LyrArc Article Gist
Questions about the every 5 years 20th Party Congress of the CCP or Chinese Communist Party, and the 2300 representatives attending from all parts of China are answered in this report in The Guardian.  Xi Jinping is expected to get a third term. To outsiders in US and Europe it is all about power in China, to insiders in China it is about China making it through the 100 years since the 1901 revolution and the tumult, the chaos of the first 100 years, and now a period of modernization and growing incomes,  the need to create jobs, tackle climate change, ensure a good future for the Chinese people. 2300 party members representing millions of party members in China attend the gathering. New appointments and retirements take place at this Congress. Of this there are 200 elite members of the Central Committee with voting rights. This central committee is responsible for electing a 25 member Politburo, of which the seven most senior persons are appointed to the Politburo Standing Committee. Xi Jinping is the General Secretary, the most senior position in this hierarchy. Age related retirements are at 68 years and a new Politburo standing committee is announced at each Congress. After the Bo Xilai effort to take power and take China in a new and unknown direction, and the gradual loss of the party's respect from corruption and abuses of power by local officials, Xi Jinping sensed problems in the future and conducted a anti-corruption campaign. Most of the system of government set up during the Deng and Jiang Zemin years after 1980 remains in place with Jinping calling for a revival of China, the next stage of modernization, under the banner of the CCP. The result of the anti-corruption campaign and a third term assumed by Xi including lifting of a term limit for heading the CCP, gives Xi Jinping an opportunity to shape the future for China as Deng did after 1980. Jinping in the manner of Deng sees the CCP as the organization that can continue the modernization and growth of China. The model set by Deng and Zemin of local autonomy for economy and centralized overall direction continues under Jinping who is General Secretary since 2012. China has made rapid growth during the period 2000-2022, but faces challenges of reorienting its economy away from dependence on a tight economic export oriented relationship with the US and EU, as supply chains are being shifted after the pandemic. This means more unemployment and need for careful economic planning and investment to create jobs in other sectors, and to meet the challenges of unequal distribution of wealth in China after hypergrowth that hurt China in some ways, and in the climate change effects of use of coal other fossil fuels. As focus of interest is on Jinping externally, within China it is these three challenges that must be uppermost in the minds of the 20th Congress members. Much of this stems from the tumult of the century that began with the 1901 revolution through Japanese invasion and upheavals in the 60's and 70's, leading to the rare period of stability and growth in the last 20 years. Jinping like Deng and Zemin has personal memories of the anguish of this period and the tumult, the chaos of the 20th century for China, and the yearning for stability with modernization.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
DJT calls for 10% cap on credit card interest for affordability crisis for US families. Most of the credit card companies in the US base these operations in places without usury laws such as Nevada, and charge exorbitant rates on credit cards, a practice that is going on for 6 decades since the 1960's. It makes it harder for families to get out of poverty and living from paycheck to paycheck. It is another aspect of the affordability crisis. Democrats have never raised this up for action. “Please be informed that we will no longer let the American Public be ‘ripped off’ by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%, and even more,” the president says he wants the cap to start Jan. 20, 2026 If this happens it will be a big win for the American people and end a decades long usury type business in credit cards that violates the idea on which the US was founded of opportunity for all and access to credit as critical in making this happen. Interest rates of 30% are a way to reduce social mobility in the way a feudal order once did in the years before the Modern World and the Scientific Revolution. A society without social mobility is one in decline can be seen in the way Spain went into decline after 1700 and Britain emerged to lead the Modern World and the Industrial Revolution. This is the crisis America faces today- change or cede leadership to China or some other nation. It is about this not the capitalist system or other system as many like to portray it, and Adam Smith was all about growth and social mobility that were part of his system which today is sadly forgotten, yet needs to be bravely put forward. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
China is not experiencing high unemployment in 2012 the way it did in 2009. The lower growth rate of 7-8% is not having an adverse impact on unemployment. This makes it possible for the stimulus this time to be much smaller. There is rising upward pressure on wages. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, CEIC and WSJ, average annual wages at private sector manufacturing companies in current U.S. dollars was up 5% in 2009, 16% in 2010, and 20% in 2011. This is being encouraged by the government as China gradually shifts its economy towards higher domestic consumption and better standards of living for workers. Hon Hai Precision Industry Company added 82,000 workers in China in 2011. Salaries at the Shenzen plant were 2200 yuan or $345 a month in February 2012, an increase of 10%. An April survey by Manpower Group showed that a majority of companies will increase workers or hold employment stable, only 3% of companies will have job cuts. Demographic changes are also playing a part-with fewer people in the 15-19 age range, dropping from 120 million in 2005 to 95 million in 2015, according to UN estimates. The number of migrant workers remains steady at 252 million in 2012, up 4% from 242 million in 2010, according to the Bureau of National Statistics....

