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The situation today of the London and the Thames Valey region's economy and the economy of the areas surrounding it in the south. Its history,downturns in periods after the dotcom crash in 2000-2005 and the current expected downturn after the US subprime crisis, and the expected deterioration in the housing market here. As well as problems for the financial institutions in a tightening credit market with London's position as a key centre of international finance impacting the economy the most. Regional diffeernces in the current upturn London's output per person grew to 136 vs decline in output per person in Scotland Wales and the North, a 36% improvement in London vs deterioration elsehwere in the north and in Wales. With Newcastle in the north hit by the Northern Rock mortgage lender's collapse adding to the difficulties from a general decline in manufacturing. A general decline in industry in the north and the rest of the country outside the Thames valley region shows up in the numbers. From 2000 to 2004 according to official estimates, manufacturing declined from 17.9% to 14.1% and financial services around London expanded from 5.5% to 8.3%, and by 2006 to 9.4%. With a contribution of one tenth of the economy financial services account for 30% of overall GDP growth in the last 3 years and 30% of all corporation tax revenues which helped the Labor government finance its public sector improvements and infrastructure improvements. The current downturn will also lead to a sharp drop in immigration to Britain. Growth is expected to slow to 1.4% in London and in the rest of the country in 2008 which is lower than the 2% growth in London region in the period 2000-2005 when the last downturn in London occurred. The financial services industry spills out benefits to other regions and the rest of the country which is how the British economy has done well even with the lack of strong manufacturing, weak exports and strong currency. ...

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UAE Mohamed bin Zayed visit to Ahmedabad, Gujarat is shown here on the PM site. Efforts to sign deals to take bilateral India UAE non-oil trade up to $100 billion by 2025. UAE is India's third largest trade partner.

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Chinese president Xi's determination to make good on the slogan "Housing is for living, not for speculation," by imposing a property tax on homes in 30 cities, is facing resistance within the Communist party and from local governments. Mr Xi hopes to squeeze out the excesses of the adoption of capitalist market systems in China since 2000. China's government opted to get feedback on this idea and the feedback is largely negative forcing the government to scale it back and look at other alternatives such as affordable housing to make home purchases accessible.  Some reasons for the pushback are that it is becoming a social stability issue and risks alienating officials within the ruling party and homeowners. The fact is that 90% of urban Chinese families own their homes and housing related industry makes up about a third of China's output. Also significant is that 80% of China's wealth is tied up in real estate. What could happen is that if housing prices drop in China urban consumers might cut back on spending because they feel poorer. Party officlals advised against introducing property tax in 30 cities. Now it is scaled back to ten cities, and a new law could take till 2025 to introduce property taxes in the whole of China. Cities that are likely to be used for the property tax now are Shanghai, Chongqing, where an annual charge is levied on second homes since 2011. Cities added to the list would be Shenzen, Hangzhou, China has financed much of its industrialization through land sales by the Communist local governments in a country where land ownership was with the national Communist government after the revolution in 1949.  Mr. Xi wrote in Qiushi party journal that "we should actively and steadily promote the legislation and reform of real estate tax, and do a good job in the pilot work." Local communist governments get about one third of their revenues from selling land to property developers, and they are anxious that a tax on real estate would make demand and price for the land they sell to drop drastically. To get some idea of this- the local governments had $1 trillion in revenues last year. ...

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Issues of inequality and lack of upward mobility came up in the last presidential election. A Federal Reserve Survey for 2018 shows the financial fragility facing many Americans. One quarter of working individuals say they do not have any retirement savings. About 17% of households say they cannot pay all their monthly bills. About 40% of Americans say they do not have enough cash to cover an unexpected $400 expense, and would have to rely on credit cards balances or loans from family to make the payment. This survey by the Federal Reserve is done each year since 2013, after the financial crisis hit in 2009 it became more important. Still Americans are showing unusual resilience and upbeat spirit. About 75% say they were doing Ok or living comfortably up from 63% in 2013. And two out of three described lovcal economic conditions as "good" or "excellent."  This shows that the financial vulnerability resulting in the loss of jobs in the U.S. both from jobs lost in manufacturing going overseas,  jobs lost through automation or industrial decline in some sectors, and the hit from job loss during the financial crisis and its aftermath years of 2009-2014 is still leaving a lot of families financially vulnerable. Low interest rates and stagnant wages also meant savings growth for ordinary Americans was less than it should be in a healthy economy without booms and busts. This is also the environment in which the U.S. is tackling challenges to its technological leadership in 5G following a decline in sectors such as autos and electronics, with job losses to Japan and South Korea. New trade agreements are focussed on correcting the imbalance, first with Mexico, South Korea, and now with China. Focus is also on fair wages and labour overseas to raise American wages in key sectors. The damage done by a low interest rate to savings of ordinary Americans outside the stock markets is also being seen as a downside in the boom bust cycle, that includes loss of jobs for vulnerable American families. The rise of the tech sectors has diluted the traditional protections of working class Americans with the shifts and realignment of the major parties. ...

