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Nouriel Roubini has proven correct on global financial issues. He said in an interview on the sidelines of a symposium in Malaysia, that China needs to revalue its currency for its own sake. China will see a growth collapse in the next 2-3 years if it fails to do so. His point is that China can still maintain growth by shifting to domestic consumption and less infrastructure spending and exports. In his view growth should not be affected if China exports less and consumes more. He points to the decrease in consumption as a share of GDP from 45% to 36% in the last ten years- this ratio is 70% in the USA. A cheap yuan keeps foreign goods unaffordable and protects state owned companies which also get cheap credit, as keeping the yuan low requires China to keep interest rates artificially low. What this does is make a massive transfer of income from the household sector to the state owned companies, just at the time when China needs to do the very opposite of this. And compounding the problem is that the 25% of China's GDP that is made up of retained earnings of mostly state owned companies, goes into real estate and production facilities. See the link to David Barboza in the New York Times who points to the wasteful spending and real estate speculation by state owned companies. Roubini cites the automobile sector where capacity has doubled in the last year to 20 million, when the domestic market increased by 50% to 10 million vehicles. The stimulus only increased the effect of surplus capacity and misallocation of investment, with highways to nowhere and brand new airports that are three quarters empty. The Chinese leadership is beginning to grasp this, but the state owned companies and other interests who benefit fromm the old model, may make it difficult to reverse the trends. A lot is at stake in this, as it affects the U.S., as well as countries dependent on China's imports such as Australia, Canada, Brazil and Germany. ...

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This NYT editorial says the Pfizer bid to acquire Astra Zeneca is an inversion, a tax maneouvre using openings in U.S. and British tax laws that allows an American company to incorporate in London by acquiring a British company. In effect Pfizer beomes a subsidiary of the British company. This reduces taxes owed even though business takes place at Pfizer as before. NYT says 25 companies have adopted inversions since 2008. The top corporate tax rate in Britain at 20% is lower thant the top rate of 35% in the U.S. Additional tax maoeuvres could make it easier for income shifting to tax havens, and make it possible to free up cash held in foreign countries without the need to first repatriate it to the U.S. The problem is that such maneouvres are taking place at a time of large U.S. deficits, and deep cuts in public services and government investment in R&D, infrastructure, education, that would lead to future economic growth.

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The Guardian sees Sunak's dry economic instincts as hopelessly inappropriate for the times with not enough help reaching needy families. It also sees Liz Truss's distrust of the state and public sector at a time when collective solidarity and solutions are needed as unhelpful. Truss is seen as trying to having it both ways in the way Boris Johnson did, cutting taxes as well as boosting spending on infrastructure.

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This report in the Washington Post uses Frequently Asked Questions to give readers an understanding of the India China border conflict. The roots of the conflict lie in  China's claim to Tibet based on Chinese troops going to aid Tibet in 1792. This based on the Qing dynasty sending troops to aid Tibet after a Nepalese invasion of Tibet. Tibet and Nepal are neighboring countries in the Himalayan mountains,  Nepal has a border with Indian state of Bihar, and Tibet is north and northeast of Nepal, all in close proximity of several hundred kilometres from India but four thousand kilometres from Beijing near Korea and Japan. The Sino Nepalese war, called the Gurkha war in Chinese, was the result of a dispute between Nepal and Tibet over debased silver coinage supplied by Nepal to Tibet and Tibet's demand for compensation, as well as a dispute about salt supplied by Tibet to Nepal. Chinese forces were repelled by  the Nepalese Gorkhas, and eventually the conflict was settled with a peace treaty between Nepal and Tibet with Chinese mediation for the Tibetan side. When the British East India company intervened in the region in 1815 China was not present, and when Nepal and Tibet had another war in 1855 China was not present.  For the first half of the twentieth century Tibet printed its own stamps and was an independent country negotiating treaties with Britain. China's brief intervention in 1792 is the fact cited by China for its claim to Tibet. Crossing the high mountains to get to Tibet from China's western frontier was for most of history and during this 1792 intervention, a journey that took 3 or 4 months with yaks and mules. Because of the sheer logistics China was present only in a symbolic way in Tibet or Nepal, both regions far more autonomous and remote from China than say a Finland near Russia. It takes 5 hours to go from Helsinki to St Petersburg in Russia. This is about the distance between the border with Nepal in Bihar, India, to Tibetan border with Nepal. By contrast it takes four thousand kilometres journey from Beijing to Tibet and over steep mountain ranges and rivers which would took months of journey with mules and yaks all the way into the twentieth century.  Finland was part of Sweden till 1809 when it became part of Russian Empire, till 1917 when it became an independent country. The Soviet Union invaded Finland one more time before World War II and was repelled, but this is attributed to Russian fears that Finland could be used as a base for an invasion of Russia. Tibet was a buffer between the British Empire and China. Chinese Nationalists party and Communist party thinking may have changed after Japan's invasion of China in the thirties, making extending China's western frontiers to the borders of India as part of the new nationalist idea.  How else can one see Beijing in East Asia throughout its history suddenly at the border with India after its takeover of Tibet in 1950. The period in 1950 when India was just coming out of the partition and tackling millions of refugees on the border with newly created Pakistan.      ...

