LyrArc Article Gist
67,000 factories closed down in China in the first half of this year. Things got a lot worse in the importing countries of the US and western Europe after October 2008 so the closedowns will have accelerated. This will have asignificant impact on the export sector and foreign investment that has propelled the economy so far. It will also create unemployment, and if back wages are not paid local governments may have to step in or there will be unrest among the laid off workers. Much of the rural migrant workers who came to the coastal provinces might now have to go back to their villages in fact reversing some of the urbanization tht has happened.

LyrArc Article Gist
California's economy is going through tough times during the coronavirus. Unemployment is up to over 20% which compares to 14.7% for the U.S., closer to that of New York. The state depends on the tourism industry, agriculture in the San Joaquin Valley, and entertainment industry around Los Angeles for jobs. Tech in the San Jose area does not account for as many jobs. The state also has a public university system and foreign students mostly from China bringing in $7 billion.   Its port system around Long Beach and Los Angeles connects with the Asian economies and China, for goods mainly transported to the rest of the U.S.  All these sectors are the ones most badly hit during the coronavirus.  California now has a deficit of $54 billion and was the first state to borrow from the federal government to pay $13 billion in unemployment claims. Undocumented Californians are not able to collect unemployment because of their immigration status, creating an American version of the informal economy that is found in India and Italy or Spain. California has 83 million people taking plane trips to the state for a tourism industry that normally brings in $145 billion. 600,000 travel industry jobs were lost in the state. Taxes related to travel are a significant source of revenue for cities in California bringing in $12 billion. The only sector that is less affected is the tech industry, yet this makes up only about 10% of the jobs or 1.7 million higher paid but fewer jobs. This tech sector at about just 15% of the California economy GDP, is of a precarious nature with a boom bust pattern, the last boom one that happened since the 2009 financial crisis. It in no way forms a significant support for employment or income for people in California or the U.S., and may even be responsible for distortions in the allocation of capital away from infrastructure and public services, through its disproportionate influence on how the nation's capital is allocated. The broader changes underway during coronavirus are likely to affect the state over many years, as supply chains shift away from China, and as infrastructure and public services investment assume their rightful role again in the nation rebuilding effort, agriculture and rural America become a part of the American renewal story.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
China's urbanization has proceeded to the point where the urban population now exceeds 50%. Urbanization as helped in the process of industrialization as young people went from rural areas to cities to work on the production lines. But further urbanization is running into problems as cities get congested and providing benefits such as affordable housing and schooling to migrant workers means raising taxes. The hokou system which classifies residents as urban or rural persists and efforts to reform it have run into difficulties in places like Chengdu and Chongqing. These efforts were abandoned earlier in Guangzhou and Zhengzhou because of the cost. The hukou system acts as a discriminatory system as migrants from the countryside are not allowed welfare benefits in the cities. They have only temporary status in the cities. And people from farming communities who migrate to the cities also have an interest in keeping land and homes they can go back to in the countryside. As they get into their 40's and 50's and no longer want to work on the production lines they can go back to the countryside. The government also sees the advantage of this as this acts as a safety valve for stability- during the 2008 global financial crisis about 20 million migrants went back to the countryside. The actual number of urban hukou holders in China is about 35% according to researchers at Peking University. Efforts to integrate rural hukou can be costly- the effort in Chongqing is estimated by local officials to cost $30 billion or 200 billon yuan to convert 3 million people. It has given 1.7 million people urban hukou in the past year with the conditions that these migrant workers must have worked in urban areas for at least 3 years. Migrants get to hold onto land entitlements in the countryside. But the urban hukou status would be limited to Chonqqing only. Nationwide the prospects for migrants obtaining the kind of urban hukou staus that gives them benefits of affordable housing and schooling are not good. The World Bank's Kuij's says local governments do not have the incentives or the resources to carry out the programs that are being tried in Chongqing. As the process of urbanization becomes more difficult, the rate of growth in China will be affected....

