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The monarchy in Sikkim ended in 1975 after a referendum through which it became the 22nd state of India. 

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

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A shift in Israeli opinion towards greater use of sanctions after antigovernment protests in Iran with deteriorating economic conditions and a 40% decline in the value of the rial. Merchants and ordinary citizens from the middle class are now joining the students and young people who led the protests in 2011.

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Priceline surged in a tech boom of two decades ago before coming down. It has regenerated itself through its 2005 acquisition of Amsterdam based portal Booking.com, followed by acquiring booking site Agoda and travel search engine Kayak. This has helped the stock rise in the last decade. Over 90% of its revenue comes from outside the U.S., even though its original model of naming a price for a booking is gone.  Booking.com is making an attempt to penetrate the Chinese travel market with a series of acquisitions starting with online travel agency Ctrip.com. Ctrip.com is established but recent acquisitions are burning cash. There is skepticism about these acquisitions as Chinese company share prices are seen as inflated similar to the stock booms that went bust in the U.S. Booking.com invested heavily in online advertising primarily through Google. Yet though western customers use search engines to find and book travel, in China customers go directly to Ctrip or apps like Meituan to book trips. To get people to book Chinese travel companies offer large discounts, a model that may not be right for Booking.com. The effort is to add to Ctrip customer base the middle to lower income customers from Didi ride sharing app and the Meituan app, through its partnerships with these companies. The experience of other travel sites such as Expedia in the Chinese market is poor, with price wars and Expedia selling its majority stake to Didi Chuxing. Expedia's CEO at the time calls it "the wild, wild east" because of the intense competition. About 130 million Chinese travelled overseas in 2017, up 7%, and spending $115 billion. ...

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This photos essay in The Guardian can be seen for pictures of US presidents since John Adams, at pivotal moments or moments that captured some symbolism of the times. John Kennedy is simply bending to look at a newspaper on the Oval office desk just  moments before meeting the French ambassador, yet the pressures of office show such as Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.  On November 22, 1963, Freedland says Kennedy warned against extreme groups. Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 had warned of radicalist groups if needed action for sharing the wealth and opportunity of the Nation were not taken. Kennedy said- "America’s leadership must be guided by learning and reason, or else those who confuse rhetoric with reality and the plausible with the possible will gain popular ascendancy, with their seemingly swift and simple solutions to every world problem.” Sometimes leaders are faced with difficult situations  “I want to tell you how grateful I am, and how worthy I’m going to try to be of all your hopes.”  a phone call to Martin Luther King Jr in 1963. Who was this US president? LBJ of Texas got it right for America, but lacked in international affairs knowledge of what John F. Kennedy had learned about aspirations in Asia and colonial rule during the war years in the Pacific. One president brought about 40 years experience in Congress to four major crises – the pandemic, crumbling infrastructure, loss of manufacturing in the US, and climate change– and passed the most far reaching legislation for trillions of dollars of investment since Franklin Roosevelt.  The most famous of these photos is the one showing Harry Truman holding the Chicago Tribune in 1948, which said "John Dewey Wins."   ...

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IKEA is raising the minimum hourly wage by 10% in 2016. From Jan 1, 2016 the minimum hourly wage at its existing U.S. stores will go up from $10.76 an hour to $11.87 an hour. IKEA is working to reduce staff turnover by raising the wages. In 2014 IKEA indicated that it would calculate the minimum wage taking into account local living costs in each market.. That action resulted in a 17% increase for half of IKEA's employees in 2014, according to IKEA.

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Inventories of foreclosed homes are going down, because of the moratorium on closures by the banks, in areas like California, Arizona, Nevada, Florida and Michigan. But buyers are concentrating on foreclosed homes so ordinary properties with higher prices are not seeing buyer demand. But this is temporary as the moratorium has expired and banks are foreclosing on homes just like before, which will create a large flow of foreclosed homes on the market. This will continue to depress housing prices. And with firsttime buyers getting skittish because of the fear of a job loss, this demand is not on a strong footing. And other than California and Michigan, these states that include Arizona and Nevada, don not account for significant economic activity of the country. South Florida has such ahuge backlog of unsold home and condominiums that the sales of foreclosed homes won't make much of a dent in the backlog. The rest of the country has a glut of homes on the market. For these reasons it would be dangerous to interpret the rising sale of foreclosed homes in ahandful of states in the west as helping clear up inventory of unsold homes, and risky for the government to let this tidal flow of foreclosures to continue. Significantly reducing forecloures with government action may be essential for economic recovery, as otherwise the housing market may take years to recover. This is something Martin Feldstein, adviser to McCain and now adviser to Obama, has advocated all along from the early days of this crisis in 2008....