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A few events in the last 50 years are rewriting the rules for business, finance and economics, says the WSJ in this analysis. The admitting of China to the World Trade Organization under president Clinton in 2001 was one, another was the global financial crisis in 2009 with the selling of bad mortgages by the financial industry, the euro currency financial crisis with the bad accounting, real estate industry speculation, and lack of financial oversight in countries such as Greece, Ireland, Spain. The coronavirus pandemic is one more addition to this string of crises and events that have made the working class and middle class in US and Europe poorer and in worse shape after the recovery following World War II.  The changes indicated here are some of the surface changes- such as the shift to the suburbs for cleaner air and better living, the work at home as a serious option, the new focus on health care, wellness, exercise, nutrition and mental health, remote learning and community college as a realistic option to high tuition costs by the education industry, and a pharmaceutical industry refocused on public health and vaccines as it was in its early years before its shift into a simply profit driven industry. The underlying thread for all these changes on the surface is a deeper change in the public mind- a change that redefines what the people believe in just as happened after World War II. Rebuilding the devastated economies of Europe, America and Asia required a new vision at the time after World War II. And reconstruction could only happen with all the people involved and working for the public interest.  This also created a new hope for the future. President Biden's vision is for a new set of priorities that make child care, women's position in the economy, community college education as a right for all as a first step to opening the access to education that existed after the war in 1945. Investment in infrastructure, in building new roads, bridges and rail, water, internet connections, public services in transport, better layout of urban areas, better lives for retirees, are all part of an effort to improve quality and ease of living for all parts of society, not just those who can afford it.  This is uppermost on people's minds and administrations or governments that fail to deliver or simply talk with no action, will not have the support of ordinary working men and women in all countries. This is true for countries and regions as varied in their level of development as the US, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, Japan, India, Brazil and Mexico, and African nations. Democracy, government adminstration, technology and business structures exist for the people, to improve the ease of living, quality of life, through better health, education and public services.  ...