LyrArc Article Gist
The electricity grid in Africa is being strained by electricity demands of mining companies. Power outages are costing African economies as much as 2% of their GDP according to World Bank estimates. Energy shortages in South Africa are creating blackouts in South Africa and neighboring countries Botswana and Zambia and affecting the mining industry in these countries. South Africa's energy company Eskom is petitioning regulators for a hike of 50% in electricity prices to reduce demand. Shortages of electricity have increased prices of platiinum and other metals in the commodities industry. Mining in South Africa produces 7% of GDP but consumes 17% of the electricity leaving less for domestic consumption and for industry. Eskopm was late in ordering new plants not taking action till 2004. For Africa the total electricity generating capacity of 63 gigawats supplies 770 million people about what Spain generates for 40 million people. And the expression energy poor means that this shortage in urban areas means the rural poor wil have no electricity for decades to come. And in places like energy rich Port Harcourt Nigeria electricity is inconsistent or in dire shortage. An accountant at a construction firm in Dakar, Senegal has to choose between paying his child's school fees or paying for electricity, chooses to pay for electricity as prices have gone up by 88% in 3 years. And rural areas of Africa have little hope of electricity. This is another sign of how adverse effects of huge energy consumption in places like China and the wasteful consumption in the USA affect global energy prices and in turn affect the poorest in Africa. In places where the voices will never be heard. How boom times in some Asian and westen economies can lead to choices like fuel guzzling vehicles and energy wasteful plants in China that reverberate across Africa....

LyrArc Article Gist
After all the media talk about tariffs inflation- inflation is at 2.4% in May 2025. Tariffs was part of the toolbox of strategies under Lighthizer and Jamieson on getting fair world trade, and not like Congressman Hawley in the 1920's who understood little about the workings of the US economy. This fact the official media such as the WSJ and NYT, Wash Post, BBC need to get it right about the Hawley Tariffs. Hawley was born in rural Oregon in 1864 went to country schools, and was president of Willamette University in Salem, when it's population was 4258. As House Ways and Means Committee chairman he wrote the failed tariffs bill Hoover signed in 1930. DJT's US Trade Representative Lighthizer in 2016 led the successful negotiations with Japan under Reagan, Scott Bessent who leads negotiations on tariffs with China with USTR Jamieson, has a deep understanding and grasp of today's financial markets. Tariffs is one of the tools in the US toolbox to get Japan, China, South Korea to even the playing field for US companies and bring back manufacturing to the US. Without it China would not budge from its unfair advantage and would not negotiate in fairness. This is proven in the way Japan in the 1980s and China today are responding to the US position preparing their economies for not relying on sudden surges in exports putting whole industries and workers in America and Europe out of work and out of jobs. DJT says- "No we are not going to accept that," the EU is catching on and adopting a similar position, China knows that.  The media is irresponsible in presenting tariffs in a negative way, irresponsible to American workers the 10 million put out of work since 2000, and to American families and the Nation.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
"Ram Rajya" is a concept of a just society that serves the needs of the people based on the ancient history and ancient paths of Bharat or India. It is easily understood among the farmers and ordinary people of India. During the long period of colonialism it meant to Gandhi and hundreds of millions in the villages of India a sense of society free of colonialism and colonial rule that did not invest in the country or its people, no matter their religion or caste or language group. In this sense Ram Rajya is all about a just society of governance that meets the needs of all the people, that makes investment in the resources of the country to the benefit of the people. In the modern period in the transformation of rural societies such as China or India or other parts of Asia, Ram Rajya or Buddha Rajya as an extension of the same concept, and about what Abraham Lincoln called society for the people, of the people, by the people, in his call to America for a Just Society. In this sense it has connotations for the world as it struggles to build a style of governance in society that builds the infrastructure, invests in the education and minds of the people, in their health and wellbeing along all dimensions. In this way it is a social concept that is embodied in the best of human society throughout history. It embodies the aspirations of the