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Trade in services is not enough. Services won't build ships for the US Navy. Services don't provide jobs for factory workers. Trade in services won't rebuild the US manufacturing base. It won't rebuild the middle class. Trade in services won't make pharmaceuticals Made in America that are available always, including in times of war, pandemics and disruptions. Bottom line as DJT pointed out in a Cabinet meeting on April 10 is that the US could no longer be a world power without its industrial base, it's manufacturing base. Americans companies doing the outshoring are really the targets of the Tariffs because they are at the heart of the mechanisms causing the destruction of the industrial and manufacturing base of America, vital for it's security and for it's leadership of the free world and western civilization. It started with Apple in 1998 and I witnessed this as a consultant seeing the production line at the Apple Colorado Springs plant in 1997 with rework and defective product before Steve Jobs returned to Apple. By 1998 Apple started shipping it's entire production base to China. DJT told the Cabinet meeting on April 10, 2025, all previous presidents had to tell companies firing all their workers and outshoring their machines was- "there will be a tariff of 50 or 100% on your products imported into the US."  And these companies would never have fired all their workers and sent their factories to China or some other country. Economists and experts who have turned their backs on American workers see the $1 trillion deficit countries have with China and the loss of their industrial and manufcturing base with one excuse or another. Trade in Services in which the USA has an advantage does not do much for American workers, or for the 5 million manufacturing jobs lost and tens of thousands of factories that have been outshored.  National Security and Jobs, the Middle Class, factory communities across all 51 states are all at stake. ...

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What a change DJT's first 100 Days and actions on immigration and tariffs , Ukraine and Russia, have made in China's and World relations in Asia, and in Europe - all for the better, significantly better relations worldwide.  China has worked out a peace settlement in Ladakh frontier with India. It has come together in Tokyo with Japanese prime minister Ishiba and China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi holding hands, and South Korea joining, all three nations vowing to remember history and work together. In Europe Russia is being brought back into the community of nations for big power cooperation with the US after 3 years of war in Ukraine. And Germany has removed its constitutional brake on spending that frees up $1 trillion in funding for infrastructure to replace much of its rail and other infrastructure built in 1900. One would not know this reading the NYT on democracy or the WSJ on tariffs or the Washington Post on assault on federal workforce, or the Atlantic, Politico, DW.com or FR24, Der Spiegel, nor Le Monde, much of the world media slanted on way or another. One does not hear about military exercises so often as the world realizes that so called large economies China, Germany, Japan and India all depend on American goodwill and willingness to give rather than take for most of the post war period since 1950. For the last 6 years in the latter half of the Trump administration and the 4 years of the Biden administration during the pandemic relations between China and the US deteriorated and China first retreated into its own then opened up a bit. The initial idea that it could manage the DJT trade actions evaporated as Biden continued the DJT first round of tariffs. Now Navarro, Lighhizer, and his deputy Jamieson are all back advising DJT for anew round of reciprocal tariffs and tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China for not stopping fentanyl flows.  In 2022 in eastern Ladakh China's PLA had a big standoff with Indian forces in eastern Ladakh at Galwan and Pangong Lake. The Quad was active with Australia India and the US in Indo Pacific and China conducted military exercises close to Taiwan.      ...

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History will see the lack of working on a bipartisan basis from the beginning of the Trump and Biden terms to stop illegal migrants and fight CMC (Canada, Mexico and China) on fentanyl flows as a blot on both parties. A remarkable change has happened in a matter of 100 days in Canada's stance on immigration and fentanyl flows. Trudeau now calling for eradication of fentanyl, his deputy prime minister saying Canada has more fentanyl deaths per capita than the US because of smaller population, and the need to wipe it out off the face of North America. The Canada Conservatives generally support DJT. The Trudeau Liberals have shifted policy to support DJT policies on immigration and fentanyl flows. In general Canada is making a pronounced shift towards support of the US position on immigration.  It is not just DJT policy as closing the border was part of the agreement agreed by Biden in 2024 with Republicans in Congress led by Lankford-Graham-McConnell which was not passed because it was too close to the election. One can only say the Covid pandemic, vaccination shortfalls, failures of supply chain distracted Biden from acting early and similar to DJT on the first phase of immigration action on illegal migrants committing offenses. The release of illegal migrants across the US is something that Democrats will years from now see as a major error in its policies. History will see the lack of working on a bipartisan basis from the beginning of the Trump and Biden terms to stop illegal migrants and fight CMC (Canada, Mexico and China) on fentanyl flows as a blot on both parties. ...