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The third pick of songs by chancellor Merkel for a farewell ceremony at the Defense Ministry, after her first pick of a Christian hymn from the 18th century "Holy God we praise thy name," is one that was on East German pop charts in 1974. It is "You forgot the color film," by Nina Hagen. The song is an angry lament that admonishes Hagen's boyfriend Michael, for not bringing the color film during their visit on holiday to Hiddensee Island. As a result she sings "no one will believe how beautiful it was here." The lyrics were written by Edward Demmler and it was sung by Nina Hagen in conventional schlager style. Merkel spent much of these 16 years seen on television sticking to strict austerity measures for European Union countries. Not investing in childcare, education, retirees, healthcare, and the infrastructure for broadband, roads and bridges, leaving Germany and with it the European Union in stagnation. Only in her last years was she persuaded by her vice chancellor Scholz of the SDP of the need to invest heavily in Germany and the European Union to fight the coronavirus pandemic with aid to the people of Germany and European Union. As she leaves she ponders the lessons both of the GDR in the east and the Federal Republic in the west, both had their flaws and their potential and both could learn from what was missing in the other. An opportunity for reflection and understanding. It is to Scholz and the Greens that is left the task of making the Federal Republic what it could be, to reaching as much of its potential for the good of Germany and the good of the European Union. Even though the singer became a punk artist after moving to the west following the fall of the Berlin Wall, she was a conventional. schlager style singer before that. So that 16 years after trying out the free market version of capitalism Merkel who grew up as a young East German teenager in the former German Democratic Republic realizes that this period after the fall of the Berlin Wall was not all that it was made out to be. As the Guardian puts it this embrace of her East German identity is no characteristic of Merkel as during these 16 years she rarely brought up her growing up years in East Germany. ...

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It may come as a surprise that even a conservative Republican Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, talked recently on CSPAN television about the US needing immigration in an organized manner to meet the growing shortage of workers in the coming years in the US. This report by Alicia Caldwell in the WSJ looks at the city of Topeka, Kansas, home to University of Kansas in nearby Lawrence, which is trying to attract immigrants who are allowed to work to meet 6600 worker positions that remain unfilled. Mayor Michael Padilla of Topeka is a cross between a liberal Republican and a conservative Democrat as are many immigrants from countries in South America. The Greater Topeka Partnership is looking to attract Spanish speaking people to fill these jobs, because of stagnant population and a lower unemployment rate than the US average. This effort in Spanish language has resulted in 10,000 resumes submitted. Another effort for Uniting with Ukraine has brought 160 Ukrainians to Topeka. These efforts are happening since 2019 and in some cases the city has offered $15000 a person for relocation costs. Citywide the effort is being welcomed including the business community. Topeka, a town of 126,000 is home to 17% Spanish speaking residents. Molly Howey who heads Go Topeka and the Greater Topeka Partnership is shown here, and says Topeka had already had success with its Spanish speaking population when it started welcoming new immigrants.  The rapid recovery of the US after the pandemic and its resilience for growth over the next decade is creating a recognition among Republicans as well as Democrats, among economic planners and business of the need to fill shortages of workers as the US invests trillions of dollars in its economy in coming years in infrastructure, manufacturing and and new technologies. It is an effort that is unprecedented since the post war effort to build a modern economy in the 1950's. ...

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Indonesia's Lion Air makes an order of $24 billion new single aisle jets from Airbus. Lion Air ordered 234 A320 and A321 series jets. This includes 60 of this generation A320s and 174 of a new series of A320 and A321 aircraft with more fuel efficient engines. Deliveries will begin in 2014 with the planes averaging $92 million to $117 million at list prices.

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So much for political campaigning and talk of inflation, inflation comes in lower in September after DJT tariffs of 10-15% on EU, Japan and other trading partners. The higher tariffs on China are action needed to reduce trillion dollar trade deficits the world has with China, deficits that are economically destabilizing for the world economy, with supply chain concentration a serious problem. US inflation in September came in at 3.0 percent lower than expected.  One reason is that the headline numbers are high but in actual practice the tariffs are on average at 12.5% not 17% or 25% as headlines show. The tariffs vary by country and the US was careful to keep them at 10% for the EU and Britain and 15% for Japan, the key trading partners. China is an exception at 47% because it is US policy to reduce the world's 1 trillion trade deficit with China and cutting this is a major goal. For decades the US tried every possible way to bring it down to no avail till this effort with tariffs. Another is exceptions in products- for India this includes semiconductors, smartphones and pharmaceuticals. Another factor is that postpandemic inflation in 2021-2022 created higher profit margins in auto, retail and other sectors of the economy. As a result only 30-40% of the tariff gets passed onn to consumers. In autos only about 20% because buyers cannot afford the high prices. Some tariffs are still being negotiated and are a foreign policy tool to get India to stop funding Russia in the Ukraine war knowing that India was importing most of its oil from non-Russian sources till 2019. China is also funding Russia, that is true but the US can insist on exercising its leverage with Asian partners not China. With China the tariff on fentanyl and the overall 47% tariff- down from 57% after meetings in Busan, South Korea between Xi and DJT last month- shows the US takes the Chinese role in distorting world trade to its benefit seriously.  ...