people of Asia to modernity inspired by ancient tradition, aspirations to science and technology and building modern societies. Of India with Ram and the Buddha, China in its connections to the Buddha, to the people of Indonesia with the connection to Hanuman, and the people in South East Asia and Japan through their connections to the Buddha which were embedded in the ancient society of Ram and the Upanishads in the land south of the Himalayas. No one is too small, no effort is ordinary or small- "I am very small, I am very ordinary, if someone thinks so one must remember the contribution of the squirrel. Remmbering the ocntribution of the squirrel will dispel our hesitation, and teach us that every effort big or small, has its strength and contribution. The foundation of Sabka Prayas (everyone's efforts) will be the foundation of a divine, and capable, just and good Bharat or India for all its 1400 million people."   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
With some aspects of Marie Le Pen's programme possibly violating the French Constitution and some parts of the programme leading to France being forced to leave the European Union, what was not looked at carefully in the first round vote is now happening for the second round. The Le Pen draft law on "immigration, identity and citizenship," is seen by multiple analyses cited by The Guradian, as violating the principles of equality enshrined in the French Constitution. Constitutional experts say this would also violate European law and lead to a progressive or indirect exit from the European Union. Le Pen's proposal to lower the retirement age to 60 was coming under scathing scrutiny, with Jean Tirole, the 2014 Nobel prize winner in Economics saying it would cost 68 billion euros and "permanently impoverish the country." Countries such as Brazil that lowered the retirement age in this manner have found that it seriously affects public finances, leading to the deep economic crisis in Brazil following the commodity price collapse a few years ago. Macron has moved in the opposite direction to raise the retirement age gradually and now with a proposed national consensus, at the cost of losing some support, simply to shore up public finances. So that needed investments in infrastructure and climate change can be made. For this reason it may become evident to undecided voters that Le Pen's proposals have some serious flaws if implemented, weakening the French economy and yet not tackling the deeper problems of younger people. These problems The Guardian says in a separate report are the precarious and low pay jobs, asset based inequality, and rural urban regional differences developing as a result of the offshoring of manufacturing to China, and are common to Britain, France, Germany, and the US. These problems are beginning to be addressed after the lessons learned from the pandemic by western nations.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
A hard fought election in Brazil between Mr. Bolsanaro and an ex-president Lula da Silva. Voting is compulsory in Brazil for all those who are literate and between age of 18 and 70 years. There are 156 million registered voters. President and members of Chamber of Deputies are elected for a four year term. Elections also take place for 27 governors for 26 states and one federal district. If no candidate in elections for president or governors gets 50% of the vote the vote heads to a runoff on October 30 between the top two candidates. Bolsanaro is supported by evangelical Christians in a Catholic country, rural landowners, and business people. He was a deputy or member of parliament for the state of Rio de Janeiro for 27 years, who won on a law and order and anti-corruption platform in 2018. Lula da Silva is a former trade union leader who was president from 2003 to 2010. He was popular during a commodity boom in Brazil's soyabean and iron ore export boom to China that financed social support programs. A corruption scandal affected his successor from the Worker's Party leading to the change in government after the collapse of the commodities boom. After he was given a jail sentence under the Bolsanaro government he was released by the Supreme court decision in 2019 that declared there was a lack of due process in his conviction. Mr. Bolsanaro also as a program to benefit poor families that is called Auxilio Brazil to replacve Lula's Bolsa Familia. Payments to 18 million recipients were increased in August and a monthly stipend was added for taxi and truck drivers by Bolsanaro. The competing interests and the pandemic with the high toll of around 685,000 deaths have created a highly contested election. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The UNICEF Represetative in India describes the effort made by children to change attitudes and take action on issues related to sanitation and the Clean India campaign of the Modi government. It shows that a generational change in attitudes is underway as children take the lead for the first time.