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The French view of the DJT administration is that it is a rupture, an "historic rupture with immigration repression, aggressive trade policy, and undermining of federal and state institutions." This is far from the reality. In fact it is not a rupture, and far from that policy that DJT brought in the waning days of a tired cautious Obama administration that extended the war in Afghanistan long after it was clearly a failure from the Bush years. DJT called it common sense during his Inauguration speech waving his hands- so obvious, stay out of wars we have no purpose pursuing. Regain America's manufacturing base shipped out to China in the Clinton-Bush-Obama years 2000-2016 that helped the rise of China in phases of supply chain partner, competitor, adversary. French view Le Monde is that this is "aggressive trade policy," when in fact small towns across the US and France, and other industrialized EU nations, by losing their factory and industrial base to China have gone downhill losing jobs and standard of living. Tariffs and DJT policy was continued by Biden- there is no rupture. What French in Le Monde call "Immigration repression," is a policy of protecting border security including illegal drug and fentanyl flows and gang activity that was accepted by Biden and Biden-Republican Lankford legislation was agreed in 2024 to close the Border. There is no rupture from Biden on closing the Border.  With millions having crossed the Border illegally Republicans now have the support of Democratic Senators Gallego of Arizona and Fetterman of Pennsylvania in passing the Laken Riley Act in Congress to protect Americans and safeguard life in America.   ...

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Japan has accomplished a remarkable transformation of its workforce and its economy even as the working age population is declining. For years Japan was seen as a stagnant economy with a rapidly aging population. In recent years Japan has shown how a change in policy can work. Since 2012 working age population declined by 4.7 million, yet the number of people working increased by 4.4 million. The proportion of the population in the workforce rose sharply since 2012. To do this Japan turned to three underutilized parts of its workforce and population- the elderly, women and new immigrants. Japan has pursued an active policy of reviving the economy by bringing women into the workforce and breaking taboos on new immigrants. In 2004 Japan raised retirement age from 60 to 65, and then made it mandatory for companies to raise or abolish the retirement age, or introduce a system for re-employing workers who retire. This has changed Japan a lot with Japanese men working well into their 60's and 70's. In the west coast city of Kanagawa which now has a bullet train to Tokyo, out migration was a big problem that added to a declining workforce. The head of Ohara, a family owned company that makes desserts tried a novel method of advertising to seniors in apartment blocks and starting attracting seniors to fill worker shortages. It found that seniors came to work on time, performed even tedious tasks, and brought a great deal of experience. Since then the regional government has started programs to get more retirees and women into the workforce. The special programs teach small companies to adapt to the needs of retiree workers who can work in shorter shifts of few hours and do less physical jobs. Women need predictable hours to pickup children from school and shorter work weeks, for which the regional government program helps companies adapt by sending in specialists to guide the companies. As a result female participation in the workforce, for very long a big handicap is no longer so. Female participation has jumped to 63%, higher even than that in the OECD where the average is 62 years.  Japanese women had a M curve that meant they worked most in their 20's. less in the 30's with children, and more in the 50's. First the government tried to correct this with extended parental leave, increased childcare, and rewarding companies with good work-life balance. Then in 2009 the effort accelerated with employers required to offer 6 hour days if a worker asked for this. Under prime minister Abe's "womenomics" effort child care was significantly expanded- by 2015 Tokyo went from 28 to 38 spots open for every 100 two year olds. Alongside these efforts the Abe government tried to get companies to rethink their assumptions about quantity of work and overtime as productive effort. One could work shorter hours and be productive, and the old notions were seen as resulting in lower productivity. As fathers with parental leave took on more responsibility the changes transformed the attitudes for women at work. Most remarkable is the quiet change in immigration policy. The government allowed foreign construction workers to address shortages for work on the 2020 Olympics. It introduced a 3-5 year visas program for nursing care workers. Two new categories of visas will add 340,000 additional blue collar workers over next 5 years. The total foreign born workers in Japan doubled from 2012 to 2017 to 1.3 million. ...

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China's assembly work accounts for just $3.70 of the Apple I Pod's value, The display module costs$20 made by Toshiba-Matsushita and of the $224 wholesale price $80 consisted of Apple's gross profit. This is from a study by 3 economists of the University of California at Berkeley and Irvine, Linden Dedrick and Kraemer. Out of electronic and IT exports of $300 billion China's value added was about 15% or $45 billion according to Leo Branstetter of Carnegie Mellon University. Foreign firms account for the largest share of exports and all of the top ten are overseas firms. In India mostly the IT business is a services business and it has not made the breakthrough to create original software products that are marketed worldwide.. In this sense there are a lot of missing pieces in both countries efforts and a lot remains to be done.

