive proportions in the U.S., putting a heavy burden on the middle class, reducing social mobility that is an important aspect of postwar progress in Europe and the U.S. by putting college out of reach for millions of young people. This also creates a heavy debt burden for young people- U.S. student loan debt passed $1 trillion in 2012- who are less likely to buy a first home because of years needed to repay student loans. The market pressures to control costs do not exist in the same way as industries such as automobiles, because of the demand for college education in a modern globalized economy. Douglas Belkin and Scott Thurm have provided an indepth look at the University of Minnesota to show the spending surge and internal tendencies for faculty and bureaucracy to increase spending on hiring, building expansion to compete with other schools, and salaries to support their own within the college and university system, with a passive student community, and passive parent community, and lack of other outside pressures. Tution and fees for state residents doubled in the last decade at the University of Minnesota to $13,524. The figures tell the story- total debt with borrowing for building construction at U.S. 4 year public colleges tripled to $88 billion between 2002 and 2011, according to the Department of Education. Debt servicing costs doubled at the University of Minnesota to $106 million in that period. Minnesota's government provided $570 million for university operations in 2011, same as 2003-2004 school year even with inflation and 10% higher student enrollment. Yet analysis by the Department of Education and the Wall Street Journal shows in that period the spending increased disproportionately compared to inflation, student enrollment and teaching activity, with little restraint. WSJ analysis showed the University of Minnesota system added 1000 administrators between 2001-2011, with administration hires increasing 37%, double the increase in the students and double that of teachers. During that period the number of employees to manage people, programs and regulations went up 50% faster than the number of instructors, according to the Department of Education. Bureau of Labor Statistics cites this as the reason tution costs went up faster than health care costs. The 19,000 employee payroll at the University of Minnesota means one employee for three and half students. The new university president in 2011, Eric Kaler, interviewed by WSJ's Belkin and Thurm, says no one knew what it cost to run the school when he started....