LyrArc Article Gist
A poll conducted twice each year by the University of Hong Kong researchers since 1997 shows Hong Kongers increasingly identify with their city including Hong Kong diaspora returning to the city from overseas. The latest June poll shows this identification increasing in intensity as time passes. Compared to 1997 and 2007 more Hong Kongers identify themself with Hong Kong and much less with "citizen of the People's Republic of China." After "Hong Konger" the identification next is with "Asian," "global citizen," and "members of the Chinese race." Culture is one major aspect of this, the other is the sense of being drowned by mainland people, by the large number of people from the mainland cities buying housing in Hong Kong, driving up prices and making housing unaffordable for the local people. Other aspects of this are the mothers going to maternity wards so their children can get Hong Kong residency, and the slots in elite schools going to mainlanders. Even the tycoons and large business interests are seen as distanced from the local Hong Konger because of the increasing inequality in society, their benefitting from business ties with the mainland with willingness to give up Hong Kong's local interests. At another level one can see this local identity across other parts of mainland China also, as the educated middle class in Shanghai and Beijing see themselves as apart from the "country bumpkins" and migrants from surrounding rural areas. This is a cultural phenomenon quite different and apart from the ideological concerns of the Communist Party, cultural difference which always exist below the surface. The business elite of the Communist Party can relate more to the environs of Sydney, Australia, than to the rural areas around Shanghai, just as much as the business elites in Bombay with connections to a ruling party can relate to Sydney or Toronto. Not everything about humans fit neatly into ideas such as "China Dream," or a "India Dream." And this may be a good thing when all is said and done- only human nature seeking not to be disturbed. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
In the first quarter of 2011 consumer demand for gold in China increased by 47% over the prior year quarter to 233 tons, according to the World Gold Council's data. Most of this is for jewelry accounting for 64% in 2010, with gold bar demand increasing as an hedge against inflation. Orlik points out that if inflation decreases from the existing level of 5.3%, and with the increase in wealth management products from Chinese banks, the demand for gold may not be sustained as it offers no return. He says urban resident demand may have reached its peak and there is not much demand from the rural population. Central bank purchases to shift a small part of foreign exchange reserves to gold is the only other factor for a push up in gold prices.

LyrArc Article Gist
As the USA and Europe move into a deep and prolonged recession China loses some of its biggest export markets and faces a significant slowing down of its economy. China's leaders are pondering how to respond to the crisis which will affect China, and meet the challenges of lower living standards of a neglected rural countryside and farmers compared to the urban coastal areas. This is still where some 800 million of the Chinese people live by official count, so something needs to be done to improve prospects and help generate higher incomes and opportunities for people in the farming countryside. Making land use rights of farmers able to be bought or sold for the first time would generate additional income for farmers, and help consolidate farmland into larger plots, which can use technology and improvements for better yields to keep China self sufficient in agricultural production. Keeping the situation the way it has remained for the last two decades, where local party officials and local leaders controlled the land and where farmers rights were ignored leading to suppression of farmer's protests for illegal land seizures and corruption, may have made it easier for plants to be setup across China and attracted foreign investors. But it has not been good for China's farmers. Chinese party officials at the local level who realized the advantages to them by controlling land and making it easier to set up manufacturing plants with foreign investors may have steered state policy in this direction from the early days after Deng's opening to capitalism and trade. Now with a success in the urban coastal areas and in building infrastructure Chinese leaders in the central government must be faced with a difficult issue of how to move on from here with the loss of China's export markets for its heavily export dependent economy. The need to generate a domestic consumer driven economy must not be lost on the Chinese leadership in Beijing. Something that will keep China's economy moving in the new situation. This is the context in which land use rights may be extended from 30 to 70 years and able to be bought and sold to improve farm incomes and generate internal momentum in the rural areas where most of China's people live. It also offers a contrast to the situation India faces where even the Nano plant of Tata Motors had to be moved from W. Bengal state to Gujarat state over farmers rights to land which in that case was also used as an issue for political agitation. The move by China accelerated industrialization and setting up manufacturing plants as land was taken over by local officials for use with foreign investors but also ended up neglecting the countryside, and created too big a dependence on exports....

LyrArc Article Gist
About $18 billion will be spent in the 4th quarter of 2008 by the government in China out of the $586 billion stimulus package. So the initial impact will not be great for the next few months and unlikely to make up for the rapid slowdown in exports. By the time the stimulus package kicks in with a larger impact in 2009 the economy may well be at 4-5 % growth rates. The stimulus announcement is also a signal to government owned banks to increase lending. The stimulus package covers 10 areas, including low income housing, electricity, water,rural infrastructure, and projects aimed at environmental protection and technological innovation. After the Asian financial crisis in 1997 a similiar but smaller package was announced, with money spent to build the country's highway and tollroad system, projects to keep the economy growing.

