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This report in WSJ shows a generational problem that is creating a shortage of workers in Vietnam and China, that will require factory owners to increase wages significantly. US and European government policy supports these higher wages so that some of the manufacturing can be returned to bring jobs back home.   Younger workers do not want to spend much of their lives behind factory walls, and prefer less strenuous jobs shorter working hours in the services sector. They are having fewer children and at later ages than parents, resulting in less pressure to work in their 20's for a steady income. Factories in Vietnam are offering glass walls, yoga classes, improving cafeteria food, and offering kindergarden for worker children to attract workers.  In China there is 21% urban youth unemployment at a time of factory shortages. South Asian countries such as Bangladesh have infrastructure problems, and in India factories are finding it difficult to sign up workers. In the next 2 years this will result in costlier goods in US and EU, over 3-5 years this will bring many jobs back to the home countries. ...

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WSJ reports that there is considerable unease at making clients wealthier amid rising inequality and cost of living crisis in the US. Many financial planners who work for large banks with clients having over $3 million to $50 million are leaving as they do not find job satisfaction advising clients unless some of the money goes to help other people. Clients making less than a couple of million are more likely to help others in society than clients making $20 million who cannot grasp the problems of society from a third of fourth graders filing reading comprehension tests, the 40 million people on student loans, or people struggling to tackle the cost of living. 

About 35% of 330,000 financial planners/wealth managers in the US work with client assets under half a million, 19% with clients having assets under $2 million.  

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China's plan to limit smartphone use by children under 8 years to 40 minutes a day.

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Three homes built in Boston to show the potential of passive home construction that are designed with solar panels, heat pumps, wood construction, and modern technology design that minimizes loss of heat in winter and reduces temperature increases in the summer. The cost of the electricity bill for each of these three homes is nearly zero. Passive home construction cost is about 15% more or in this case $1.4 million for homes that would otherwise cost $1.2 million in the Boston area. The design and technological aspects can be incorporated in lower cost affordable housing and 40% of passive construction is planned in that field.

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New developments in the lawsuits filed in Washington DC by 38 states attorney generals related to legal theory. A separate lawsuit was filed by the Justice Department in Virginia against Google. With 90% of the advertising search queries worldwide and $160 billion-in-sales advertising business Google is in a position that is not supported by the idea of competition that is inherent to the American system of business and the economy that holds that no one competitor should dominate the market. This happened during the early twentieth century under Rockefeller's Standard Oil and is happening once again with Google and other tech companies that monopolize space that is vital to maintaining an economy based on fairness and competition. Current legal theory practice fails in this respect as it does not clearly recognize that the principle is at stake that no one company should be allowed to control vital public space or resource such as in this case internet or in the case of Rockefeller energy. Monopolies seen in this way fail the people because they make it impossible to exercize the inalienable rights of man and limit his possibilities by excluding alternatives and alternative expressions. ...

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The US added 167,000 jobs in July 2023 from a month earlier, according to the Labor Department, less than 200,000 anticipated. Higher population numbers and higher labor force participation rates offset the increasing  number of retired people in the US. More people added to the population from immigration and more younger people participating in prime age under 54. This means the US is where it would like to be with the Fed not having to increase rates that much in coming months, says Justin Lahart of WSJ. The Labor Department increased its estimates of population by 867,000, and the labour force participation for prime age is up to 84%. These are good signals for the US economy, that there is room for more jobs growth and income growth with an unemployment rate at 3.5%, and less need for increasing interest rates by the Fed.

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China after American and European offshoring of supply chain and manufacturing over three decades is going through a rapid reversal. People to people contacts are also falling off a precipice as it were, showing how badly structured efforts by business focused on profit and not people to people fail miserably, hurting the long term prospect of peaceful cooperation. Foreign Investment that was $100 billion in the first quarter of 2022 is now $20 billion. Tourism down by about 80%. At Zhangjiajie National Park goes from half a million foreign tourists to 50,000 last year. It is typical of this staggering change.  People are not going from America and Europe to China unless they have to. It shows the complete failure of a purely business relationship such as offshoring manufacturing when it hurts workers and families in America and Europe, who turn against it leading to a free fall in relations. American and European business and the governments allied with it failed in this sense to build a world of better interpersonal relations between Asia and the western world. China's experience with industrialization and modernization begun in 1990 is now a cautionary tale for other regions such as India and the Middle East that are planning their own modernization. Much of it happened less from a people to people relationship than from an effort by US business to seize the opening of China after Mao's revolution to offshore American manufacturing as if realizing a new opportunity without understanding its long term consequences for the American people. European business followed American business in this offshoring. It damaged the basic structure of the American and EU peoples based on locally based supply chains and manufacturing at home needed for strong healthy communities, leading to this situation today. The rancor and deeply seated discontent all across America and Europe from communities losing factories and the jobs and wealth coming from it from offshoring by business interests has created this situation.  ...