LyrArc Article Gist
Experts say China's official GDP figures are unreliable and cannot be verified. Transparency is sorely lacking. The methodology, inflation assumptions and other basis for the calculations are not presented, so that many of the numbers cannot be reproduced. The official figure for 1st quarter GDP growth is 7%, from China's Bureau of National Statistics. GDP growth estimates developed by Capital Economics show 4.9% growth, by Citi 4.6%, by the China Center of the Conference Board 4%. Since 2012 the Capital Economics estimates are just above 5%, and the Conference Board estimates about 4%, showing that the growth rate has slowed markedly since 2012. As Communist party chief of Liaoning province, the current prime minister showed serious doubts about the GDP numbers and preferred to rely on figures for rail cargo, electricity consumption, bank loans.

LyrArc Article Gist
GM plans to bring 5 to 10 Cadillac models to China by 2016. It plans to build a factory for Cadillacs in China. Even as auto sales are slowing down in China in 2012, sales of luxury and premium cars are growing rapidly. Infiniti, Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Tata's Jaguar-Land Rover, and now GM are competing for sales to China's growing affluent class. According to IHS Global Insight, China's auto sales slowed to 2.5% growth in 2011, yet sales of premium car sales increased by 32%. With sales slowing in Europe and the U.S., car manufacturers are focussing on the luxury segment in China to boost profits. BMW's sales chief, Ian Robertson, says sales will slow in coming quarters from the 32% growth rate of 2011, but he still expects double digit growth for premium cars in future years. In making its large investments in China Ford executives said it expected a growth in China's car market of 5% over the next decade. BMW plans to increase production to 200,000 cars after opening its second plant in 2011, with capacity to ramp up to 300,000 a year....

LyrArc Article Gist
Audi is the second largest car company in the premium car category in China after BMW. Audi now plans to make 700,000 cars in China by 2015 instead of 2020 as planned earlier. Audi say executives say the premium car segment in China is growing rapidly in China. It expects sales to grow overall at a a more normal pace than the frenetic pace of recent years. The slower growth in the economy at 7-8%, which is reflected in slower sales in the overall market, is not the case with the premium cars. Because of rapid growth in 4-5 years the Chinese market for premium cars will look more like mature markets in the U.S. and Europe, says Audi sales chief Schwarzenbauer.