LyrArc Article Gist
Insights from Jagdish Bhagwati- 1) Poverty actually declined under the previous government, it was displaced by the Congress not because poverty had increased but by the revolution of rising expectations and the democratic processes functioning in India. 2) The pressure cooker democratization in a place like Iraq is different from democracy in India, because India had democratic processes and rule of law under the British, which was followed by democratic processes functioning under the Nehru years and right upto to the present day. This is almost over 100 years of democratic practice. 3) Minority rights were respected by the post independence governments. 4) In China the government thinks riots are caused by inequality and rural-urban prosperity divide. Actually it is more because of the lack of democratic processes functioning in China to accomodate the revolution in rising expectations. 5) From a perspective of longterm sustainable growth this makes India's democratic functioning a better approach. Bhagawati does not mention the advantages in terms of private initiative that are fostered in a system of private capital and private companies. This dates back to the Tata enterprises under the British going back a hundred years....

LyrArc Article Gist
Wholesale inflation calculated weekly is at 7% in India. And the country's Finance Minister Chidambaram says he is more concerned about inflation than a growth that slows a bit. Experts forecast growth slowing down from 9% to 7% in the next 2 years as the global slowdown affects India. For the US India has been a good export market with sales growing at the rate of 75% a year according to the USA Commerce Department. But a look at the charts shows that China also had periods of a couple of years when growth slowed to 7% in recent years before it gradually went back up to over 10%. And China's growth will also be affected by the global slowdown and fall weel below 10%. And this may be a health y thing for China as it decides what kind of growth it wants to see that is better than the haphazard growth of the last few years with its huge environmental costs and lax regulation and the imbalances in growth between urban and rural as well as wages and benefits without labor law protections to create domestic consumption by a middle class. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
India's Ministry of Finance predicts GDP growth of between 7 and 7.5% for 2018-2019, after faltering GDP growth in 2017-2018 following action on demonetization and introduction of a national Goods and Service Tax. The IMF predicts growth of 7.4% for India in 2018 compared to 6.8% in China in 2018, with growth of 7.8% predicted for India in 2019.  Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian says there are "robust and broad based signs of revival," though risks remain in rising oil prices and inflation. The level is below what it could be, yet robust considering the policy actions taken by the government for the long term such as the nationwide GST implementation, which was taken up by previous administrations of both parties in government but never implemented till 2017. In addition the government faces the tasks of recapitalization of banks, the issues of job creation as manufacturing in India in the global context is only beginning to take shape, and agrarian distress.  The new Budget takes up the issues facing rural areas of the country by compensating farmers to the extent of 150% of agricultural cost and introducing the largest health care security scheme in the world for poor families. This comes a year before new national elections. The Modi administrations's focus appears to be for taking steps that will generate growth over the long term and learning from errors, yet being bold enough to take the necessary action based on experience.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
US Supreme Court Justices fail to grasp the importance of education and education affordability in the rise of America as an industrialized nation in the last 150 years- from a largely agricultural rural country to an advanced industrial economy. Comments by Supreme Court Justices show this clearly. Justice Roberts compares a college education to starting a lawn business, failing to grasp the importance of education and it being affordable for all when he asked yesterday whether it made sense to forgive loans made out by students and not say ones made out to someone starting a lawn care business.  Astonishingly the same lack of awareness prevails among Justices appointed by Democrats. Justice Kagan said- "Congress passed a law that dealt with loan repayment for colleges, and they did not pass a law for loan repayment for lawn businesses. And so Congress made a choice, and it may have been the right choice or the wrong choice, but that's Congress's choice." Kagan shows a lack of conviction about the value of education for the US economy, and the serious crisis with the lack of affordability of education in America in America's ability to compete with China and the European Union, through her words. Reporting in the WSJ has shown in the past year- the lack of college enrollment for young men graduating from high school where lack of affordability makes a college education out of reach, and young men falling behind young women. This is a serious problem that America has not seen in its rise as an industrialized advanced nation. The pandemic has worsened this problem. Reporting also shows federal funding of education remains underutilized today because it is seen as burdening with debt. President Biden seeks to change this perception of education that is deindustrializing America and failing the country in its efforts to compete in the world. Justice Roberts and Justice Kagan have both failed the country.     ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Efforts to train China's rural village doctors.How a company Haoyisheng which means Good Doctor has setup 6000 clasrooms across rural China to educate rural doctors who have little medical training. The Chinese Ministry of Health has brought in 120,000 doctors to educate and is paying the company 1200 yuan out of the 3400 yuan fee for 3 years of classes. It is video and internet based and students progress on questions is monitored via intenet and the program is run from Beijing. Tests show students are making significant progress especially since the Chinese system of rural doctors is fallig apart with the intoroduction of privatized medicine and rural doctor training has suffered badly.The company was founded by Mark Engel and Gao Zhan.. Gao studied at the University of Munich for his PHD in Biochemistry and grew up in Shanghai. They own several health related businesses in China.

