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The purchase of F/A-18 aircraft by Germany capable of delivering nuclear weapons stationed in Germany is critical to keeping the nuclear deterrance and the "nuclear sharing" agreement with the U.S. Older aircraft, the Tornadoes are now 40 years old. Chancellor Merkel has supported the purchase but this is now being called into question by its junior partner in the coalition government the SPD.  Leaders of the SPD party say they would block the purchase of 45 Boeing Company made F/A-18 jets proposed by Merkel's defense minister. Under NATO's nuclear sharing agreement going back to the 1950's it is believed there are about 180 B61 tactical nuclear bombs in rope, some 20 in Germany and spread out over Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey. President Trump has said the U.S. will withdraw from a treaty with Russia that limits the presence of nuclear missiles in Europe because Russia is not living up to the agreement. This could lead to an arms race. The issue is leading to the beginning of a fundamental debate about nuclear armanent and military spending of a type that has not happened in Europe since 1982 when a rebellion in the SPD over the stationing of nuclear weapons in Europe led to the ouster of Chancellor Helmut Schmidt.  The Christian Democrats view the purchase of the F/A-18 at a time when Russia is updating its nuclear deterrance as fundamental to NATO and nuclear sharing. The SPD's leaders say nuclear sharing does not mean the need to host nuclear weapons, and give the example of Canada, a NATO ally that does not have U.S. weapons on its soil. ...

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This WSJ Editorial Board opinion says president Biden needs to get European partners to make key decisions at the G-7 meeting to support Ukraine.  On the level of support it says the US has contributed 42.7 billion euros in military and humanitarian assistance compared to only 27.2 billion euros from European Union countries, according to the Kiel Institute for World Economy. Cpuld the EU do more? Russia continues to keep frontline nations such as Estonia and Lithuania on edge. The NATO support force has only 40,000 allied soldiers- more like a tripwire defense and clearly inadequate says WSJ. This needs to expand to a significant force. Separately from this NATO's Stoltenberg has announced that the NATO Response Force will now be expanded to 300,000. Mr. Erdogan needs to be persuaded to let Finland and Sweden join NATO to strengthen Baltic area defenses. WSJ says Erdogan is facing a tough election in 2023 and is objecting not because Turkish Kurds pose a threat at this time but to rouse nationalist sentiment for the election. WSJ Editorial does not mention what is critical for Ukraine's people, the refugees of women and children to return home and live normal lives - the stopping of missile attacks on civilian population and buildings. Separately Mr. Biden has announced that he will be sending Advanced Missile Defense Systems to Ukraine. Germany is sending an IRIS missile defense system that covers a space of 40 square miles enough to defend cities like Kviv and Lviv, Kharkiv. Here the question is how soon as this needs to be taken up immediately to protect the lives of the civilians caught up in this war, the women and children of Ukraine. Some are returning to their homes in Kviv, Kharkiv, other cities, that are already damaged, and are facing more missile attacks. This is the most difficult aspect of the war and hope can only return when this is prevented. It would also set the beginning conditions for the end of the war by removing this element of the war for the people of Ukraine and their homes and lives.   ...

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Ford. will still make $8 billion to $11 billion this year even after losses of $3 billion in electric cars. By 2026 Ford says it will earn 8 to 9 percentage points in profit from EV's. Ford is basically investing in the EV industry now for the long run. It is also part of the effort to move away from fossil fuels. Government incentives and subsidies will help companies and buyers of vehicles make the transition to EV's to fight climate change.  Companies that have not invested in EV's such as Toyota risk falling behind in EV's at a time when climate change is a major priority for buyers and governments around the world. Toyota is moving to a new CEO who can better take up the challenge of EV's. Under the previous CEO Mr. Toyoda Toyota clung to a mistaken belief that hybrid cars were all that is needed to reduce use of fossil fuels. German, Chinese and US manufacturers are taking the lead in EV's and Japan has fallen behind.  WSJ has never favored government subsidies and is critical for this reason. Yet it is clear that in some situations such as fighting climate change, building infrastructure, and redesigning the supply chain, government has to take the lead. Eisenhower in the 1950's with a government led effort helped build the national highway system, the first in the world. Biden is making a similar effort on multiple fronts. The redesign of the supply chain comes after private industry without proper direction from the government over concentrated manufacturing in China with Japan as a supplier into China. Presidents Bush and Obama wasted time and resources better devoted to national priorities at home on wars in remote places such as Afghanistan and Iraq. President Biden wrapped up the war in Afghanistan and completely disengaged from an area that is of no constructive interest to America. Resources are now concentrated in the right way on real national priorities from manufacturing at home to fighting climate change, fighting the cost of living crisis and building better infrastructure for workers and families. ...