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A push for "atman nirbhar bharat" and self reliant economy, for local manufacturing,  to reach full employment for India. "The global situation is such that the entire world is thinking on how to become 'aatmannirbar' (self-reliant). Vocal for local is the in thing," said prime minister Modi.

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The 1995 IPO of Samuel Adams and how it was made open to all investors, especially targeting its customers by attaching information tags on the IPO on each 6 pack of beer. For this IPO 100,000 customers sent in checks of $15, only 30,000 were accepted because the original estimate for the IPO was set at 30,000 shares. Founder Jim Koch says it benefitted the company because it created a loyal shareholding base and rewarded loyal customers- shares have since risen to $100 a share. Koch says it gave him the right feeling to do it this way.

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Daimler expects strong truck sales, after the launch of its new Actros model truck. It expects truck sales to increase 14% a year on average from 2010 to 2013. Truck sales are estimated at 500,000 in 2013, with sales rising to 700,000 by 2020.

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The crisis in the eurozone and the flight to the relative safety of German bunds has reduced the yields on ten year German government bonds to around 2% in November 2011, compared to 4.7% in mid-2008. This trend has lowered German borrowing costs by 20 billion euros from 2009 to 2011, according to Re-Define, an economic research institute in Brussels. This has lowered the borrowing costs for the Netherlands by 7.5 billion euros from 2009 to 2011, according to the De Volksrant newspaper in the Netherlands.

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The loan-to-deposit ratios on average for European banks of over 110% are much higher than the average in the U.S. of about 78%, according to analysts. The loan-to-deposit ratios for Spanish and Italian banks are much higher, with 160% for Bankia. If Spain leaves the eurozone and places a moratorium on loan payments the Greek loans on the books of France's banks in Greece would be in default, especially Credit Agricole. The French banks would suffer an estimated loss of 20 billion euros, and German banks 4.5 billion euros. German banks have been more aggressive in reducing their loan protfolios at risk than French banks during 2010-2012, hence their smaller exposure.

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The lives of China's female migrant workers many of them as young as 15 or 16 right from the villages and rural interior. Leslie Chang a Chinese American spent time living with them in Dongguan and gives an account of their lives and struggles as they leave the farm for a new life in the factories of China.

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Lynn Good, the CEO of Duke Energy, talks about the importance of family and relationships, outside of focus on career goals, after her experience at Arthur Anderson. She worked at Arthur Anderson till its precipitious decline and going out of business. She points out the importance of leading a team and teamwork, about adapting and developing the team, to communicate with the team and help it reach an objective that seems far out. It is not about becoming the smartest person about a particular subject.

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A music enthusiast who played in a rock band, before studying political science at the University of Hanover, and running for parliament, Lars Klingbeil comes from humble roots in Saxony. He led the campaign which brought the SPD Social Democrats to power in 2020 federal elections, and also into an election where the SPD secured only 16% of the vote a new low in 2025. Klingbeil comes as much of a surprise in the way his amiable manner and personality convinced the CDU leader Merz to give him the Finance Ministry as well as the support for major investments in the German economy. This was a goal the SPD failed to accomplish under Scholz with his Finance Minister from the FDP Christian Lindner blocking investment plans for 4 years. The frustration in the SPD is intense and Klingbeil and Merz coming together on borrowing and massive investments in infrastructure and defense is something of a miracle after the Merkel years and the constitutional brake she put in place on spending.  Right from the start the SPD and the CDU realized that this was their last chance as Merz put it to get things right before the far right or some other party took over. Problems that require investment- in crumbling infrastructure and obsolete transportation, lack of investment in IT, problems in childcare and in cost of living could not be postponed. Risks had to be taken, and the 28% of the vote CDU had needed the 17% of the vote of the SPD with the Greens 12%, total 57% of the 2025 vote, to act fast and decisively. ...

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US GDP growth is 2.9% in 4th quarter 2023, down slightly from 3.2% in the third quarter, after interest rate increases by Jay Powell at the Fed.

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Southwest agreed to give $100 million to the city of Houston to construct an international concourse at William P. Hobby Airport, the city of Houston's airport. A 33 year old federal regulation prevents Southwest from flying internationally from Dallas. If this does not win approval from the city, Southwest is looking at options of San Antonio and Austin. United is the major competitor from Houston's Hobby airport.