LyrArc Article Gist
An assessment of Brazil compared to the other leading emergig market countries Russia, China and India, shows that Brazil has a lot going for it. Compared to Russia and China, Brazil has a stable multiparty democracy. And the differences between the countryside and the urban areas is not quite as large as it is in China and India. Surprising as it may appear about 83% of Brazilians now live in cities. And the process of urbanization that is taking place in China and India took place much earlier in Brazil. Between 1940 to 1980 industrialization and a growth rate that averaged 7% for most of that period brough large numbers of people from rural to urban areas. And the problem of inflation which wracked the economy from 1986 to 1994 before being brought under control is now well under control at about 4.7%. Debt problems from the Asian crisis contagion effects are now behind it as Brazil is a big exporter of commodities from coffee, soyabeans, orange juice to iron ore, with the real strengthening from 68 as measured in the currencies of its trading partners in 2001 to 100 today. Brazil's growth rate has reached 5.4%. and has been at an average of 4.5% since 2004. Between 1980 and 2000 Brazil's growth was in a slump so this has been a period of great changes in Brazil. Brazil is importing more plant and equipment with a stronger currency and booming exports. Brazil invests 19% of GDP according to Vale of MB Associados and that number should reach 25% of GDP at which point it would be easier to maintain a growth rate of 5% a year. With consumer credit growing at 25% each year for the last 2 years consumption is growing. And Brazilian companies were the second largest source of foreign direct investment in developing countries after China, according to the Fundacao Dom Cabral, a business school, and Columbia University, with the stronger real helping the balance sheets of Brazilian companies. The big change is that under the Lula government Brazil has done much better for the working classes and the rural poor. The Bolsa Familias is a program of cash transfers to poor people under the poverty line but which has strings attached so that they are required to send their children to school and have them vaccinated. It reaches 11 million families and is considered a major success in reducing poverty and in helping to see that poverty is not passed on from generation to generation. A program that may be copied in India. Acccording to the Observador Brasil/ Ipsos survey 23 million Brazilians have left social classes D and E and joined class C which means that they can have a rented apartment, a car and some gadgets. This give more confidence in Brazilian democracy and capitalism as more of society's diverse groups have a stake in the future....