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FR24 points out that it is not that unusual to see prosecution of French former presidents and prime ministers for campaign financing irregularities or putting political party officials on public payrolls. It shows that this happened to president Chirac, president Sarkozy, and prime minister Fillon. In fact former prime minister Fillon was doing well in the elections after the presidency of Socialist president Hollande. The revelation that he had put his wife on public payroll as parliamentary assistant with little work led to Mr. Macron taking his place as the leading candidate. No jail terms were served for these charges under French law. Here it is important to note that French law limits spending on election campaigns to 22 million euros and Sarkozy exceeded that number. In the US and India there are no such strict limits. So are France's leaders that much worse than the American leaders who spend and collect money lavishly? Or in India where the campaign financing has the result of making it hard to build the infrastructure desperately needed by a young aspiring population. Framers of the Indian constitution including Gandhi and Nehru intent on getting the British out never realized that political parties would look to public funds as ways to finance their campaigns, leaving less for the intended purpose of building roads and bridges making the country a poor place to invest in and entrenching underdevelopment and poverty.  In the US tech companies in Silicon Valley or banks in New York and Silicon Valley, pharmaceutical companies and companies in other sectors, are able to gain monopoly positions or favored regulatory setups for their industries by funding election campaigns for Congress. When this results in egregious behaviour such as the 2009 financial crisis or the current banking crisis this behaviour causes severe damage to ordinary Americans much worse than what Mr Chirac or Sarkozy were prosecuted for.  South Korea has a long history of prosecuting former presidents. Three presidents have been prosecuted so far. One president served as much as five years for a jail term. ...

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The speed with which GST revenues grow in India will determine the pace of industrial development, infrastructure building, and exports growth in India. It is the main source of government revenues and plays a role similar to what land sales played in China's rapid development over two decades.  States that generate the maximum GST reflect the industrial and commercial activity of the state in the overall context of India's growth. This is why Maharashtra with the commercial capital Mumbai plays an important role with Gujarat and its commercial capital Ahmedabad. Both states formed the industrial core of the country under the British Empire as one state called Bombay state. Maharashtra today makes up 15% of the country's GST revenue with Gujarat coming in close to Karnataka at third. Maharashtra at 2.7 lakh crores for 2022-2023, Gujarat at 1.1 lakh crores and Karnataka at 1.2 lakh crores. Karnataka has the IT capital of India in Bangalore now called Bengaluru. The compound annual growth rate of Maharashtra is 12.3% for the five years to 2022-2023 and for Gujarat 11.8%, Karnataka 11.7%. During the last year Maharashtra GST grew at 24%. National compound annual growth rate for GST tax collections is 11.3%. These states all have state and federal governments aligned for maximum effort in infrastructure and logistics development through allocation of capital, land, human resources, and other inputs. Tamilnadu comes next with 11% growth with the state capital of Madras or Chennai. These were the main commercial centres under the British. Bangalore emerged after independence in 1947 as the center for IT industries. To repeat the kind of development acceleration seen one after another in Japan, South Korea and China, and learning from their experience particularly the climate change and pollution negative aspects of the Chinese experience, India needs the accelerated growth at these rates for GST to finance growth in investments. It also needs to increase the quality of these investments by paying attention to negatives such as pollution and climate change through government regulation of activities that create these negative aspects.  ...