LyrArc Article Gist
Hamburg is the key city in Germany's trade with China. About half of $200 billion in trade between Germany and China passes through the port of Hamburg. The South China Morning Post looks at the dilemma in Hamburg over relations with China in the post Merkel era. Merkel maintained strong and close ties with China signing an agreement with China her last year in office. This was when Mr. Trump was US president. Since then president Biden has changed US policy towards Europe. The South China Morning Post points out that The Greens and the FDP key partners of Scholz in a new coalition government, are critical of Merkel's policy towards China in its overall relationship with the US and the rest of the world. Scholz was mayor of Hamburg, and a partner in Merkel's coalition government in which he was vice chancellor. Scholz has talked very little on what the new German policy would be. China seeks to maintain its economic ties in the next few years with Germany while reducing its dependence on other countries under Xi Jinping's new vision for China that seeks to depend less on trade and real estate for its economy and growth. Yet the pace of change has accelerated during the pandemic with a new global supply chain emerging from the chaotic years of 2020-2021. US policy under president Biden is similar to policies under Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930's during the economic and political crises, and look to be setting a new path to the future for the rest of the world. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Compared to the situation in 2008-2009 during the global financial crisis with the excess supply of labor, China in 2012 faces an excess in demand for labor. In 2009 about 20% of migrant workers were unemployed when the crisis hit, and wages dropped 10% for migrant workers, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Stanford University. The situation three years later is one of tight labor markets and higer wages. A large stimulus in not only not needed today in the way it was in 2008-2009 as a way to maintain social stability, it would reduce the benefits of the anti-inflationary steps taken in 2011-2012, by putting more pressure on wages and prices. Manufacturing sector wages increased by 20.1% in 2011, according to China's statistics bureau. This may be why the Chinese government is taking measured steps to avoid creating more bad loans through indiscriminate lending, and being more selective in accelerating development projects in the pipeline. According to Hong Kong's new Chief Executive Officer China plans to have about 7% growth. This shift in approach would help China refocus on growth strategies recommended in the recent Development Reform Commission and World Bank Report on China....

LyrArc Article Gist
The deteriorating business environment in China is shown in this report in the WSJ. An April 2022 survey by the EUropean Chamber of Commerce in China found 23% of companies were considering shifting current or planned investments in China to other parts of the world. This WSJ report says even before the latest covid lockdowns over one third of American companies told the American Chamber of Commerce they would reduce investment in the country due to the policy environment there. WSJ says there are serious question about the future growth of the Chinese domestic market and the stability of the overall policy environment for business. The distinct advantages of India and South East Asia are now becoming clear including growing youthful labor forces, and governments that as in India are part of the Free World democracies allied with America and the European Union says WSJ.

LyrArc Article Gist
China's population decline and fewer working age people is likely to reduce the high capital accumulation that sustained rapid growth in the past. China's dependency ratio- population of children and elderly relative to the 15 to 64 year old age group went up to 46% in 2021 from 34% in 2010, says WSJ. This means less savings accumulation, and less of the enormous pool of cheap capital of the last 2 decades that led to fast growth. That period is ending. This makes the subsidy based approach to push key industries such as chips and solar panels in the past much more difficult in the future, says Nathaniel Taplin in the WSJ. 

LyrArc Article Gist
Orlik reports that the link between China's GDP growth and lending has broken down as credit expansion is accompanied by slowing growth. Slowing credit growth and lowering GDP growth even further is the price China's ecnomic planners are willing to take to forge a new path of sustainable growth, increasing efficiency of investment and increasing domestic consumption. The ratio of China's credit outstanding to GDP has jumped to about 180% in 2012 from 123% in 2008. Rapid expansion of credit is one of the danger signals before a crisis according to the IMF. Turkey and China are facing danger signals according to this IMF danger indicator.

LyrArc Article Gist
BYD is China's largest EV automaker. It boosted employment by 50% to 630,000 in 2023, with growth of 73%. This WSJ report shows how the Chinese government is now favoring EV automakers and the EV industry over Chinese internet companies such as Alibaba and Tencent that once played a large part in the economy.  $72 billion in tax breaks are provided by the government to EV automakers. Jobs have shrunk in internet companies during the pandemic with the Xi Jinping government moving away from housing and internet industries creating higher unemployment. Youth unemployment had reached 21%. The growth of BYD by 73% in the 8 months of 2023 shows how the EV industry will play a larger role in the economy, along with other new industries and technologies. It will also become an export leader with domestic innovation in technologies.