LyrArc Article Gist
The Times correspondent in Beijing says he sees two Chinas one that is showing technological advancement in 5G, in space technologies, in information technologies, infrastructure building in big cities. The other China is in rural areas away from the big cities, in smaller towns in regions away from Beijing and Shanghai. These areas have suffered neglect and have changed little over decades, with the focus during industrialization on larger cities and the coastal areas. This is evident in the manner health services infrastructure and development of medical personnel and doctors were neglected in the rush towards building manufacturing and infrastructure of road and rail. There is a shortage of doctors and hospitals, health services are costly, and waiting lists for beds at hospitals is huge. Doctors are also not held in high esteem because the focus is on profit in the market economy that has taken over the health sector.  Education of citizenry on respecting the common welfare which is expected and normal in Europe and America has also suffered during the rush to industrialization. Efforts to ban and eliminate use of certain wild animal foods not being respected by fellow citizens can be seen in this context. This caused the SARS virus epidemic and the epidemic today from the coronavirus. Seen from this angle a slowdown in construction, infrastructure building, and a slowdown in the economy, can even be healthy, so that focus can be shifted to better health, better sanitation, and better medical infrastructure including medical human resource capabilities. Investment in public education on health and self enforcement of rules by citizenry for a better society is indispensable for progress. It is in these conditions that the challenge of the national and international emergency of the coronavirus can be seen today. It also provides an opportunity to reflect on progress so far and the needs of the future. These challenges are even tougher than repeating what one has done before such as building more and more infrastructure, as they involve building a better society through public discipline along with investment in health and education services. This provides a lesson for many Asian, Latin American and African countries in the rush to industrialization. Turning over the health sector to a market economy making services costly and distributed unevenly in the population has not worked in the U.S. for the betterment of all citizens and a healthy society. Carrying this over from U.S. to China and not learning from Europe in what Europe has done well in the less costly and broad distribution of health services for the people, is one of the poorer lessons learned. This is also true for India and South Asia, South East Asian countries in their rush towards industrialization.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Important to distinguish in GNP, GDP and GDP per capita. The official rate of 10-11% growth is questioned by Thurow by noting that 70% of China in the rural area is seeing slow growth and if the urban economy has to grow at 33 % if the whole of China is to grow by 11%. He also brings up electricity consumption historicaly growing much faster than the growth rate of GNP or GDP. At breakneck growth rates gorwth has still been 60% of the gorwth in electricity consumption because some of it is wasted or is not used productively.He does not give his electricity consumption growth for China numbers, but we can extrapolate from the 6% growth in China analogous to Japanese growth rates in the 1970's that he comes up with, to see that electricity growth rates he assumes in his math are 10% a year in China. That is based on 6% growth he gives for China constituting 60% of the growth in electricity consumption for China. Given the validity of this math China and India are growing at much slower rates than official math states. This also means productivity of capital remains a major issue and does not simply go away when seeing the countries as a whole not just coastal and other well developed regions of India and China. So the message that is being projected about Chinese growth may be misleading as urbanization in China will still have to proceed for many decades for the growth to even out geographically. Another fact that immigration has been a source of additional people for the USA and so a significant population increase will be seen in the US in the next few decades even as China's population declines, supporting much larger economic activity in the USA. Europe also is seeing no increase in population. Europe's per capita income fell from 85% of that of the US in 1990, to 66% in 2007 according to the IMF statistics quoted here. Validation of these numbers would provide a different assessment of overenthusiasm for the kind of haphazard growth which also wastes resources and sacrifices the environment and shortchanges health, education and other goals, and instead promotes a different view that constantly looks for better ways of meeting the difficult challenges facing China and India. With these...

LyrArc Article Gist
With a mere 1% of GDP invested in public healthcare India remains backward in its commitment to the welfare of the rural poor. Prime minister's Modi's plan is laudable says this BBC report, but the record of implementation is spotty at best at the state level for such plans. The new plan announced in the 2018 Indian Budget is for a health plan covering 500 million Indians with 5 lakh rupees coverage, something never tried before but with a cost of a mere $1.7 billion is something that the country woefully lacked or neglected to tackle.

This plan may be better implemented at the national level, and particularly where the reputation of the governing party and its plans for industrialization are at stake in the coming year's national elections. If accomplished and the Modi government is eager to take on these challenges it would be a significant step to balanced and overall development of the Indian economy.

LyrArc Article Gist
Bayer AG CEO Marijn Dekkers talks to the Journal's Geoffrey Rogow about the company's pharmaceuticals business and job retention. Dekkers says profits are reduced by the tight budgets of European governments and the pressure on pricing. He cites the 16% mandatory rebate in Germany on prescriptions. For Bayer diversification through the chemicals business offers a way to handle the ups and downs in the pharmaceuical business with patent expiration. He is not interested in acquisitions because of the high premium involved and the difficulty of recovering this for investors. Bayer like other drug companies has extensive operations in China. Bayer is training salespersons in top and second tier Chinese cities. It has a program to train 10,000 physicians in rural areas of China working with the local government. Dekkers makes an interesting point about jobs and job retention in the U.S. He says a lot of jobs were outsourced in the 1990's and its difficult to bring them back. Germany has done a better job with job retention with "kurzarbeit" and other programs working in partnership with industry. In his view this could have been managed better in the U.S. with active programs such as this in the last two decades....