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In the third fiscal quarter ending June 28, 2014, Apple sold 35.2 million iPhones, up 13% from the year ago quarter. Profit reported was $7.75 billion for the quarter, up from $6.9 billion in the prior year quarter. Revenue increased to $37.43 billion from $35.32 billion the prior year quarter. Apple is not experiencing the weakness in smartphone sales that Samsung is seeing. The strong sales comes with increasing sales in China following the distribution deal with China Mobile. iPad sales slowed with sales declining to 13.3 million iPads in the quarter, down 9% from the prior year quarter. While Samsung has difficulty in preventing lower cost competitors such as Xiaomi and Huawei from eroding sales in China Apple sales are increasing. Apple's revenue in China increased by 28% for the quarter. China is a western brand conscious market as seen in sales of U.S. and German made automobiles. Another trend Apple is capitalizing on is the sale of larger screen iPhones. Screens larger than 5 inches make up 20% of iPhones shipped in China, according to IDC, which are estimated to go up to 50% by 2017....

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Financial markets and investors now see the uncertainties emanating from tariffs negotiations as temporary and unlikely to affect corporate profits and the US economy says this report in WSJ. When the EU requested an extension with EU president Leyen calling DJT on May 27th, Trump who had said the EU was dragging its feet on trade negotiations with the US, granted her request. Leyen promised to speed up the negotiations with the new deadline of Juy 9, 2025. Trump had called for an across the board 50% tariff on all EU products if the EU continued the lack of response. In this way DJT called the bluff the Europeans were playing seeking to portray the American tariffs negotiations in an unfavorable way.  How did markets respond? The S&P 500 increased by 2% on May 27th when it became clear that a trade settlement was likely to be reached in 6 weeks. Earlier DJT had met with Mark Carney of Canada another key trading partner and come up with an understanding on moving forward. DJT has shown flexibility with advice from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent who has experience with and carefully followed financial markets. ...

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Comments on X that cause difficulty for DJT chief of staff Susie Wiles to keep a clear narrative and the loss in the Wisconsin SC election are leading to a sense that Elon Musk could be a political liability. DJT focus is on the midterms and keeping the majority in the House, which is also why Elise Stefanik was asked to not accept the job of UN Representative and remain in the US Congress. The immediate focus is on tackling the Tariffs Liberation Day action April 2, 2025 so that followup negotiations with about 50 countries including major ones with Japan, Taiwan, Israel, Britain followed by European Union, South Korea and other nations. This would reassure markets as country after country is developing a new trade relationship that respects US manufacturing goals. China could then be tackled as a special case with America limited to loss of $146 billion in energy and grain sales which would be diverted to Europe's energy needs and farmers could be given a $50-100 billion support package. China would then have to find a way to preserve its $1 trillion surplus without the American market  which would require it to find other markets, and create a domestic market, if it chose not to negotiate and accept American manufacturing goals. ...

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How the Cowley plant stands as a fine example of how foreign investment has helped regenerate the area around Oxford university. BMW has invested more than $560 million in the plant since 2000 and in April 2007 the plant produced its millionth Mini a car based on a contemporary design of the old Morris Mini car. BMW has with its investments contributed about 55,000 jobs and $5 billion to the British economy in 2004 according to Oxford Economic Forecasting. UK received foreign investment that was 37% of of its gross domestic product in 2005, higher than France 28%, germany 18%, and the USA 13%, according to figures from the United Nation Conference for trade and Development. It has helped the British economy as the unemployment rate is lower than most of the EU countries. In the financial services industry a lot of foreign investors from USA, Germany and Switzerland have bought British firms and the financial services industry has thrived with all the international presence and Britian has increased its position as a centre of global financial services....

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Andrew Hall of trading firm Phibro, which traces its roots to the Phipps Brothers a German scrapmetal and raw materials dealer from 1900, and is now a part of Citigroup. He started making big bets after 2004 that futures in oil prices would instead of the then prevailing 20% discount to current prices be priced higher than current prices because of the rising demand from China and India and shortage of supplies. Once he had locked in on this idea and had researched the facts he got the agreement of the head of Ciigroups trading group to place large bets such as buying a lot of oil futures at the prevailing prices. As oil prices shot up this paid off and Phibro kept 20-30%of the profits. Hall made about $250 million dollars and put $100 million into his art collection of new artists. At a time when speculative buying by investors has pushed up oil prices this is a story of one person who made big bets and thrived.