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Attacks from Iran on Saudi oil infrastructure leading to a loss of half of Saudi oil production is likely to be a problem for countries such as China, South Korea and Japan that have reduced oil imports from Iran and increased dependence on Saudi supplies. This was a result of tighter U.S. oil sanctions on Iran. India is also affected. About 30% of the lost production will be restored say Saudis.  The U.S. is less dependent on Saudi supplies and as Gerald Seib points out in a video in WSJ the U.S. has 3 reasons not to intervene on behalf of Saudis. The U.S. has increased its oil production from shale oil and is less dependent on Saudi oil. It is also becoming reluctant to engage in Saudi Arabia's wars such as the one in Yemen against Houthi rebels. There is also less support in Congress and in the country for supporting endless wars that originate from Saudi actions. A Trump tweet before his election campaign shown in WSJ makes this point about endless wars and the U.S. needing to be paid trillions of dollars for these wars. The conflicts in the region affect China and India where growth is close to 5% before any impact from oil price increases. Together Asian countries take in 72% of Saudi oil exports and China now imports more Saudi oil than Russian oil by a wide margin- in June 1.88 million barrels a day. Saudi oil makes about 19% of imported oil in India and 33% for Japan. Imports into India of Saudi oil are up 8% this year to 847,000 barrels a day in 2019. China is better situated than Japan with reserve supplies of 644 days of imports compared to 230 days for Japan. This why Japan has played a constructive role in reducing tensions between the U.S. and Iran and urged both sides to negotiate. China and India also have interests that converge in reducing tensions between the U.S. and Iran. As a first step president Trump removed his National Security Adviser John Bolton in preference for reduced tensions.  ...

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Indian prime minister Modi shown in a meeting together with Biden of the US, Fumio Kishida of Japan and Albanese of Australia at the Izumi Gallery in Tokyo during the announcement of the joint efforts for launching and promoting the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity. The IPEF led by the US will have four pillars of trade and supply chain resiliency, clean energy and climate change action, taxes to promote investment in infrastructure, and good governance. Seven of 10 members of ASEAN have joined including Indonesia. India is a key partner of US and Japan for the new IPEF economic alliance. Prime Minister Modi of India says about IPEF- "India will work together with its IPEF partners to build an inclusive and flexible Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. I believe that resilient supply chains must be based on three pillar foundation of trust, transparency and timeliness, and I am sure that this framework will make these pillars strong and lead to prosperity, peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region." Attracting large investments in India and other reliable partners in a new supply chain that shifts out of China are part of the Biden plan working together with Japan and South Korea. Investments directly into the US are also part of the same plan. Gina Raimondo US Commerce Minister says- "I would say, especially as businesses are beginning to increasingly look for alternatives to China, the countries in the Indo-Pacific Framework will be more reliable partners for US businesses." US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan says the IPEF is intended to boost US manufacturing. By boosting US manufacturing and technological advancement with investments inside the US that directly benefit American workers and families the IPEF will serve the US and the free world in ways that will shape the coming decades to 2030 and 2040. With investments in the US will come investments in India as a reliable manufacturing partner to replace China by 2030 is envisioned by Jake Sullivan and president Biden. ...

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This report in the WSJ on the Indian economy says the impact of growth in India's largest state of Uttar Pradesh with 240 million people will play a big part in the growth rate of the Indian economy. It fails to say why. The answer is good governance, investment in infrastructure, logistics and manufacturing, a huge pool of tens of millions of engineers and hundreds of millions of factory workers. The lack of a large enough investment pool of investment funds and  failure to eliminate leakages from corruption, the lack of a plan such as the current Master Plan Gati Shakti for the whole Indian economy, lack of governments at the state and federal level combining setting targets and delivery dates for infrastructure roads, bridges, airports, logistical hubs, factory for advanced industry, lack of governance entirely focussed on delivery and timelines, were the missing pieces in development in India for 5 decades since the 1960's, a period in which as Mr. Modi says repeatedly Japan, Korea, China moved ahead and India fell behind. Does this potential exist only for Uttar Pradesh? India's industrialization model started in Gujarat, population of 72 million under Modi as head of the state government from 2001-2014. It now covers the western region of Gujarat, Maharashtra population 128 million and Rajasthan population 82 million  the region around Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Jaipur of about 282 million people. This will be the fastest growing region and the engine that will propel the Indian economy in the years ahead. Uttar Pradesh in the north is integrated into this development. So is another region Bihar population 104 million and Orissa 46 million, Assam 35 million states in the northeast of the country with a total of 185 million people. What do all 3 regions of over 700 million people have in common? The answer is state and federal government working using the Gujarat tested and proven model for development, rapid delivery, good governance, government working with industry, large investments in infrastructure and modernization, Make in India hubs for manufacturing, digitization. ...