LyrArc Article Gist
One negative effect of the trade war with the U.S. is an increased emphasis on energy security and increased use of coal in China. After China committed to goals for climate change coal use declined in 2014, after reaching a high in 2013. The attack on Saudi oil facilities showed risk in its reliance on Saudi oil. China's import dependency for oil reached an all time high of 72% in 2018, according to BP 2019 Statistical Review. Gradually the commitment to climate change and lower use of coal has changed since 2016 with the withdrawal of the U.S. from the Paris Climate Change Agreement. Initially after the U.S. withdrawal under president Trump China made bold commitment to lead the fight against climate change but has since wavered. In an October 2019 speech Premier Li Kequiang called for the development of the coal industry to ensure energy security.  As China's economy slowed in 2019 in the face of U.S. tariffs and a trade war with the U.S. efforts are being made to increase infrastructure investment which has driven coal use higher. China's steel output reached a record of 750 million metric tons in 2019. The amount of coal fired capacity under construction in China now exceeds the rest of the world combined, much of it from plants permitted before 2017, according to Global Energy Monitor. China is also expected to become the world's largest importer of natural gas by 2020. Even the Russian gas fields from Siberia supply only a fifth of China's energy demands in 2020.  China has made large strides in renewable energy helping it meet its Paris Agreement targets. Renewable energy is about 10% of China's energy mix, but its use showed growth of 29% in 2018, making up half of the world's growth. China's use of coal in the energy mix has dropped to 58% in 2018 from 72% in 2008, according to BP 2019 Statistical Review, as a result of renewable energy investments. At the Madrid Climate Conference China renewed its commitment to the Paris Climate Change Agreement. Now it is a balancing act keeping in mind energy security and economic growth along with the need for clear skies and better air quality. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Savings for China and Japan by increasing oil imports at low prices could amount to about 1% of the economy for each country. Japan imports of oil are one tenth of total imports, and amount to $75 billion. At prices half of what they were before coronavirus the savings are about $40 billion a year. This will offset some of the drop in economic growth of about 3% in the year ending March 2021.

For countries where the coronavirus has been relatively controlled with manufacturing and infrastructure projects ready to go ahead the benefit is greatest. China expects to see about 7% decline in GDP in the first quarter resulting in minimal growth for the year as long as export markets in the U.S. and Europe remain weak. For India it depends on how long the lockdown continues and how quickly economic activity can resume under new conditions. 

LyrArc Article Gist
Critical to move forward in making investments for growth in the Indian economy are the government debt to GDP ratio and GST revenue collections. FInance minister Sitharaman tells parliament that the government debt to GDP ratio is 56.2 % and considerably less than many countries of the leading economies in Europe and the US, less than France and the US, Canada which are in triple digits. GST collections are at 1.49 lakh crores for July 2022, the second highest in history. Inflation is at 7% or below that.  Non performing assets of commercial banks are at 5.9%. She said about 4000 banks in China were reportedly on verge of being bankrupt by comparison and China has huge debt problem for local government. Much of the hard work of the government is makingit possible to set the conditions such as these for basic macroeconomic factors to be put in place for the next stage in India's journey to fulfill the aspirations of its people for a modern and technologically advanced economy with opportunity for all. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The risks facing China of slow growth and a bubble economy as the new leadership of Xi Jinping takes over in 2012. The export model for the economy is coming to the end of its run and the new leaders have to come up with a new plan for the future. At the same time they face the interests of state owned companies, banks and local governments interested in maintaining the status quo.