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The amount of cash companies are holding as a percentage of total assets is rising and is high has it has ever been since the 1960's. One study shows that the average cash ratio doubled from 1998 to 2004 as debt levels fell. According to S&P total cash held by compaies in its industrial index exceeded $600 billion in February up from 203 billion dollars in 1998. This was mentioned as a bright spot by Ben Bernanke amid the prevailing gloom about the credit crunch. But Prof Stulz and 2 other professors at Ohio State in a study show that this rise reflects the greater risk of doing business in a globalized economy and companies are holding higher levels of cash to reflect this. They hold smaller inventories and spending by tech companies which form a larger portion of the companies than before is more on research and development than on capital equipment. This shows up in the higher level of cash on hand for emergencies and as money for a rainy day.

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

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Only 27 of 249 Republicans in the House of Representatives have accepted that Mr. Biden won the presidential election, the rest refused to answer. And only 32 of these Republicans in the House say they will accept if this is certified by the Electoral College. The Senate is split 50 Republicans to 48 Democrats with 2 runoff elections in Georgia. In one Senate seat a Libertarian candidate too a slice of the vote denying a clear victory to the Republican Perdue for that seat. In the other election for Senate seat with  about 20 candidates running no one could secure a clear win. Mr. Biden with a very thin margin of 13,000 votes in Georgia over Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump contested the election because of the unprecedented nature of the 2020 election with mail in votes allowed in a way and in huge numbers that was not always well organized to be fault proof. With federal elections being run by state officials in 51 states and not by a national election commission as in India, and each state improvising its way of handling mail in ballots there was not a fault proof way of knowing if everything was 100% unquestionably correctly done. A national federal election commission not belonging to any party and unrelated to state or federal authority can ensure an election is free and fair better than the way it is organized in the U.S. Use of electronic machines for over 1 billion voters also ensures consistent way of doing it in India compared to the haphazard nature of the American process of vote ballots and separate counting in each state. This is the second election in which both parties differed on the election and disputed the result. The earlier one was Bush vs. Gore when Mr. Clinton was outgoing president following 2 terms in office. Yet surprisingly there are no calls for setting up a structure like that in India that would organize the vote collection under the authority of a national election commission and the use of modern technology consistently across the nation. ...

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With the decline of its hardware business making iPhones Apple is looking at other fields. It is launching cheap online TV subscriptions in streaming wars in competition with Netflix and others. Apple is launching a new TV streaming service Apple TV+ in 100 countries for 4.99 British pounds a month undercutting Netflix's price of 5.99 pounds. The new service will be started November 1, 2019. Disney plans a streaming service for 7 pounds a month starting November 12. This service is alongside iPhone 11 launch and anew iPad, a new iWatch. Buy any new Apple device and you get a 1 year streaming service free.  Sales of iPhones fell 14% in the April to June 2019 quarter to 39 million units. Samsung's business is growing by 4% to 75 million units and Huawei by 16% to 58 million units. Apple sees the need to increases its services business with a target of $50 billion in 2020. Apple sees itself more as a media and cloud services company as it makes this change. In markets such as India Apple's growth is limited by its failure to lower prices on new iPhones. In China it faces strong competition from Huawei. The trade tensions are increasing the strength of Chinese brands in the Chinese market. The market in U.S. and Europe is saturated after years of expansion. New iPhone models are costly and bring peripheral advantages such as more and better cameras and features such as screens that are not breakable- for the iPhone 11- not dimensions that are critical for making a costly purchase. After years of growth tech companies such as Apple, Google, Alibaba, Amazon are reaching a point where incremental growth is not what it used to be and most of the rapid growth behind them. Trade tensions are also limiting the outlook in the Chinese market, and pricing remains a major factor in the Indian market. Western markets are saturated. There are fewer and fewer substantial new ideas from these tech companies. ...

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In this address to Congress in April 2021 US president Biden offers his plan to invest in American families and people. He calls it "a blue collar blueprint to build America." It also comes from a blue collar family to which Biden belongs with generations of American workers in the Biden family in the last hundred years who built America in the past.

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The $1.8 trillion Biden Families Plan for workers, students and families takes on the unfinished work for the New Deal, says Binyamin Applebaum in the NYT. Women were not out in the workforce in the way they are today under Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1930's and US president Biden is making them and childcare a big part of his Families Plan. Women have been hit harder than men during the pandemic shouldering a greater burden of the home and childcare. Healthcare and education are essential for quality of living- never has there been a greater realization of this than today after years of underinvestment in infrastructure and the foundations of democratic society.