LyrArc Article Gist
There is a sense of cognitive dissonance in the states of former East Germany, known as the GDR or German Democratic Republic in the Soviet Union period from 1950's to 1990. The 5 states that formed the GDR continued to build close ties with Russia after the fall of the Berlin Wall, in the perception that this would build good long term relations. The crisis in Ukraine with border states of the Soviet Union opting in favor of close ties with the European Union and not Russia have disrupted the economic relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and Russia. As long as Russia needed the economic ties to build its economy and standard of living the political issues posed by NATO expansion and EU expansion were set aside by Putin and political parties within Russia. The very ties that were supposed to usher in an era of peace in Europe helped strengthen the Russian and Chinese economies. Leading to a point where these two economies were strong enough by 2021 in the midst of the waning pandemic to  assert themselves on political issues where serious differences existed such as expansion of NATO and Taiwan. When the economic relations such as making China a manufacturing powerhouse  was the path taken by American and European business in 1990's, business interests were focused on the declining quality and high wages demanded by unions and workers in the US and Germany. This could be personally witnessed at Apple's factory in Colorado Springs where quality was failing badly in the 1990's. Apple when Steve Jobs returned in 1997 adopted a China manufacturing strategy when its manufacturing operations in the US failed to deliver the quality and cost structure needed for it to expand. The high margins with low costs of manufacturing in China was the strategy adopted by Steve Jobs to compete with Microsoft and turbocharge its expansion. Soon other companies followed. A similar process happened in economic ties with Russia on a smaller scale. Two decades of such expansion whittled down American manufacturing, hurt American workers, hurt European manufacturing and European workers.  This process could not continue- yellow vest protests in France, the protest vote in US midwestern states in recent elections, the protest votes in German elections and fragmentation of parties, made this clear. The US imposed trade tariffs on Chinese products and moved to restrict flow of technologies to China under the Trump administration, accelerated by the Biden administration. President Xi was once of the view that China's ties with the US were important "thousand fold" in the period as late as 2010. Yet this lopsided trade relationship was not beneficial to American workers or American interests as a technologically advanced leader. It is true that American workers and engineers at Apple had failed to ensure American quality competitiveness in the 1980's into 1990's, yet no advanced country or its business can come up with a false narrative that cedes its manufacturing leadership and jobs for the working class of its country. That false narrative is being challenged today by Mr. Biden, Mr. Scholz, and all American and German political parties, and by Mr. Modi with Atman Nirbhar Bharat for local manufacturing. The integration one sees of the port of Hamburg as Chinese export hub with China's economy is one aspect of what has happened. A new leadership is taking its place in Europe and in America that sees clearly the false narrative. The visit of the new Danish prime minister to India is the beginning of the effort to set up a new logistics relationship with South and South East Asia, as Denmark's Maersk is a world leader in shipping logistics for exports and manufacturing. The planned Noida logistics center outside of New Delhi under Gati Shakti integrated development is part of the change happening today as a new supply chain is being built. The unwinding of the one sided trade relationship with China, and its related relationship on energy with Russia, led to the changing perception in Russia and China of the value of the relationship. Political relations superseded economic and cultural relations during Putin's second phase and Xi's second phase with assertive attitudes on NATO, and on Hong Kong, Taiwan under Xi and Putin 2.0. As could be expected Germany and the US were caught flat footed as leaders who were cast in the mold of Putin as a Soviet representative in Dresden, and Xi with his father leading the Communist struggle in the 1930's and 1940's against Chiangkaishek, acted in ways that reflected the Soviet period. Chiang left for Taiwan in 1948 when Mao-tse-tung setup the People's Republic of China. Taiwan and Hong Kong remained important in the perceptions of Xi 2.0, in the effort to build "China Dream" and erase last vestiges of what in Soviet times were seen as western colonialism. US and EU particularly Business and the new IT telecom Business failed to grasp these matters, and historical events such as the opium wars of the 1850's. Business and cultural interests lacked both the inclination to learn and the knowledge of these events in Chinese history and its relations with colonial powers Britain and Japan, and also Russia. In 1900 the Boxer rebellion against ceding Chinese ports to colonial powers Britain, Japan, Russia, ended with permanent colonial settlements in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tsingtao, other Chinese ports. Chinese rejuvenation in the mind of leaders such as Xi from the second generation of Communist leadership, means putting this behind, leading to the action taken in Hong Kong. In some ways as some observers have commented it is as much a problem of the sluggishness of American and European thinking, particularly business interests including in Taiwan, post British Hong Kong, and ignorance of recent Chinese history which was mistakenly thought not to exist or forgotten. This is as much of a problem as the action taken by Putin and moves by Xi Jinping. The great democracies such as India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, were ignored as American and European business interests integrated the American and German economies with China's. In terms of population the population of these regions and related parts of South East Asia such as Malaysia and Vietnam which have a shared cultural history is about 1.5 times the population of China. Travelling through the parts of India's largest state Uttar Pradesh, an Madhya Pradesh one finds how much American and European business interests have failed both their own interests, their own workers and failed the great democracies of the world, by not only not investing in the democracies of Asia, and also of Africa and Latin America and bought into a narrative of China which no longer holds true and may never have been true all along. This is starkly evident in a once in a century pandemic in these great democracies of the world. These democracies have been left to fend for themselves during the pandemic and their leaders facing false narratives in the media such as the BBC and American media outlets even on issues such as vaccination of the largest part of the world's people.           ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Questions raised by Nicholas Kristof of the NYT on Russian hacking during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Kristof says the implausible or far fetched idea of foreign interference in U.S. elections is not as implausible as it may appear.

LyrArc Article Gist
Moody's Investors Service lowered the UK's credit rating from triple A to Aa1 and changed the outlook to stable. The managing director of Moody's sovereign ratings, Bart Oosterveld, says Britain' debt will continue to grow in 2013-2015 and only stabilize after 2016, in Moody's central scenario. Analysts say this is unlikely to increase Britain's borrowing costs. Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Osborne, says the debt problems built up over many years, and declining growth in the eurozone hurts Britain's exports. Moody's says Britain's debt will peak at about 96% of GDP in 2016 after continued sluggish growth in coming years. This move follows a downgrade of France by Moody's from triple A rating in November 2012, and downgrade of the U.S. from triple A rating by S&P in August 2011.