LyrArc Article Gist
19 percent of China's exports went to the US in 2017, in 2024 this is 15%, but wait, the difference of 4 percent it is simply coming back to the US but through Southeast Asia. As a result some of the same issues that puzzled Trump negotiators exist today. China's exports surged 12.7% in October 2024 over the prior year. Biden was facing this situation and had yet to respond to the surge in exports to US. These exports were sent to Mexico and to Southeast Asia to circumvent the tariffs. It is the same situation revisited in 2024 with two other aspects of the Chinese economy-economic stimulus gets smaller and the housing and construction industry has imploded, the economy has slower growth. The overall price level in the US with a 60% tariff plus 10% for all countries would be 0.72 addition to the price level of 1.10 percent today- that is when including the depreciation of China's yuan by 10%. as it did last time. The result would be price level in the US at 1.82%, according to J.P. Morgan. Drag on China's GDP of the Trump tariffs in first term was 0.65% according to one investment bank GS, with 60% tariffs it would be 2%. Trump secured a return of $116 billion or 58% of the $200 billion China said it would buy of US exports. The other 42%- the deal was not completed in the end. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Next to Uttar Pradesh 242 million population adjacent Bihar with 128 million is decisive in Indian parliament elections since 1947- 2025 state elections show BJP NDA (Modi) sweeping win with over 203 of 243. Assembly seats. Unknown to most of the world is that this region is the birthplace of Buddhist civilization and culture, that later was part of Asian culture and civilization as it spread to China and Japan. Modi plans to add to Nalanda and other seats of Buddhist ancient universities on the world map with UNESCO listings.  The Indian economy needs 15-20 years of stable government dedicated to rapid accelerated growth with full access to US and EU technologies and capital to catch up with China, the US and EU. The road to this starts with 5 regions- northcentral  region Gujarat/Rajasthan/Madhya Pradesh  (99 seats), west central region Maharashtra (48 seats), northern region Uttar Pradesh (80 seats), Haryana and Delhi region (17 seats) and Eastern region Bihar (40 seats) which together provide  seats in Indian parliament  284 seats out of total of 543 seats in the Indian parliament. For the first time with the win in Bihar the Modi government is now within reach of this goal of being able to govern in a democracy for next 15 years by delivering on infrastructure, cost of living and rapid industrialization and growth of the economy similar to Japan's and China's growth since 1950. The LDP delivered this in Japan, the CCP in China and the NDA under Modi is in the same position today. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
For the first time in three decades US economic growth will be much faster than China's. Second quarter 2021 growth in the US was 12.2% compared to 7.9% in China, and will continue to be much higher for five consecutive quarters. This report in the WSJ says it is the result of the US response to the Covid pandemic. The US vaccination drive, massive fiscal stimulus and near zero interest rates have helped, including the confidence generated by the $1 trillion infrastructure investments planned for this decade. Over the longer term Capital Economic estimates China's GDP around 2030 will drop to 2% growth with demographic decline, just as the demographic factors favor Indian growth to levels that China has seen in the last two decades. This was the plan and vision set out by the Indian prime minister for 2047, on the 100th anniversary of independence. For the future government help has helped US households accumulate $2.6 trillion in excess household savings, which Moody's estimates is 7 times that in China.  In the longer term gaps will have narrowed between Asia and Europe, the US, which is a good thing. More will need to be done in Africa and Latin America. Much of the talk about who leads ignores the local needs in cities and towns across all parts of the world for a better quality of life, better education, better nutrition, better healthcare, meeting aspirations of young people, and supporting hope for a better future. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Of 161 million people employed in 2024 about 40-50 million in vulnerable groups living from paycheck to paycheck and without savings to support them in a medical emergency is a real problem in the US economy. It is why even as unemployment looks good at 4% and inflation down to 3% there is a lot of angst for Americans for cost of living. Fifteen million baby boomers who will turn 65 years for retirement between now 2024 and 2030 face a situation where they have less than 250,000 in savings. Many who were born between 1945 and 1962 called baby boomers are in this group with diminished savings. In the prime of their careers they were hit by the 2009 financial crisis caused by bank speculation risk taking. They also were hit by the pandemic in the peak years of income growth. Other such vulnerable groups are young people with high student who are being helped by president Biden. There are also the low income groups that have been hit by medical costs and a family emergency that were pushed into poverty. Other groups in the millions are the people at the low income levels who are working paycheck to paycheck because of housing costs. About one fourth or 25% of apartment renters are people whose households budget shows 50% or more going to housing