LyrArc Article Gist
James Hagerty of WSJ provides this exceptional account of a company that proves it can be done if only you learn from setbacks, and innovate, even in a declining industry. In rural Arcadia in western Wisconsin, an unlikely person trained for farming in an unlikely location, Ron Wynek has built the largest furniture maker in America, growing at 10% a year! This story tells how it started, the setbacks, the resonse and how it is done. Speed in decision making comes from Ashley Industries being a family owned operation with Ron and his son Todd very attuned to the manufacturing process for keeping costs down, and attuned to the opportunities in providing value to customers in America. As furniture makers in the South withered under the impact of Asian manufacturers, Ashley thrives with 60% of manufacturing done in highly efficient American midwest factories with costs kept down, and an efficient delivery system of its own that helps retailers keep low inventory. The imports come from three factories in Vietnam to Prince Rupert in B.C., Canada and are shipped by rail containers to Wisconsin, with grain and hide shipped back in the same containers. Ron Wynek was destined to be a farmer, but his wife preferred to stay in town, where he decided to go into the furniture business. The business faced Asian imports with half the cost of manufacturing, and Wynek took the advice of his Congressman not to look for government protection but find new ways to compete. He started importing from Taiwan, moved into furniture products such as bedroom furniture that faced less intense competition in the early days. He invested heavily in logistics, technology and manufacturing efficiency, to come up with a model that could withstand and grow in the face of Asian competition. Ashley is now larger than Lazy Boy and Ethan Allen combined, with sales close to $4 billion, and is expanding with a large store opened in Shanghai, China. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Indian finance minister Sitharaman announces a new stimulus package "Atman Nirbhar Bharat." This includes an effort to incentivize creation of employment opportunities for people making less than Rs. 15,000 a month ($215 a month), called "Atman Nirbhar Rozghar Yojana, for a period of 2 years. Sitharaman cited stock market rebound and foreign reserves reaching $560 billion to show that along with the government efforts and planned infrastructure the economy would make a robust recovery. Because of India's large informal economy help to street vendors and other small retail is critical in the Indian economy. The finance minister cited the "One Nation, One Ration Card" which allows street vendors and other retail merchants to access foodgrains from FPS of choice in 28 states and union territories in India. This is part of the effort to build demand and upward mobility in the economy. The names given for these efforts or yojanas are unique- PM SVANidhi stands for PM's Street Vendors Atmannirbhar Nidhi. Atmannirbhar is the overall plan for self reliance in the economy and the prime minister Modi has pushed for buying Made in India, to promote jobs and technology + capital accumulation in Indian manufacturing. India took a blow from the coronavirus with close to 9 million infected by the virus and lockdown in March. By September 20 the daily cases reached 100,000, and by November 10 the daily cases have dropped to 44,000. Social distancing and mask wearing are widely accepted in India. India has other advantages in the large pharmaceutical industry and access to drugs at government regulated and low prices as part of the planned effort after independence in 1947. Other aspects of Indian life are cultural preference for vegetables and fruits in the diet, and spices, herbs in cooking, yoga practice, which are anti-inflammatory and promote healthy living.  With the largest population in the world the region in the Indian ocean comprising the countries of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Burma and Indonesia, former parts of the British and Dutch empires, is a region where the coronavirus posed a great threat to human life. An early carefully orchestrated lockdown by prime minister Modi  helped with the message in March that India faced a singular choice - between going back 21 years in development or controlling the coronavirus in 21 crucial days. The setting up of the direct transfer of money to bank accounts  of farmers, urban street vendors and lower income people in rural areas by giving everyone a bank account under a government plan early in the first term of the current administration enabled it to send aid directly when coronavirus hit the country. Other schemes included cooking gas for women in rural areas who depended on firewood for cooking. These schemes and sanitation infrastructure setup under the Clean India campaign, helped India build an element of resilience when coronavirus hit.  The government plan to remove interstate barriers to commerce and integrate tax system collection at the federal level, bringing parts of the informal economy into the formal economy, have increased revenues that now finance an infrastructure plan that hopes to match the one in China over the next decade.   ...