LyrArc Article Gist
NYT's Landon Thomas gives this exceptional report on how Deutsche Bank changed from a lender to the German auto industry and safe banking practices to enter the derivatives business and other opaque financial products that led to taking on huge risks. Deutsche Bank has agreed on Dec. 22, 2016 to settle with the U.S. Justice Department paying a fine of $7.2 billion for practices relating to faulty mortgage securities. This report says the problems started in 1995 with Deutsche Bank's leadership hiring Edson Mitchell of Merrill Lynch to promote the investment banking business at Deutsche Bank. Mitchell hired two derivatives traders Broeksmit and Anshu Jain. Mr. Mitchell died in plane crash in 2000 when he was 47 years age, Mr. Broeksmit committed suicide in 2014, 58 years in age, Mr. Anshu Jain, 53 years old, is the only surviving person of the three. Under Mr. Jain Deutsche Bank assumed more and more risk, and was involved in complex and opaque financial products leading to the toxic mortgage crisis, and manipulation of the lending rate for London banks.  It also lent $300 million to Donald Trump's businesses. Most of the profits generated from this venture have evaporated, with analysts estimating $15 billion in fines and penalties owed of the $20 billion that these ventures generated. Not counting the serious damage to the bank's reputation in Germany and the U.S. This report points out the role played by the CEO from 2002 to 2012 of Deutsche Bank, Josef Ackermann, in encouraging these ventures converting the bank from its original loan as a contintental lender to business to a bank selling opaque financial products for most of its profits. Landon Thomas also describes the events and days leading up to the suicide by Broeksmit, including a visit to a psychiatrist and Broeksmit's facing enormous stress about the investigations underway in Germany and the U.S. looking into the opaque financial products and practices of Deutsche Bank. This is also a cautionary tale about what happened in banking from the late 1990's leading to the collapse in 2008, leading to the problems of today- the need to rescue the economy in 2008-2009 and the low rate world that ensued damaging the savings of ordinary people, the infrastructure that was never built, the parallel crisis of the hollowing out in manufacturing as a false prosperity boomed in banking and finance. In a sense it is also a story of everyday lives that were damaged in the high flying boardrooms of finance in New York, London and Frankfurt. The revolving door between regulators and the banks made it harder to monitor and control banking risk letting this story unfold over decades, damaging the credibility of governments and the established political parties without clear alternatives from outside; as the dominance of Wall Street executives in the new outsider Trump administration shows.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
During a public dialogue during the federal government's open day German Chancellor Scholz takes time to go over the origins of the war in Europe as he understands it. Of Russia acting "clearly with the intention of conquering its neighboring country," in an imperialist manner. Here is what he said- On Nato During talks before the war started in February when he met Putin in Moscow Scholz assured Putin that Ukraine would not join NATO "in the next 30 years." NATO was never a threat to Russia even though Putin says NATO's increasing eastward expansion was to the detriment of Russia's interests. On the origins of the war in Europe- Scholz says Putin launched the war for "completely absurd reasons." During his talks with Putin for example he says Putin told him that Belarus and Ukraine should not be independent states. "This is a war that Putin, Russia, started, clearly with the intention of conquering its neighboring country. I think that was the original goal." "Putin actually had the idea of swiping a felt-tip pen across the European landscape and then saying, 'This is mine and this is yours.' " Something Germany could not accept. Scholz condemns Putin's imperialism. He compares Russia's actions to the early days of imperialism. Scholz was reported to be reading Cambridge historian Brendan Simms book Europe- The Struggle for Supremacy in Europe from 1453 to the Present, before the war started. Simms shows a Europe that fought intermittent wars for supremacy between European powers Spain, Britain, Dutch, French, Germany, Austria- Hungary, Russia, Sweden over most of the period 1450 to 1950. The last part of the period was marked from 1850 to 1900 by an openly imperialist land grab for territory in Africa and Asia between Britain, France, Japan and Germany.  The period 1950 to 2000 marked by the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union and China.    On planning for the war in advance- DW.com reports that Olaf Scholz is convinced that Putin planned this war long before the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. On the future of the war- Scholz says he will not end the dialogue with Putin. Scholz and Germany, Biden and the US want to show that the imperialist type of expansion into neighboring states is no longer accepted, not for Russia or China. Scholz says Russia is currently engaged in gaining territory in eastern Ukraine, but it is not certain that it will stay that way, so giving in is not a sensible strategy.  Ukraine needs the Black Sea ports and the area around Kherson on the Dnieper river to maintain its economy through exports of foodgrains. There is international consensus that these exports are essential to most of Africa and other parts of the world. The war in the remaining part of 2022 into the winter is being fought in this area. Another area of international consensus is that of the refugees mostly women and children in other parts of eastern Europe, and the displaced people within Ukraine moving from the east and south to the west. For the first time the US and Germany are providing Ukraine with the air defense systems that it needs to protect refugees, something that was missing for the many early months of the war leading to millions of refugees inside and outside Ukraine.       ...