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Vance says he is skeptical and inherently mistrustful about the constructive influence of Silicon Valley on America, on the broader economy in all parts of America, and on education expanding opportunity for all. Vance says of his stint in Silicon Valley starting in 2013 when he moved to the Bay Area after graduating in law from Yale to 2022 when he ran for the US Senate from Ohio, that it taught him something about the influence of venture capital on America. He is skeptical about its constructive influence when seen from the American heartland, from the Kansas prairies of Eisenhower to his own rust belt state of Ohio and the hinterland of Appalachia across the eastern US from New York through Tennessee to Mississippi. Vance says: "I've certainly personally been very close to the technology sector. Because of that experience, I inherently mistrust it or worry about its influence in the broader economy." WSJ's Angel Au Yeung calls it short lived but it stretched for 10 years and Vance returned to Ohio for Narya Ventures, worked with AOL founder Steve Chase on Revolution to look at what could be done in places such as Chattanooga, Tennessee, in the south and midwest with these venture concepts. This is enough experience just to understand its effects on all parts of America. Realizing in the end that it failed to support education or expanding opportunity for all. Even Apple's much touted iPad succeeds as a potentially useful tech device but fails when one sees what little interest or effort Apple put into developing its educational potential to expand opportunity for all. The reasons are that that was never the intended goal to subordinate public interest to profit, when education is inherently public interest. And because tech tools alone cannot do the work of educating minds. Only human beings and knowledge, ideas in books can do this, as they have done in all of America's and Europe's past. ...

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Under Mette Frederiksen immigration which reached 21,000 in 2015 was down to a little over 1000 a year. She is a strong fighter for workers and families and labor rights and yet tough on illegal immigration. She has been proven right about this as Britain and the US under Biden are seeing illegal immigration as a threat to workers and labour, are seeing the risks of distraction from illegal immigration doing a serious disservice to workers and families by making it hard to fight for workers and families on wages, cost of living and other issues.  Even with a strong record of fighting for workers and families, Frederiksen was one of the first European leaders to see the dangers of illegal immigration to society. It gave parts of the political spectrum that had no interest all along in workers and families doing well, an issue to run on that would come to cause grave harm to workers and families. This turned out to be the error of Angela Merkel a CDU leader brought up in Communist East Germany, who had no idea of the risks of her approach for open immigration. As Merkel let this chapter unfold it created fissures in Europe, with Tories and Nigel Farage taking Britain out of the EU and laying waste to its economy for 5 years till Labour's Starmer adopted a tough immigration policy and became prime minister in 2024. That danger then spread to the US in 2016 which also suffered as Republicans and Trump did the same in the US around rhetoric but without serious action on immigration till the Lankford- Biden legislation.  That bill would have closed the border with Mexico and ended immigration as an issue forever if passed into law in December 2023, as Senator Lankford says would have happened. Ending immigration as an issue forever alongside foreign wars as an issue, so that a concentrated effort could be made on improving badly damaged lives of workers and families. And on rebuilding badly damaged manufacturing in the US, rebuilding collapsing infrastructure, and competing with better education and healthcare with the large Asian countries China, Japan/ South Korea, India. ...

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How to build a global port network with less cash- China's state owned Cosco and it's European ports network is an example of savy buying during financial crises, and when companies in Europe and the US were keen to make sales of ports. China simply integrated it into a vast exports network, using containerized terminal expansion modernization to build its manufacturing for export model. This was an extension of its domestic network where it added new port infrastructure to newly built rail and road connections.  India today is learning from this example. By 2000 the Chinese global export model was entrenched. It was also the year when the junior Bush president extended the wars of Reagan/Bush in Iraq of the 1980's to Afghanistan. China had a clear road ahead to build state of the art infrastructure of ports, logistics and exports over the next 10-15 years without any defense costs.  Piraeus in Greece south of Athens, a port concession acquired in 2004 Antwerp in Belgium (Austrian Netherlands), a minority stake in a container port acquired in 2008. In 2013 with sale of Terminal Link ports in a 49% stake deal by CMA of France holding 51%, China has stakes in Zeerbrugge and Antwerp, Busan South Korea, and Le Havre, Montoir and Fos in France, Xiamen in China, Miami and Houston in US. Rotterdam, Netherlands- Cosco acquired in 20126 a 35% stake in Euromax Terminal in Rotterdam from Hong Kong's Hutchison's Holdings for $125 million. Valencia and Bilbao majority  51% stake for $270 million, when JP Morgan paid as much as $950 million to ACS of Spain for these ports after the 2009 crisis led to Spanish divestments. Today in TEU's shipping containers China sends goods to Europe 10 times what it takes in through Spanish ports. Hamburg-In May 2023 Germany's Scholz overruled Habeck to let sale of 24.9% of Hamburg port to COSCO go through ...