costs which have increased 20% in the last 2-3 years, which includes the pandemic years 2022 and 2023. President Biden seeks to limit apartment rent price increases to 5% and Kamala Harris has proposed help for families for the portion above 30% of household income going to rent. The jump in cost of living from automobiles, automobile repair and housing, cost of groceries have affected other groups with large credit card debt. This is a result of the supply chain concentration in China which comes from American business overconcentrating production in China and previous administrations doing little about this. Biden's answer is to bring jobs and manufacturing knowhow and investment back to America. During the pandemic some people resisted getting vaccinated and lost their jobs, a million people lost their lives, others took early retirement seeing the stress ful lives during the pandemic, others including women quit to take care of children. This has reduced the labor supply to business leading to tight supply higher prices.The result is that there are about 5 such vulnerable groups each with about 5-10 million people for a total of about 40-50 million people at risk. For these people the cost of living presents huge challenges, including childcare. It includes young people and retirees, single women and families on low income hourly wages that have not kept up with inflation.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
UN projections show median age of Chinese citizens will overtake that of Americans in 2020. Yet China's median income is only a quarter of that in the U.S. Life expectancy in China today is 76, very close to that in America. In 1960 a Chinese person born that year had life expectancy of 44 years.  China is aging at the pace of Japan, and a bit slower than South Korea, but wealth per capita was three times higher in South Korea and Japan than China when the aging accelerated. A Chinese woman fertility rate today is 1.6 compared to 4.6 in 1973. A prominent Chinese economist says in a recent report that median age in China in 2050 will be nearly 50 compared to 42 in America and 38 in India. WSJ cites figures showing China will have gone from 9 working age adults per retired person in 2000 to just two by 2050. So how to pay for retirement of all these workers today? Government spending on retirement is a tenth of GDP, about half the level in older wealthier countries, and increase in spending will impact growth. Today this is about 6.2% potential growth rate. It also pushes wages up with a shortage of workers in cities such as Shenzen and X'ian even with the use of new technology and robots in factories.  Solutions are to raise retirement age currently set at 60 years, increasing labor force participation of women as Japan has done, and increasing productivity. China has transferred 10% equity stakes in four state owned financial firms to the national pension fund to shore up its finances as estimates from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences show it running out of money in 2035. Traditionally children supported families in old age but the one child policy leads to situations where the child is working or in another city. In Suzhou near Shanghai, a retirement business sends 1800 helpers to private homes and 130,000 retired people, in a new trend. The city administration of Shanghai plans 400 neighborhood care centres for elderly by 2022, with health clinics, drop in facilities, and homes. 12,000 elderly people use one centrre in central Shanghai area of Changning. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The tech boom bust since 2000 that has hurt America and Europe and which also laid the foundations for the loss of manufacturing and technology to China, ceding American leadership and critical advantage, is shown here in the WSJ. The role of the finance sector  is explained here. That has added one more factor to the factor of endless wars in the Middle East, where American and European investment in healthcare, education and new infrastructure was somehow diverted away, and much of America's and Europe's resources wasted- or not turned to the benefit of the people of America or Europe.  One financial firm that rode the tech boom to the hilt finds itself with unacceptable losses except in a severe recession. Tiger Global Management was using tens of billions of dollars from pensions, endowments and rich clients riding on some of Silicon Valley's hottest stocks.  With the plunge in tech stock values including startups in which Tiger pushed into aggressively now facing large losses after hyper valuations, Tiger's hedge fund which managed $23 billion at the end of 2021 was down 52% in 2022. Another of its funds that managed $11 billion has lost 62%. WSJ says this wiped out two thirds of the gains Tiger has made in the tech stocks since its founding. In addition large writedowns are expected on its venture funds valued at $64 billion at the end of 2021, says WSJ.  