LyrArc Article Gist
China's EV market is very competitive and price cuts by Tesla have led to falling prices. BYD sold 900,000 electric vehicles in the first 5 months of 2023, Tesla 200,000, and Li Motors 100,000. NIO is struggling and some companies have closed operations. Ford failed in this market and VW is still to make a dent in the market. Most of the top ten companies are local. With the slowing economy, consumers resisting purchases, price drops are needed to keep up sales of EV's.

LyrArc Article Gist
British prime minister Theresa May makes a bid for working class votes in the 2017 election, just as the Labor party under Jeremy Corbyn announces its own manifesto seeking working class votes. May has proposed increasing the minimum wage to 60% of median earnings by 2020, and increased funding for the National Health Service by 8 billion pounds over 5 years. Corporate taxes will be reduced from 19 to 17% compared to Labor Party raising it to 26% under Corbyn's manifesto. Some of the Labor Party's supporters in the north of Britain are leaving the party because of dissatisfaction with Labor's leadership.

LyrArc Article Gist
Missteps by the Detroit automakers include fighting fuel efficiency legislation in 2005, even when the USA faced higher gas prices, and diluting the fuel efficiency legislation with a target of 35mpg for 2020 at a time when Europeans were taking up more aggressive challenges as public opinion there moved in that direction. They also spent heavily in lobbying spending, about $175 million for GM and Ford in the last 10 years, and some would say lobbying against the national interest and the national security interest of the USA, because failure to reduce consumption of oil through fuel efficient cars weakens the economy by sending hundreds of billions of dollars overseas to mideast countries. The closing of plants in states like Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia and Delaware and consolidating their operations closer to home weakened Congressional support, And the foreign auto makers built plants in places in the south like Alabama resulting in Senator Shelby of Alabama becoming allied with them. Rick Wagoner failed to show the vision and leadership needed, and Detroit failed to realize that vision and leadership were required to run these companies. not coming up through the large bureaucracies of these companies. And people associate him with declining market share and a company in decline and asky why. The whole mood of the country is reflected in newspaper columns across the country, in reader comments that run into the hundreds for each article overwhelmingly negative for taxpayer money going to Detroit automakers. This is the situation today and catches the Detroit automakers management, union, dealers, suppliers, by surprise as they have become so used to the status quo and know nothing different....