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ACE Ltd will acquire Chubb Corp. for $28.3 billion in cash and stock to form one of the largest property casualty insurers in the world. Conditions in this part of the industry are creating a surge in M&A activity as the capital bases of these companies have grown as a result of smaller hurricane claims since 2012 from individuals and business. More competition is reducing prices in the industry and lower interest rates are reducing investment income. Chubb is a well known name based in New Jersey and a large provider of homeowners' insurance to affluent Americans. ACE is in the personal insurance business, and the 2 companies have significant operations in providing insurance to midsize business. ACE shareholders will own 70% of the new company which will assume the Chubb name worldwide. ACE is led by Evan Greenberg, son of Maurice "Hank" Greenberg of AIG. He worked at AIG for 25 years before joining ACE in 2001, becoming CEO in 2004 and chairman in 2007. He expanded ACE in overseas markets, and added more lines of coverage. The company will be based in ACE's location of Switzerland....

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China's new prime minister Li Keqiang makes his first foreign trip with a trade delegation for talks with Indian representatives and business leaders, showing the importance he places on India. India offers China's companies access to large opportunties in infrastructure development, and China can benefit from India in the area of information technology and pharmaceuticals. Trade is envisioned as expanding from $70 billion in 2012 to $100 billion by 2015, and expanding rapidly as the two economies grow. Economic contacts also would provide an anchor for future relations as China faces difficulties in its relations with Japan, and S. E. Asian countries, and a U.S. wary of China's capabilities. This was pointed out in the joint statement. Li Keqiang also emphasized this in an editorial page article in India's daily newspaper, the Hindu, saying India and China have "to work hand in hand," to promote Asia as "an anchor for world peace." A peaceful India-China trade and economic relationship opens the way for investment and participation in development by China alongside Japan, Germany, France, UK and the U.S. in India, as the next major source for global economic growth. This also serves to defuse Asian tensions as both economies grow, and increased contacts between cities in India and China with the twining of cities program launched in the meetings. India can use China's capabilities in infrastructure development, the two countries share the need for information sharing on lowcost solutions in healthcare, in managing urbanization, and solutions for clean water in rural areas, and use of IT solutions in development, where much remains to be accomplished through cooperation. Some of these themes are the focus of Li Keqiang in his efforts for urbanization in China. ...

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Under an obscure rule called "deminimis" any packages less than $800 coming from China or other Asian countries are not counted in official trade statistics, This could easily understate imports from China by about $50 billion as 800 million such packages enter the US annually mostly from China. When this and other corrections are made and with the surge in imports during the pandemic the US trade deficit may not bave budged much even after Mr. Trump made this Priority No.1, says this report in the WSJ. At stake are manufacturing jobs in America, factories and workplaces all across America that made it what it was and whose fracturing has led to the fracturing of America.

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The German parliament voted overwhelmingly in favor of sending heavy weapons to Ukraine as the Russian invasion continues in eastern and southern Ukraine. The German parliament voted on Thursday, April 28, marking a major shift in policy for Germany with 586 in favor and 100 opposed, and 7 abstaining. Military aid should continue and accelerate wherever possible says the proposal that was passed with the backing of the ruling coalition of Greens, SDP and FDP, and backed by the largest opposition party the Christian Democrats (CDU). The far right AfD opposed the proposal. The proposal also foresees an appeal to China for it to "abandon its acceptance of war" and actively support a truce, says this report in DW.com.

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UK student survey shows 49% of students have  financial issues affecting their diet, missing meals or not having enough food or poor quality of food. It also shows 55% have financial issues that affect their mental health. Loans were falling short of covering living costs by 582 pounds a month in 2023, it was 439 pounds in 2022. Maintenance loans for students increased by only 2.8% in 2023-24 in Britain,for a maximum of 9978 pounds a year outside London. Shown here is an engineering student who gets up at 4am to do a supermarket shift, a law student who works 20-25 hours a week as a receptionist and missing one third of her lectures.