WSJ says cheap money (money somehow diverted from infrastructure and funding manufacturing in China instead of the US now goes by the misnomer cheap money) reshaped Silicon Valley in the last decade, as pension funds, rich investors and celebrities turned to well connected money managers such as Tiger to put money in tech stocks and startups. This WSJ report says compared to Sequoia Capital and an earlier generation of venture companies Tiger Global is simply not interested in management of companies it invests in, taking a broad brush approach, using Bain Capital for research, and trying to haul in a large load of fish like trawlers at sea hoping for some companies to make big gains. Many pension funds such as Calpers California's public pension fund invest in Tiger with a $400 million investment. WSJ also reports that Tiger Global's venture funds do not reflect the realities of the tech business as venture stocks will reflect the drop over 2022 and 2023, including its ByteDance Chinese tech investment which will need larger writedowns. Tiger has also not hesitated to get into cryptocurrency which has loss of about $1.5 trillion dollars. It is of interest to note that Julian Robertson, hedge fund manager of the 2000 period (when Clinton-Bush were US presidents) who ran Tiger Management provided the impetus for Mr. Coleman, then 25 years old, for the start of Tiger Global. Julian Robertson closed his fund in 2000 during the dot com bust. Coleman hired a Blackstone analyst and started on the next cycle of tech with social media platform Facebook now Meta, followed by China's JD.com as investments in a new China boom were started. The end result is that during a period of Middle East wars under Bush and Obama, and building dependence on Russian oil and gas supplies under Schroeder and Merkel, China was the gainer as the US and EU lost much of its manufacturing and technology to China. During this period US and Europe neglected investment in infrastructure that would benefit the people of America in ease of living and quality of life. Just as money was wasted in wars much of the tech investment was wasted. The companies that added value over time were started long before and relied on sales growth and new products that revolutionized their field such as Apple with smartphones that started well before the nineteen eighties, Amazon with logistics and its own style of management, Microsoft from an even earlier era. Tech monopolies Facebook, Google, and others would not be missed much in terms of real progress for the people of America. The cost is many decades of ceding manufacturing and technology advantage to China by US and the EU led by Germany. China 2030 and the war in Ukraine with China's support have shown how fragile the foundations have been with weak political leadership and a finance sector running backwards in terms of America's and Europe's strengths in new infrastructure, better healthcare, services and education for the people of America and Europe. Leaving it to the Biden administration and a new coalition of Greens and Scholz in Germany to begin the task of rebuilding America and Europe on strong foundations, including the dignity of the workers and families, that makes who we are and what we believe in, and why the free world believes in us. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The title of this BBC report is a misnomer as the content of the report is that India and the US are actively negotiating a Trade Agreement after some disagreements on Indian oil purchases from Russia bumped up from 2% before 2019 to about one third to 40% of its imports by 2024. This is being rapidly reversed and some estimates by consultants CLSA show India only made $2-3 billion from Russian discounted oil sales, a miniscule amount. On American interest in agricultural exports India can take in some products other than grain which it sees as important to feed 1 billion people and food security.  DJT says the "special relationship" between India and the US is important, and says "there's nothing to worry about. We just have moments on occasion". India has much bigger stakes in trade with the US. In fact it's growth into the third largest economy in the world means doubling or tripling its trade with the US and the European Union in the next few years. This would narrow the difference in GDP and per capita between India and China, as India and China started at the same GDP and per capita in 1950. Only in 1990 with China's trade with the US has the Chinese GDP and per capita income increased to create the huge gap with India. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Fears that the conflict in Syria might spill over and lead to a conflict with Iran pushed up oil prices. At the same time the new forecast by the International Energy Agency in early August 2012 showing a 20% decrease in demand growth in 2013, as a result of the economic slowdown in the U.S., Europe and China, acted to put a lid on oil price increases. Light sweet crude for September delivery was at $92.87 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on August 10, 2012, and Brent crude was at $112.95 a barrel on the Intercontinental Exchange.

LyrArc Article Gist
China reduces US share of exports to 15% from 18% -yet with Vietnam made Chinese goods added in it is 21%. 15.8 million job loss for China from US fentanyl tariffs 2025 from one estimate. Chinese businesses are already feeling this, says WSJ. Exports represent 13% of China's GDP and China had redoubled its export effort after the property bubble burst. There are 2 drags on growth property crash and exports tariffs. China has less room for stimulus in 2025 and the government is focusing on bottom line thinking to prepare for hard times. Already companies are cutting shifts and laying off 10-30% of workers in garment, toys and other basic industries. President Xi is preparing for a long struggle reminiscent of how Mao led China to fight the US forces under Gen. McArthur in the 1950's Korean War, says the WSJ. In the past the state subsidy system worked to take huge share of new industries such as semiconductors, smartphones, solar, electric cars. This will be harder now with less money available to invest and drive out competition, and with the US and EU making their own products boosting their industrial and manufacturing base. ...