LyrArc Article Gist
This leader in The Economist magazine says a hard Brexit of the sort announced by Theresa May at a Conservative Party conference is clearly bad for Britain. It also point out that half of British people voted to remain. It is not clear that voters have voted for a hard Brexit, a soft Brexit, or voter alienation with elites and effects of years of austerity since the financial crisis have helped tilt the vote to Brexit. It points out that the rhetoric may be damaging Britain's chance of negotiating a Brexit that limits damage to GDP, which the Treasury estimates to be nearly twice the loss in GDP if a member of a single market as compared to leaving it. British government leaders may be overestimating the willingness of leaders of France, Germany and other countries to make concessions. By talking up to their party base politicians such as May may be putting German and French leaders to also toughen their positions on free movement as an integral principle of the European Union, and consequently of membership in a single market. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
China's total public debt was 95% of GDP in 2022, Japan's was 62% in 1991. It's population aging faster than Japan's with population declining in 2022, Japan's declining in 2008 twenty years after its bubble burst. China's per capita income at $12,850 in 2022, compared to Japan's at $29,000 in 1991. China is facing more difficult headwinds than Japan in many ways. There is also higher tension in trade relations with US and EU limiting export growth. There is also the policy stance of the Communist Party that sees rural areas left behind with about 35% people in rural areas and Xi is slowing growth to reduce disparities and housing construction led speculative growth. In Japan urbanization was 77% in 1991, compared to 65% in China today. 

LyrArc Article Gist
China's Producer prices declined by 3%, Consumer prices flatlined, and imports and exports are both down 6.2% in September 2023. Growth is expected not to exceed 5% in forecasts by IMF and others.

LyrArc Article Gist
This editorial in the Economist looks at China's relationship with Russia. It says the Ukraine conflict and western sanctions have resulted in Russia moving closer to China. Yet the two countries have competing interests in central Asia, and different relations with India and Vietnam, in the Asian region. Russia is also wary of China copying designs of Sukhoi aircraft in sales to China of advanced military technology. The major oil and gas deal signed in 2014 provides Russia with a new outlet for oil and gas with the cooling of the relationship with Europe. Yet Russia has strong ties built with Germany over the entire post war period, and differences have emerged in U.S.- German relations. Germany's relationship with Russia- cooled by sanctions and German wariness over Russian intervention in Ukraine and Russian wariness over NATO close to its borders- spans 7 decades and is likely to remain strong in the long term. This comes from the shared sense of awareness of the terrible conflicts of an earlier period, just as it has for French-German relations, and from the strong efforts made by Germany to preserve the relationship and peace in Europe. Chinese president Xi's visit to Moscow on May 9, for celebrations of victory over Nazi Germany, will be followed by a visit May 10 by Chancellor Merkel of Germany. A factor in German-Russian relations is the close trade links, cultural exchanges, and history going back to the GDR where Chancellor Merkel is from, built up over many years, that are likely to set the long term future of relations. China's dominant partner relationship in the China- Russia relations does not bode well for the future of relations, compared to the equal partner relations with its European neighbor, Germany. In this different light Ukraine is a temporary pause, in German-Russian relations and peace in Europe, a situation which is in China's long term interest as it focusses on its economy and the next phase of development for a modernized economy. Especially as China continues to build on its own vital trade relations with Germany and the European Union, the latest example being Germany, other EU nations, and India, joining the China sponsored Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
With his dwindling popularity and failure to support the socialist parties alliance Macron has made the party En Marche his own creation, a failed project. Macron started out in the Socialist Party in Amiens, France, was a minister in the Socialist government of Francois Hollande 2012-2017. Socialist voters twice voted for Macron in 2017 and 2022 elections to keep the Le Pen National Rally out. After the last election 2022 Macron faced union protests on pension age changes and on issues related to fairness for workers as he failed to take cost of living action and protect workers. He now faces a divided parliament and becomes a lame duck president till the next presidential election in 2027. He called the party he created during the last year of socialist Hollande's term as president initially En Marche, later En Marche El Republique and Renaissance, initially tapping into support for reviving France with younger people in political life. Yet he failed to live up to this instead put himself at odds with working class people and families and the problems they face across rural and urban areas of France. He has run out of support after the yellow vest protests, union protests, and protests over the pension age during his first and second terms. By calling the socialist parties of which he was a member in derogatory terms Macron increased his isolation and created a situation in which the RN of Le Pen is vying to be the leading party in the National Assembly. Only by making large investments in the French economy of $140 billion that the Socialist parties alliance proposes can France's economy and infrastructure be revived, not by the programs of either the RN or En Marche which make no effort to increase investment in the French infrastructure and economic strength. A modest tax on the top 1-4% of the wealthy finances this investment of $140 billion which RN, En Marche and Macron seek to avoid calling this program in derogatory terms to protect a tiny minority of the affluent who in the right way would want to contribute a fair share to the growth and revival of France. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Ford Motor Company profit increased in 2015. Ford made $1.9 billion net profit in the 2nd quarter 2015, a 44% increase over the prior year quarter. Revenue declined to $37.3 billion, as margins reach the projected 8-9% range for 2015. Full year operating profits are estimated by Ford between $8.5 and $9.5 billion. Prices on the F-150 truck were up $3600 over the prior year, reaching $44,000. Ford sold more larger vehicles and pickups than sedans. A favorable sales environment is helping sales of more profitable larger vehicles- low interest rates, low gas prices and higher fuel economy on newer F-150 vehicles, including an aluminium body on the new F-150 truck. Recent China sales also show increased demand for the larger vehicles and SUV's, with Ford China market share increasing to 4.5% for 2014. In the U.S. Ford and GM are losing market share, with a focus on profitability. In China sales are growing at a slower pace with the economic slowdown, with 2015 sales growth estimated at less than 1%. Worldwide sales for VW and GM increased to 5.04 million and 4.9 million for the first 6 months of 2015, on the basis of larger market share in China. Toyota worldwide sales declined slightly to 5.02 million. Future prospects may not be as good, as the market in China could become very competitive with too much capacity. The price competition in smaller cars could reach the larger vehicles at some point with the slowdown reducing profits from China....