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Joseph Stiglitz describes policies and programs of the Obama administration that favor banks and avoid a government takeover of over leveraged and badly managed banks in the U.S. President Obama's policy transfers financial assets to banks on highly favorable terms even though some of the banks made bad decisions and highly overleveraged assets creating the 2008 global financial crisis. The policies avoid a government takeover of banks, policies which the U.S. aggressively pushed for in other countries such as S. Korea during the 1997 financial crisis with Rubin, Summers and Geithner at Treasury. These policies would come under strong criticism because it rewarded risk taking and kept in place an incentive system that led to such behaviours- creating "heads I win, tails you lose" psychology. It also delinks the performance-reward relationship that is the basis of free enterprise in western economies. A problem that would be left from the crisis and the Obama administration's response to it is "Too-Big-To-Fail," with banks larger than before. The FDIC and U.S. Fed's plans for banks to have living wills for an orderly windup under Dodd-Frank legislation only goes a part of the way in tackling this problem. In the U.S., and in Britain, France, Germany, Switzerland, the related problem of high bonuses continues into 2014, with RBS bank in Britain one of the egregious examples and highly unpopular with the British public. The lack of similiar government help to homeowners, advocated by Reagan economic advisor Martin Feldstein and FDIC chairwoman Sheila Bair from the beginnings of the crisis stands in sharp contrast to the response of the Obama administration. See the links for Barr, Feldstein and Hoenig. In an ultimate irony from the crisis handling much of the damage from foreclosures was done to minorities which supported the administration. ...

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The Wright Amendment is a 1979 law named after its sponsor U.S. House Speaker, Jim Wright, that restricts flights out of Love Field in Dallas to nine states. The idea was to give a distinct advantage to American to build a giant hub in Dallas at DFW International Airport without having to worry about competitors taking off from Love Field charging lower fares. American is able to charge higher fares out of Dallas than from other cities. Southwest is fighting to have the law overturned with a campaign. In the early years Southwest was a discount commuter airline to 4 cities and catering to Dallas area business customers. Southwest founder refrained from fighting the Wright Amendment because of American's superior financial and political influence in Congress. It is only as it has grown tremendously that the Wright Amendment has looked more and more "ridiculous" in CEO Kelly's words.

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A study published in the British journal Lancet shows that the number of people suffering from diabetes went from 153 million in 1980 to 353 million in 2008. The study shows the U.S. having 24.7 millon diabetics in 2008, which is three times the number from 1980. About 70% of this is from population growth and aging, and the rest from obesity, lack of exercize, changing diet. The American Diabetes Association estimated the cost of treating diabetes in the U.S. at $174 billion for 2007. About 138 million diabetics live in China and India. In India there is an additional cause- malnutrition in early childhood years for the poorer segment of the population. European countries have done better than the U.S., Mexico, India and China. S. Korea and Thailand have done better than other Asian countries. And this is attributed to healthier lifestyles, diet and less obesity in these countries.

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Paul Tough's detailed and vivid account of the problems in Chicago's South Side in 1987 when Obama worked there as acommunity activist, in 2007 when Obama visited the area and expressed his vision about what was needed for the Roseland section, and in 2012 when Tough visits Roseland to document life today in this part of Chicago. He sees the same problems and a need for an all round approach to help kids of parents without work living below the poverty line to provide not just financial help but the kind of support and institutional help that would help them overcome the disabling effects of growing up in broken homes and counteract the destructive effects of a poor environment surrounding them. He left Roseland with a feeling that the President has not pushed hard to accomplish much of what he started out to do and let opportunities slip by.

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India's Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai says India will only give recognition to multilateral sanctions imposed by the United Nations. He said: We have accepted sanctions which are made by the United Nations. Other sanctions do not apply to individual countries. We don't accept that position." He was referring to the sanctions program of the U.S. government, under which countries would be granted exceptions and waivers from U.S. sanctions. Iran is the second largest source for India's oil purchases after Saudi Arabia. A multi-ministerial delegation from India is visiting Iran, and the delegation says Mathai will "work out a mechanism for uninterrupted purchase of oil from Iran and to work out a financing mechanism." South Korea which gets 10% of its oil from Iran plans to get an exception to U.S. sanctions under which it would reduce Iranian imports in 6 months from the date of a U.S. sanctions law.