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"The economy is performing well, and the near term prospects are good" says Mark Zandi of Moody's, in his speech on the US economic outlook at an event of the National Economists Club. He is optimistic about the economy and sees moderating inflation and higher consumer confidence. Investments in the CHIPS act and the Inflation Reduction Act in science, in chip manufacturing, in renewable energy manufacturing, other investments in infrastructure, he sees as building a stronger economy with job creation and improved potential for growth. Oil prices could pose a risk. Increased supplies of US oil, and stable production by the Saudis are needed for stable oil prices after recent turmoil in the Middle East.

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About 2.5 million women in the US have experienced burnout as a result of unequal demands of home and work life. Women have borne the brunt of childcare and work inside the home during the pandemic. Working women have two jobs, one at home and one at work, resulting in them being more prone to burnout as demands increase.

With the closure of schools childcare became a constant and many women quit work so that husbands could continue working. This affected the mental health of women with loss of work and professional life, and increased stress of work at home during the pandemic. Women also put on extra weight as a result. Experts say that the way societal structures and gender norms intersect plays a significant role in women experiencing burnout more than men.

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Kerala and Tamilnadu states with declining fertility, migration and ageing society are outliers in India with about half its population under the age of 25. About 600 million people in India are in the 18-35 age group- a clear case of rising aspirations society is happening in India at the very time that the US and European Union are looking at India for the future with shared values of representative democracy, open societies, and building a new supply chain in Asia. This BBC report looks at the state of Kerala where migration is leaving parts of the state only with elderly people. About 10% of the $100 billion in remittances each year from Indians overseas come to the state of Kerala. Life span is about 75 years in Kerala exceeding the national life span of 69 years. However this is looking at it backwards as India remains a vibrantly young country even with the advances in longevity where much of India is close to age 70 years in longevity and advances in medical care and health are taking place at a rapid pace. The problems of Kerala are an outlier for India. ...

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Caryn James provides an exceptional account of Robert Altman, iconoclastic director of M*A*S*H*, which came out in 1970, of Nashville, and a British period movie Gosford Park in 2001. His long career involved moments such as the one described in the currrent exhibit and documentary on Altman at the MOMA- he was fired by studio chief Jack Warner because "that fool has actors talking all the time." With M*A*S*H* the Altman style was estalished as anti-authoritarian, boisterous language, and the overlapping dialogue that so offended Jack Warner, irreverent attitude to established ways, and screenplays that invited improvisation. As Caryn James points out much of Altman's style has filtered through to a new wave of cinema directors, and into movies and television, to the point where it seems invisible. Ron Magliozzi, curator of the MOMA series, says of Altman that he comes across as such a maverick that people lose sight of his work in movies such as Gosford Park, a period piece where a story is told about a murder mystery on a English counry estate, a forerunner for Downton Abbey....

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Former U.S. president Bill Clinton's address at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N. Carolina. He endorsed President Obama for reelection in an impassioned speech.

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Chinese leaders including Xi Jinping have frowned on the accumulation of wealth and the IPO pay day, says this report in the WSJ. The largely unregulated company Alibaba in its role as a financial business, its complex ownership structure, and practices, have met with skepticism from China's financial regulators. They see the financial operations of Alibaba and its businesses as operating with little financial oversight and the state having to assume risks if something failed. The company's business model of payments app Alipay, mutual fund, voluminous data collection, operations as small loan provider to half a billion people, are seen by Chinese leaders and president Xi as posing unknown and unclear risks when not properly regulated. Commercial banks are subject to  tough regulations and capital requirements that Alibaba has avoided. State owned banks supply Alibaba with majority of the funding and take on most of the risk even though Alibaba makes profit from the transactions, is the perception of regulators. China's export model and manufacturing have enable it to create the banking capital on which such internet business models have thrived. In a world where supply chains are being redone, and following the pandemic, there are questions about how businesses that were created in the period before the pandemic should operate in a different environment. ...