LyrArc Article Gist
The tax plan offered by Jeb Bush in September 2014 is based on simplifying the tax code to three rates, lowering the corporate tax rate to stimulate business investment and growth. It will pay for this by limiting itemized deductions to 2% of adjusted gross income, removing state and local tax deductions, by generating higher growth of estimated 0.5% per year which translates into higher tax revenues, and by increasing the deficit by $1.2 trillion. In the last tax debate economists such as Martin Feldstein and other experts proposed removing or limiting the itemized deductions. Simplifying the code and lowering corporate tax rates has been favored as a method to jumpstart growth by many experts, but was not taken up during the deep recession following the 2008-2009 financial crisis when the stimulus added to the deficit. The 3 tax rates changes the current 7 brackets to 10 percent, 25 percent and 28%, with the coporate tax rate lowered to 20%. The plan removes the alternative minimum tax, the estate tax, marraige penalty tax, leaves charitable deductions as now. To help the people at the lower end in incomes and the middle class- the standard deduction is doubled, the earned income tax credit expanded. Companies would be allowed to deduct capital investments, and there would be a gradual phase out of taxation on income American companies earn overseas. Hedge funds will not have access to a loophole called "carried interest." The plan comes as the American economy is in recovery mode, making it more likely that increased growth would generate extra tax revenues....

LyrArc Article Gist
Andy Street, Mayor of the West Midlands Combined Authority, says when you consider that London gets 7 times the infrastructure spending per person than West Midlands, "its not bloody surprising" that his region is not growing fast. West Midlands covers a large part of central England, including Wolverhampton, Birmingham and Coventry. Even life expectancy is lower by 8 years in Blackpool, and disposable income can be quarter in Camden compared to North London. Labor's Corbyn and Conservative's Thatcher in the British general election are both campaigning for reviving the regions outside London, that have seen investment in people and technology lag substantially behind London. Regional revival is the big issue in this election. Consider that London which accounted for about 15% of economic output in the 1980's now accounts for nearly 25% of economic output of Britain. Berlin is about 4% of Germany's economy, and Paris 10% of France's economy. A word of caution on Brexit is sounded by experts at the University of Birmingham, who say the whole process of Brexit is so complicated that it may detract from the task of reviving this region. Even though the political upheaval had origins in this discontent, was it more about shifting government attention to the gap between London and the rest of the country, and less about a complex process of withdrawal from the European Union. ...