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Estimates show one in five new mothers or about 800,000 mothers in America are experiencing anxiety disorders during the pregnancy or a year after giving birth. Mental health disorders are now the leading cause of maternal death, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The US is the only high income nation in the world without paid maternity leave and this increases risks of mental health. About one in four women return to work within 4 weeks of giving birth. This report shows the work done by the University of North Carolina Chapel Hills's Center for Women Mood Disorders, one of only 3 inpatient facilities for mental health in the US. 

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The effects of climate change that are the biggest issue facing both America and China and the need for cooperation on this vital issue is underscored by the floods in China and the fires in the US and Canada, the heat waves affecting both regions and the rest of the world. Even during the war in Eastern Europe one should never lose sight of the major issues that bind the major population regions of Asia in India and China with Europe and the US, and Africa, Latin America- climate change and food security, development finance and cost of living, helping workers and families in these regions.

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Remote learning during the pandemic left students with a lack of basic skills. Companies are now working to address these skill issues and training is provided on the job. The scores on tests for students in all professions from nursing and medical to engineering have fallen with remote learning.

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Trump asked him to put him above the Constitution of the United States of America. He refused, making clear his overriding commitment to the Constitution of the United States, says former vice president Mike Pence. More clearly one sees a different understanding and grasp of the meaning of the Constitution of the US by the two individuals. This is what is at stake in what Peter Baker in the NYT calls an issue that will decide the future of America as a strong democracy. Deeper still are the questions of education and culture that this has raised that will not go away even then. How do you build a democracy when as a people, as a political class, or as groups of people one is not jolted by the fact that two thirds of American fourth graders fail the reading comprehension test, an indication of the deep lack of knowledge of the basic history, geography and political structure of the Untied States of America across broad sections of the people.

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Former Vice president Mike Pence says he told president Trump after the election that the claims about the election results not being correct were false. In making his decision Pence says he put his loyalty to the Constitution above the interests of the career of any one man.

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The hybrid Toyota Land Cruiser is an iconic brand that will be brought back in the US in 2024 in the $50,000 price range as a raw and utilitarian vehicle for off road adventure. By 2023 11.3 million were sold globally. It was discontinued in the US in 2021 with few design changes and lack of sales in the $80,000 price range.

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The bursting of a dam on the Guadalupe river in Texas shows the problems of aging infrastructure in the US. The Lake Dunlap dam was built in the 1920's to generate electricity for rural homes in the state, and is one of six dams on the Guadalupe river. There are 91,815 dams in the US with an average age of 61 years, according to the US Army Corps of Engineers. It would cost $157 billion to repair and build new dams to replace these aging dams.

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At its core what Peter Baker of the NYT calls a question that settles the future of American democracy-Mr. Trump's indictment for efforts to reverse 2020 election result- is a question of culture, of American culture and education having deteriorated in profound and unthinkable ways. Peter Baker who has covered 5 American presidents writes in the NYT that the fourth indictment gets to the heart of the matter, which will define the future of American democracy. This indictment asks whether a sitting president can spread lies to hold on to power when the election shows voters have rejected him. The indictment says that Mr. Trump "knew that his claims were false," yet he "made them anyway to create an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger and erode public faith in the administration of the election."  Baker also points out that one third of the electorate still believes this to be true as a result of the claims Trump made. And 75% of the Republicans in NYT-Siena poll think Mr. Trump was simply acting in good faith to question election results in some states and it was nothing more than pursuing his legitimate legal options. This is about 40% of the American electorate. How is this possible unless the education and culture of the country has been allowed by successive failed administrations to deteriorate to an extent never before seen in this way since the country's independence in 1776. Even recent reports that two thirds of America's fourth graders fail basic reading comprehension tests have not jolted the nation out of its tech based glorification of a failing culture and education. ...

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It is a summer of surprises, Germany loses to Columbia, Brazil loses to Panama, Italy loses to South Africa, and the American team barely gets away with a draw after an excellent performance by Portugal.

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China has banned crypto currency firms including Binance. Yet the ban is not fully enforced leading to about $90 billion in transactions in China in May 2023. The first and second biggest market for the Binance crypto exchange is China with 900,000 users, followed by South Korea and Turkey. In China about 100,000 Binance users are considered "politically exposed persons." 

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The US women's soccer team fails to score and Portugal comes close to winning in the final minutes with a shot that come off the goal post.