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A study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism of the Pew Research center, looked at six major story lines that progressed for one week in July. What it found is that 83% of the reports in the local news media were basically repetitive and had no new information. Of the stories that contained new information, 95% came from old media, which then set the tone for narratives done by other media outlets. The study covered the Baltimore Sun, Washington Post, their websites, several smaller papers in the area, and new online news sites. Another finding was that on one story of budget cuts, the reporting done in 2009 was less than one third of that which was done for the budget cuts in 1991. This confirms the point made by traditional media that new online news outlets do little more than repetition and commentary.

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Joshua Wong of the group Scholarism is 17 years old and just entering college. His arrest and detention of 40 hours for stepping into a government building area led to increased protests. In 2012 Wong was part of protests that led to the withdrawal of a "patriotic classes" plan for Hong Kong schools. Asked what Hong Kong would be like in 10 years, he says, "there will be universal suffrage." The age of the protesters is one remarkable aspect of these protests, as they are not just young, but very young. And this should give Beijing pause, as this is China's next generation. And what seemed right in your own day may not be right around the corner as time passes, as Mr. Jinping and his revolutionary veteran father experienced, struggled with, and overcame in their own lives because of the tolerance of others.

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The lower oil prices in 2015 helps lower the current account deficit, which reached 7.9% in 2013, to 5% projected for 2015. Inflation is projected at 6.8%. GDP growth of 3.5% is expected for 2015. Turkey imports oil amounting to about 6% of GDP making for a large impact. Weakness is in the area of manufacturing, as Turkey's high tech exports are only 2% of manufactured exports, according to the Economist. About 1% of Turkish students have advanced computer skills. With problems in Brazil and Russia, money flowing into emerging markets is giving Turkey a second look after the emerging markets crisis in early 2014, when the lira slumped and interest rates had to be increased. The economy is recovering in 2015 from that situation. Two major beneficiaries of lower oil prices in emerging markets are India and Turkey in 2015, as both economies struggled with a large oil import bill.

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Experts say there are only a couple of hundred high-integrity welders in Britain. Many manufacuring jobs go unfilled because of lack of skilled workers. Britain is trying to close this gap and reduce unemployment for young people by increasing apprenticeships in industry and worker training. The UK government allocated 1.57 billion pounds on worker training programs in 2013. Britain had 868,000 people in apprenticeship programs in 2013. EEF, a British trade group, says 80% of manufacturers have difficulty finding skilled workers with technical skills. Britain has done very poorly in the area of worker skills training according to the OECD. About 2.74 million new manufacturing jobs are expected to be created in Britain by 2020, of this 1.86 million will require engineering skills, according to EEF. A lot more needs to be done, as companies need to double the number of apprenticeships to meet expected needs.

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Andrew Browne points out that the poll on Japanese premier Abe's visit to the Yasukuni shrine showed 46% of Japanese against and 41% for. Some of the people who were for simply were registering their opinion that a elected Japanese prime minister should not be dictated to in where he goes or cannot go. Browne delves into Abe's purpose and motivation. Abe, he says, has an expression for what he is after which translates into "leaving the post-war behind," the idea being to put Japan's image as a "good loser" behind. The larger purpose is to create a new role for Japan in Asia, and for Japanese to take pride in their achievements. This is not viewed the same way in the region because of the hypersensitivity in Korea to the colonial occupation by Japan, and the hypersensitivity of China to events during the Japanese occupation of parts of China.

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Mitsui, Mitsubishi, and GDF Suez each take a 16.6% interest in a liquefied natural gas (LNG) gas export plant being built in Hackberry, Louisiana. The investment by these companies totals $7 billion. The project is being built by Sempra Energy, based in San Diego. The project forecast to produce 12 million metric tons of LNG annually for 20 years awaits approval from the U.S. Energy Department. Low prices for natural gas in the U.S. -with the abundant shale gas supplies- of about $4 per millon BTU's compared to $10 in Europe and $15 in Asia are creating opportunities for investment. After the Fukushima nuclear disaster Japan has increased its imports of LNG to the point where it takes in about one third of the world's LNG market supples, according to Bernstein Research. Other companies which are active investors are Kogas of Korea, Sumitomo and BG Group of Britain.