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In India's southern coastline state of Kerala, PM Modi has pursued a strategy of working with the CPI led government on development projects, and at the same time contested elections to set up a BJP government in the state. The capital city of Trivandrum (Thiruvananthapuram) local election has led to a BJP municipal government in 2026. In an address to supporters in Trivandrum PM Modi said he was gratified by the results in elections for the capital city of Trivandrum (Thiruvananthapuram), and wanted to make it India's model city., It reminded him he said of the situation in Gujarat when the BJP party won elections in Ahmedabad for the first time in 1987 for city government. By showing good governance in Ahmedabad, BJP was able to win elections in the state and provide good government and industrialization for Gujarat for the decades since 2001 when Modi formed the state government. This bodes well for Kerala said the Indian PM. Many schemes for improving the welfare of farmers, for people in health, housing and small business loans are coordinated by the federal, state and city governments to get the best results and this speeds up industrialization and modernization in the Indian model to create the kind of results China and Japan achieved in their heyday. ...

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BBC says "tech's seedy side exposed" by Musk- Altman trial 2026. Let's face it there is a seedy side, and a much less benevolent side to Tech than it likes to show. The overspending on AI is a sign of misplaced priorities when so much of US infrastructure is dilapidated, much of it from before 1945, that badly needs to be rebuilt. Much of the promise of hardware from Tech that would change education is a failure so much so that Sweden is shifting on a nationwide effort in its schools to a program - "from screens to binders" that gives children binders with notebooks to write in and books to read, removing screens altogether, and for good reasons of the educators of Sweden. Tech in its grandiose style pretends it is about the technological revolution when it is simply the companies Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, three of which are from the last 15 years. The technological revolution and the scientific revolution date back to Copernicus and Newton and the hundreds, thousands of scientists and pioneers of the industrial revolution of the last 250 years, and the men of vision and wisdom that gave us the British and American Constitution, the principles of self-government of civilized societies. ...

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In a crucial demographic Donald Trump's provocative remarks cause a stir and a slide by 13 percentage points. In late July NYT/CBS polls show 72% support among Republican women. McCain won 89%, Romney 93%, George W. Bush 93%.  Divisive tactics hurt particularly with women, say experts. In states such as Pennsylvania this is evident, as Trump has 27% there for women overall and Clinton 58%, according to one poll. The Rutgers Center for Women and Politics has studies on how women diverge in their concerns and lives from men- from lower pay, longer life expectancy, and role of government in helping them,  to cite a few. Clinton has released television ads in 5 swing states directly appealing to mothers, showing children, and emphasizing kitchen table issues, job creation. College educated white women in particular carefully look at the issues, and make independent judgements based on character and temperament, and are less likely to ignore repeated provocative remarks or clearly sexist comments. ...

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A survey by Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper in Feb. 2013 shows 71% support for the Abe government. The effort to reduce the overvalued yen's currency value using monetary policy of the Bank of Japan, fighting deflation by setting a 2% goal for inflation, moral suasion with business leaders to increase wages, are all part of an effort to get the Japanese economy moving again. The Nikkei Stock Average is up nearly one third to 11,000. Unlike previous prime ministers, Abe is prime minister for the second time, and is likely to have a better plan for building public supprt for his economic moves which are described in Japan as "Abenomics." Recent meeings of the EU leaders have taken Japan's currency moves as steps related to fighing deflation and not efforts to manipulate its currency. The Swiss who are major exporting nation like Japan have also taken strong steps to keep their currency at competitive levels, giving Japan a precedent from Europe. With sharply slower growth in emerging markets, in China and India, the revival of growth in Japan would be seen as an encouraging sign in the global economy in 2013-2014....

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This WSJ story looks at how the heist of crown jewels from the Louvre museum was carried out in October 2025, and how arrests were made very soon afterwards as the thieves left behind the truck with crane and other clues.