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With so much coverage of other aspects of China,  to really understand China and Xi Jinping one has to understand the rural urban situation in China. Xi's long experience as a teenager in the cultural revolution of Mao was in rural areas, the 8 years he spent there till the age of 22, as this report by James Areddy with help of Yijun, Cheng and Qi aptly shows. It traces the shift and mass migration to cities starting with Deng's modernization drive in 1979. This shift of labor to city and town factories as the U.S. and Europe shifted factories and production to China is the story of our times. How it has both helped and hurt China and how it has become the dominant issue of our times, and a lesson for India in the middle of its own modernization and shift of labor to cities. It has helped China modernize with the shift during 1979 to 2016 and run into a road block with president Trump leading a movement in the U.S. of people most hurt by the outsourcing of factories and production to China. It was not meant to be this way. Yet the shift also led to ripping up the fabric of communities and towns with loss of factories across America over three decades. Because China is a large country the impact was huge decade after decade, leading to a backlash against lost jobs in the U.S. and in Europe.  Xi Jinping has romantic view of rural China as he spent 7 years in Shanxi province rural areas during the cultural revolution under Mao. During this period he toiled as part of farm labor alongside villagers which allowed him to get to know villagers and farmers in the countryside well, and formed his view of the world around him. As it is described in a description of the man in Chinese sources- "He arrived at the village as a slightly lost teenager and left as a 22 year old man determined to do something for the people."  China's system separated migrants from city dwellers not  giving same rights to better education, to schools and housing, and official documents separating the two, city dwellers and migrant populations from rural areas. As a result as China modernized and population shifted -shown here in excellent graphic charts over four decades- in 1979 from about 80% in rural areas and 20% in urban the shift goes to 50-50 by 2001. Today it is 40-60 with 60% in rural areas but a population of 40% suffering from severe inequalities and  low incomes. So that GDP per capita of $10,000 for China is deceiving. The real incomes in average disposable income is about $4300 in urban and $1700 in rural area, according to National Bureau of Statistics. High school education is hard enough to get in rural areas, medical care is very basic and the $1700 would hardly get a room in low income housing in a large town in China, says premier Li Keqiang. Keqiang did his masters thesis on urbanization and has studied this shift from his college days. Just as in Gandhi's India, Mao's China is the story of the villages, with 128,000 villages for 600 million people in Mr. Xi Jinping's anti-poverty drive. Hong Kong other issues have to be understood in the context of these concerns of China's leadership today- the sense that strong central leadership alone can keep the country together and bring a decent life to the people in the villages and in the countryside outside the cities.  Modernization of cities still set in the context of China's vast rural population and essential to its full uplift and progress. Xi has allocated $80 billion each year to bring roads, schools, medical facilities, and other amenities including electricity and modern heating. The idea now is to shift people back to the villages, find opportunities for jobs and livelihoods in farming, tourism with guesthouse facilities, and other occupations in the villages. The villages are being turned into attractive places to live one by one in this party drive and providing new enthusiasm and support for the party's efforts. India can learn from this experience in China. The western nations of the U.S. and Europe can no longer and will no longer undertake the wholesale shift of factories with loss of jobs to China or India to offer the prospect of bringing these countries to the kind of urbanization and overall prosperity of small nations like Japan and South Korea, which are a tiny fraction of the population of China and India+ Pakistan + Bangladesh. As a result China is changing strategy now with a return to some aspects of the informal economy in Chengdu with street peddlers and tiny retail, and return of migrants back to better built and improved villages in the countryside. A better life than in cities is possible this view says for people from these rural areas, if the rural areas are given modern facilities and construction and resources are allocated, job creation locally tackled. The villages can offer better air quality, better quality of life where villagers who earlier migrated to cities with ownership of land, when they are modernized with better roads and have better facilities for education, housing and healthcare, better amenities. The new approach is to strike a good balance for urbanization, by modernizing and investing in villages and small towns, so that cities can cope and overall life can be better than with mass migration and wholesale urbanization. It is also a balance that works well for the U.S. and Europe which can redirect manufacturing to their home regions as part of a better distributed and balanced supply chain than the one that was unwittingly built over the last three decades.    ...